January 2014 Open Thread

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7481/full/nature12829.html

Taking the available observations at face value implies a most likely climate sensitivity of about 4 °C, with a lower limit of about 3 °C. Indeed, all 15 of the GCMs with ECS below 3.0 °C have an LTMI [lower-tropospheric mixing index] below the bottom of the observational range

If the ECS result corroborated, this is not good news. If human emissions continue under a BAU scenario for 85 more years to 2100 (~800 ppm at 2100 under BAU) it would be eventually all over Red Rover for humans and a huge swathe of the biosphere.

I doubt that such a point would actually be reached (there are too many points of failure to navigate in our socioeconomic system before that time), but even going half-way to there from where we are now would put the kibosh on future Western civilisation and at least 75-90% of the current human population.

Alarming? Yes. Alarmist? No - unless one refuses to consider the numbers and the lessons of science.

Dear Bernard,

crystal balls are not something to navigate by:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-2…

Hopefully the melting-ice-watchers will be rescued today. I'm starting to get really worried.

Roy Spencer thinks 5 years is a long time because, um, http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php

Hmm...the Chines vessle captured too.

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/helicopter-rescue-delayed…

What's the "hmmm" for, doggie?

Where do you expect to get sea ice and boats?

"crystal balls are not something to navigate by:

http://www.drroyspencer"

Neither are stone age myths, dearie.

I was of the impression that the penguines, especially the emperor kind, suffered from sea ice loss. You mean it's only Jeff that suffers?

I hope they get the boats going though.

I was of the impression that the penguines, especially the emperor kind, suffered from sea ice loss.

Ho! Hum! TweedleDum.

It is polar bears and pinnipedia and suffer from the result of sea ice loss in the Arctic and WRT penguins it could be that with the Antarctic an increase in sea ice causes problems by increasing journey times to the ocean and back to the roost, this with the Emperor.

Also Adélie Penguin is suffering from the effects of warming in the Antarctic Peninsula. Look up The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica for more on this.

Lionel, I know that you climate scientology knowledge is great:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/716340.shtml

;-)

crystal balls

scientology

etc., etc.

A moron in two languages isn't impressive Olap.

Chek, you are refering to Lionels double speak, I presume? The emperor penguins are endangered by sea ice loss and sea ice gain.

Clear as crystal (balls). ;-)

Olaus is again trying to keep the debate in the benthos. He clearly has never read a scientific article in an ecology/global change journal in his life; certainly nothing that gives him even a rudimentary understanding of ecology or environmental science. I cringe when I read some of this 'contributions'... but he thinks he is actually informed.

Incredible.

Woof woof woof, Olap.

Remember, gentles all, Olap doesn't know what it speaks of, even if it brings it up of its own "free will".

Not knowing the difference between a polar bear and a penguin is, relatively, small potatoes compared to the cherished ignorance of the yappie little pork-pie dog.

"The emperor penguins are endangered by sea ice loss and sea ice gain."

Woof woof woof?

(Dog to English translation: You have proof?)

The emperor penguins are endangered by sea ice loss and sea ice gain.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

That's not what Lionel said, as anyone can plainly see.

Chek, you are refering to Lionels double speak...

Only a buffoon of your calibre could consider my statements at #8 double speak.

Arctic v Antarctic, polar bears and pinnipedia v penguins.

Get it now do you, he of poor comprehension?

"The emperor penguins are endangered by sea ice loss and sea ice gain."

Is there some reason this should be surprising? Most life is limited in the extent to which it can adapt to change of living parameters in both directions. I'd be just as dead after a day in a freezer as I would after a day in an oven. Floods and droughts both kill. Overcrowding and isolation both kill. Overeating and starvation both kill. It's not at all uncommon for substances to be both an essential nutrient and a deadly poison to the same organisms. Sometimes the difference in dose can even be quite small, have you ever known someone on coumadin therapy?

It seems that you have an a priori assumption that the research results are absurd, which you are using to conclude that they are absurd. Hardly convincing to anyone else.

Another Arctic (well nearly) canary sings: Iceland’s Vanishing Ice Threatens Culture, Society.

Icelandic culture and society joining an long list of others trampled by free market economics. Just don't mention the cod, which had me modifying hairyplanes.

Lionel, I have no problems with making difference between emperor penguines and polar bears. You have though:

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-sea-ice-threatens-emperor-penguins.html

;-)

Lionel:

"WRT penguins it could be that with the Antarctic an increase in sea ice causes problems by increasing journey times to the ocean and back to the roost, this with the Emperor (Note to readers: not Jeff)."

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-sea-ice-threatens-emperor-penguins.html

;-)

And why are you talking about the Arctic?

What you are missing OP is that I was pointing out that Emperor Penguins can also be affected by an increase in sea ice in the manner suggested.

Lionel, I didn't miss anything. Loss and gain is a threat and all thanks to global warming, or more correct: the rapidly increasing GMT. ;-)

"I have no problems with making difference between emperor penguines and polar bears."

Woof Woof Bark Woof, Olap.

Hmmm.

Seems Olap Dawg here is going for the "Say something that says nothing" method of shitting on the path.

Dirty little shitzu.

Indeed. Yap, yap, yap.

But then the fact that ECS/2xCO2 is ~3 and may be higher isn't something the deniers are going to let pass (see #1 this page). So they all leap about squawking about something else entirely.

Amusingly, Olaus jumps in with that discredited and deliberately deceptive graph cooked up by Christy.

Hey, Olaus, what does Christy show under the label "satellite data"? What is it?

GMT! WTF has Greewich Mean Time to do with this?

Given that you like crowing about increasing Antarctic Sea Ice I had this in mind:

Females lay a single egg and then promptly leave it behind. They undertake an extended hunting trip that lasts some two months! Depending on the extent of the ice pack, females may need to travel some 50 miles (80 kilometers) just to reach the open ocean...

and

During this two-month bout of babysitting the males eat nothing and are at the mercy of the Antarctic elements.

When female penguins return to the breeding site, they bring a belly full of food that they regurgitate for the newly hatched chicks. Meanwhile, their duty done, male emperors take to the sea in search of food for themselves.

from:

Nat. Geo. on Emperor Penguin.

Given that double, double journey for the parent pair, small increases in distance between roost and ocean can have profound effects. This in the knowledge that Antarctic sea ice has varied by different amounts at different positions on the periphery over recent decades (see NSDIC and NASA presentations on this) then these birds can have a very tough time.

Also the fact that you and your ilk also like to crow about Antarctic Sea Ice growth as Arctic Ice declines then I detect more than a whiff of hubris in your posts on this subject particularly your last at #23.

"Lionel, I have no problems with making difference between emperor penguines and polar bears"

Ya coulda' fooled me, Olaus. As I said earlier, you're so thick you can't tell a cricket from an elephant. You rely on a few web logs for your ecological 'information' regarding climate change; its clear you've never read a relevant scientific journal in your life.

One of the main things I see on Deltoid - and which is probably evident on other weblogs - is that dopes like Olaus and other anti-environemtal types like him fail to answer many of the ripostes to their nonsense. They think they can slip and and slither their way through discussions by only responding to a tiny number of the challenges to their posts. F'rinstance, earlier today, Olaus asked me to provide evidence of the many arguments I have put forward regarding the harmful effects of warming and other human-mediated processes of biodiversity. I've listed many examples over many previous months, but I did link to thousands of studies with tens of thousands of citations which have addressed these issues. Olly's response: as expected, silence. He can't answer this, so he goes on to discuss Emperor Penguins, as if there are only a few studies which have examined the effects of climate change on biodiversity.

This is why twits like Olaus never venture into the public arena where they would be eaten alive. On blogs they can say what they like, ignore what they like, and feel they have achieved some kind of intellectual victory. And they can remain anonymous to boot.

As I said, there are literally hundreds of studies reporting: changes in the phenology of multitrophic interactions as a result of warming, and the declines of species as a result; distributional and altitudinal shifts of species in response to warming, with some populations declining markedly where physical barriers act as an impediment to their dispersal; increases of winter survival of major insect pests in regions to the north (or south in the southern hemisphere) due to more frost free or milder winters. Winter is a major biological control agent.

These topics are well described in many top journals I described on the december thread. Olaus doesn't read scientific journals, but instead reads abut penguins and polar bears on WUWT. There and on other blogs is where he gets his world view on climate science.

So how will he respond now? Either with some vacuous quip (meaning he is out of his depth) or by claiming that I am boasting a bout my CV (meaning he is out of his depth) or by not responding at all (meaning he is out of his depth). heck Olly, do you even know what the words 'multitrophic' and 'phenology' mean?

Lionel, I was more interested in the very scientific jeffiefact that emperor penguins are endangered due to the escalating global warming's ability to both increase and decrease antarctic sea ice.

We can talk about the Arctic another time.

:-)

dopes like Olaus and other anti-environemtal types like him fail to answer many of the ripostes to their nonsense. They think they can slip and and slither their way through discussions by only responding to a tiny number of the challenges to their posts.

By an odd coincidence, Jeff articulates exactly the problem I am having at the moment with Betty.

Since we are now onto a fresh thread, I will repost (for the nth time) the question Betty is going to great lengths to avoid answering:

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

Weather or climate?

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

More waffle around the same block from OP:

emperor penguins are endangered due to the escalating global warming’s ability to both increase and decrease antarctic sea ice

.

Now what do you think I have just pointed out to you. Yes, strange as it may seem that whilst the Antarctic is warming up sea ice can expand in some places and shrink in others due to local changes in oceanic and air currents with those areas moving with changing conditions, in other words warming is causing climate change.

Now consider that as the glacier ice streams speed up with release of the floating ice shelf dams then the water around Antarctic freshens. Now what freezes at the highest temperature fresh water or salt water?

You gotta work harder at this.

Expand in some places Lionel? There has never been so much sea ice recorded in the Antarctic region. But the the escalating global warming gets the emperor penguins either way, correct? ;-)

Woof, Olap.

Olaus

From a quick overview of the topic you should have been able to find in a couple of minutes if you had looked:

This winter, the maximum total Antarctic sea ice extent was reported to be 19.47 million square kilometres, which is 3.6% above the winter average calculated from 1981 to 2010. This continues a trend that is weakly positive and remains in stark contrast to the decline in Arctic summer sea ice extent (2013 was 18% below the mean from 1981-2010).

To further complicate this picture, we find this net increase actually masks strong declines in particular regions around Antarctica, such as in the Bellingshausen Sea, which are on par or greater than those in the Arctic.

So while there is much greater attention given to the Arctic decline and the prediction of “ice-free summers” at the North Pole this century, Antarctic climate scientists still have their work cut out to understand the regional declines amidst the mild “net” expansion occurring in the southern hemisphere.

There has never been so much sea ice recorded in the Antarctic region.

Classic meaningless, unspecified marketing spiel, formulated to convince 9 out of 10 morons

Yep, woofing for its fellow vermin.
But actually parading its idiocy for attention.

And Olaus, re #27

Have you found out what Christy did with the satellite data he used for that graph yet?

Things to explore (you are a sceptic, remember?):

- Are there known issues with the middle-troposphere (MT) data?

- What happens when you average two data sets when one has a trend 3x larger than the other?

There has never been so much sea ice recorded in the Antarctic region.

And there has never been so much recorded net ice mass loss from the continental Antarctic ice sheets:

The results of the IMBIE 2012 experiments showed that the agreement between mass balance estimates from radar and laser altimetry, gravimetry and the input-output method is good in all ice sheet regions.

In combining the datasets we generated a 19 year time series of ice sheet mass balance from 1992 to 2011. Over this period, we found that the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets together lost mass that equated to a global rise in sea level of 11.1 +/- 3.8 millimetres.

Examining the ice sheet regions individually we show that the Greenland, West Antarctic and Antarctic ice sheets have all lost mass over the past two decades, whilst the East Antarctic ice sheet has undergone a slight snowfall-driven growth. The Greenland ice sheet has lost the largest mass and accounts for about two-thirds of the combined ice sheet loss over the study period. In Antarctica, the largest mass losses have occurred in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. However, despite occupying just 4% of the total ice sheet area, the Antarctic Peninsula has accounted for around 25% of the Antarctic mass losses.

We created charts of mass change (see figure below) for each geographical region, and these confirm known signals of imbalance. Mass loss from the Greenland, West Antarctic and Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheets has increase over time. In Greenland, rates of mass loss were modest during the 1990’s but have sharply accelerated since then due to episodes of ice acceleration (Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006; Joughin et al.,2004) and decreased surface mass balance (van den Broeke et al.,2009; Ettema et al., 2009). The rate of mass loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet increased substantially over the study period, with losses occurring mainly due to glacier acceleration in the Amundsen Sea Sector. The Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet was close to balance in the 1990’s, but since then significant mass losses have occurred as a result of ice shelf collapse (Rott et al., 1996;De Angelis and Skvarca, 2003) and calving front retreat (Cook et al., 2005; Pritchard et al.,2009). Overall our time series of mass change show that the combined losses from Greenland and Antarctica have increased over time and the ice sheets are now losing almost three times as much ice as they were in the early 1990’s.

And Olaus, please knock it off with the fake concern for the trapped scientists You brought it up because you're absolutely delighted and will milk this daily until they are freed. You're being obnoxious, asinine and are not fooling anyone, you pathetic, miserable little troll.

That day appears to have arrived. I'm sure we are all united in our pleasure that everyone is safe and sound.

Hear hear!
To the real heroes who venture into dangerous and inhospitable places to advance the sum of human knowledge.

Compare and contrast to fat-arsed Caifornian and Coloradan fakes swallowing oil money by the barrel and spending 10 years at home to find out what was already known.

The latter being the "heroes" to their fellow fakes and vermin worldwide.

And still silence on #31.

" I’m sure we are all united in our pleasure that everyone is safe and sound."

But what if someone on board is a denier? Shouldn't they be beaten and left behind?

"To the real heroes who venture into dangerous and inhospitable places to advance the sum of human knowledge"

The tourists?

"But then the fact that ECS/2xCO2 is ~3 and may be higher isn’t something the deniers are going to let pass (see #1 this page)."

Well, it is a fact that it's an estimate, however, an estimate doesn't make it a fact.

The tourists?

You'll need to explain your "reasoning" there Betty, though I don't believe vermin could.

"And still silence on #31"

Did you mean #32? Because it's a jackass question that I have already responded to...just not to your liking. The question is insignificant in relation to me, other than the fact that I pointed out that Hardley was a hypocrite for his posting of weather events to make a point about climate.
This is a perfect example of deputy Deltoid attempting to direct the message in a certain direction...too obvious.
Now deputy, if you really want to ask a question that involves averaging 1/12 of one type of measurement from many different climates at many different latitudes throughout the earth, derived from an evolution of measuring techniques over a very small time scale in terms of history, then I would suggest you ask Hardley.

The tourists?

Were there not tourists on board risking their lives?

Oooooh Betty.
Your inability to process even the simplest of information fully explains your fucked-in-the-head incapability of understanding anything discussed on this blog.

But chek, why aren't the tourists who were on board and advanced into this dangerous and inhospitable place real heros? Weren't they partying alongside the scientists?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyFflSaBGcw

Totally incapable, even when the information required for comprehension is there in plain sight and plain English.
I rest my case.

Apparently off-topic but..... Fairfax has just published an article by John McLean, complete with tendentious cartoon by Spooner, commenting on aspects of the IPCC, the UNFCCC, and their processes. They've closed off the comments underneath in double-quick time. Perhaps someone realised that they were on a hiding to nowhere with this article. McLean has claimed that the UNFCCC, "...at its inaugural meeting in 1992... declared that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 were causing significant and dangerous climate change" and that this statement had "no factual basis". I have surveyed, rather quickly, the document in question at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf and can find no reference to the words used by McLean. Is McLean guilty of precisely the kind of exaggeration of which e accuses others?

Prior to the trip to the Antarctic Prof. Turkey was preparing himself in a Russian boot camp specialized in vanishing ice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz-sO0YEYtY#t=33

As I was saying, BBD, people like Olaus keep the discussion of climate change at kindergarten-school levels. They focus on single prominent species (e.g. Emperor Penguins, Polar Bears) without a basic understanding of effects that global change mediates on complex adaptive systems - species interaction networks, food webs, trophic chains, and indirect feedback loops. If we are to understand the longer term ecological effects of warming, there's no use in using 'flagship species' except for PR purposes. Systemic properties in which these species are embedded must be examined - hence why ecologists are intensively studying the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This involves a stupendously complex array of interactions involving organisms in food chains and webs, from the soil to the above-ground compartments. For instance, from the work of ecologists like Neo Martinez and Jordi Boscompte:

http://ecoplexity.org/model_complex_foodweb

In this freshwater food web we still notice an amazing array of interactions involving the first, second and third trophic levels; all are tightly connected and, as Martinez points out, "This means that invasions, extinctions, and biodiversity loss may affect many more species than previously thought, because so few species will be far enough apart not to be affected> Now overlay this into the Antarctic coastal marie and Arctic marine food webs. The fate of species occurring toward the end of food chains there - the penguins and polar bears (nominally leopard seals are in the fourth trophic level of the Antarctic chain and the penguins in the third, but I am trying to keep it simple) - hinges on effects across a myriad of species in the chain - what we ecologists refer to 'bottom up trophic cascades'.

As the seminal work of McCann, Pimm, De Ruiter, and others has shown, the strength and resilience of food chains - 'stability' if you prefer - hinges on the fate of many tightly interacting species, and not necessarily on one (although we could get to keystones or drivers later). Most food webs are strictly bottom-up regulated - meaning the abundance of top level predators is critically determined by the health of the primary producers, then the first order level consumers and so on. Top-down mediated trophic cascades are also important, but evidence for these is based mostly on simple, homogeneous systems which lack structural or chemical complexity.

So the bottom line is this: species interactions across variable spatial and temporal determine the fate of species in a changing world. Climate change threatens to unravel food chains through disproportionate effects on species (indeed, on genetically distinct populations) in different trophic levels. hence the invocation of the term 'phenology', which has became a central theme in climate change-ecology research:

Here is an example of a larger scale analysis showing the effects of differing species of migratory birds responses to climate change:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2571031/

As I said yesterday, the scientific journals are full of these kinds of studies. There are many thousands of them in the pages of dozens of journals with high impact factors. The deniers, for the most part, do not read them and/or do not understand what they read because they lack the professional training. These are the kinds of courses given at universities. I have barely scratched the surface. And I simply do not have the time to educate all of the climate change deniers who inhabit the internet. Its up to scientists to get out of the labs more to do this, and for us somehow to crack the media that rarely write about ecological complexity.

Lionel, I didn’t miss anything.

ROFL!

Keep digging. There's no limit to how negative your credibility rating can go, and you're already at fairly impressive levels.

Did you mean #32? Because it’s a jackass question that I have already responded to…just not to your liking. The question is insignificant in relation to me, other than the fact that I pointed out that Hardley was a hypocrite for his posting of weather events to make a point about climate.

No, Betty, I meant #31 and you have not answered the question.

So you are a liar.

How low can you go, Betty?

Weather or climate?

Come on.

Vermin's the word, chek.

Olaus

#35

#37

#38

?

?

?

You aren't even a lightweight.

peterd #52

The only topic here is the intellectual dishonesty of climate change deniers, so you are right on the button. And yes, it does seem at first blush as though McLean lied. Misrepresentation of the UN is the speciality of our very own Betula. Perhaps he will engage on this.

"And I simply do not have the time to educate all of the climate change deniers who inhabit the internet. Its up to scientists to get out of the labs more to do this, and for us somehow to crack the media that rarely write about ecological complexity."

You're a broken record Hardley. Systems are complex, and everything affects everything else at every level...only you can never have a definitive conclusion, except that every interaction will be affected by another interaction, because systems are complex and everything affects everything else..

And only you know this.

And only you can speculate that if A, then B, and B can only be negative for all interactions.

Keep up the good work.

Barney...another broken record.

Now deputy, if you really want to ask a question that involves averaging 1/12 of one type of measurement from many different climates at many different latitudes throughout the earth, derived from an evolution of measuring techniques over a very small time scale in terms of history, then I would suggest you ask Hardley

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Come on Betty!

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

Come on!!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Watch Betty wriggle!

Watch Betty lie!

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

involves averaging 1/12 of one type of measurement

- Betty @ #61

As has been pointed out time and again, Betty is just too fucked-in-the-head incapable of understanding anything discussed on this blog.

But what if someone on board is a denier?

Deniers don't do actual research. They're not being paid to. They can lie comfortably from their study, so why take the risk?

chek @66

"involves averaging 1/12 of one type of measurement"

I guess I wasn't understanding this statement from Barney at #71 pg 10 Dec..."Let’s look at Novembers past and present"

Or this one at # 77 pg 10...
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1880.83/every:12

Or this one at #78...
"And I really should have said at the outset – it is of course all November global average temperatures from 1880 to 2013. Just Novembers"

Or this one at #97 pg 10 ...
"November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 – 2013"

Or this one at #54 pg 11..
"oft-repeated and very simple question regarding November temperatures, weather and climate"

And next time, please scrape off your shoes before you come in here.

Stu...

Who said anything about tourists doing research? And are you saying the scientists on board all had their minds made up about the findings of their research before they left?

Oh watch that Betty wriggle!!!

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

Come on!!

Why won't you answer?

Barney..

Rather than claim someone is lying, wouldn't it be easier to post the lie? Unless of course, you are lying.

Example:

What you said at #72 Dec. thread:

"I said that if people only realised what vested corporate interests (and the internet-infesting denier vermin who help them) were *doing* to their children’s future they would probably beat the more vocal deniers in the streets and I wouldn’t lift a finger to stop it."

What you actually said:

"The public lacks insight into just how dishonest, self-serving and vile this behaviour is. If the public really thought about the matter, deniers would be beaten in the streets, and I for one would not lift a fucking finger to stop it."

You see Barney, that's how you prove a lie.

Where's the lie, Betty? Those two paragraphs are consistent with each other. WTF?

You are getting desperate.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Come on Betty!

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

Why won't you answer?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Get it through your very thick, utterly dishonest little mind, John Birch [aka Betty]:

- You have no basis for your claims

- You lack the expertise to make them

- You are simply *misrepresenting* the consequences of warming for selfish political reasons

- This makes you an enemy of mankind.

Deniers in general are being given shorter shrift, but not nearly short enough. The public lacks insight into just how dishonest, self-serving and vile this behaviour is. If the public really thought about the matter, deniers would be beaten in the streets, and I for one would not lift a fucking finger to stop it.

Oops. Link to the original for the context which Betty needs to hide in order to lie about me.

Oh look, I had another crack at it a few comments later:

You seem to be having trouble reading the words:

- You have no basis for your claims

- You lack the expertise to make them

- You are simply *misrepresenting* the consequences of warming for selfish political reasons

- This makes you an enemy of mankind

You are contemptible and in time, fake sceptics will come to be regarded with the universal loathing and contempt they deserve. I hope you are young and healthy enough to live to see that day, and remember me telling you it was coming.

I wonder how vocal you will be in your misrepresentations of the seriousness of AGW in a few decades time, if you last that long.

My son is likely to as he is not yet six, which is why I regard you, and those you serve, as vermin.

I think the first one was better, really.

Bettyfuckedinthehead still can't differentiate between the 134 Novembers from 1880-2013 and the 345th consecutive month of above average global temperatures without squirming in a puddle of his own stupidity.

He's making Olap look like the smart kid, if such a thing could ever be possible..

It's difficult to tell, chek. He may, but he is so fucking dishonest that he won't answer the question anyway.

Watch Betty wriggle.

1. "deniers would be beaten in the streets"

2. "they would probably beat the more vocal deniers"

Why the suttle change in words Barney? They would or they probably would? And why is it now only the more vocal deniers?

3. "and I wouldn’t lift a finger to stop it.”

4. "would not lift a fucking finger to stop it.”

And why the intentional softening of words Barney? Where's the angry Barney that's wants to see people Beaten because in his view, somebody may not agree with his speculated vision of future events?

Maybe you should add the word "probably" in front of "wouldn't lift a fucking finger" to give yourself a softer, kinder image.

Face in Barney, you're an angry liar.

And let's not forget this:

Barney..
Rather than claim someone is lying, wouldn’t it be easier to post the lie? Unless of course, you are lying

No, Betty. The two paragraphs at #70 are consistent. You are now desperately trying to get off the hook. And the stench is truly foul.

But by all means let's keep reading the original thread:

I am simply getting angrier and angrier with the stupid amorality of denialism. The absence of any recognition by vocal science deniers like Betty that they are simply shilling for vested corporate and political interests that will, eventually, bugger up the planet.

The sheer unacceptability of this behaviour is not sufficiently emphasised in public debate. Deniers have, to some extent, managed to normalise their shilling and lies simply by persistent repetition. Given the potential consequences, this should not be tolerated.

Deniers should be asked the same basic questions:

- what relevant expertise do you have to deny the validity of the scientific consensus on AGW?

- demonstrate a robust scientific counter-argument that substantively challenges the scientific consensus on AGW

If they have no expertise and no scientific argument (eg John Birch, serially, above), then it’s time to point out that they are politicised, lying, self-serving vermin whose actions threaten the future of our children and their descendants.

It’s interesting to see that when the true nature of their behaviour is held up in front of them, deniers generally start denying that they are deniers. Thus demonstrating just how morally bankrupt and contemptible they really are.

We will come back to the question of weather or climate later.

Why the suttle change in words Barney?

Because I was quoting from memory, you fuckwit. But thanks for focussing attention on what was really said on the original thread.

"Because I was quoting from memory"

So in your mind you envision a less angry, softer, kinder Barney viewing a beating?

Who said anything about tourists doing research? And are you saying the scientists on board all had their minds made up about the findings of their research before they left?

Two sentences. Willful misinterpretation, willful misrepresentation, a moronic red herring and two category errors.

Betty, I repeat. You are too damned stupid to pull this off. Nobody's laughing WITH you, sweetheart.

Here is a hint that Betula and OP are as bright as Donald Trump's non-hair.

Trumps non-hair says:

This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice

What was I saying about pre-empting deniers on the Arctic Blasts as the jet stream sticks.

"We will come back to the question of weather or climate later"

If you have any questions about the difference between weather and climate, ask Hardley...he is the expert. After all, he personally witnessed climate change over a 23 day period in Algonquin....and we know that, just like you, he wouldn't lie....wink wink.

#81

You can read the words as well as everyone else Betty. All the re-posts above.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The question was put to you Betty. To you.

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

Why won't you answer?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Looks like someone's having a hyperthermal....

"What was I saying about pre-empting deniers on the Arctic Blasts as the jet stream sticks"

Lionel, you seem disappointed that we are experiencing extremely cold weather here. You should be happy, maybe this will help a bit in lowering the monthly GAT. That's good right?

"All the re-posts above"

Is this because you want people to know how proud you are to be angry enough to want watch a beating and do nothing?

That really was pathetic, Betty. Do at least try to remember that everyone else can read the actual words too.

You have been shown up in the worst imaginable light, yet again. Your comical refusal to answer the weather or climate question is now added to the stack of your recent evasions, which includes an inability to explain Snowball Earth terminations, hyperthermals or Quaternary deglacitions under orbital forcing without invoking a combination of effective GHG forcing and net positive feedbacks. You have also laughably refused to admit that your IPCC conspiracy theory is a conspiracy theory despite this being self-evident.

Not even you can be unaware of the fact that you have behaved dishonestly, evasively and mendaciously ever since you were released from wherever you were detained for the last few months and resumed posting here.

Why do it, Betty? Do you enjoy being shredded and despised for your vile behaviour? Why come back?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now watch Betty wriggle some more.

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

Why won't you answer?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Did I say vermin? Why so I did. Several times, in fact.

Betty gets ever more nauseating.

Perhaps, instead of whining like a spoilt child over a hypothetical, Betty could clearly explain to us why anyone should feel compelled to assist dishonest sacks of shit like him having hypothetical local difficulties with his neighbours?

In your own time, brat.

Betula, you seem unable to understand the words others write, or grasp that the cold spell in the US is from a climate change from warming related jet stream wobble.

If this pattern persists, and remember the drought and flooding extremes are from much the same reason thus a pattern is emerging, then is it weather or climate change?

And do answer BBDs question, you slithy evasive tove.

It's funny how we here so much from the deniers about the cold in Canada and the US, but not a single peep about the colossal heat anomaly right across central Asia. Just look at that thing.

Source: NOAA November global temperature.

Betula & co. cannot cope with a paradox.

Just so happens Peter Sinclair is one of those onto this It’s That Time Again. The Willful Ignorance of Right Wing Snow Trolling. .

BTW another interesting article on climate sensitivity just up at Real Climate, with a link to earlier good stuff on same.

Lionel A

That's how we got started! See Bernard J #1 and my #26.

But I don't think we're going to be allowed to talk about that topic - others appear very determined to direct the conversation in any other direction they can.

How will our weather in the UK shortly, after weeks of pounding, flooding high winds and tides, be related to what is happening in the US right now:

How US snow will cause more rain in UK and note nearby links to more.

This mostly for the Betulas and Olaps. Is it not time for Rednoise and Duffer to put in an appearance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03SWGkxt72A#t=36

You may not believe me but I laughed out loud all the way through. Better than the usual tripe. At almost random, 2:42:

Where is all the heat going to? The IPCC were supposed to hide the decline... Not the fucking heat!!!

Not even a spit patch on the boots of the climate elves, though.

BBD at#97 on the previous page:

...I don’t think we’re going to be allowed to talk about that topic...

I've been watching with curiosity how denialists have been assiduously skirting Sherwood et al 2014 since it was released. I suspect they waiting for a Monckton or an Eschenback to mangle the science so that it doesn't say what they don't want it to say, and then they'll trumpet "fraud!", "incompetence!!" or "conspiracy!!11!!eleventyone!".

Mack, I see that you're back here now that Sou's given you your marching orders. I wondered how long it would take...

Sou ?

Just one word, and still one 'tell' included.
Poor benighted KarenMackSpot.

Mack-the-Yack at #3, stop the pretence of not knowing who Sou is:

AnonymousJanuary 2, 2014 at 12:45 AM

The main point, that you entirely avoided Sou, is the fact that all the information that was requested was sourced from AGW sceptics, not just from WUWT.

The kick in the teeth to the cultists is the fact that no alarmist were asked as they can't be trusted to have reliable information.

Karen

from: Anthony Watts, most blessed and ethical professional hero @wattsupwiththat, rides gallantly to the Antarctic rescue .

The black knight is now ready for burial.

Oh! yes Sou, the Hot Whopper. Looks like Karen got hit with the hot whopper. silly girl. I'm OK though, safe and sound here in this little padded cell with you residual Deltiod looneys

Lying fuck. You people push the boundaries of vile every single day.

@ chek, yes, that one is very good. A welcome reminder. I can never find the bloody things again.

;-)

Speaking of vermin, where's Betty? My feet are itching for an arse to kick. Again.

@ Bernard J

We'll probably just get another great waving of Nic Bloody Lewis, Otto et al, and other relatively uninformative estimates of TCR from "observational" data. It was irritating as all **** the first time around, so I'm not looking forward to a re-run.

In other news, I see Bob Tisdale is "retiring from full time blogging". Churning out climate misinformation is not covering the bills, apparently, so Bob needs a job. More at Stoat.

KarenMackSunspot at #6:

Oh! yes Sou, the Hot Whopper. Looks like Karen got hit with the hot whopper. silly girl.

You're as thick as evaporated molasses. One minute you didn't know who Sou was, and the next you know to what it is that we are referring. How stupid can you be?

And you keep emphasising the female gender thing when it's irrelevant - you're obviously trying to reinforce your failed tranvestism in the 'Karen' sock, but anyone with an intelligence quotient greater than that of a platyhelminth (apologies to flatworms) can see right through it.

Given your especially stereotypical last two comments I have to wonder again if you're just a sociopathic poe. If not, you're more than five standard deviations from the population mean and deep into the Stupid side of the spectrum.

I've said it before but I repeat it - I used to lament Tim Lambert's absence from these threads, but the one good thing is that Deltoid now stands as a monument to just how ideological, self-centred and completely without evidence, logic, education and understanding are the deniers of science.

It reminds me of the lines of caterpillars that manage to circle into loops, unable to break out and continue forward. The difference is that when we used to see these in the bush one could break the loop and send the beasies on their way - with the Denialati it seems that no amount of effort can ever break them from the merry-go-round of broken denier memes to which they are welded.

BBD at #10.

Indeed. Although I'm somewhat morbidly fascinated to see just how they twist it.

It won't take too long to find out, I suspect.

And WRT extreme weather (look out there at all that snow its cold out there) let's remind those who still fail to connect the dots:

It’s all in the jet stream

The case for a connection between Arctic warming and summertime extreme weather events rests on the Arctic’s crucial role as a pacesetter and shapemaker of the jet stream, the powerful ribbon of upper level winds that steer weather systems from west to east across the Northern Hemisphere.

Because the temperature contrast between the frigid Arctic and the milder mid-latitudes is what drives the powerful jet stream winds that guide weather systems, what happens in the Arctic is bound to have some sort of influence on the world’s weather.

from Study Adds to Arctic Warming, Extreme Weather Debate.

On the recent extreme weather around the coasts of the UK, not over yet, Owen Patterson looked rather uncomfortable recently when interviewed. Is it because he is like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming furore about job cuts in the Environment Agency (Efficiency savings ha! More like culling some unwelcome messengers and warning those left) and the fact that climate change is already having consequences, despite their spin so as to keep the door open for fracking.

What happens when we are fracked out and nobody is looking after the workings because all the companies involved have vanished? Here is a warning from the US:

Fracking Wells Abandoned in Boom/Bust Cycle. Who Will Pay to Cap Them?

The answer as always is the tax payer, well except the big fossil fuel companies with tax exemptions.

The Mysterious Case of Visceral Denier Hatred For the Voyage of the MV Akademik Shokalskiy.

With a title almost Conan-Doylish in its self-explanitoryness, wtf is going on? The Guardian article's comments section is as full of denier bile and actual jaw-dropping fictions (Antarctic sea ice was supposed to have disappeared? Really??) as Karenmackspots The Downfall parody here.

What do any of those vile, ignorant shitsacks know about polar science exploration, its economics and practice and the required and related seamanship? Yes we know from first hand experience here that individual scientists are targets for the most scurrilous denier attacks, but I'm wondering if there's something fundamental that I've missed. Is there a modern The Origin of Species or Principia Mathematica or somesuch in preparation, or what?

More mood music.

Apologies if this ends up appearing twice:
I mistyped my email address

January 5, 2014

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

BBD,
You have asked that climate or weather question numerous times and you appear to believe it is a very important question that has great significance.
Betula didn’t need to answer it because of the way you have framed it. You have basically answered it yourself and you are obviously not interested in anything but your own framed answer.
When discussing climate and weather, despite your framing, there is no a or b single right answer, which appears to be partly why ianam and Jeff Harvey got into such a scrap at the December thread.
Perhaps instead you might consider some questions like these regarding that statistic:
What significance does a highest November global average hold in terms of anything that could be done about average global Novembers?
Does this statistic reveal something significant about NH Autumns or SH Springs or both?
Where specifically on the planet is this statistic demonstrably manifesting itself as an urgent climate or weather problem?
Do all months of the 2013 calendar year reveal the highest ever global mean temperature?

I have to say that I am appreciating the Guardian more and more. Whenever a mainstream print media report is referenced in this country these days in any rational context it is almost always the Guardian - other outlets are conspicuous by their absence... The Australian Newscorps print media abdicated any pretense at objective impartiality in reporting by the beginning of the millenium, and although Fairfax is pulling its socks up somewhat since the Coalition won the election they're a case of too little too late.

I am fervently grateful for the appearance of the Guardian in Australia, and their role here seems really to be a reflection of their title.

I suspect that News Corps will at some point take an active role in attempting to blunt the impact of the Guardian. If the do I hope that it blows up in their faces - spectacularly.

I love it when the Scarecrow pretends that he has a brain. It's so cuuute...

Chek....."The answer as always is the tax payer, well except the big fossil fuel companies with tax exemptions"

From your link...''"The money would come from a conservation tax that oil and gas companies pay."

You're such a putz....but it's nice to see your touching concern for the U.S.taxpayer. I'm glad to see that you are on their side, even though they are the ones using the resources gained from fracking. They are the ones, through their greedy consumption, that are creating the climate change that will affect the poor nations. They are the ones that have contributed to the plundering of undeveloped nations, and they are the ones that are morally obligated to pay for damage that they have caused and will cause in the future. Climate Justice and Global Justice...rich nations to poor nations...

But how do they pay Chek. A tax? A tax on what?

That's right Chek..."The answer as always is the tax payer"...and here you are feeling sorry for them.

Classic.

Darn. Tried to post in one lot and was foiled by the moderation queue.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17210030

ftp://ftp.cira.colostate.edu/ftp/Liston/papers/co_author/2001.sturm.NAT…

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00484-002-0139-x#page-1

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01059.x/full

eebweb.arizona.edu/courses/Ecol206/Walther%20et%20al%20Nature%202002.pdf

www.ualberta.ca/~ahamann/publications/pdfs/Hamann_Wang_2006.pdf

And one for the road.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00796.x/full

As if to lend evidence to my comment at #18, The Age derails.

A good rebuttal from The Guardian could land them an appreciable slice of the Fairfax readership.

chek

On that comments section at the Guardian isn't it indicative of how the stupid and ignorant think they are clever when they are not. The educated and accomplished would not use handles like this one:

TheGreatRonRafferty

nor make such asinine comments.

I said:

A good rebuttal from The Guardian could land them an appreciable slice of the Fairfax readership.

Well, It didn't take long for the Guardian to call The Age on its blunder.

Betula at #20.

Where did chek say anything about taxes. Can you not get any facts straight.

Shakes head in disbelief!

Then you cherry pick this statement:

The money would come from a conservation tax that oil and gas companies pay.

.

Now let us all see that in context, context the moron misses:

The money would come from a conservation tax that oil and gas companies pay.

Still, given the number of wells already abandoned and the concern that more will soon be deserted, the money is not expected to go far. The state estimated that closing the 1,200 wells already abandoned would cost about $8 million.
-
One such company, Patriot Energy Resources, which owns about 900 idle wells on state and private land, said in an October letter to Governor Mead that it was $1.9 million short of full bonding on those wells after the bankruptcy filing of Luca Technologies, its parent company.

It is clear my fears are well ('scuse pun) founded and you are either a few oil wells short of a viable portfolio or totally dishonest. That does not exclude you being both of those.

Aargh!

Bernard J, I have just read through some of the comments at that Alex White Guardian piece and can only conclude that many brains are screwed and cannot produce coherent statements, let alone ones founded on fact.

It's tragic isn't it Lionel?

This is the reason that I despair for the human species and the biosphere in the Anthropocene - this level of idiocy is reflected in the 'reporting of too much of the Western media, and in the election processes of too many 'democracies'.

It's time that people start to be told what their evolutionarily-maladapted intellects are going to (now unavoidably) visit on their descendants.

Chek...."The answer as always is the tax payer"

Lionel....."Where did chek say anything about taxes"

Now let's try it this way...

Lionel....Where did chek say anything about taxes

Chek...."The answer as always is the tax payer"

Shakes head in disbelief...

Reading the posts under this
As Australia Burns, Anger at Prime Minister's Climate Policies Boils I found a link to this superbly apposite graphic .

Betula @ #31, you still don't get it do you. Go look closely at my #14.

It was you put those words into chek's mouth at #20.

You are a frigging moron. That is not an ad hominem but a statement of fact, only a moron would repeat such an egregious error once pointed out!

And whist we are on that fracking costs topic here is more for you to digest:

Who will pay the costs of the fracking revolution?.

"It was you put those words into chek’s mouth at #20"

What words? Is there something we are disagreeing on here?

2Stupid

Betula didn’t need to answer it because of the way you have framed it. You have basically answered it yourself and you are obviously not interested in anything but your own framed answer.

What interests me is Betty's profound (nay bottomless) intellectual dishonesty. You are an irrelevance. Fuck off.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Come on, you miserable, dishonest scum. Answer the question.

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

Weather or climate?

Answer the fucking question. Now.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I seem to remember that Betula had great difficulty answering other questions last year.

It seems to be par for the course with him.

WTF is up with you? From your #20, here is you putting my words to chek:.

Chek…..”The answer as always is the tax payer, well except the big fossil fuel companies with tax exemptions”

Now do you see? Sheeeesh! and Sheeeeesh2!

Q: How many AGW deniers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There have always been periods of darkness.

Q: Why is Bettyfuckedinthehead so brain-achingly incompetent?
A: Good question. Because that's what corporately sponsored denial does to its believers?

chek and BBD. Are the video stories at the BBC News web site working OK for you? Here the video stream freezes after abot 15 sec's but the audio continues. I am using Firefox.

Hi Lionel. I've just watched the "N America weather: Polar vortex brings record temperatures" video, and its working fine in both IE and Firefox in my area. Having said that my connection speed is reduced from 24Mb to 18Mb this afternoon. Not sure if that's weather related, or just due to more Sunday surfers than usual.

Lionel, I stand corrected...apologies to chek. Same ideologies...different names.

Let's rephrase:

"The answer as always is the tax payer"

Aren't the tax payers the ones using the resources gained from fracking? Aren't hey are the ones, through their greedy consumption, that are creating the climate change that will affect the poor nations? Aren't they are the ones that have contributed to the plundering of undeveloped nations? And aren't they the ones that are morally obligated to pay for the damage that they have caused and will cause in the future? Climate Justice and Global Justice…rich nations to poor nations…but where will the financing come from?

"The answer as always is the tax payer"

"Come on, you miserable, dishonest scum. Answer the question"

Who wouldn't want to address a question asked in such a polite way?...that's what I want to know.

"Answer the fucking question. Now"

Now this sounds like the angry, demanding, authoritative deputy I've come to know. The same one that wouldn't lift a fucking finger if he were to witness an indiscriminate beating...

But why won't the bad deputy interrogate his co-worker, officer Hardley? Ah yes, the Deltoid code of silence...

1. Here from 13 years ago…“Madison, Wisconsin was breaking maximum temperature records by over 5 C in mid-January”
http://www.ecoglobe.org/nz/biodiv/biod2211.htm

2. And a few years ago when he claimed to witness climate change first hand while on a 23 day trip (time scale) that involved frostbite.
http://www.nioo.knaw.nl/en/node/2137

3. And just recently….”After Britain has just had one of its warmest (and wettest) ever Decembers”

Yet, as the self appointed deputy of Deltoid, you feel the anger to interrogate me for questioning the nutty professor. Like I've always said…you’re too obvious.

Now, once again, put the bullet back in your pocket Barney, before hyperthermalia sets in.

Betty-scum

How about you answer the question I put to you before asking anyone anything else?

More lies from Betty-scum:

Now this sounds like the angry, demanding, authoritative deputy I’ve come to know. The same one that wouldn’t lift a fucking finger if he were to witness an indiscriminate beating…

Specifically *not* indiscriminate. What vermin you are, Betty.

This is surreal, Betty.

You just cannot admit - even when presented with direct, incontrovertible evidence - that seasonal climate change is as real as annual climate change. You flat-out refuse to admit to a matter of fact.

You are so utterly fucking dishonest I don't know how to describe what you are. It's off the fucking scale.

chek....

From the article you linked at #16:

"In spite of a century of work, huge gaps in knowledge remain across the region investigated by the original expedition. To tackle these questions we spent the last two years building a team of experts keen to work with individuals outside their area of expertise. Meetings were held and questions honed. We decided, for instance, that among many other things we would investigate the circulation of the Southern Ocean and its impact on the global carbon cycle and the potential for new records of past climate change using tree ring and peat sequences on the subantarctic islands"

http://www.theguardian.com/science/antarctica-live/2014/jan/04/antarcti…

I thought the science was settled? I thought the future was settled? What's with the huge gaps in knowledge?

He also states..."We have been accused of being a tourist trip with little scientific value"

The reports I saw simply stated there were tourists on board...which there were. In fact, in Turney's article, he links to an article stating such...."The predicament and subsequent rescue of 52 passengers – both tourists and scientists".
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/03/antarctica-ice-trapped-aca…

And apparently, these tourists paid a hefty sum for their trip...
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2014/01/03/the-rest-of-chris-turneys-life-map…

You might also note in that article, the huge number of trees Turney may have to plant to keep his promise of offsetting the CO2 emissions...

Of course, planting trees alone does nothing, since the trees were already on earth and they were just moved from one place to another. It is the actual growing of new trees that matters. They just need to hope that the number of replacement trees grown equals the number they plant....if, in fact, they are ever planted.

And since you are so keen on it, let's have some more from June 2013. A handy resource, that thread. Saves typing it all out again:

You can wish it away, but it will do no good in the end. The science-denying right is digging its own grave with its bare hands. When the climate shit hits the economic fan, the public will be frightened and angry and looking for scapegoats. Guess who will be right smack in the frame? Oh yes.

Best not go shouting in the street about your part in the denial circus then, Betty. But you wouldn’t have the balls, would you? You won’t even admit to your lies and denial here when directly confronted over it.

It’s all of a part. Contemptible from top to bottom.

Notice how the lying scum everywhere are trying to inflate the irrelevance of the Antarctic expedition into an attack on climate science?

This is what lying scum do when they have no scientific case to make against the scientific consensus: they smear and they insinuate. They attack people and institutions. They use rhetoric and misrepresentation.

Because that is all any of them have got.

If you weren't as thick as pigshit Betty you would recognise that this behaviour actually telegraphs just how weak your position really is. And you might think twice before indulging in it. But you are a moron.

"Specifically *not* indiscriminate"

Based on what you believe is the future and whether or not you believe they agree with your vision of the future....yeh, pretty indiscriminate.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

No end to Betty's astonishing intellectual dishonesty in sight, so let's press on with a slightly different approach:

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

These are matters of fact. This is not weather it is climate change with both annual and seasonal expressions.

Do you accept these matters of fact? Yes or no.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

No Betty. Indiscriminate means indiscriminate. I was specific. You are apparently sub-literate as well as a lying toe-rag.

Aren’t the tax payers the ones using the resources gained from fracking?

Are they? Just the tax payers? Blimey, that lets a load of corporations off from paying them then.

Aren’t hey (sic) are the ones, through their greedy consumption, that are creating the climate change that will affect the poor nations?

Are they? Is all consumption 'greedy'? And why would you think only poor nations will be affected?

Aren’t they are the ones that have contributed to the plundering of undeveloped nations?

Who are 'they'?

And aren’t they the ones that are morally obligated to pay for the damage that they have caused and will cause in the future?

See previous answer. They really don't call you Bettyfuckedionthehead for nothing, do they?

Climate Justice and Global Justice…rich nations to poor nations…but where will the financing come from?

From the producers and consumers of carbon which is currently dumped into the atmosphere for free. But there is a price to be paid, one way or another, is the obvious answer.

As a side note to #16, I noticed Turney stated..."We worked on our research programme with the Australian Antarctic Division". Here's his link...
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/

I checked out the AAD and found it interesting that it's "Senior Principal Research Scientist and Leader of the Ice, Ocean, Atmosphere and Climate Program" is this man:
http://www.acecrc.sipex.aq/access/page/?page=94

I also noticed he was the "co-Chair of the ICSU/WMO Joint Committee for the International Polar Year 2007-2008"

Would this be the same WMO that helped establish the IPCC and is striving to meet the Millennium Development Goals?:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/weather/developmentgoals.html

And is this the same ICSU that is working with the U.N to meet the Millennium Development goals?:
http://www.icsu.org/publications/icsu-position-statements/sci-tech-un-m…

These, along with other U.N. institutions that are working "Towards Security, Development and Human Rights for All, which presents a strategy for strengthening the United Nations in its attempts to help build worldwide scientific and technological capacities for achieving the Millennium Development Goals"

But where can they find the financing needed to achieve these goals? Obviously they will need to redistribute wealth from rich nations to poor nations through climate policy as stated by this IPCC working group co chair:

http://www.thegwpf.org/energy-and-poverty-what-is-really-at-stake-in-ca…

But by what mechanism ? And where can they find an authoritative consensus to validate this mechanism?

Though it is really difficult to imagine answers to such difficult questions, it appears the head of the IPCC may be onto something...

http://www.thegwpf.org/ipcc-chair-pachauri-advocates-carbon-tax-renewab…

Based on what you believe is the future and whether or not you believe they agree with your vision of the future

Bettyfuckedinthehead, all planning for the future is based on what someone or group believe. Basing those decisions on the best available evidence is the most prudent course of action in any situation.

Because you deniers have no good evidence, all you can do is whinge about uncertainties which pertain to any plans for the future and your cretinous 'beliefs' which mean nothing.

Lionel, I stand corrected…apologies to chek. Same ideologies…different names.

That took you a while with something oh so simple. Little wonder your grasp of the big issues is so faulty.

Now remind me who picked up the tab for all those greedy, lying bastards who ran one banking scam after another. Yes the tax payer. Meanwhile Fred Goodwin, for one, got away with his loot and he wasn't the only one who managed to ring fence his ill-gotten gains. Then there was Bob Diamond - he left a bank with big holes such that they are now shedding thousands of jobs in the UK.

It is always the little people who get caught in the meat grinder, third world comes to the first world. Noticed how many need to use food banks to survive and now we will have the fall out from all this extreme weather and still you don't grasp why this is happening and pick cherries as if they mean something they do not.

You are ineducable. After awhile chewing birch bark becomes not worth the effort.

You are ineducable.

His denial is so powerful that it is causing him to deny matters of fact. This is actually insanity, so yes, I would agree.

I thought the science was settled? I thought the future was settled?

Thinking is a bit too advanced an activity for a moron like you. You only end up with erroneous conclusions.

The reports I saw...

You mean of course the trash denier sites you follow.

I see Betty is linking to the catallaxyfiles now. Bit of a tell, that, Betty. Your ideology is showing.

It's no surprise that trashy, tenth-rate mytherings from cranks and fruitcakes are what passes for information in Betty's fucked head.

I see Betty is linking to the catallaxyfiles now.

Well that is His sink level, to mention another moron.

BBD:

I see Betty is linking to the catallaxyfiles now...

Well that is His sink level, to mention another moron.

Connectivity issues here, maybe behind BBC News site issues. I'll change the target in my ping/traceroute logger.

Betty. Seriously. One more pathetic McCarthyite allusion to "global justice" and you've conceded you have nothing other than sophomoric red-baiting left. I mean, really? This is it?

WE ALL KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN, CLOWN. WE ALL KNOW THIS DOGWHISTLE. YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.

BBD, what Betty is saying is that he cannot answer your question. That's because it proves that the long term climatic data sets prove without a shadow of a doubt that it is indeed, warming. And long-term biotic proxies prove this as well.

The scientific community moved on years ago. But since common sense is dwarfed by the power and intransigence of corporate-owned governments (what Sheldon Wolin refers to as 'Inverted totalitarianism' in the US), then very little or noting has been, or will be done until its too late.

Im currently reading economic hit man author John Perkins second book entitled 'The Secret History of the American Empire'. Pretty appalling reading, really, but says it all. He refers to the US as a 'corporatocracy'. Read alongside Michael Parenti's equally excellent 'Imperialism' and it becomes clear why mitigating climate change is never going to be a priority of western government and corporate planners.

The other day Betula, overwhelmed by a little basic ecology I wrote in here, concluded that ecological systems are too complex to make any decisions about the consequences of warming. Of course that is bullshit, but it is expected from someone with a less than sophomoric understanding of the field. As the paper by Papas-Moller in PNAS showed, long distance migratory birds that are unable to keep up with warming in their breeding ranges due to shifts in the phenology of their main insect prey are declining.

This is empirical proof if ever there was that climate change is shifting the seasonal life cycles of species in food web, unraveling them in many cases and driving species declines. The empirical literature is full of examples. But Betty doesn't read the primary literature. All I can say tho those who have some faith in scientists is that the opinions of people like Betula aren't even considered in scientific conferences. Its accepted the AGW is stressing ecosystems and driving the decline of species and populations. Case closed. What scientists aren't able to do, however, is to shift a political system hell-bent on taking us down the drain in the hunger for short term profit. Nobody can say that the warnings have not been raised. But as long as we remain prisoners of a political and economic ideology that is based on greed and profit, then the future in my opinion is dire.

BBD @ # 35 & 36 & 44 & 46 & 51 & 56 !!!!!!
Somewhere in there you answered it yourself to your own personal satisfaction.
Just as well others don't carry on and on chucking tantrums when they don't have their rather obvious, deliberately framed questions answered (although perhaps the owner of this blog would like that, as it definitely increases traffic).
BTW, it is a bit of a silly question as questions involving climate or weather should not be reduced to a simplistic a) or b)
However,
Jeff Harvey has had a go above @# 63, replete with an ideology that is just as noticeable as the one you complain about @ # 58. (and a little bit of that 'conspiracy' type stuff as well)
It appears that the real point of contention here is therefore the ideology?

Jeff

I'm very pleased to see you back. I now challenge Betty's 'deputy hypothesis' by expressing pleasure at an event outside my control. Unless, that is, you are being controlled by me, which you can confirm or deny ;-)

* * *

What scientists aren’t able to do, however, is to shift a political system hell-bent on taking us down the drain in the hunger for short term profit.

Poor scientists. They do all the work and get all the blame. Stuck in the ice? Bad scientists on a jolly (don't trust those climate scientists). Ecological scientists with hair on fire? Commies. Don't trust them. Paleoclimatologists? Making stuff up. Don't even bother. Atmospheric physicists? Got it all wrong mate. No idea.

Yet all they were missing was an armchair and an ideology.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

No end to Stu 2's astonishing intellectual dishonesty in sight, so let's press on with a slightly different approach:

November-only global monthly average temperature 1880 - 2013

This November was the 345th consecutive month when global average temperature exceeded the C20th average.

These are matters of fact. This is not weather it is climate change with both annual and seasonal expressions.

Do you accept this as a matter of fact? Yes or no.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That's a better question BBD although you just can't seem to avoid the a) or b) or, yes or no or, either/or approach.
I am not disputing the actual statistic itself at all BBD, nor am I arguing that the climate is in a statistical stasis or, if you like, not changing.
Would you now consider answering the questions asked of you @#17?
I also wouldn't mind if you answered the one asked @#64.

I am not disputing the actual statistic itself at all BBD, nor am I arguing that the climate is in a statistical stasis or, if you like, not changing.

I'm going to take that as a "yes" to the question:

This is not weather it is climate change with both annual and seasonal expressions.

What known change in forcings has occurred sufficient to explain the increase in OHC and GAT?

Here's a clue.

Now, you have two problems. First, you have to explain why the GHG forcing is inefficacious, which is going to give you headaches when you look at Cenozoic hyperthermals and Quaternary glacial cycles and orbital forcing.

Second, you have to provide an *alternative* physical mechanism explaining the increase in OHC and GAT and - here'e the fun part - reconcile it with a climate system apparently unaffected by increased RF from GHGs.

This I have to see.

BBD @# 70
No answers to my questions?
However in answer to you:
I have no headaches or problems and because I am not disputing there is such a thing as GHGs I fail to understand why you would summarily demand I have to explain why it is *inefficacious* (because I don't believe it is) or provide an *alternative* or even *reconcile it* it with anything.
But to simplify it for you.
I have not disputed your statistical figure and I have not disputed that GHGs can impact climate or weather.
You might consider explaining however why you:
a) habitually exaggerate the associated research and draw conclusions that are not in the associated research
b) assume every question has either a BBD predetermined answer or a BBD predetermined choice of answer.
c) Only answer questions that you asked yourself or questions that you weren't asked.

This is not an answer to the questions.

* * *

a) habitually exaggerate the associated research and draw conclusions that are not in the associated research

I dispute this. Examples, please.

A spot more mood music for everyone to enjoy!

Here's a little hint for you BBD.
There is a big, huge difference between 'highly efficacious' and 'inefficacious'. The bulk of the scientific research concludes neither inefficacious or highly efficacious WRT Anthropogenic CO2 or other human GHG emissions.
But anyway, I'm still patiently waiting for you to answer questions that you have been directly asked rather than
b) & c) @ # 71 that you apparently don't dispute?

Stu2, There's nothing idealogical in detailing the underlying political and economic forces that are driving the destruction of the biosphere and social injustice. Not is there anything conspiratorial about it. You also make my comments seem as if they are 'controversial' because they fall outside of the general discourse in which our nations are described in the media as generally supporting peace, freedom, human rights and democracy. As a few journalists like Glen Greenwald, Chris Hedges, John Pilger and others have shown, when one scratches just barely below the surface the real truth emerges and it is a far cry from the we are bombarded with every day in the corporate media.

If you are unaware of this, then its a waste of time going any further. Like Olaus and Betty, you prefer to accept the prevailing myths that would make Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann proud. Its amazing to me that anyone who challenges the accepted wisdom is seen as a 'radical' whose views are crazy or dangerous. The term 'manufacturing consent' well applies to so many out there who wish to accept the myths of the 'goodness' and 'decency' of our political system, when as I said a small look deeper shows that it is rotten to the core.

Listen to Chris Hedges and please tell me where is is 'so radical' and 'far out'. IMHO his points here hit the proverbial nail on the head.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&…

Here's a little hint for you, Stu 2: you are in no position to talk down to me. Your absolute cluelessness about everything is the defining characteristic of your commentary - apart that is from its utter intellectual dishonesty.

Now stop your evasive wriggling and get your head applied to the questions.

* * *

Second, you made a dishonest claim about me:

a) habitually exaggerate the associated research and draw conclusions that are not in the associated research

I objected and asked you to substantiate it and you have not done so. Do you therefore retract your dishonest claim?

@ 2Stupid

Let's recap.

I am not disputing the actual statistic itself at all BBD, nor am I arguing that the climate is in a statistical stasis or, if you like, not changing.

I’m going to take that as a “yes” to the question:

This is not weather it is climate change with both annual and seasonal expressions. Do you accept this as a matter of fact? Yes or no.

So, what known change in forcings has occurred that is sufficient to explain the measured increase in OHC and GAT?

Here's a clue. Please note that the vertical axis indicates the radiative forcing change associated with the change in the atmospheric fraction of each gas. You were quibbling stupidly and evasively about efficacy of forcing, so you have either not looked at these graphs or did not understand them, or you are being stupid and blatantly evasive.

Now, you have two problems. First, you have to explain why the GHG forcing is inefficacious, which is going to give you headaches when you look at Cenozoic hyperthermals and Quaternary glacial cycles under orbital forcing.

Second, you have to provide an *alternative* physical mechanism explaining the increase in OHC and GAT and – here’e the fun part – reconcile it with a climate system apparently unaffected by increased RF from GHGs.

I don't think you've understood the last bit, so perhaps you should just read it again until understanding blossoms, if it ever does.

b) & c) @ # 71 that you apparently don’t dispute?

Bollocks that didn't merit a response.

"But how do they pay Chek. A tax? A tax on what? "

YOU are the one suggesting a tax, betty.

If you don't know what to tax, why did you bring it up?

Chek….”The answer as always is the tax payer”

Lionel…..”Where did chek say anything about taxes”

Yup, talking about taxpayers, not taxing.

Silly girl.

"Aren’t the tax payers the ones using the resources gained from fracking?"

No.

W. Connoley throws Turney under the bus. How dare he!

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2014/01/05/the-spirit-of-mawson/

No he doesn't, your reading skills are just shit Olap, and worryingly dependent on your wish fulfilment fantasies.

Oh, and when a denier organises a scientific expedition - or even a piss-up in a brewery - you and your idiotically crowing cronies be sure to let us know now y'hear, y'all.

Woof Bark Woof!

Heh, "throwing under a bus" is rather trite coming from denier trolls that have thrown Lord Monckfish under the bus every time the moron has done something so mindbendingly stupid that they prefer to pretend he's a nonentity (for the moment, they'll parrot his statements when this furore dies down, don't you worry) rather than fail at justifying the stupid.

Wow...."YOU are the one suggesting a tax, betty."

Um, not really. We are talking about developed nations paying for the development of undeveloped nations. We are talking about obligations. We are talking about morals. We are talking about how the developed nations became that way by plundered the resources of underdeveloped nations. We are talking about the consumers in the rich nations being selfish and greedy. We are talking about the damage their actions are going to do to the future global environment. We are talking about how the poor nations will be more greatly affected by climate change than rich nations. We are talking about climate justice and global justice. We are talking about the U.N. and it's ability to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We are talking about developed nations forgetting about self interests and thinking globally. We are talking about the integration of climate policy, development and sustainability. We are talking about the joint effort of many U.N organizations in helping to achieve the MDG"S and global equality.

We're talking about the WMO and the MDG"S:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/themes/weather/developmentgoals.html

We're talking about the WHO and MDG"S:
http://www.who.int/topics/millennium_development_goals/en/

We"re talking about UNEP and the MDG'S:
http://www.unep-wcmc.org/biodiversity-conservation-and-the-millennium-d…,

We"re talking about UNDP and the MDG'S:
http://www.undp.org/content/ghana/en/home/mdgoverview.html

We"re talking about UNFCCC and the MDG'S:
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/environmentandenergy/s…

We"re talking about the IPCC and the MDG's:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch20s20-7-1.html

We"re talking about the Chairman of the IPCC and the MDG"S:
http://www.kautilyasociety.com/tvph/pandits/r_k_pachauri.htm

We're talking about many other U.N.organizations and the MDG's:
UN/DESA, UN/DPI, ESCA, IMF, ITC, ITU, OECD, UNCTA, UNESCO, UNFIP, UNIDO, UNITAR, UNISDR, UNOPS, UNFPA, UNRISD, World Bank, WFP, WTO
UNWTO and more....

Do you disagree with any this Wow?

The question now becomes one of how do we finance the MDG'S in order to create equality?. How do we redistribute wealth from rich nations to poor nations to correct the long term climate and global injustices that have been done?

When this question was asked of Barney, his response (Dec. #53, pg 4) was:

"By tax, obviously. You appear to object to tax and I do not"

In other words...Bow Wow, Bow Wow!, which roughly translated means I was not the "one suggesting a tax"

But since a tax was suggested by Barney, the question now becomes...what mechanism do we tax, and what authoritative body that speaks as a consensus can we point to in order to justify taxing that mechanism?

These are tough questions to answer, so take your time, we don't need anybody having another hyperthermalism.

BBD @ #77-79
These were the answers to your questions:
"When discussing climate and weather, despite your framing, there is no a or b single right answer"
&
" questions involving climate or weather should not be reduced to a simplistic a) or b)"
& later:
" I have not disputed your statistical figure and I have not disputed that GHGs can impact climate or weather."

Perhaps I also should have explained that there isn't a simple yes or no answer to your questions?
I assumed that people here understood that the climate and the weather are variable and complicated entities that can't be explained by reducing them to simple social equations.
That is apparently not the case as you have taken it as a 'yes'.

Jeff Harvey @ # 79
Do you perhaps see the irony in this comment re 'the politics' and 'consensus'; especially here at Deltoid?

" Its amazing to me that anyone who challenges the accepted wisdom is seen as a ‘radical’ whose views are crazy or dangerous. The term ‘manufacturing consent’ well applies to so many out there who wish to accept the myths of the ‘goodness’ and ‘decency’ of our political system, when as I said a small look deeper shows that it is rotten to the core."

2Stuid to blockquote please learn to do so your quote salad is not easy to follow and furthermore is not worth the effort when done.

“When discussing climate and weather, despite your framing, there is no a or b single right answer”

Rubbish and lies. The answer is climate change with annual and seasonal expression. I even gave it to you and still you spout your denialist bollocks.

Shut off the evasions and lies and deal with this.

Demonstrate some shred of intellectual honesty instead of lying to me and to yourself. It's disgusting to behold.

Well yes BBD.
" The answer is climate change with annual and seasonal expression"
Well done!
Of course it isn't either/or. Or a simple yes or no. Or simply just climate or weather.

Wait, have we established Stu2's level of denial yet?

Stu2, please pick where you stop following along:

1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
2) CO2 is a major factor in global climate change.
3) Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have started to produce CO2 in levels sufficient to affect climate.
4) This effect is accelerating.
5) This effect could be minimized by minimizing global emissions.

Let's start with that.

Stu, I remember we tried that with Betula and co a few months ago.

They struggled with coherent responses then, and I doubt that Stu 2 will be any better able to respond now.

It will be interesting to see, though...

Established a level of denial?
That's an interesting concept Lionel A.
What does that mean exactly?
It sounds like you and Bernard J think it's some type of computer game that you have specifically designed for people like Betula and co to judge their 'coherence' abilities according to an unclear set of rules (that you must have figured out by now)
If one stops following at perhaps, number 2, does that mean they reached level 2 in this game?
Or maybe if one follows perhaps, number 5, but not any of the others, does that mean they made it to level 5 and hence won the game ?

Apologies Lionel A. It's Stu's game of levels, not yours.
You were actually the one complaining that my comments are hard to follow.
Since when was it unacceptable practice to separate quotes and put them inside quotation marks like this:

" 2Stuid to blockquote please learn to do so your quote salad is not easy to follow and furthermore is not worth the effort when done."
??

Actually Lionel A , that whole sentence of yours is rather hard to follow, but not because you did or didn't use blockquote.

<blockquote>I estimate that more than 70% of deniers cannot do this</blockquote>

I estimate that more than 70% of deniers simply cannot do this

Of those incapables, 90% will refuse to learn the code, even when shown the HTML. As above. I've done this several times here at Deltoid - not more than one of you has bothered to learn it.

Reactionaries incapable of admitting error or deficiency, much?

"Established a level of denial?
That’s an interesting concept Lionel A."

You misspelt "accurate", stu-pid.

"What does that mean exactly?"

It means that your established M.O. here on deltoid is to deny any fact and make up any statement to deny the climate science that gives you an answer that sits badly with your ideology, dumbass.

"You were actually the one complaining that my comments are hard to follow."

And this is saying what? This is not clarifying your comments, nor is it displaying any explanation of why you think that attribution is incorrect.

It is a statement of zero content and value. So why did you make it?

"Since when was it unacceptable practice to separate quotes and put them inside quotation marks like this..."

If you push a lot of quotes then it becomes hard to follow what's going on, especially if a lot of "scare quotes", "definitional statements" and "paraphrasing" is going on, which ALSO require "quote marks" around them, therefore making it hard to determine when someone such as yourself is flailing badly and making little sense (because you are not here to make sense, only noise) is quoting someone, who it is from and where you're NOT quoting someone.

For an arselick who likes to "dodge" questions and accusations with "Where did I say EXACTLY THOSE WORDS?", you really don't care to either denote which are literal quotes (therefore immune to the "exactly those words" dodge) nor avoid re-phrasing (therefore deliberately opening the "exactly those words" dodge, which you invariably avoid answering, preferring to leave the accusation of a statement never said to backing up the location of that statement).

If this is just too difficult to follow, I suggest going some place where the level of education is lower.

"Actually Lionel A , that whole sentence of yours is rather hard to follow, but not because you did or didn’t use blockquote."

So you are agreeing that not using blockquotes makes following a conversation difficult, despite saying in the same comment: “Since when was it unacceptable practice to separate quotes and put them inside quotation marks like this…”

THIS is your denier M.O. right here: you do not care what you say or do, all you need to do is piss in the pool you're standing in.

Stu Pid: "Of course it isn’t either/or. "
Stu Pid earlier: “When discussing climate and weather, despite your framing, there is no a or b single right answer”

So you're clinically insane?

That's an interesting statistic Bill.
So does that mean that only 30% of all those people who regularly use blockquotes when they comment at sites like WUWT or Jonova or Judith Curry or numerous others are the only deniers around (based on you estimation that 70% of deniers simply cannot do this)?
Or maybe have 90% of the 30% (or maybe the 70%?) of all those commenters revealed themselves as deniers?
And it's simply fascinating why, suddenly, the use of blockquotes or the non use of blockquotes (of all things) would actually reveal anything important about anyone much at all.

And it’s simply fascinating why, suddenly, the use of blockquotes or the non use of blockquotes (of all things) would actually reveal anything important about anyone much at all.

Oh, it's not "suddenly" fascinating.

It's long been recognised by the upper quartile that the lower quartile is over-represented in both the Denialati and in the Illiterati. It's just that the significance of the relationship is lost on the likes of you.

And a clue, for free. Learn to separate your paragraphs and you'll appear to have jumped a whole quartile in an instant - it's not just you inability to quote that renders your guff unintelligible.

Better still, learn some science and you appear to have grown a brain overnight...

The evasions continue, so I repost the evaded for a new page.

2Stupid get on with it.

I am not disputing the actual statistic itself at all BBD, nor am I arguing that the climate is in a statistical stasis or, if you like, not changing.

I’m going to take that as a “yes” to the question:

This is not weather it is climate change with both annual and seasonal expressions. Do you accept this as a matter of fact? Yes or no.

What known change in forcings has occurred sufficient to explain the increase in OHC and GAT?

Here's a clue. Please note that the vertical axis indicates the radiative forcing change associated with the change in the atmospheric fraction of each gas. You were quibbling stupidly about efficacy of forcing, so you have either not looked at these graphs or did not understand them. This is a further helpful clue for you. I have mentioned your characteristic cluelessness before.

Now, you have two problems. First, you have to explain why the GHG forcing is inefficacious, which is going to give you headaches when you look at Cenozoic hyperthermals and Quaternary glacial cycles and orbital forcing.

Second, you have to provide an *alternative* physical mechanism explaining the increase in OHC and GAT and – here’e the fun part – reconcile it with a climate system apparently unaffected by increased RF from GHGs.

I don't think you've understood the last bit, so perhaps you should just read it again until understanding blossoms, if it ever does.

Let's start off as others suggest, with a basic question that you have evaded, lied about and denied already:

- is CO2 a greenhouse gas capable of significantly effecting Earth's climate state? Yes or no?

- is CH4 a greenhouse gas capable of significantly effecting Earth's climate state? Yes or no?

No more horse-shit evasions about binary answers. These are yes/no questions. So answer them please. Then we will move on, in baby steps, towards the inevitable conclusion.

That's interesting, Stu Pid.

You asked a question "Since when..." and it was answered and you never acknowledged it.

You asked a question "What does it mean..." and it was answered and you never acknowledged it.

You seem to ask questions and then never notice the answer.

Why do you ask questions you're not in the least bit interested in being answered?

Back to my question.....we all agree that in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals they need to be financed. But what mechanism do we tax, and what authoritative body that speaks as a consensus can we point to in order to justify taxing that mechanism?

If we are looking to have a legitimate authority to point to, usually it helps if that authority has some sort of award or prize we can point to in order to prove their legitimacy....like a Nobel Peace Prize:

"As Max Weber famously said, power with legitimacy equals authority and the Nobel peace prize may be seen as symbolic of that kind of authority, what in constructivist terms is called “moral authority.” The Nobel peace prize thus becomes a sort of a moral entrepreneur and authority that in many ways then decides for example, not only who is in violation of human rights but also what human rights are!"

http://www.governancenow.com/views/columns/power-and-politics-nobel

But what could a Peace Prize possibly have to do with the MDG'S?

Let's take a quick look going back to 2004:

1. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 was awarded to Wangari Maathai. Any guesses what she is up to?
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/advocates/members/wangari-maathai.sht…

2. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 was awarded to The International Atomic Energy Agency. Any guesses what they are involved with?

http://www.iaea.org/technicalcooperation/Partnerships/Relation-UN/MDGs/

3. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus. Any guesses?

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/advocates/members/muhammad-yunus.shtml

Here's Ole Danbolt Mjø The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in his 2006 presentation speech:

"The United Nations' number one Millennium Development Goal is to halve global poverty by 2015. Achieving that goal will require global mobilization. Will you join in, will your country join in, and will national leaders join in to meet this challenge? There is a long way to go, but we must travel it together. The aim must be peace with justice in the world. And justice means a life in dignity. The Norwegian Nobel Committee underlines that "lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty". Peace with justice must be built from below, by means to which Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have contributed"

http://www.muhammadyunus.org/index.php/professor-yunus/nobel-peace-prize

4. Martti Ahtisaari won the prize in 2008. What has Martti been up to?

http://www.kabissa.org/tags/martti-ahtisaari

As you can see, this award has been good for Millennium Development advocacy, still, they need to be financed by the wealthy nations that created the problems in the first place... which brings us back to the question:

What mechanism can we use to redistribute the wealth and finance these goals? And what authoritative body that speaks as a consensus can we give this award to in order to create the moral authority needed to legitimize and justify the use of that mechanism?

And it’s simply fascinating why, suddenly, the use of blockquotes or the non use of blockquotes (of all things) would actually reveal anything important about anyone much at all.

Asked and answered in the December thread.

It reveals you are lazy, incompetent and/or trolling -- most likely all three.

Why do deniers try to pull this sophomoric I-didn't-read-that or I-didn't-like-the-answer but I-am-oh-so-fascinated-still claptrap? Sooner or later they all start doing it. I still can't figure the reasoning... assuming people are as dumb as they are? Hoping nobody remembers? Unaware people can spend twenty seconds and prove them wrong?

Boggles.

More fodder to make the 2stupids even more 2stupid has arrived as Matt Riddley scores another point that should accelerate the downfall of the GWPF, that is if the Charity Commission has any decency.

This has just become a very big if in the light of judging by recent performance and changes at the top.

In the next few weeks, a replacement for its lame-duck chief executive, Sam Younger, is to be interviewed (Younger leaves in August). Its Tory-appointed chair, William Shawcross, has to prove he is no mere hatchet man but can stand up to ministers over its depleted budget. Battered staff must convince auditors, and the public, that the tax privileges that come with charity registration are only awarded to deserving organisations.

Little wonder the GWPF don't give a fig.

BBD @ # 4
Because you have inserted emotive, descriptive language in these questions and you claim you are attempting to:

'move onto the inevitable conclusion'

they are not answerable with a simple yes or no.

Let's try it this way:
1) CO2 is (among other things) a greenhouse gas that plays a role in the atmosphere and the climate
2) Methane is (among other things) a greenhouse gas that plays a role in the atmosphere and the climate.

Both these compounds are essential for life on earth and research indicates the concentration of these compounds in our atmosphere has varied in levels throughout the history of the planet.

Because you have inserted emotive, descriptive language in these questions and you claim you are attempting to:

‘move onto the inevitable conclusion’

they are not answerable with a simple yes or no.

You are an evasive liar and this statement is patently false.

Get on with it:

What known change in forcings has occurred sufficient to explain the increase in OHC and GAT?

Here's a clue. Please note that the vertical axis indicates the radiative forcing change associated with the change in the atmospheric fraction of each gas. You were quibbling evasively about efficacy of forcing, so you have either not looked at these graphs or did not understand them.

Now would be the time to get to grips with this.

BTW you have now conceded the following points:

- CO2 is a greenhouse gas capable of significantly effecting Earth’s climate state.

And:

- CH4 is a greenhouse gas capable of significantly effecting Earth’s climate state.

Your ridiculous evasive charade notwithstanding.

#6 Real Stu

Can you believe this idiot liar? Like Betty, right off the scale.

Now some questions for you BBD as we seem to have agreed that CO2 and CH4 are GHGs.
1)What is the *major* GHG in the earth's atmosphere?
2)What is the current ppm of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere and what is the accepted or scientifically agreed *ideal* ppm range for our atmosphere?

Water vapour, percentage determined by the ppmv of non-condensing GHGs CO2 and CH4 (which oxidises to CO2 anyway).

No fucking crap about "ideals", idiot. These gasses represent forcings and if you increase them, the forcing increases - look at the graphs will you, FFS.

We are adapted to a Holocene climate. Jack up CO2 from ~280ppm (pre-industrial Holocene) to >400ppm and you get a re-run of the Eemian, if not the mid-Pliocene. Your problem is that you don't understand the topic and you are in denial. The question here is will you ever wake up and admit these things and start to think.

Look at the graphs.

Look at the forcing value on the vertical axis. Think.

Dr. Spencer seems a bit unhappy about his Creationism being discussed by journalists, and goes into bat against practically the entire field of biological science in a bravura display of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

In addition he asserts that he doesn't agree with every element of the Cornwall Alliance's position statement, which would be far more interesting if he didn't go on to essentially argue that he doesn't think (like the Cornwall Alliance) that our GHG emissions are OK because God won't let us really screw things up, he thinks they're OK because nature won't.

BBD, Stu2 has lost, big time. When he writes "Both these compounds are essential for life on earth and research indicates the concentration of these compounds in our atmosphere has varied in levels throughout the history of the planet" of course he is evading the question and, more importantly, the point. That is that *rapid atmospheric shifts - increases or decreases - of these gases will lead to rapid changes in biotic properties across the biosphere that will affect the the assembly and functioning of ecosystems. In turn these will affect the resilience, resistance and hence stability of ecosystems making them potentially more prone to collapse".

Ultimately this is the crux of it.... and how these rapid changes in biotic processes and properties will ripple through food chains and affect ecosystem services that sustain human civilization.

Stu2 can't debate his way out of a soaking wet paper bag. That's why blog discussions are often a waste of time. Ina face-to-face debate he could not selectively dismiss inconvenient arguments, but on the internet he can write whatever he likes and dismiss the rest. All of the deniers do it. What strikes me is how utterly useless they are when it comes to science. They don't understand the concept of scale, they don't know a thing about complex adaptive systems and the interplay between biotic and abiotic processes, and yet they are willing to expose their brazen stupidity on blogs. This is clearly because they actually think that they are informed.

Lotharsson

Thanks for the link - I rarely read Spencer's blog and would have missed this. A couple of thoughts in passing:

Except that I view CO2 as one of those cases where nature, on a whole, benefits from more of our “pollution”. The scientific evidence is increasingly supporting this position.

This is not a big stretch considering that CO2 is necessary for life to exist on Earth, and yet only 4 molecules out of every 10,000 in the atmosphere are CO2.

Er, what "evidence" would that be, Roy? Perhaps RS should actually talk to ecosystem scientists instead of arguing from assertion and ignorance.

Why do I support it [the Cornwall Alliance]? The central reason is I believe that current green energy policies are killing poor people.

Anything that reduces prosperity kills the poor.

Another argument from assertion that comes so close to a lie as to be indistinguishable from falsehood.

While I'm tolerably convinced that RS is in fact sincere, there is no doubt that he is profoundly misguided.

* * *

Jeff Harvey

You might have a few things to say to RS about his little sortie into fields not his own...

And agreed about Stu2. Or maybe not. I see no evidence in our entire, painful and prolonged history of "discussions" here that Stu2 ever had an "it" to lose. He is utterly out of his depth but so sunk in denial and a bizarre, false sense that he has a clue that he continues to "argue" no matter how savagely and how often his errors are demonstrated. In that sense I fully agree that he is apparently a hopeless case.

"they are not answerable with a simple yes or no."

Yes they are.

What other answer to

is CO2 a greenhouse gas capable of significantly effecting Earth’s climate state?

is CH4 a greenhouse gas capable of significantly effecting Earth’s climate state?

Is there other than yes or no?

Are they CAPABLE?

Either they are or they aren't.

“Both these compounds are essential for life on earth"

So is cyanide.

Apoptosis. Read it.

So please let me know Stu Pid where I can send the cyanide for you to eat.

"1)What is the *major* GHG in the earth’s atmosphere?"

Yes.

"2)What is the current ppm of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere and what is the accepted or scientifically agreed *ideal* ppm range for our atmosphere?"

No.

BBD, I read Roy's little rant and all i can say is that it reeks of hypocrisy and simplicity. He writes nonsense like this, "Except that I view CO2 as one of those cases where nature, on a whole, benefits from more of our “pollution”. The scientific evidence is increasingly supporting this position".

What evidence? The evidence from natural systems doesn't support this at all, and even that from controlled lab experiments which exclude a wide array of mitigating factors often only shows quantitative changes in plant biomass accompanied by changes in quality as a result of changing C:N:P ratios. And what about soil acidification, and other non-linear effects?

The problem with Spencer in my opinion is that his views are clearly ideologically driven. He writes about radical environmentalism but doesn't appear to express much concern about radical corporatism or "inverted totalitarianism"as described by Sheldon Wolin (and reiterated by Chris Hedges in the interview I pasted up here a few days ago). The US has undergone a slow motion coup-det-tat into a fully fledged corporate state, and Spencer expresses outrage over 'radical environmentalism', as if this group has any influence over public policy.

Spencer in my opinion is one of those scientists who gets a lot of media attention because he is one of few supposedly qualified people whose views fall outside the academic mainstream. Yet when he writes utter bilge as in his rant, it makes me shake my head in wonder. Its essentially comic book level stuff, absolutely devoid of political or economic reality. Much of it is cringe inducing. What else can I say.

"What evidence?"

The evidence of his claim that it is so, Jeff.

Nothing else is needed for deniers. Just the claim, as long as it is a claim that says we should do nothing about AGW.

Wow, you are correct. Deniers say something; no scientific evidence needs to be procured. We are supposed to accept it and move on. No questions asked.

Sloth...

"Dr. Spencer seems a bit unhappy about his Creationism being discussed by journalists"

Strange, you seem to have ignored the content of the original article...

"that the “alarmists” call on governments to adopt policies reducing the amounts of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. As a result of such policies—and a fortuitous increase in natural gas production—U.S. greenhouse emissions are at a 20-year low and falling. But global emissions are rising, thanks to massive increases in energy use in the developing world, particularly in China and India. If the “alarmists” are right, then, a way must be found to compel the major developing countries to reduce carbon emissions"

And how will we reduce carbon emissions in the developing nations that we are morally obligated to develope? And where will the financing come from to do this?

"But Lindzen rejects the dire projections. For one thing, he says that the Summary for Policymakers is an inherently problematic document. The IPCC report itself, weighing in at thousands of pages, is “not terrible. It’s not unbiased, but the bias [is] more or less to limit your criticism of models,” he says. The Summary for Policymakers, on the other hand—the only part of the report that the media and the politicians pay any attention to—“rips out doubts to a large extent. .  .  . [Furthermore], government representatives have the final say on the summary.” Thus, while the full IPPC report demonstrates a significant amount of doubt among scientists, the essentially political Summary for Policymakers filters it out."

Why would government representatives boil down the uncertainties to reduce doubt? Hmmm?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/what-catastrophe_773268.html?pag…

#22; #23

Per Spencer, who argues from assertion. Somehow I missed the fact that he also uses one of the oldest, and most debunked denier myths of all: the "CO2 is a trace gas" myth. I need to modify my own remarks - while I believe Spencer's religious faith is sincere, it is hard to believe that an atmospheric scientist of his experience can seriously present the "trace gas" fallacy.

Perhaps I should have said that the problem here is that Spencer's belief system goes much further than embracing Christianity (see Jeff's #21).

Betty, stop paying attention to Lindzen and Spencer. Neither has any remaining credibility.

Why would government representatives boil down the uncertainties to reduce doubt? Hmmm?

You are arguing without any proof whatsoever. Just as discussed above - you argue from assertion which is a logical fallacy beloved of deniers.

Since you argue from assertion and commit a formal logical fallacy, you have actually said nothing at all except that you are frighteningly biased and unbalanced in your views and can consequently be ignored with impunity.

I checked up on Spencer's publication list since 1990: there are 29. And these have only 1100 citations.

In other words, extremely mediocre. And yet Spencer is touted as a household name in denier circles. What this shows is how thin on the ground denier ranks are in terms of qualified scientists. Even Lindzen's publication and citation rate are not that extraordinary. And he's considered to be the 'dean'of scientists in the area.

"Why would government representatives boil down the uncertainties to reduce doubt?"

We didn't KNOW Hitler wanted to rule Europe. There were uncertainties in working out what he wanted.

Why would deniers want to do nothing in the face of evidence that change is necessary?

"For one thing, he says that the Summary for Policymakers is an inherently problematic document."

He also says that the bible is the most scientifically accurate report of prehistory.

The problem with Lindzen is that his relatively few publications supporting his only real scientifically relevant climate change argument - that of low climate sensitivity - have been comprehensively rebutted. He has no scientific case yet he keeps on pretending that his position has scientific merit. It doesn't. But that matter of fact doesn't stop "sceptics" waving Lindzen at us at every turn. If they only realised how weak this was I suspect they'd drop him pretty quickly. But they are "sceptics" not sceptics, so they do not bother to check the facts.

Its funny that the same people have been constantly touted as experts when downplaying AGW since the early 1990s: Lindzen, Michaels, Spencer, Christy, Carter, Ball, Baliunas, Soon, Idso's, Balling, Singer, etc. I recall that a leaked memo from the American Petroleum Institute in about 1997 warned that the fossil fuel lobby risked "losing credibility with the public" in the warming debate if they continued to rely on the same tired, old faces to argue their case. So the memo recommended that a new generation of climate scientists needed to be 'recruited' to argue the case against AGW.

So where are we now 17 years later? The "sceptics" are still dependent on the same people: Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Michaels, Singer et al.

That should say something: that the denial industry has great trouble finding those 'new names'. So they are forced to stick with the dinosaurs.

And furthermore, the culpable behaviour of such as Lindzen [1] is giving cover for this sort of vandalism:

08/012014 Government misleads on well abandonment - a vital issue and another government failure.

Time for a UK version of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, perhaps.

[1]as with his talk in a side room of Whitehall the intent of which was to mess with the brains of lay politicians and lookers on, TVMOB had a hand in this too doubtless working with, or for, the GWPF.

"You are arguing without any proof whatsoever"

Really? Then explain to me how it looks like the IPCC AR5 makes a weaker case for AGW than the AR4, yet the AR5 SPM increased it's level of confidence regarding AGW?

"Several key elements of the report point to a weakening of the case for attributing the warming of human influences:"

◾Lack of warming since 1998 and growing discrepancies with climate model projections
◾Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in CO2
◾Evidence that sea level rise in 1920-1950 is of the same magnitude as in 1993-2012
◾Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent
◾Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming

http://judithcurry.com/about/

"ou are arguing without any proof whatsoever”

Really?

Yes, really.

"explain to me how it looks like the IPCC AR5 makes a weaker case for AGW than the AR4, yet the AR5 SPM increased it’s level of confidence regarding AGW?"

How you interpret things to say what you'd like is a problem of your own making, we cannot explain the inscrutable exhortations of your ideological fantasies.

"◾Lack of warming since 1998"

No lack exists. There's plenty.

"◾Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in CO2"

And evidence of increased sensitivity of the environment to climate changes.

"◾Evidence that sea level rise in 1920-1950 is of the same magnitude as in 1993-2012"

So what.

"◾Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent"

Spreading butter does not increase the amount of butter on your toast when it melts the butter.

"◾Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming "

Weather is not climate.

Sorry, wrong link above

http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-for-agw/

"Spreading butter does not increase the amount of butter on your toast when it melts the butter"

Unless, like you, you spread it on thick...

"Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming"

Wow....."Weather is not climate"

So extreme weather events shouldn't be attributed to AGW? Wow, I'm surprised you feel that way, but thanks for your honesty.

Oh fuck off with the tired denier myths and misrepresentations Betty:

- Lack of warming since 1998 and growing discrepancies with climate model projections

Excludes OHC increase, ignores transient variability in ocean heat uptake, relies on statistically insignificant cherry-pick of surface T and a misrepresentation of the skill and design purpose of climate models. This claim is misleading and without merit.

- Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in CO2

You fucking what? Reference this bollocks please. For the exact opposite evidence, see Hansen et al. (2013); Caballero & Huber (2013); Trenberth & Fasullo (2013); Sherwood et al. (2014).

- Evidence that sea level rise in 1920-1950 is of the same magnitude as in 1993-2012

What a stupid and blatant cherry-pick. Look at the whole century.

- Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent

Anthropogenic - increased zonal windspeeds > increased upwelling > increased basal melt from ice shelves > increased glacial flow rate > increased ice mass loss > increased surface freshening > increased sea ice. Do some fucking reading, chump.

- Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming

Misrepresentation. There remains low confidence in attributing extreme storminess to AGW. Extreme summer heatwaves are clearly statistically related to increasing surface temperatures.

Betty, that Curry post has been absolutely shredded, and with it any last remnants of JC's credibility. It is misrepresentation from start to finish. Same problem as with Spencer and Lindzen. Use reliable sources, not fringe contrarians.

This is funny:

Really? Then explain to me how it looks like the IPCC AR5 makes a weaker case for AGW than the AR4, yet the AR5 SPM increased it’s level of confidence regarding AGW?

Easy, Betty, easy:

- The summary of scientific evidence in AR5 provides a virtually unshakable case for AGW which is reflected in the SPM.

- Curry's post is complete and utter bollocks that grotesquely misrepresents AR5!

Try the razor of Occam, Betty.

Try the razor of Occam, Betty.

Yep, and preferably try riding it. Curry has and has split with the bigger half falling into flat out ideological denierland.

Have you studied the AR5? BTW did you note the 'Do Not Cite, Quote or Distribute' caveat.

Curry and other in denierland have broken the covenant forcing the hand of others. That is not the way a respectable tenured scientist should behave. If Rita Skeeter had not beaten her to it Curry would be writing for 'The Daily Prophet'.

Besides each one of your/her points is total tosh, formed on baseless assertions and easily debunked. And have been time and time but I don't expect anybody like you showing signs of having had a lobotomy would remember all that.

I see Betty still refuses to consult the primary literature and depends on blogs.

What use has Betty for the primary literature? It does not tell Betty what Betty wishes to hear, so off to the denier blogs it is.

Wow…..”Weather is not climate”

So extreme weather events shouldn’t be attributed to AGW?

Why do you claim that, Betty? I never did. Neither does AR5.

Excludes OHC increase, ignores transient variability in ocean heat uptake, relies on statistically insignificant cherry-pick of surface T and a misrepresentation of the skill and design purpose of climate models. This claim is misleading and without merit.

Is also entirely wrong.

There has been plenty of warming going on in the years since 1998.

Given you only had riposte for "Weather is not Climate", Betty, you accept that

* There has been plenty warming since 1998
* Climate is more sensitive to changes in global temperatures
* Ice extent increases are solely from spreading less ice out further over the sea
* The sea level rise thing was completely meaningless

"see Hansen et al. (2013)"

Ah yes Barney, climate sensitivity and Hansen. And who is Hansen working for these days?

◾Lack of warming since 1998 and growing discrepancies with climate model projections
Betula at #34

◾Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in CO2
...
◾Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming

Of mislead one, here is another strike for those zombies:

Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to CO2, new research shows.

Oh and look what has happened to the Medieval Climate Optimum.

The study finds that the sun is unlikely to have caused more than 0.15°C of the observed approximately 1°C warming over the past 300 years. The authors find a detectable greenhouse gas influence on the climate before the 20th century, and consistent with the IPCC and Imbers, they conclude that humans are the dominant cause of recent global warming.

There, clear enough for you?

#48

And who is Hansen working for these days?

University of Colombia, IIRC. Are you conspiracy theorising again, you nutter?

Read the fucking reference and say something sane for a change.

"And who is Hansen working for these days?"

Yeah, someone who has a job, MUST be unreliable!

LOL!

Hansen et al. (2013) Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric CO2.

Betula

Hansen, pah!

Who are Michaels, Lindzen, Christy and Spencer working for these days:

Pat Michaels admits: '40 percent' of funding comes from big oil.?

Why don't you go do something useful like tracking and eradicating those beetles. Do not happenings in the biosphere shout loud enough for you that what is happening with climate ain't good for even the medium let alone long term.

If your house catches fire do you wait around arguing with people about how much might be destroyed rather than doing something to limit the damage? Remember at some point properties will become uninsurable.

Meanwhile take a look at this:

Polar Vortex in U.S. May be Example of Global Warming and note the links to:

Relateds
While Most of U.S. Froze, Parts of Alaska Set Record Highs
2013 on Track to be Seventh Warmest Year Since 1850
In Australia, 2013 Was a Scorcher for the Record Books
Study Adds to Arctic Warming, Extreme Weather Debate
Arctic Outbreak: When the North Pole Came to Ohio
Coldest Air in Decades Clearing Customs, Entering U.S.

Against all this Curry's blatherings are witless.

Wild weather, some before and after.

That promenade shelter at Aberystwyth, left of centre in lower left picture (I'll bet that makes Betty's head spin), has been wrecked along with much else.

- "There has been plenty warming since 1998"

We're just unsure where...though we have some theories

- "Climate is more sensitive to changes in global temperatures"

But we can't give a best estimate of ECS....because observations are lower than climate model projections. Plus, dropping the lower threshold means a slight increase in uncertainty...which of course would make in more sensitive.

- Ice extent increases are solely from spreading less ice out further over the sea

Wow's Hypothesis - The butter extent set a new melting maximum record in September, which caused margarinal research ships to become stuck on toast.

- "The sea level rise thing was completely meaningless"

The AR5 states...

"It is likely that the rate of global mean sea level rise has continued to increase since the early 20th century."

and..

"It is very likely that there is a substantial contribution from anthropogenic forcings to the global mean sea level rise since the 1970s"

But, as Curry stated:

"It is seen that the rate of rise during 1930-1950 was comparable to, if not larger than, the value in recent years. This IPCC’s analysis does not support an acceleration in the rate of sea level rise in the latter 20th century, and hence the data does not support the IPCC’s conclusion of a substantial contribution from anthropogenic forcings to the global mean sea level rise since the 1970s."

The Polar Goretex:

http://firstfriday.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/al-gore-r.jpg

"University of Colombia, IIRC. Are you conspiracy theorising again, you nutter?"

Strange that you can't even get your hero's employer right....he's an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute.

1. Let's look at the Earth institutes mission:

"By blending scientific research, education and practical solutions, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, is working to help guide the world onto a path toward sustainability"

"Earth Institute experts work hand-in-hand with academia, corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and individuals. They advise national governments and the United Nations on issues related to sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals"

"The Earth Institute uses the following working definition of Sustainable Development:
Sustainable development signifies the ability of the world to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor"

2. Let's look at the Earth Institutes Director:

Professor Jeffery Sachs:

" He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and is director of the Millennium Villages Project. Sachs is also one of the Secretary-General’s MDG Advocates, and a Commissioner of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Development. He has authored three New York Times bestsellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011)"

3. Lets take a look at a few members of the Advisory Board:

- Dr. Rajendra K Pachauri was born in Nainital, India, on 20 August 1940

- George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930.

And no Barney, I'm not conspiracy theorizing, I'm simply stating that Hansen's being a professor for an organization who's mission is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through redistribution of wealth and that just so happens to have the head of the IPCC and George Soros on it's advisory board is just a coincidence, that's all.

Woof Woof Woof, Olap!

“There has been plenty warming since 1998″

We’re just unsure where

Nope, we see it in the record temperatures of 2010, 2005 and 2012. You know, the temperature record of the atmosphere.

DO try to keep up, you silly little girl.

But we can’t give a best estimate of ECS

Indeed, you deniers are completely unable to give one.

However, the IPCC has little problem doing so because they have the science to back up their claims.

Wow’s Hypothesis

Nope, part of the definition of solids and liquids, dear.

I know you missed out on ALL schooling, but very few of us have had such a shockingly lacking education as you.

But, as Curry stated:

In error...

The link Barney
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/1788

"Strange that you can’t even get your hero"

Strange that you should try to make that claim: "Hero".

Obviously, projection.

You adore Curry, therefore you love Judith.

"However, the IPCC has little problem doing so because they have the science to back up their claims"

Yet, with all that science, for some reason they didn't do so...

Betula.

Here is an idea. Why don't you study the AR5 draft for yourself and find out what it says in toto, rather than believe Curry's spin?

You could do worse that running a search within AR5 draft on 'sea level rise'. Doing this you will also find clues as to where much of the Earth's heat in-balance has gone.

So, Betty, as I suspected, you are indulging in your stupid fucking conspiracy theory INSTEAD of reading the reference and commenting on it like a rational actor.

Thanks for confirming that you are not a rational actor.

Oh, and BTW Betty, that Hansen paper was written and submitted before JH resigned from NASA GISS.

"Oh, and BTW Betty, that Hansen paper was written and submitted before JH resigned from NASA GISS"

Poor Barney. Do you know where the GISS is located?

That's right Barney, just another coincidence.

And do you know what GISS is a unit of?

Please say it isn't so...

"The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, at Columbia University in New York City, is a laboratory of the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute"

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/08/01/giss.html

Next.

So NASA is part of the conspiracy is it Betty? CU too? Everybody who submitted papers to the PALAEOSENS Project? Everybody who submitted papers to that Royal Society Phil Trans A Discussion Meeting Issue?

You nutter.

There's nothing you wouldn't do to avoid actually reading the studies and using your brain honestly is there Betty?

“The Earth Institute uses the following working definition of Sustainable Development:
Sustainable development signifies the ability of the world to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor”

Fucking Commies!

Yet, with all that science, for some reason they didn’t do so…

Because there is no formal way of reconciling modelled studies, paleoclimate studies and the so-called "observational" estimates of S. If you had a scintilla of a fucking clue, Betty, you would know why AR5 contains no singular "best estimate" for S. They were sticking to the best scientific practice. But everybody else knows that it's still ~3C/2xCO2 or maybe higher because of positive cloud feedback as the troposphere warms.

Try reading some of the literature instead of devoting your time to stupid, insane conspiracy theories and it's amazing what you could learn.

DID HE ACTUALLY JUST BRING UP GEORGE SOROS?

Yup. Glad someone noticed. But in a way, it's superfluous. Betty has outed himself a dozen times over already as the Totally Tinfoil Man.

Perhaps it will be lizards next. Who knows or cares?

Notice what Betty will not do: he will not address the actual science. Everything Betty does - and there's quite a bit of everything - is denial and avoidance. Everything.

I suppose someone should also point out to Betty that while CU EI describes GISS as "a unit of EI" this is a bit cheeky. GISS is part of NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre. It is affiliated by tradition with CU, but CU has no administrative control over it whatsoever. GISS belongs to NASA.

Perhaps Betty will be interested to research GISS founder Robert Jastrow. Perhaps Betty's little edifice of conspiracy theories will totter when he discovers what GISS founder Robert Jastrow had to say about AGW...

;-)

I know Betty has mentioned Soros, but please.

If we're going full bore into conspiracy tinfoil territory, could everyone, please,spare a thought for all of us green-commie-femo-masons. We seem to have been left out of all this shapeshifting illuminati UN alien lizard stuff recently and we're getting a bit lonely and disconsolate over in our neglected and ignored corner of the stereotype club.

You are the final secret. Or rather, you were, until you blew it wide open. Do you realise that you have set back the advance towards World Socialism by decades sister-comrade? What were you thinking of? This is individualism and it must be rooted out. Off to the re-education camps with you.

Oh dear, individualism. How can that be?

I thought I was part of the feminist hivemind. I think it'd be best to keep this to myself.

"Poor Barney. Do you know where the GISS is located?"

Planet earth, betty.

"Yet, with all that science, for some reason they didn’t do so…"

They did.

Go look.

Meanwhile Betula, your so called 'democracy' will take another hit as globalisation takes another lurch to the right:

Congress is about to sign away it's Constitutional right to oversee a huge trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (or TPP for short) -- and members of Congress won't even get a chance to read the agreement first! .

You worry about conspiracies of 'socialists' whilst turning a blind eye to this kind of conspiracy to gain even more power over the increasingly helpless human population of the world.

Why are these socio-paths so secretive? Because they know it won't play well if the truth is known. Heck we see this in our country (UK) where the already disadvantaged are going to be squeezed further by a chancellor who has broken all humanitarian bounds in pursuit of wealth and power. Why the secrecy around the 'gagging bill' [1] which is not unconnected to the push for environmentally and agriculturally dangerous fracking and its allied techniques for unconventional (expensive) fossil fuel extraction [2].

Both crimes against humanity.

Note the police are now acting somewhat like the STASI of East Germany.

Go find out what fracking is doing to the US, also transporting of that explosive tar sands filth.

[1] Gagging bill latest: It’s a bleak midwinter for Britain’s democracy .

[2] Government misleads on well abandonment - a vital issue and another government failure.

and

Are the police acting unlawfully by removing visible proof that they are making violent arrests for obstructing the highway when in fact it is a public footpath.

We the geeks have a message for betty and pals:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/we-the-geeks

Australian Bureau of Meteorology have launched a new pilot forecast page for heatwaves plotted by area and intensity. A bit short-range for optimum utility, but interesting and useful, and rather overdue.

http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/index.shtml

From their FAQ page:

Australia is a hot country so why do we need a heatwave service?

Severe and extreme heatwaves have taken more lives than any other natural hazard in Australia's 200 year history. For example, during the 2009 Victorian bushfires, 173 people perished as a direct result of the bushfires, however 374 people lost their lives to extreme heat in Victoria in the heatwave before the bushfires.

(To say nothing of the probably greater number of vulnerable people who survive but who suffer immediate, dramatic and permanent impacts on their quality of life, such as heatstroke leading to permanent cognitive impairment).

Compare the action and expense of defending against shark attacks and the rate of deaths with the action done by the same Australian government on heatwaves.

Abbott's actions on climate would be like going to Bondi beach and throwing chum in the water during high season...

Yet, with all that science, for some reason they didn’t do so…

Wow....."They did."

Um No, they didn't.

Just ask Barney...."Because there is no formal way of reconciling modelled studies, paleoclimate studies and the so-called “observational” estimates of S. If you had a scintilla of a fucking clue"

You two need to get on the same page. This is becoming awfully embarrassing for you.

"GISS is part of NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre. It is affiliated by tradition with CU, but CU has no administrative control over it whatsoever. GISS belongs to NASA."

Let's see, up until I had to educate you as to where Hansen works and the location of GISS, you were completely clueless. Now, you are the expert on the inner workings of the GISS, attempting to separate it as far as possible from the EI. How rich.

And now you believe the opinions of the founder of the GISS, who hadn't been associated with GISS for over 30 years before his death, represent the inner working of the GISS today....just as the opinions of John Coleman, the founder of The Weather channel, represent the inner workings of The Weather Channel today, and the opinions of Patrick Moore, the Founder of Greenpeace, represent the inner workings of Greenpeace today...

Your a regular genius you are...

That would be "You're"

"I know Betty has mentioned Soros, but please"

Actually, it was the Columbia Universities Earth Institute web page that mentioned Soros....as an advisor. Must be for his climate expertise....I'm sure that's what it is. Perhaps he's advising Hansen.

"Why are these socio-paths so secretive? Because they know it won’t play well if the truth is known."

Congratulations Lionel, you are officially a conspiracy theorist...

"Um No, they didn’t."

Um No, they did.

"Congratulations Lionel, you are officially a conspiracy theorist"

Ah, asking a question of you, Betty, is a conspiracy, is it?

How does that work?

Or was that another conspiracy theory I just did?

"Actually, it was the Columbia Universities Earth Institute web page that mentioned Soros….as an advisor."

Nope, they didn't come on here and mention Soros, Betty.

YOU did.

Just for entertainment value (Betty is getting boring):

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/william-koch-on-counterfeit-…

Oh, for those who don't know George Soros (all quotes from Wiki):

Soros is a well-known supporter of progressive-liberal political causes. Between 1979 and 2011, Soros gave away over $8 billion to causes related to human rights, public health, and education. He played a significant role in the peaceful transition from communism to capitalism in Hungary (1984–89) and provided one of Europe's largest higher education endowments to Central European University in Budapest.

Key word there being liberal, of course. He dares to be rich and liberal, and we just can't have that. He MUST be stopped.

How crazy do right-wingers get over George Soros?

In 2005, Soros was a minority partner in a group that tried to buy the Washington Nationals, a Major League baseball team.

That's not the crazy bit. This is:

Some Republican lawmakers suggested that they might move to revoke baseball's antitrust exemption if Soros bought the team.

Just in case anyone was confused and thought that people like Betty are in any way rational about this.

And besides, Betty, all your fake whining and outrage is just window-dressing. The real work of corporatization is getting done just fine, and the "liberal media" is dutifully failing to call attention to it.

To wit: the TPA is probably going to pass without the average US citizen having clue one what it's about and what it will do, or if they DID manage to catch a blurb, odds are they are 180 degrees wrong about it.

So what is the problem, Betty? You're getting your way.

Let’s see, up until I had to educate you as to where Hansen works and the location of GISS, you were completely clueless.

What are you talking about? A fucking typo? Colombia >>> Columbia? And I *knew* where GISS is - you introduced that later. If this is supposed to be a gotcha it is more than usually crap.

* * *

What is at issue here - and you are continuing with this behaviour - is that you flatly refuse to read the fucking reference. Instead you tenaciously persist in infantile misdirections.

This started off very simply: you made an unwise assertion about S which I countered with four (4) references. You then re-started your lunatic conspiracy theory rubbish because, well, Hansen. You nutters always go off at the deep end when his name comes up, but so fucking what. This is about a scientific argument over S. So engage in same. RTFR and respond.

Enough utterly nutterly squirrels.

Betty boops again,

Congratulations Lionel, you are officially a conspiracy theorist…

I don't think you know the meaning of the term and if you had read to which I linked you would understand that there is no theory involved.

Betty's hypothesis:

Every court case with evidence of the defendant being guilty of the crime is a conspiracy theorist.

I think any of Chris Hedge's recent interviews on the Real News Network or articles for Truth Dig show exactly what has happened to the political landscape in his allegedly democratic country... ditto Sheldon Wolin et al. "Inverted totalitarianism" is how Wolin describes it, and yet there's nothing remotely conspiracy-related in the shift to corporate government. Sure, the shift has come by wealth and stealth, but it should be out in the open.

The road to nowhere.

We have a live one gentlemen.

Watching The Deniers is hosting an extinction denier:

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/open-thread-november…

Ah, extinction denial. Wonderful. One wonders what planet these folks are living on...

One wonders what planet these folks are living on

Having spent the day reading the Grauniad's environment blogs - Dana N's here and here - (the latter featuring some input from our friend Brangelina, proving the only thing he's learnt in his monthe away is how to be even more know-nothing specious than the version we experienced) one hopes the Kock Bros will be magnanimous enough to open homes for the terminally bewildered and shit-fer-brains "independentally minded" ... er..."thinkers" their activities have created in furtherance of heir interests, across the globe.

Although realistically, I think Charlie'n'Dave will be thinking the dumbfiux can go ... look after themselves..

Chek

Yup.

Some mood music.

Extinction denial - Not believing Deltoid is a dying blog.

Extinction denial – Not believing Bettys are a dying phenomenon..

Fixed that for ya Betty.

A treat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY7GnAq6Znw

Listen to the music, Betty. It was as much for you as Chek.

Fuck me, Betty, we agree on something. Thanks for the link.

Never heard a steel stringer channel Van Halen before.

;-)

An agreement has been made. You're welcome.

Are you a guitarist, Betty?

I do play, but not much. My son is the guitar player in the family. You?

Yes, for fun. I wouldn't misrepresent myself as a musician, but I can fool the non-guitarists in the room.

I prefer metal shred guitar myself - Nuno Betterncourt, Joe Stump, Corbin King, and thrash guitarists like Kerry King, the late great Jeff Hanneman, Alex Skolnick, Rick 'Scythe' Sprague, Nige Rockett, Phil Demmel and the Meshuggah guys. I own 6 guitars, my favorites being my two Deans (Michael Amott and Dave Mustaine models) and Jackson (Phil Demmel model). I play 1-2 hours a day, and have down tuned my Jackson to B to produce the heaviest riffs.

Glad we've all found a shared passion!

In my younger days I was in to The Shadows and others of the era, then I moved onto Classical and some Romantic.

Nowadays I am more into Baroque (also the classical guitar - John Williams), Lute (Nigel North who was himself inspired by the Shadows), Mandolin and Theorbo, with the addition of Violin (and in tromba marina), Viola da Gamba, Viola d'amore, harpsichord.

Vivaldi - Fabio Biondi & Europa Gallante tops with English Concert Orchestra lead by Trevore Pinnock or Andrew Manze and with Rachel Podger, or Manze with The Academy of Ancient Music.

Telemann - Elizabeth Wallfisch & L'Orfeo Barockorchestra
or Reinhard Goebel & Musica Antiqua Köln

Locatelli- Elizabeth Wallfisch & The Raglan Baroque Players

Albinoni

Marcello

I could link to some charming pieces if interest.

I would take up the Lute myself but gouty fingers may be a problem, a good Lute is also v.expensive (as are the period Violins etc., played by the top musicians such as those mentioned above) and being short of puff from heart attacks my alternative the flute or recorder, once played, are now tough.

I remember you saying you were a shreddie merchant, Jeff, but I had no idea you had a Dean thing going! I have a couple of Ibanez (plur??) for general use, and just for laffs, one of these for the mad stuff.

;-)

I thought it interesting that chek linked to something by David Byrne, as my step son plays in a talking heads tribute band,,,."Start Making Sense".
http://startmakingsenseband.com/
and two of the original Talking Head members live in town here...Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz.

A few years back, Tina pulled my then 11 year old son up on stage and gave him some Maracas to play during a set of "Psycho Killer"....at 10 PM on a school night.

Yes, we are good parents...

That was me, dear heart, not Chek. And while I hesitate to be pedantic, it's Eno and Byrne, not the TH.

Amazing how music seems to usher in peace & harmony though, ain't it?

;-)

And while I hesitate to be pedantic, it’s Eno and Byrne.

Barney, you're back already? And it was so peaceful and quiet in here...

What time is it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_dtqKyo9k4

"it’s Eno and Byrne, not the TH".

That could be why I wrote this...

"linked to something by David Byrne"

and not this...

"linked to something by the Talking heads"

Okay, okay - I think it was because you were talking about your lad's TH tribute band - it's not worth arguing about ;-)

Good anecdotes, btw.

chek

Your mention of Brangelina and the Koch-heads in the same post (#1 above) made me think of this (more music people) message to Brad:

Chas & Dave - Aint No Pleasing You.

And a stunned silence follows the outbreak of peace at Deltoid.

Ah, music and peace - inner feeling triumphs thinking!

Congreve, prophetically I suspect, differs:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.

[The Mourning Bride; Act 1, scene 1]

It's ironic that the first line is invariably quoted as an affirmation that music will fix it.

But hey, time for more mood music. This time the floor goes to Little Roy. Never heard of him? Now's your chance.

I have a feeling this interlude will be brief, so I may as well throw in some Gary Clark Jr. while I can. Besides, the title is fitting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ZeDn-hHGE

You score again, Betty. Fine choice. Great throaty solo GCJr pulls out in the middle. Chapeau.

Call it my deep, dark inner self, but this track from Usurper's "Twilight Dominion" is where `i come from... and its the kind of riff I play every day on one of my three beauties... Extremely brutal but 100% metal....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uvhSrwlZ_E

Oh well, if we're doing guitarists and 1 degree of separation from Eno and the Talking Heads...

Maybe it is the hours of being sat in a Phantom cockpit test running the two chunks of heavy metal behind me that has inclined me away from this music that I once appreciated, along with the Stones 'Paint it Black' etc., towards the Baroque.

Here is a fine uplifting example, and don't we need this, from one composer I missed of the list above, Torelli:

Giuseppe Torelli Concerti Grossi from Op 8, I Musici.

I have a nine year old grandson learning the clarinet, doing well too.

Bill, #30

Quite musical for a beginning on an old cupboard drawer. ;-)

What is that percussion instrument being played?

Now that with a theorbo, chalumeau (pl. chalumeaux), tromba marina would make an interesting combination.

Back to Earth:

Cameron dangles a tax revenue bribe in front of British local authorities

David Rose of 'The Fail' cuts another notch on his 'enemy of the people' staff, H/T Sou.

Seeing some of the comments at that BBC frack tax story (#32) I am staggered by the ignorance and logic fail of some comments such as this one:

664.
Ramalamadingdong
Comment number 664 is an Editors' Pick
3 Hours ago

I have dozens of wind turbines in my area and open cast coal mining. I don't recall many environmentalists from the chattering classes or Green Party coming out to support the local objectors in this area. I'd rather have fracking than either of these unsightly (inefficient in the case of wind turbines) and dirty operations!

So, fracking isn't dirty! Sheeeesh!

And it us an Editor's pick at that, maybe Ramalamadingdong is the Editor. How does that work for you and your conspiracy theory David Rose?

The notion of man-made global warming is for children and loonies - and some crooks!

Sorry, sorry, but honestly all this "peace 'n' love, man" stuff was making me feel ill. Simply too, too gooey! Can we go back to the normal thumb-in the-eye-and-knee-in-the-groin mode, I'm too old for change.

Yes, dai, the notion that it's a crock is a notion for children and loonies and PLENTY of crooks.

I’m too old for change.

And don't we know it!

Down side is Duffer, change is going to come to you even if you have managed to escape what has been thrown at us of late? Sure to be more, and you will be forced to change whether you like it or not.

Dear David

Delighted that the recent outbreak of peace & harmony was not at all to your liking!

;-)

The notion of man-made global warming is for children and loonies – and some crooks!

You forgot to mention AGW is accepted every National Academy of Science in the world.

Actually, I'm seeing this Duffellatio a lot lately.
Your Global Collective of Denial has scored zero points against the science case for AGW, so you and your ilk are retreating into an even more childish level of fantasy that you've somehow succeeded. This mainly works for the barking mad, which is a constituency well represented in denierland, although the bewildered find it a comfort too.

– and some crooks!

Further, Dufferissimus, I'm tired of this casual shit from you birdbrains and your birdbrain in particular. Put up or shut up.
Which crooks and what criminality?
I strongly suspect it's just another cosy myth you cultivate in comfort blanket land.

Lionel #32.

Bill Bruford is playing an African Slit Drum. Tony Levin is playing a Chapman Stick. God knows exactly what Fripp and Belew are doing...

Not feeling the love, Duffer? I'd suggest you just 'let it all hang out, man', but that conjures a mental image that simply cannot be endured.

Must-see.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-6-2014/war-on-carbon

Sorry, but this video is unavailable from your location.

But hey, at least you have kangaroos and boomarangs.

So I UTSE + "daily show War on Carbon" and found it elsewhere, and I LOLed! He certainly cuts the legs from a few of the denier memes.

If only he'd mentioned the slowing jet stream I'd have awarded 12 out of 10.

The thing that I didn't appreciate was the apparent sheer number of Dunningly-Krugered armchair experts on US television who blithely contradict professional experts, and who do so without the slightest hint that they realise that they're transitting from deep within Consequens Falsum territory.

It seems that one of the most important consequences of the First Ammendment is the right to the freedom to be a complete idiot and to take whole planetary biospheres down in the process.

...transmitting...

There's no transitting about it - those people are permanent residents.

Stu, that Jon Stewart clip is priceless. Jessica Williams summed it up beautifully.

Thanks for the Daily Show tip, the chuckle did me a world of good.

@ bill

All Fripp is doing is noodling around with (I think a Roland G-303 guitar-synth) in E minor. Easier than it sounds. I'd almost forgotten about the Chapman stick though. Wasn't there a variant with magnetic tape instead of strings - pressure-sensitive? I *think* Levin played this on Elephant Talk, but it was a very long time ago...

@ Jeff Harvey

Flippin' heck. Makes you long for the gentle and comforting harmonies of Bonn Scott-era AC/DC.

"blithely contradict professional experts"

Being a climate change comedian expert, I don't think Stewart realizes that "real" climate experts quite often do a good job of contradicting themselves...most likely because they don't have definitive conclusions, just predictions.... most of which downplay the lack of data, uncertainties and gaps in knowledge.

For example, can any one point out the contradictions in this AMAP Document? Does anyone see how misleading it is?

http://www.amap.no/documents/doc/AMAP-Arctic-Ocean-Acidification-Assess…

If it is intentionally misleading, and I believe it is, what purpose does it serve?

Extra points if anyone can tie this report with the push to achieving the Millennium Development goals...

In the interim:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRYNKlEsQyw

The problem with ocean acidification is that it is a consequence of very basic chemistry and therefore simply must happen as the atmospheric fraction of CO2 rises.

Since every single marine biologist questioned on the subject says that the very rapid *rate* of increase will be the key problem for marine ecosystems, it's difficult to see why anyone (especially a layman) would disagree that this is going to be an extremely serious problem by mid-to-late century unless there is a pretty drastic reduction in the rate of increase in the fraction of atmospheric CO2.

I've just skimmed through the AMAP SPM again, and I'm confused by your assertion that it is "contradictory and misleading" and "intentionally misleading". Can you be specific?

Another sign of heat energy build up:

Retreat of Pine Island Glacier controlled by marine ice-sheet instability.

Will the Duffer Club consider how much heat it takes to melt a mass of ice compared to raising the same mass through one degree Celsius?

Also consider what type of water is produced by this melt and the effect on freezing point.

Readers here will know that I have been trying to point this out for some time. Ice sheet dynamics have a life of their own and once an unstable marine ice sheet like the WAIS - of which PIG is but one outflow glacier - starts to go, it cannot be stopped.

...gaps in knowledge.

God of the gaps is it Betula, you know how that works out don't you.

How is that report on acidification misleading. Come on back up your assertions with cogent argument for a change rather than simply trashing something out of hand.

Some instruction for you:

Ocean Acidification NOAA Ocean Education (NODE) Project - pdf, good for some suggested sources for more.

Woods Hole FAQs about Ocean Acidification

Rob Dunbar: The threat of ocean acidification and other factors.

Over harvesting of the seas is another big deal. We are close to having few viable fisheries remaining. I have a suggested reading list on this one alone.

BBD..

My opinion.

1. To start, the report, in BOLD letters, asks this question:

"Why are higher carbon dioxide levels over the world’s oceans a global problem?"

And then, in an attempt to answer this, it states...

"The extent and consequences of ocean acidification effects are largely unknown."

2. The report continues, again in BOLD letters:

"The assessment report presents current scientific knowledge on the changing state of ocean acidification in the Arctic and how these changes are affecting the Arctic marine environment."

and then states:

"Regional differences are not yet well understood, nor are the biological and ecological consequences.These topics are currently the focus of numerous laboratory, field, and computer-simulation studies.
Investigations into the economic, cultural, and societal implications of ocean acidification are only just beginning"

and...

"Arctic-specific studies related to ocean acidification and its effects on organisms and ecosystems are
urgently needed"

and...

"The field of ocean acidification research is new and rapidly evolving."

3. Again, in BOLD:

Arctic marine waters are experiencing widespread and rapid ocean acidification"

but it continues with this statement...

"at several Arctic Ocean locations"

....and....

"more slowly in deep waters"

.....and.....

"The result is a complex, unevenly distributed, ever changing
mosaic of Arctic acidification states"

4. Again in Bold, it states:

"Arctic marine ecosystems are highly likely to undergo significant change due to ocean acidification"

but follows with this...

"Too few data are presently available to assess the precise nature and extent of Arctic ecosystem vulnerability, as most biological studies have been undertaken in other ocean regions. Arctic specific long-term studies are urgently needed."

5. In BOLD:

"Ocean acidification impacts must be assessed in the context of other changes happening in Arctic waters"

And follows with...

"Understanding the complex, often unpredictable effects of combined environmental changes on Arctic organisms and ecosystems remains a key knowledge gap."

6. Again in BOLD letters:

"What can the Arctic Council States and members do to address this serious issue for our future?"

Their answer:

"There remain large gaps in knowledge that currently prevent reliable projections of these impacts."

My point is, the scientists really haven't concluded anything, yet the way the SPM words and highlights the headings, you would think we had to take urgent action to prevent a catastrophe. In fact, the reports number one recommendation is this.....

"Urge its Member States, Observer countries, and the global society to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide as a matter of urgency"

My take on this is that it's a deliberate misrepresentation to influence the guidance of policy...

“Urge its Member States, Observer countries, and the global society to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide as a matter of urgency”

My take on this is that it’s a deliberate misrepresentation to influence the guidance of policy…

This is a perverse conclusion given that it is acknowledged that CO2 increase is causing a change in pH which is know to be detrimental to thousands of organisms lower in the trophic web and can also interfere with the physiology of larger organisms.

Are you familiar with the chemical processes that allow your own body to function and how a change in environmental pH can impact this?

Note these words from the report:

Ocean acidification is occurring at a rapid and accelerating
pace, and the Arctic Ocean3 is on the frontline of this global
change. AMAP’s 2013 assessment of Arctic Ocean acidification
provides the first Arctic-wide perspective on today’s progressively
increasing seawater acidity. The assessment report presents
current scientific knowledge on the changing state of ocean
acidification in the Arctic and how these changes are affecting
the Arctic marine environment. In addition to reporting on what
is happening now, the assessment considers how these changes
could continue to develop in the future and what this could mean
for Arctic marine plants and animals and Arctic peoples.

and

Measurements around the globe, in the Arctic Ocean and elsewhere, show that ocean acidity is increasing. These findings are consistent with observed increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and uptake of some of this gas by the oceans. The resulting chemical reactions are well
characterized: adding carbon dioxide to seawater increases its acidity.

and

Human activities, in particular the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary cause of the ongoing increase of carbon dioxide in the air and oceans. Natural processes in the ocean counter this
increase by eventually burying some of the ‘extra’ carbon in deep sea sediments, but these processes act very slowly. The legacy of the human activities is therefore long-lived. Scientists project that even after anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions cease, the acidification fingerprint of human activities will remain in the upper ocean for many tens of thousands of years.

And this is to ignore the other sources I pointed you to.

Your in a car accelerating because the throttle is jammed open and approaching a bend. Do you carry on and hope for the best or doing something proactive about it?

As it happens this is not a hypothetical question, I have had it happen but in my case I was negotiating a cross-roads junction when it happened.

Similarly, Betula was last seen outside his burning house arguing with the fire brigade. In his expert opinion, unless the fire chief can predict exactly how fast, in what order and where the fire will spread, calling it a catastrophe is intentionally misleading and nothing should be done. It's probably just all a UN plot to raise his taxes anyway.

Betula

Sorry, but I think using boldface type for key finding headings is standard typographical practice and I am astonished at your interpretation.

Furthermore, you are completely ignoring the facts about the inevitability of basic chemistry which I set out at #53.

For your conspiracy theory to have merit, the basic chemistry in question would have to be wrong, and this is simply not possible.

My take on this is that it’s a deliberate misrepresentation to influence the guidance of policy…

My take on your take is that it evidences a paranoid mindset and the stubborn denial of basic, fully-understood chemistry which will inevitably result in a rapid increase in the rate of ocean acidification if the atmospheric fraction of CO2 is allowed to continue to rise at the present rate.

I don't think you grasp that you cannot deny chemistry.

I also very much dislike the way you have quote-mined the SPM to create a misleading impression of what it says. Here I provide restored context for some of the phrases (boldface) that you have carefully cut out of their proper setting in your point (3):

Scientists have measured significant rates of acidification at several Arctic Ocean locations. In the Nordic Seas, for example, acidification is taking place over a wide range of depths—most rapidly in surface waters and more slowly in deep waters. Decreases in seawater pH of about 0.02 per decade have been observed since the late 1960s in the Iceland and Barents Seas. Notable chemical effects related to acidification have also been encountered in surface waters of the Bering Strait and the Canada Basin of the central Arctic Ocean.

In addition to seawater uptake of carbon dioxide, other processes can be important in determining the pace and extent of ocean acidification. For example, rivers, sea-bottom sediments, and coastal erosion all supply organic material that bacteria can convert to carbon dioxide, thus exacerbating ocean acidification, especially on the shallow continental shelves. Sea-ice cover, freshwater inputs, and plant growth and decay can also influence local ocean acidification. The contributions of these processes
vary not only from place to place, but also season to season, and year to year. The result is a complex, unevenly distributed, everchanging mosaic of Arctic acidification states.

I should have indicated that the first paragraph quoted above is from Key Finding 1 and the second is from Key Finding 3. Your juxtaposition of the three quotes is calculated to misrepresent. It is quote-mining.

So Betty, your technique is to further summarize the summary (as guided by your total lack of expertise and understanding of the report's subject - by leaving out the inconvenient bits, thus justifying ... whatever it is you're engaged in.. For your next trick, why not try rendering it down to single sentence and save print costs.

1. To start, the report, in BOLD letters, asks this question: “Why are higher carbon dioxide levels over the world’s oceans a global problem?” And then, in an attempt to answer this, it states… “The extent and consequences of ocean acidification effects are largely unknown.”

No, it doesn't state only that. It precedes your isolated sentence with this: "The result ocean acidification—will affect marine ecosystems and organisms, from plankton to fish." No if, buts or maybes.

Likewise with your second point, your cherry-picked bit is preceded by: "Measurements around the globe, in the Arctic Ocean and elsewhere, show that ocean acidity is increasing. These findings are consistent with observed increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and uptake of some of this gas by the oceans. The resulting chemical reactions are well characterized: adding carbon dioxide to seawater increases its acidity. Like salinity, acidity is a fundamental chemical property of seawater. Ocean
acidification is of concern because it has the potential to exert far reaching effects on marine plants and animals and therefore human societies.

And so on the whole way through. No surprise there.

Your juxtaposition of the three quotes is calculated to misrepresent. It is quote-mining.

That's dishonest, isn't it? So when Betty says at #51:

If it is intentionally misleading, and I believe it is, what purpose does it serve?

that'll be projection, I expect.

Yes, almost certainly.

As SPM's are now demonstrated to lie outside of Betty's cognitive limitations, I'd suggest he searches for Summaries for Binary-thinking Double-digit IQ Morons or WilliWattsians next time.

Similarly, Betula was last seen outside his burning house arguing with the fire brigade. In his expert opinion, unless the fire chief can predict exactly how fast, in what order and where the fire will spread, calling it a catastrophe is intentionally misleading and nothing should be done. It’s probably just all a UN plot to raise his taxes anyway.

Stu wins one shiny set of Intertoobz.

#58 for your happy false sense of security please return to the bible. Apparently the scientists' way is too unsettling for you.

"Your in a car accelerating because the throttle is jammed open and approaching a bend. Do you carry on and hope for the best or doing something proactive about it?"

I would immediately call my congressman and ask that he propose a Throttle Tax. All luxury model cars would be taxed and the proceeds would go towards developing better throttles on the lower end models.

BBD..."The problem with ocean acidification is that it is a consequence of very basic chemistry and therefore simply must happen as the atmospheric fraction of CO2 rises"

You're applying a basic concept to a complex situation. As stated in the paper...

Understanding the complex, often unpredictable effects of combined environmental changes on Arctic organisms and ecosystems remains a key knowledge gap.”

"I also very much dislike the way you have quote-mined the SPM to create a misleading impression of what it says"

I disagree. The quotes I used show the contradictions throughout the paper..

This statement:

"Arctic marine waters are experiencing widespread and rapid ocean acidification"

Is contradicted by this statement:

"Scientists have measured significant rates of acidification at several Arctic Ocean locations"

How do they know it's widespread if they haven't scratched the surface in terms of measurements?

"Your juxtaposition of the three quotes is calculated to misrepresent."

Misrepresent what? They all relate to the same issue in the same summary?

"Similarly, Betula was last seen outside his burning house arguing with the fire brigade"...... he wanted to know why the fire department was insisting on smashing out the windows and poking holes in the roof, simply because he had a fire burning in the fireplace.

chek @64...

“The result ocean acidification—will affect marine ecosystems and organisms, from plankton to fish.” No if, buts or maybes....

and the very next line is an If, But, and Maybe:

blockquote>“The extent and consequences of ocean acidification effects are largely unknown.”

Thanks chek, for proving my point about the contradictions and misrepresentations. The question is, why would they deliberately do this?

Betty, Your argument is to suggest that we must wait for all the data are in until we do something. This has long been a denier mantra: delay, delay, delay, and delay again until we have 100% certainty. Its certainly one of the bulwarks of corporate strategies - even though data may suggest or strongly infer a correlation, this isn't enough - we have to have completer confidence of a process.

Of course rarely is absolute evidence of a causal link ever provided, especially where complex adaptive systems are involved. Heck, there are still those who deny the link between the use of CFCs and ozone damage, or between S02 and acid rain. Some of these same people are active AGW deniers. Thankfully, common sense prevailed before it was too late on both of these profoundly serious environmental threats and actions were taken to limit further damage. We still don't fully understand the causes and consequences of acid rain, but that does not mean that we should have waited until every last data point was in. That would require a multi-billion dollar series of experiments to be funded - never to be done.

For the most part, your demands for absolute certainty are thankfully not taken seriously be practicing scientists. On the other hand, those lacking a basic understanding of the science of critical thresholds - meaning those with power and who lack the proper scruples - are quite content to wait until its too late. That's the way our bankrupt socio-political economic system works folks. Its why I also think we are destined to go into the abyss as a species.

This just out in Ecology Letters:

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6677/20140115/algae-pacific-losin…

But heck, let's keep our non-repeatable experiment going. Until we are 100% sure that the effects will be devastating for systems that we depend on. Until then, burn baby, burn.

"#58 for your happy false sense of security please return to the bible"

I'm an atheist, but don't let that change your thought process. Keep up the good work.

Betula

<blockquote.You’re applying a basic concept to a complex situation.

No, I'm stating a fact and now you force me to state it again: the rate of ocean acidification is determined by the rate of increase in the atmospheric fraction of CO2. Following from this, all marine biologists agree that a rapid rate of change in ocean pH will have considerable but as yet poorly understood in detail impacts on marine ecosystems. Stop obfuscating.

Next, your claim that the following statements are contradictory is false:

Arctic marine waters are experiencing widespread and rapid ocean acidification

Does not contradict:

Scientists have measured significant rates of acidification at several Arctic Ocean locations

Since the atmosphere is global, ocean acidification is global. Its effects will be more pronounced in polar waters for the reasons described in the SPM. So your question is either more basic chemistry denial or obfuscation:

How do they know it’s widespread if they haven’t scratched the surface in terms of measurements?

I have to say I find basic chemistry denial even more tedious than physics denial.

Your juxtaposition of widely-spaced quotes is calculated to misrepresent. Everything you have said about this SMP is calculated to misrepresent. Still, let's keep to the essence of this.

Are you claiming that the following statement of fact is false?

The rate of ocean acidification is determined by the rate of increase in the atmospheric fraction of CO2. Yes or no.

Are you claiming that rapid and significant reduction in ocean pH is not going to cause severe disruption to marine ecosystems? Yes or no.

Before considering the second question, I recommend reading Hönisch et al. (2012) The geological record of ocean acidification to get a perspective on past OA events and their impacts.

Many an 'atheist' is of the believer pursuasion too (no, not me).
Like many believers you could not get my point. Which was you want scientists to exhibit the unassailably dead certainty of priests. You are able to absorb the bible but unable to understand scientific utterings. Please go back to the bible. There are stories of floods in that book, I mean, there always* were floods, no?

(* presumbably soms 6500 years minus one).

Oh, and pay attention to Jeff Harvey, who is not a layman.

Why do you, Betula, and so many others, argue that the experts are wrong when you have no expertise yourself?

Harvey #75 and who ever saw a lung cell turn into cancer from smoking a Camel?

...presumbably soms 6500 years minus one...

How can that be when the creation was the nightfall preceding 23 October 4004 BC?
;-)

Hmm. Question: does Betty genuinely not know what quotemining is, or is he just pretending to be this stupid?

Stu

This has become something of a central issue for me here. I find it very difficult to say in general whether Betula is being sincerely obtuse or disingenuous, and it matters, at least to me, since there is less absolute bad faith involved in the former.

Morton's Demon may be a very big part of the problem either way, but how big?

Question: does Betty genuinely not know what quotemining is, or is he just pretending to be this stupid?

Given the resources annually expended, ole' Bishop Occam suggests the latter. Directly or indirectly is the only relevant question, to which the answer is ... does it matter? Actions (including posting on blogs) are what counts.

Betula is playing the classic one-eyed denialist games of "misplaced onus of proof", "unreasonably high proof" and "uncertainty only goes the way I say it does". My bingo card is half full all ready.

If he were two-eyed about it he'd be knocking down the doors of politicians and business leaders demanding that they help stop the unproven experiment of driving the atmosphere, ocean and climate well outside of their respective envelopes under which modern agriculture developed - until and unless he was satisfied that scientists had reached near certainty that doing so is safe.

Same old same old...

"Many an ‘atheist’ is of the believer pursuasion too (no, not me)."

Unless you mean 'atheist' (and the scare quotes there are an integral part of the word) rather than atheist (i.e. an atheist, plain and simple), then you're wrong.

This has long been a denier mantra: delay, delay, delay, and delay again until we have 100% certainty. Its certainly one of the bulwarks of corporate strategies

Of course, if the action could HARM corporate or personal interests, then the remote possibility is enough to stymie any change.

See: Healthcare. "Oh no! It could cause health costs to rise!"
Tax rises "Oh no! It could cause the 'job creators' to leave!"
Regulation of internet: "Oh no! It could allow government to control the internet!"
Wind turbines: "Oh no! It could cause birth defects from infrasound!"
Refusing HS2: "Oh no! It could discourage businesses from being here!"
Refusing Heathrow runway: "Oh no! It could mean people will choose another country to fly from!"

and so on...

This statement:

“Arctic marine waters are experiencing widespread and rapid ocean acidification”

Is contradicted by this statement:

“Scientists have measured significant rates of acidification at several Arctic Ocean locations”

No it doesn't.

Statement 1: acidification is detected.
Statement 2: acidification is detected.

"I would immediately call my congressman and ask that he propose a Throttle Tax."

That's because you're a fucking loon, batty.

But you see, SANE people would "Let up on the throttle" and even "apply the brakes" before getting on the phone to their congressman and asking that they get signs put up to warn people of the risk of the cliff and to make dangerous driving an offense, so that you don't have to wait until people die before they get their just deserts, you can save their lives and still give them the deterrent they apparently need to not be a douche, just not a terminal deterrent as Darwin's law would have it.

Of course, if the action could HARM corporate or personal interests, then the remote possibility is enough to stymie any change.

EXCELLENT point. It's yet another one-eyed game.

#20, amazing. Betty comes up with starting some sense and Eno. Why, we could almost be friends :)

#87, I was trivially right, took care of that by using quotes.
Did you realize I was actually thinking of Richard Dawkins, who goes around like kind of a fundireli? I've explained that zeal from his remark that on a scale 1..10 from religious to atheist he'd put himself 'almost at ten'.
I value his work greatly but this cannot be.

I'm more like a mathematician. I know that Pi is a transcendent number, _therefore_ I don't have to run around the streets to convince people. They can come ask me.
I know there is no God and no gods, et c.

#87, I was trivially right, took care of that by using quotes.

And since I conceded that point in #87, then your assertion makes no indication of error on my part.

Did you realize I was actually thinking of Richard Dawkins, who goes around like kind of a fundireli?.

Nope. Know why? You haven't a flaming clue about Dawkins, only the Daily Mail caricature of him.

I mean, how DARE someone hold an opinion about religion that makes it out to be bad, AND TELLS PEOPLE ABOUT IT!!!!

Obviously, must be bad. Probably a fundamentalist. Because that means "bad", right?

I’ve explained that zeal from his remark that on a scale 1..10 from religious to atheist he’d put himself ‘almost at ten’.

Well that remark on a scale from 1..10 from inaccurate to accurate, you score 0. He's placed himself at a 9, where the scale goes from "God Exists, and no proof is enough to change my mind" to "God Doesn't Exist, and no proof is enough to change my mind".

However, like I said before, you have zero clue what you're on about, just an overwhelming anger that Dawkins isn't nice about religion and approaches it in a manner that offends some xtian friends of yours.

I’m more like a mathematician. I know that Pi is a transcendent number, _therefore_ I don’t have to run around the streets to convince people.

Yet you HAVE to run around the streets claiming Dawkins is a religious fundamental atheist...

PS neither myself nor Dawkins do that, but when the Alabama (was it?) state education board wanted to DEFINE for schools pi as being 3, as per the bible, would you have

a) complained to the school board if your schools had been affected
b) not complained, everyone knows it's not 3, so why bother dissing the board of education

?

Wow #94, do I feel collateral :)
I should like to amuse you with my answer to the question of whether 'God' could be a subject of science. Please enjoy the answer and its consequence.
---
Method suggestion 1:
God is either part of reality, or God is reality, or God is outside the realm of reality.
In the first case, God can be a subject of science, in the second case God is the subject of science and in the last case God does not exist by definition.
If God is part of reality, there is a problem with his supposed omnipotence. If He is reality, there is no reason to split reality into reality and reality.

2:
Then, I hold there are two truths about reality. Let A be any subset from reality. First: A = A for all A, identity; second, A := ~A for all A, decay or 'Buddha's law'.
An argument by Vasubandhu shows that decay is both causeless and instantaneous.
I use this to 'prove' that one cannot substitute 'God' for A. For He does not decay (according to normal definitions of 'God') and His identity is rather indeterminable.

3:
Another analysis would concentrate on intensionality. It could take an argument like Dennett's for consciousness to show how intention may derive from non-intensional bases.

Intermezzo:
Now what Dawkins is doing would be like a mathematician imposing the fact that Pi is a transcendent number on society using brutal authoritarian means (okay, verbally of course). But this is what religious fanatics do. Imo such fanatics impose their memes with violence because they know deep down that they are fundamentally untrue. Anyone who happens not to believe in them and lives to be happy is therefore a clear and present danger to the fanatic. Happy Christians exist and they are bad for Dawkins: he denies them! On the other hand, not believing that Pi is a transcendent number is a rather superficial stance, for it is not possible to live this belief (all body chemisty would halt, gravitation would act strangely!). A mathematician does not care too much about people who still attempt the quadrature of the circle, while he himself remains entirely safe in his knowledge.

But enjoy: http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/localgov/second%20level%20pages/indian… .

Interestingly, in his book 'The God Delusion' Dawkins puts himself at 9+ on a scale of 1 to 10 ranging from pure religious belief to pure atheism. He confesses he is not entirely sure (you will have guessed I put myself at mathematically full 10). Might this be a root cause of his agressive manner?

While I don't see how believing Pi is a rational number achieves a viable survival strategy, I can perceive how a religious belief could.

About seven years ago, I lost the love of my life and my fiancee to leukemia. At some point in her last days I stood at her bed, all hope for survival gone - and prayed. The answer from cold dark wonderful space was immediate. It sounded like 'this is ìt - this neutral, careless universum - I am part of it and I am like it, I am same', end of message. Nothing to go on, no-one and nothing to tell me what to do, not the faintest hint of how I will survive this loss, how I will ever find happiness again. Of course, in the same flash I found my earth here!

I consider that 'answer' as the result of my state of consciousness at that moment, and myself to be the generator of that answer. I was awed and soberd at the same time, which was quite a special experience.
Now I can imagine people to call this a 'religious experience' up to and including the Voice of God, much like some of the first men who talked in sentences might think, hear sentences in their head and ascribe them to the tree nearby, or the earth, or the skies instead of to themselves.
In both cases, me and 'delusional' men, there is consolation and a sort of guidance. But only in the latter case, authoritarianism becomes a possibility. I feel no need to spread the word because I feel like the mathematician who knows there are infinitely many prime numbers; but those 'delusional' men might feel the urge to start running around and convert the world.

Morals then stem from delusional authority.

According to Nietzsche, morality over history had to be kicked and whipped into men, engraved into children, heathens and other wild tribefractions, whilst all resistors had to be banned or killed: with the utmost violence, and only slowly, over time, did something of a moral society evolve. And I believe this is the true account of the history of human society. It is a history of taming this plastic, all too free mind by the invention of (hitherto) non-existent authorities. The process had huge evolutionary bearing on human evolution, particularly since the conquest of fire and the invention of bow and arrow, when man became man's greatest selector. 'Self-made mankind' would be a bad tautology or maybe a nightmare...

-
Method suggestion 4:
Another way to bring God under scientific investigation (or any investigation) is to define God. A normal definition will be seen to be expressed in terms of effects. If God has a 'power', describe the power; it is then open for research like that of gravitation, or, by Dennett's method of heterophenomology, by studying reports and perhaps behaviour of people as Nietzsche attempted in his Genealogie der Moral or Wille zur Macht. It may be possible to exclude any defined God by emperical invalidation of consequences. Start with categories like 'omnipotence' (what does it mean, exactly?). Your suggestion, awareness of a distinction between the object one is aware of and the aware one will help too.

If it can be shown (read: proven) that God is undefinable in terms of effects, then God effectively does not exist. If, on the other hand, God can be defined as 'everything', then He is simply reality and rather a redundant concept. Also, He is then the subject of science, including philosophy.

Obviously, there are still effects out there that are unknown to us. What effect is causing a recently discovered neutron star to be considerably heavier than hitherto suggested by theory? What effects would the climate of that newly discovered planet situated in another star's 'temperate zone' have on proceedings on its surface? These unknowns are sought for by science and they are not associated with God, except by some quite deluded folks (maybe the ufospotters are right after all, so I basically mean those who try quadratures of circles as they are demonstrably deluded :) ).

"Dawkins views religions as essentially parasitic memes".
I agree fully on the symbiotic idea if memes can be parasitic like genes are. They are. What is more, I am totally infected and so are you :)
--

To answer Wow's question on the Inquisitional try for Pi = 3 (wasn't that the Indiana Pi Bill? There are more tries like this) - I would leave that school, possibly the state, possibly the country. For I would have no life. I would go and let the weeds grow, as Lao Tzu is said to have said.

Difference between me and Dawkins is that he is actually much nicer to religion than I am. He is so nice that he can actually speak out his opinions on religion, while I have to remain very diplomatic. If you catch my drift.

Difference between me and Dawkins is that he is actually much nicer to religion than I am.

Given the opening paragraph of Chapter 2 of 'The God Delusion' that is saying something. But, having read Dawkins since the early editions of 'The Selfish Gene' I consider that Dawkins nails it fairly. Over the years my copies of 'The Selfish Gene' have walked with children borrowing them and then passing on to college and university friends, never to be seen again. This required regular replacement. It was through the additions in succeeding editions where Dawkins details the hostile responses he has received from clergy and members of the flock where they have totally misunderstood or purposely distorted his original message that I appreciate why Dawkins turned to criticizing the religious zealots.

In other words, the self-righteous brought the Dawkins' spotlight on themselves. They then proceeded to lambast Dawkins in media opinion columns, I still recall with disbelief the cant rant of Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian No wonder atheists are angry: they seem ready to believe anything where the sub-head is:

Richard Dawkins's latest attack on religion is an intellectually lazy polemic not worthy of a great scientist

And its down hill all the way after that as the vitriol gathers its own momentum.

Compare that to Dawkins' gentle treatment of this poor deluded and intellectually challenged Creationist Wendy Wright.

True Lionel A, I forgot for a moment that Dawkins got shot at like Mann and decided to return the lead.

I've only the first edition of 'The Selfish Gene', thanks for sharing your experiences with it: I will hold on to it :)

What I found in 'The God Delusion' was not new to me. There are comparable documents e.g. by Sam Harris, and there is Nietzsche's 'Der Antichrist'. There is cRR and his mum :)

Now I lump certain ideologies including fascism/patriottism (same thing), communism and a lot of nationalism into the same casket as the religions. This is why I have to distinguish between 'atheists' that are not atheists but believers in some sort of vague fantasy authority.

I am an atheist but I am not an anti-theist, because I have to. History has learnt over and over again that antitheism leads to brutal theisms - but this is because antitheism is just another kind.

Difference between me and Dawkins is that he is actually much nicer to religion than I am.

Begging the question there: ARE you?

But apart from that, is being nice to religion a requirement to being an atheist? Is being nice to religion required to NOT be religious? In what shape, way or form WHAT SO EVER does that baseless and in my estimation COMPLETELY WRONG AND SELF-SERVING drivel have to do with your claims about Dawkins???

I would leave that school, possibly the state, possibly the country

Then you are a gutless coward.

Wow #94, do I feel collateral

No, whatever "do I feel collateral" means.

It's pretty simple, dear: don't talk absolute bollocks and you won't get called out on talking absolute bollocks.

I should like to amuse you with my answer to the question of whether ‘God’ could be a subject of science.

Sorry, completely uninterested in what you're thinking on the subject since you lack any conviction over it.

Now what Dawkins is doing would be like a mathematician imposing the fact that Pi is a transcendent number on society using brutal authoritarian means

No, it isn't anything like that you blithering moron.

In both cases, me and ‘delusional’ men, there is consolation and a sort of guidance.

"Just because it makes you feel better" does not make it true, dear.

Morals then stem from delusional authority.

No they don't. Only those who profess the morals told to them as being ones "from the Almighty" are so, but that may be YOUR source of morality, but it's not the source of the vast majority of humanity. Even those who profess to be moral because of their faith are moral from their own choice of what to believe in the bible as being moral.

Wow #1, no, the world is my place and if part of it falls into the fascist swing as all parts seem to have to do once in a while, I move.
For one, because a 'gutless coward' has a better chance of surviving and a 100% of surviving happily at that.
For a second because while no-one has the right to impose on me the nonsense that Pi = 3, I have no right to battle a majority of lemmings over it. I much prefer to let them go happily over.

Wow #2, you are proving my point. You are a typical 'atheist', that is a fundamental believer.
You are so totally blinded by your zeal that you cannot even see a true atheist when you stumble over one - and with full religious zeal instead you begin scolding.

If you don't understand what I say, ask me a question. You might want to ask where I got my morals from, as I haven't stated anything on that.
But you know, before you bother me, reread, please.

If you are 'completely uninterested in what [cRR is] thinking on the subject' then don't show interest.
But if you must show interest, please begin with understanding that I am the radical atheist with the humanitarian approach to those delude by religion. Are you jealous?

#2 - "“Just because it makes you feel better” does not make it true, dear."

That's what I said in that entire letter.
I now realize you had to remind yourself.

#100 - 'But apart from that, is being nice to religion a requirement to being an atheist?'

Of course not. Try those four method suggestions instead.

You wouldn't state that being not nice to religion would be required to be an atheist?

(personally, I don't think it's a delusion. It is a pathology, no less)

Lionel A "Given the opening paragraph of Chapter 2 of ‘The God Delusion’ that is saying something."

Just reread it. Lovely.
Well, the semitic religions are example of how you succesfully begin a sekt: you start out with a genocide, and you repeat some of that when necessary.
That, Wow, is my idea of what christianity is.
A terror sekt that has terrorized and mass murdered and genocided ever since.
How befitting is its symbol: an executioner's instrument.

---
25 Moses knew that the people were out of control and that it was Aaron's fault. And now they had made fools of themselves in front of their enemies. 26 So Moses stood at the gate of the camp and shouted, “Everyone who is on the Lord's side come over here!”
Then the men of the Levi tribe gathered around Moses, 27 and he said to them, “The Lord God of Israel commands you to strap on your swords and go through the camp, killing your relatives, your friends, and your neighbors.”
28 The men of the Levi tribe followed his orders, and that day they killed about three thousand men. 29 Moses said to them, “You obeyed the Lord and did what was right, and so you will serve as his priests for the people of Israel. It was hard for you to kill your own sons and brothers, but the Lord has blessed you and made you his priests today.”
---

As anyone can see, with 'the LORD' Mozes the Slaughterer means himself. Mozes and Hitler are the same kind of thing.

Wow #1, no, the world is my place

Woomancer babble, dear. Misspelt a word?

For one, because a ‘gutless coward’ has a better chance of surviving

So the reason why you would leave is because the xtians would kill you for excoriating their faith? And you claim DAWKINS is using "facist methods"!?!?!?!

Or was that hyperbolic bullshit.

PS the founding fathers decided that safety was not worth the cost of freedom. One of them even made a pithy quote about their substitionality.

Wow #2, you are proving my point.

Um, no. You're just doubling down on the idiocy you've laid out earlier: be nice to the religious or I will call YOU religious!!! An astoundingly stupid and self-contradictory claim. But you love it. It means nothing, therefore has no "defence" except with more rhetoric which you will accept happily because it "proves [your] point".

you cannot even see a true atheist when you stumble over one

So you're the only one who knows this secret truth? Seems rather faithiest to me...

Tell me, since I do not believe in god, in what way am I not a true atheist?

and with full religious zeal instead you begin scolding.

ROFLcopter landing alert! FFS! THAT IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!!! Here you are, scolding Dawkins and now me for what we say and then YOU whine about "instead you begin scolding"!

FUCK
ING
HILARIOUS!

If you don’t understand what I say,

I do. However I do not share your delusion that your words are somehow cogent, accurate and not at all created solely for self serving self-approval, hence you conclude I must not understand them.

You might want to ask where I got my morals from, as I haven’t stated anything on that.

Yes you did. When you claimed "Morals then stem from delusional authority.".

If you are ‘completely uninterested in what [cRR is] thinking on the subject’ then don’t show interest.

I did claim my disinterest. If that is not what you want, tough shit, shitlord. Just because you want to be left in peace to believe your codswallop and prattle it about in public does not mean you get to be left in peace.

please begin with understanding that I am the radical atheist with the humanitarian approach to those delude by religion

No, you're not, since you would leave those people affected by the religious overtaking of education to their doom and not help them. Completely lacking in humanism there.

Meanwhile you rant and rave at Dawkins and now me who are far more humanist than you by actions, Dawkins in his public record, me by the much smaller representation here.

Why?

Because you're deluded, dear. But comfortable with that delusion and react to its attempted clearing by others in exactly the same way as those "deluded" by their faith do when THEIR comfortable delusions are disturbed.

Which is why you defend their "right" to be deluded.

That’s what I said in that entire letter.

Then your tale had no point. Rather underscores why no interest in *anything* you say is the rational choice for rational thinkers.

#100 – ‘But apart from that, is being nice to religion a requirement to being an atheist?’

Of course not.

Yet for not doing so, I am not "a true atheist" and for doing so you claim you are a "true atheist".

Your words do not match your other statements on the subject.

Common double-think when an intelligence is faced with self deception.

That, Wow, is my idea of what christianity is.

So when YOU say it, it's right and fine.

When Dawkins says it, he's a faithiest fundamentalist religionist atheist and not a "true atheist" at all.

Yeah, right...

BBD...

"The rate of ocean acidification is determined by the rate of increase in the atmospheric fraction of CO2. Yes or no."

Yes. Maybe. It depends.

"Are you claiming that rapid and significant reduction in ocean pH is not going to cause severe disruption to marine ecosystems? Yes or no"

The scenario is hypothetical, therefore, the disruptions are speculative and the answer is unknown.

"Yes. Maybe. It depends. "

Despite having no clue, you seem damn sure you're right and thousands of others who studied the problem are wrong.

How, exactly, does that work, betty? Am I allowed to do this, or is there some club you have to join first.

"The scenario is hypothetical,"

It's happened before. over 99% of the life forms died.

The answer is known, just not by the clueless, dear.

Goodness me. I wander off for a couple of days and this breaks out!

Now, of course, if I truly was "deputy of Deloid" I'd have to whip out my six-shooter and lay down the law.

But I'm not, so I won't.

Jah Love!

:-)

Oh, PS Betty, "It depends" is completely wrong.

Diffusion.

It works, bitch.

Yes. Maybe. It depends.

Nope. Basic chemistry. The answer is and can only be yes. Stop wriggling.

The scenario is hypothetical, therefore, the disruptions are speculative and the answer is unknown.

No it isn't. Read Honisch et al. I linked it for you a page or so back. OA = marine extinctions.

"I’d have to whip out my six-shooter "

Errr.

...

Is that a euphemism?

:-D

Just wondered with the "luke warmists" hypotheses, in relation to the denier JAQing off over "So what temperature SHOULD the planet be, huh?", surely their ideas deserve the query most acutely.

E.g. if the Iris flam were true, how would the iris "know" what temperature it needs to keep? God tells it?

And with Betty's unknowing of chemistry, how does the CO2 in the atmosphere know it shouldn't be in the ocean? God tells it?

Trust you, Wow.

And by 'eck that's a cheesy grin!

#8, "When Dawkins says it, he’s a faithiest fundamentalist religionist atheist and not a “true atheist” at all."

Of course not. You really need it step by step, really? Really??
Did you still not understand my comparison with the mathematician - 'who KNOWS there are infinitely many prime numbers and feels safe in that knowledge'?
Does this mathematician take to the streets, get advertisements on buses etc to convince the world of this paramount fact?
No he does not.
He does not have to.

I feel no urge to run around shouting there is no god, because I am safe in my knowledge of that. I am full 10 (ten) atheist. Dawkins is not, he says so himself. That is the one difference between him and me and I explain his urge to shout on the streets from this difference, that is: his uncertainty.
And I have been corrected somewhat in this conviction by Lionel A.
Now catch up and agree please :)

So to give Betty's elbow the requisite nudge in the direction of truth:

The rate of ocean acidification is determined by the rate of increase in the atmospheric fraction of CO2. Yes or no.

Yes. Maybe. It depends. YES

Are you claiming that rapid and significant reduction in ocean pH is not going to cause severe disruption to marine ecosystems? Yes or no.

The scenario is hypothetical, therefore, the disruptions are speculative and the answer is unknown. Betty's claim is YES, based on a false claim and he is wrong.

#7 Wow, " And you claim DAWKINS is using “facist methods”!?!?!?!"

I am beginning to dislike you. This is a straw man. Better beware, I come up with tungsten men.

That claim I never made, you did.

"Tell me, since I do not believe in god, in what way am I not a true atheist?"
Told you: your religious-looking zeal, your not being able to read any argument pertaining to your obsession. Your not being able, even, to see who is on your side on this and who isn't.

Looks like Richard Dawkins is your God.

"Yes you did. When you claimed “Morals then stem from delusional authority.”."

Tried Wow in #7.
Missed the word 'then' and... did some quote mining. Mixed up a reasoning with my reasoning. Do you ever read science articles, by the way?

If you don't understand me, just ask me a question.
You might learn where I think morals come from. One hint. They didn't arise from humanity. Humanity came already equipped with them. Like primates, like cats, like fish even. I can tell you about insects and morals, for insects show moral behaviour too (and theatre. And joking). But that would be like explaining Higgs to a student of a pseudoscience like economy.

#8, “When Dawkins says it, he’s a faithiest fundamentalist religionist atheist and not a “true atheist” at all.”

Of course not.

Ah, so there's no evidence of Dawkins doing his claimed religious atheiest routine, it's just true.

Very faithistic.

Did you still not understand my comparison with the mathematician

What part of "Dawkins is doing nothing like that" did you not understand, dear?

Do tell.

I feel no urge to run around shouting there is no god

But you DO feel the urge not only to demonise in your own mind anyone who does, but to run around shouting about how they're religious not "true atheists" like you.

I am safe in my knowledge of that. I am full 10 (ten) atheist.

So you know, and there is no way any evidence shown to you could dissuade you from your opinion, that there is no God.

Well happy la la for you.

But for a start, this doesn't make you a "true atheist". And it doesn't make Dawkins a non-atheist. Nor me.

#7 Wow, ” And you claim DAWKINS is using “facist methods”!?!?!?!”

I am beginning to dislike you.

See, this is a big difference between us.

You think so little of people you demand that they be held in cotton wool. Including yourself.

And then get as shitstorming angry as you claim Dawkins to be if that isn't being offered to you.

It's a little like drawing pictures of Mohammed.

Illegal for muslims.
Fine for non-muslims.

Or deference to the prophet of god. Muslims think that xtians should give them largesse because muslims don't deride JC, they put him as a prophet, not God himself. However, most christians don't care about that, so they accord it no courtesy.

I DO NOT GIVE A PILE OF MONKEY-DOO if you like me or are getting to hate me.

Couldn't give a monkey's fist.

This is a straw man. Better beware, I come up with tungsten men.

That claim I never made, you did.

Yeah, another disconnect from reality. Post 95, last page, and I quote:

Now what Dawkins is doing would be like a mathematician imposing the fact that Pi is a transcendent number on society using brutal authoritarian means

Facism being an authoritarian system of politics:

Fascism /ˈfæʃɪzəm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism[1][2] that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe

Yup, disconnect from reality.

Back down the rabbit-hole:

If you don’t understand me, just ask me a question.

I've asked many things. None have been answered, except with a Gish Gallop of Monktonian proportions.

“Tell me, since I do not believe in god, in what way am I not a true atheist?”
Told you: your religious-looking zeal

That isn't in the definition of atheism, dear.

DO try to keep up.

"Do you ever read science articles, by the way?"

Yes.

Ever read Dawkins or studied the definition of words?

"Looks like Richard Dawkins is your God."

Ah, yes.

Being considerate for the "wrong people" is worshipping them and apotheosis of that human to divine form.

ROFLCopter again.

"So you know, and there is no way any evidence shown to you could dissuade you from your opinion, that there is no God."

Of course there is. The way is evidence. Failing that, no God. But worse: if part of God's definition is given by His omnitpotence, he CANNOT exist. Looking for evidence then is akin to trying the quadrature of the circle.

Brutal authoritianism is not synonymous with fascism. Look at your own quote of what fascism is.
You're logic is wanting.

Anyway, I'm calling it quits. I don't discuss with believers in any god about their god and yours is obviously Dawkins. A mist before your eyes when someone has the guts to criticize him hah.

#22, yes.
And you are an Asperger, like me, so you, like me, know that words have a meaning.
Please break through and recognize, friend.

Here's a pretty amazing development:

http://www.pattern-recognition-in-physics.net/

Termination of the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics

Copernicus Publications started publishing the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics (PRP) in March 2013. The journal idea was brought to Copernicus' attention and was taken rather critically in the beginning, since the designated Editors-in-Chief were mentioned in the context of the debates of climate skeptics. However, the initiators asserted that the aim of the journal was to publish articles about patterns recognized in the full spectrum of physical disciplines rather than to focus on climate-research-related topics.

Recently, a special issue was compiled entitled "Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts". Besides papers dealing with the observed patterns in the heliosphere, the special issue editors ultimately submitted their conclusions in which they “doubt the continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project” (Pattern Recogn. Phys., 1, 205–206, 2013).

Copernicus Publications published the work and other special issue papers to provide the spectrum of the related papers to the scientists for their individual judgment. Following best practice in scholarly publishing, published articles cannot be removed afterwards.

In addition, the editors selected the referees on a nepotistic basis, which we regard as malpractice in scientific publishing and not in accordance with our publication ethics we expect to be followed by the editors.

Therefore, we at Copernicus Publications wish to distance ourselves from the apparent misuse of the originally agreed aims & scope of the journal as well as the malpractice regarding the review process, and decided on 17 January 2014 to cease the publication of PRP. Of course, scientific dispute is controversial and should allow contradictory opinions which can then be discussed within the scientific community. However, the recent developments including the expressed implications (see above) have led us to this drastic decision.

I've never come across this 'journal' before, but looking at the archive I see some familiar names - Scafetta, N.-A. Mörner, Soon, Archibald, Easterbrook, and R. Tattersall. Tattersall!. My jaw hit the floor.

“So you know, and there is no way any evidence shown to you could dissuade you from your opinion, that there is no God.”

Of course there is. The way is evidence.

So you, a self confessed "true atheist" thinks the same as Dawkins, who you claim to be "religionist atheist".

Hrmm...

Did any of this thinking EVER touch the sides, or did you just regurgitate this without that impediment?

Brutal authoritianism is not synonymous with fascism.

So now you're claiming that what Dawkins does is BRUTAL?!?!?!

But weren't you worried about dying from faithiest gunfire, therefore not willing to speak up?

Yet THEY should NEVER be told there isn't a god because only religious people talk about god???

Yeah, nothing touches the sides there. Completely fucking empty space.

#22, yes.

Except you think that an absence of any "religious-looking zeal" (looking to who?) is part of the definition of atheist?

I do believe you've given the wrong answer.

Twice now.

"No, you’re not, since you would leave those people affected by the religious overtaking of education to their doom and not help them. Completely lacking in humanism there."

This point by Wow is relevant. So I think it wants answering.

First, this is a big dilemma for all of us not afflicted by the delusion/pathology. Because:

1) People are not born muslim, christian, buddhist or whatever, but what does this mean? Are all people born atheist, then?
I do not think it is mere coincidence that I grew up an atheist. Both my parents were atheists, so go figure.

2) From this, my right to talk other people out of their god delusion is questionable to say the least. It is probably as questionable as them forcing me to believe in their god.

3) It is inhumane to take something from someone without giving anything of value back to replace it. It results in either unhealable broken people or it elicits a response to more radical belief. Try a bit of history including those stories of regimes supressing religions for this lesson of life.

Purely metaphorically speaking atheists have nothing to offer.
Realistically spoken, atheists have literally the world to offer.
Humanely neither can be forced onto anyone.

PS being aspie is not an excuse for flailing moronically, using blunt language or misapprehension through missing social context.

It means you need to try avoiding situations where this is going to be necessary.

You aren't doing so in your "religious looking fervour" to either demonise or deify Dawkins.

"This point by Wow is relevant. So I think it wants answering"

Except you're not answering it, you're prevaricating to avoid realisation of your spinelessness.

Indeed in the case concerned there WERE mathematicians.

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-384514-culture-o…

"So now you’re claiming that what Dawkins does is BRUTAL?!?!?!"

Wow's interpretion of the following quote:

"Now what Dawkins is doing would be like a mathematician imposing the fact that Pi is a transcendent number on society using brutal authoritarian means (okay, verbally of course)."

A lot of modality left out. But yes, see the third point in #28 for an answer to that 'brutal'. Answer the humanitarian question please.

3) It is inhumane to take something from someone without giving anything of value back to replace it.

Truth isn't valuable?

But that would be like explaining Higgs to a student of a pseudoscience like economy.

Careful cRR, you'll have Richard Tol fulminating to the point of conniptive explosion - and him being an expert in Antarctic science and all...

Lord_sidcup, I'd have thought that retraction was the academic route to "remove afterwards" discredited papers, but if the publisher feels so strongly that the shenanigans warrant termination of the journal, that's saying something indeed.

Cue the howls of outrage from the peanut gallery as pseudoscientists and their lay drones claim definitive evidence of censorship* by the Global Climate Conspiracy...

[*...even though the articles are there for all to see...]

#29, how about 'humanizing Richard Dawkins'? You respond to it like I'm the ultimate sinner :)

“So now you’re claiming that what Dawkins does is BRUTAL?!?!?!”

Wow’s interpretion of the following quote:

No you incredibly dense moron, THIS quote:

Brutal authoritianism is not synonymous with fascism.

I EVEN FRIGGING QUOTED IT.

How fundamentally ignorant and dismissive of everyone else's intelligence (if they don't agree with you inherently, they MUST be moronic enough not to check!: Another Monckton manoever) is it to do this?

#29, how about ‘humanizing Richard Dawkins’?

The only one talking about apotheosis for him was you, dear.

People who read his stuff without the baggage of apologetics and fake balance dragging their faculties down into the sewers already do and always have considered him a human.

Only those who wish to paint those who do not demonise him like they demand must be done prattle this caricature. As if you either worship him as a deity or deride him as a human.

No scope for respect him as a human is allowed in the wonderland-world apologetics and other mental defectives inhabit.

#32, beyond value... Beyond. Truth and value might not fare well within one sentence. But that's for the prof philosophers.
Alas, sometimes education needs a lot of tenderness and time. Otherwise it may result in hurt, and in resistance - both effectively move away from truth appreciation. I think Dawkins' method might backfire more than mine, say.

#33, Tol, yeah, bring it on!!

#36, are you really that sore from a small criticism of Dawkins' activism?

#35, you gave a quote of fascism as that special brutal authoritarian system being characterized by nationalism.

There are more brutal authoritarian systems, fascism is only one of them.
The kind I was thinking of looks more like Inquisition. Which is not nationalistic at all (did u know), and cannot be fascism therefore.

For someone who claims "words have meaning", you seem remarkably loose in your own choice of words. Your assumption that "zeal" = "religiosity" is just that - your assumption, and a particularly stupid one. I think you would do well to turn down what reads to me as argumentative smugness and reread the conversation with fresh eyes. You have stated your own immunity to new evidence (self-appointed 10) which proves that you are the "religious athiest", not Dawkins, or Wow.

...looks more like Inquisition. Which is not nationalistic at all ...

Is that something else you "know" with mathematical precision? Because the statement as it stands is simply wrong. Which Inquisition - there were several, did u know? Some were indeed nationalistic. Anyway, on what level was the inquisition (any of them) more brutal than good-old 20th century fascism?

Wow's zeal in calling you out has everything to do with your faulty reasoning/logic/understanding and little or nothing to do with "atheism"(intentional scare quotes).

"#32, beyond value… Beyond"

So point 3 doesn't apply to telling people "There is no God".

"Alas, sometimes education needs a lot of tenderness and time."

Not really. Learning "fire hot, burns hands" is taught every kid just about in the world. The world doesn't give them comfort.

When the kid realises that the world in truth is a hard place, they're comforted, they're NOT told "The BAD fire hurt you?!?".

"#36, are you really that sore from a small criticism"

How sore am I? Do tell.

And how small was that criticism?

Tell me, why are you so incensed that someone who doesn't ascribe to your philosophy doesn't do like you want them to, that you have to prattle round about how they're not an atheist, when they definitely are, and how everyone who doesn't ascribe to that must be religious too, having Dawkins as their god?

If you're not, why the fuck did you post that shite?

Thanks Frank.

Maybe you can find the hole in kamper;s head that lets an idea he doesn't wish to entertain in.

There are more brutal authoritarian systems, fascism is only one of them.

Was that the WHOOOSH of goalposts there?

You claimed that Dawkins' authoritarianism wasn't facism because brutality wasn't core to facism.

Now you claim that you're not wrong still because things other than facism were more brutal.

20-dimensional thinking is probably quite easy when you're in Wonderland...

As long as you get to decide the rules of geometry.

"Otherwise it may result in hurt, and in resistance"

So what? That makes THEIR actions wrong, not mine.

If I stop a mugging and the result is that the mugger calls his mates over to help the beatdown, was that my fault?

http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/01/17/1459234/creationism-in-texas…

More "religious atheists" demanding that creationism is wrong, huh?

#41, "Not really. Learning “fire hot, burns hands” is taught every kid just about in the world. The world doesn’t give them comfort."

This mentality is conform to brutal authoritarianism, whose message for children it so often is.
You whip your kids, you do not teach them kindhess, integrity, honesty - things that exist in the world as well as greed, fear and evil?

"Tell me, why are you so incensed..." - I can't. I'm not and never was.
But I am falling over from surprise you just don't seem to get how much we actually agree on this subject. Damn, I even shared four ways to prove you right!

Except for one small point: I don't believe in activism as a way to educate people out of their god delusions, but Dawkins does.
And I even openly questioned my own criticism on this in this thread.

#45, are you trying to convey that having a religion is a criminal act, like mugging?

#46, why confront me with that? I already told you I would instantly leave such a school, 'gutless coward' I am! (as if such an uprising against school and probably own parents would be cowardly at all...).

#41, “Not really. Learning “fire hot, burns hands” is taught every kid just about in the world. The world doesn’t give them comfort.”

This mentality is conform to brutal authoritarianism

No it isn't, it's taking responsibilities for your actions, facing reality as it is, not what you wish it to conform to, in order to appreciate how your actions can choose your own path, therefore no god or instructional text is necessary.

Just because YOU are a fucking retard doesn't mean your claims about what things are is correct.

E.g. "Atheism means you don't appear to have religous-like fervour".

You whip your kids

Why would I do that? All it teaches them is that you can make people do what you want with violence.

Or is this yet another caricature that you can beat down?

“Tell me, why are you so incensed…” – I can’t. I’m not and never was.

Then explain the religous zeal you have in lambasting anyone who dares utter uncomfortable truths that you personally think should not be done?

"#45, are you trying to convey that having a religion is a criminal act, like mugging?"

Yes.

Why the fuck not? You never hear what's said, only what you think is going on, so have a ball, dear.

"#46, why confront me with that?"

Why not? Are you not offended that there are boplogists who are saying that teaching creationism or sidelining actual verifiable biology because the bible is a fictional tale on this subject?

Or is it only when Dawkins does it you feel offended?

In which case, your claim:

“Tell me, why are you so incensed…” – I can’t. I’m not and never was.

Is disproved by evidence.

You DO know what evidence means, right? "That which is seen".

#40 -

"Your assumption that “zeal” = “religiosity"
Not mine. I used the prhase 'religous zeal', see, and I did not mean that as a tautology at all.

" You have stated your own immunity to new evidence (self-appointed 10) which proves that you are the “religious athiest”, not Dawkins, or Wow."

First, I have given a motivation (re omnipotence) for that, which you have read like climate revisionists read climate science...
Second, the atheist is on the mathematical full ten.
Agnosts like Dawkins and Wow are not.
It follows both hate atheists with religious zeal :D

#50, yes, I have seen the evidence, like you shouting on internet... Capitals.

#50 "Are you not offended"... Why do you think I state time and again I will leave that school instantly?

Are you trying to get me into threatening such a school with violence, that being as it seems to me virtually my only alternative from just fleeing the place?

“Your assumption that “zeal” = “religiosity”
Not mine

So your post was written by the Easter Bunny?

Agnosts like Dawkins and Wow are not.

Yup. You know when you said you knew what words meant?

Check what agnostic means, dear.

Failed again.

#50, yes, I have seen the evidence

And I've seen the evidence of your frothing madness: every insane twist and turn of your illogic, constructed on the fly to ensure that no dangerous "new thought" enters.

Capitals are easier than bolding for emphasis, dear.

But making up your own meaning is fine, if it contents you, isn't it, darling?

#50 “Are you not offended”… Why do you think I state time and again I will leave that school instantly?

Yeah, the "insanity defence".

"Where were you on the 15th of last June?"
"I have no elephants in my appartment!"

Wish to try again with less insanity?

#49, "All it teaches them is that you can make people do what you want with violence."

You just told me that is one of the things kids ought to learn. It is the reality, you see.
You responded that when I stated some education would be best done with some tenderness.
You gave the suggestion that tenderness is a dirty word in your ears.

"Then explain the religous zeal you have in lambasting anyone who dares utter uncomfortable truths that you personally think should not be done?"

Yes, tell me. Like I said you have me rolling over from suprise.

#55, sure. I will leave any school instantly that teaches nonsens instead of reality. That includes schools teaching creationism.

You call that insane?

#54, 'agnostic'? I don't know.

"Agnosticism is the belief that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, as well as other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown."

Unknown. Agnost. Atheists know better.

#49, “All it teaches them is that you can make people do what you want with violence.”

You just told me that is one of the things kids ought to learn

No I didn't.

Next fabrication du straw, please!

You gave the suggestion that tenderness is a dirty word in your ears.

Even if that were the case, it doesn't say "Whip your kids. Because". Several levels of idiocy resides in that pumpkin head of yours.

#54, ‘agnostic’? I don’t know.

It's not "not an atheist" is it, dear?

Like Frank says, you're the fundie.

"Unknown. Agnost. Atheists know better."

Gnosticism: What is knowable.
Theism: what is believed.

Orthogonal issues. Look it up, dear, your dribbling is showing.

#55, sure. I will leave any school instantly that teaches nonsens instead of reality. That includes schools teaching creationism.

You call that insane?

I called YOU insane.

Your response is the response of an insane mind. It is a non-sequitur. Look that word up, dear.

I even gave you the example:

“Where were you on the 15th of last June?”
“I have no elephants in my appartment!”

But your insanity knows no reason.

So, care to answer the question, dearie?

Read #46.

#59, I am a fundamentalist atheist but I don't behave like one (except, strangely, in this quagmire called Deltoid).

You do not know there is no god - and you operate like a fundi.

It would be a case to research, but well I did that for you - check out the methaphor with the mathematician, the most extreme fundamentalist there is: he doesn't even want to talk about it :)

#62, what is the question there? 'Religious atheists' cannot exist, so please rephrase.

I might have forgotten to mention that that school I left might not be free from my fighting that kind of curriculum. On the other hand, it might. My life is not worth fighting the 33 to 66% of idiots every society seems to have to contain.

What do you do about it?
There is comparison with battling climate revisionism, isn't there?

#59, I am a fundamentalist atheist

So when you complained of Dawkins being religious because of his zeal, your fundamentalism makes you a "true atheist".

THIS is why you're mad, dear. Stark raving strawberry bonkers.

You do not know there is no god

A "9" means "I could be persuaded of the existence of god if I can verify it".

A "10" means "There is no such thing as God and no proof would change my mind".

They are both atheists. One is not truer than the other.

If your 10 is "I KNOW there is no such thing, and therefore KNOW there is no possible proof of it", then you're an gnostic atheist.

If your 10 is a "I would not change my mind if proof were available", you're an agnostic atheist.

Indeed to some theologians, if god proved himself, then there would be no faith, just as there is no "faith" that tables exist.

@Lord_Sidcup ages ago

I’ve never come across this ‘journal’ before, but looking at the archive I see some familiar names – Scafetta, N.-A. Mörner, Soon, Archibald, Easterbrook, and R. Tattersall. Tattersall!. My jaw hit the floor.

Well, well, well. Another attempt to subvert scientific publishing by fake sceptics pushing fake science. I had absolutely no idea that this was going on, so thanks for the flag.

And Tallbloke? Tallbloke? Jeebus on poppers.

I might have forgotten to mention that that school I left might not be free from my fighting that kind of curriculum.

Oh yes indeedy you missed that entire action out.

Probably because in the context of that response "I would leave" the mentioning of "I would gight that kind of curriculum" is EXACTLY what you deride in others with your "You don't see mathematicians with billboards saying 'Pi is NOT 3'".

Why?

Because you have no reason to hate Dawkins.

You just hate.

#61, it is what I would do.
Is the act of moving to another school a 'non-sequitur'?
Is moving to another school proof of being insane?

If so, then so what?
You may not be interested in my feeling for you, dearie, but I wasn't even interested enough to even respond to that. Like I'm not at all interested in assessments of my sanity, even if those WERE based on some more than some hot debate on damned religiousity or lack of it.

"Is the act of moving to another school a ‘non-sequitur’?"

Yes.

When you're asked the question in #64, "the act of moving schools" is a non-sequitur.

Do you know what it means, dear? You've managed nil points so far, having found the right definition of a few words, but that definition being other than the one that applied to your use of it.

So I'm not hopeful you know. You just know how to google "define $WORD".

but I wasn’t even interested enough to even respond to that.

Sorry, double fail there.

That WAS a response.

Telling you my disinterest is the clearest way of letting you know that such perambulations of your diseased mind are of absolutely no point to their presentation to me. It is is NOT showing interest.

So, you probably thought "Ah HA! I've got 'im!".

Hence the double fail, retard.

@BBS

And Tallbloke? Tallbloke? Jeebus on poppers.

Stunning. The reviewer for the paper "Responses of the basic cycles of 178.7 and 2402 yr in solar–terrestrial phenomena during the Holocene" by Charvátová and Hejdais was (drum roll).... R. Tattersall.

And Tallbloke? Tallbloke? Jeebus on poppers.

... which is likely - despite the potential for another The Downfall parody - the very words the publishing board uttered when they realized.

cRR and others

I have just looked up a series of talks given by luminaries in the cognition and belief field that took place at the SALK Institute in 2006. I watched most of the segment back then.

Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion & Survival

Just look at the role call, apart from Dawkins we have:
Sam Harris, *
Steven Weiberg *
Lawrence Krauss *
Neil de Grass Tyson
V.S. Ramachandran
Paul Davies *

* indicates I have, and have read books by these as I have Daniel C Dennett who was not there being recovering from a heart attack and by-pass at the time. Dennett is well worth reading I have and have read:

Freedom Evolves
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

The Richard Dawkins Foundation web site is always worth a visit, those that have noticed my web site will have seen a link there, which did break through changes at the RDF end, but works at present.

John Sargeant has an apposite article posted yesterday: We Need Richard Dawkins And You</a.

The underhand way that some go to get creationism taught in schools is once again highlighted here and Slashdot - Creationism In Texas Public Schools.

Just as with fraking, no honest policies expected from that direction - creationism.

Argh!

The Richard Dawkins Foundation web site is always worth a visit, those that have noticed my web site will have seen a link there, which did break through changes at the RDF end, but works at present.

John Sargeant has an apposite article posted yesterday: We Need Richard Dawkins And You.

The underhand way that some go to get creationism taught in schools is once again highlighted here and Slashdot - Creationism In Texas Public Schools.

Just as with fraking, no honest policies expected from that direction - creationism.

#72 Lionel A, just checking in, reading from below, stopped at #72 to find we are in love with the same mind. Dennett. I am aghast at him having had heart problems, didn't know that.
Recently lost Francisco Varela.
For me this is all about cognition science (which I dub to be the follow-up of psychology like chemistry followed alchemy :) ).
Mentioned Sam Harris in one of my first attempts to ward off over enthousiastic Wow today...
Weiberg and Tyson appear new authors to me. If they are, please, into cognition science? I only incidentally do the atheismdiscussion really, as I am quite finished with God myself :)

A present for Wow. Could've asked me what is my opinion about the activistic ways of Michael Mann re CAGW. It is so comparable in ways. If Wow calls teaching creationism or preaching christ is criminal, I call climate revisionism that, and climate revisionists actually too push there 'educational' materials on kids. Not to mention the affiliations of many of them, of course.
Now, I fully support Mann and his ways.
But I still have a problem with feeling the same way about counter-religious activism. Apparently this paradox is hard to explain.

#69 Wow, actually I thought at first the link you presented in #64 was FROM creationists, not against them (operating on a certain school).
So there was a misunderstanding.

Still I will jump any country where creationism as presented the superior theory over evolution becomes obligatory school curriculum. That is a statement.

#67, I love Dawkins. 'The Selfish Gene' is one of my bibles, oops, inspiration guides, whatever :)
I think one can make a complete pic of what life is from those two Books by Darwin and Dawkins. It is a small step to understand from that subjects like consciousness and cognition.
It does not mean I cannot or will not vent criticisms on statements or actions of either. Neither would I fly into a rage if someone criticises them. There's the difference between me and the adept.

#65...

"A “9″ means “I could be persuaded of the existence of god if I can verify it”."

cRR: A '9' means I could be persuaded of Pi being an integer if I can verify it.
Allright, so I am a '9'.

"A “10″ means “There is no such thing as God and no proof would change my mind”."

cRR: 'Pi cannot be an integer and no proof of the contrary would change my mind.'

This cannot be. If this is your interpretation of '10' then I fully understand why you call me stark raving mad. You would be so right you should call the white van now!
Problem with that way of formulating '10' is that it is contradictory. If I state that 'Pi cannot be an integer' then I imply I have proof for Pi not being an integer, rendering the clause 'no proof of the contrary would change my mind' void.

'10' applies when one possesses proof, while '9' still keeps open the possibility of there existing counterproof. I do not hold that door open.

Am '10' on CAGW too :)

A 'gnostic atheist'.
Why double things up all the time?
Of course atheists know.

cRR

Weiberg and Tyson appear new authors to me.

Oops! My fault (I don't have much feeling in fingertips so touch typing ain't what it used to be), I dropped the 'n' in Weinberg. Steven Weinberg is a Nobel winning theoretical physicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and cosmologist. Laurence Krauss is another theoretical physicists with a book of his joining those of Penrose, Smolin, Hawking, Sagan and Feynman amongst others.

Two of my favourite Dawkins are 'Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder' and 'Climbing Mount Improbable' my favourite chapter 'A Garden Enclosed being in that latter.

Some fine essays from other notable writers, with introductions by Dawkins, are found in 'A Devil's Chaplain', Postmodernism Disrobed being a classic.

cRR Kampen, whilst I would prefer to discuss climate science, since atheism has been a big topic lately let me add a couple of observations.

I explain his urge to shout on the streets from this difference, that is: his uncertainty.

FWIW, I think the evidence points away from this hypothesis, and fairly clearly too. The stated reasons are rational and comport with much evidence.

I would urge you to reconsider this line of reasoning.

cRR, I find Wow's interaction style challenging at times, but he has a number of good points and some of them you reconsider.

As he and others have pointed out, from what I remember of The God Delusion your claim to be a "10" on the scale Dawkins gave is in conflict with your claim to be open to new evidence of the supernatural and your claim not to be a fundamentalist atheist because a 10 is (by definition) a fundamentalist on this issue. Perhaps you meant a "10 for certain definitions of deities, but not for all such definitions"? If so, this distinction is absolutely crucial and you might want to take care to make it clear. And if so making the unqualified statement "I'm a 10" is erroneous.

Thirdly, you give a very strong impression of using a definition of "atheist", at least when you qualify it as "true atheist", that is more constrained than the base meaning of the word. Atheist simply means "lacking theistic beliefs", so one may be a "6" on the Dawkins scale and still truly be an atheist. The word "atheist" need not and most often does not imply "10 on Dawkins' scale", and usage of the word that implies that is far less common - and frequently causes confusion.

If I state that ‘Pi cannot be an integer’ then I imply I have proof for Pi not being an integer, rendering the clause ‘no proof of the contrary would change my mind’ void.

That implication does not follow, especially when the discussion has the context of fundamentalism. I might be convinced that my god would not allow pi to be an integer, for example, but would also honestly and accurately admit that I had no proof of that claim.

’10′ applies when one possesses proof,...

No, this a logic error when applied to atheism. The analogy with a mathematical statement does not hold.

"Atheism" is non-belief in the existence of every member of the set of proposed deities. You may have proof for a subset of those deities - and I claim that myself - but I guarantee that you do not have proof for each and every member of the set because some are defined in such a way as to be "logically possible" (i.e. not violating logic) but rendering the question of their existence unfalsifiable.

Since one must not believe for each and every member of that set, some of which one does not have proof for, then one cannot be an atheist "10" in the sense that you are using the term. (And IIRC Dawkins does not define 10 in the way you do, presumably for exactly this reason.)

Please reconsider.

“A “10″ means “There is no such thing as God and no proof would change my mind”.”

disagree. its more like certainty there is no god - BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE EVIDENCE. its the exact inverse of a '1' type theist belief, which would is certainty there IS a god based on all available evidence.

obviously a 10 atheist is much less irrational than a 1 theist as at least he has evidence to back it up!

#81 Lionel A, vaguely remembered the Nobelwinner but didn't read thru the typo, it happens. Thank you again.

#80 cRR (inner thought) - 'gnostic atheism' looks about as dumb a phrase as 'postmodernism'...

#82 Lotharsson, thank you for a great reply. Okay, notes:

- to Dawkins' activism, "I would urge you to reconsider this line of reasoning." - I did so repeately, e.g. first lines of page 4/#99 and by comparing him to Michael Mann who's activism I do support. I am inclined to agree with Lionel A and you on this.

- "The word “atheist” need not and most often does not imply “10 on Dawkins’ scale”, and usage of the word that implies that is far less common – and frequently causes confusion."
True. This was the case as of the day it was coined. I decide to use it my way, which is the simplest, even if apparently not quite acceptable in discussions. Kind of vehicle to express my position.

- "No, this a logic error when applied to atheism. The analogy with a mathematical statement does not hold."

You will need to back up this hypothesis.
For this you will need to perform the operation that for some reason always lacks in debates like this. I'll reserve some whitespace for it, because it is of paramount importance:

Define God - so we know what we're talking about.
Then we can analyse the mathematicity of arguments proving/disproving His existence. Also only then can we determine whether the empirical-scientific method of studying the subject (you all so favour that practical method - which is why you can never win debates with theists :) ) is applicable at all.

#83 andyuk, no worries, we can agree to disagree, also we can agree to learn a bit one from the other's position :)

Note for Lotharsson, I might have to work with Russel's Paradox: is the set of all sets a set? Then, what grounds the 'existence of a set'?

"Perhaps you meant a “10 for certain definitions of deities, but not for all such definitions”? If so, this distinction is absolutely crucial and you might want to take care to make it clear.", #82.

Omnipotence as an attribute excludes His existence. I'm looking for more definitions of God, I hope participants would provide some.

As is often the case, +1 on Lotharsson's remarks.

“The word “atheist” need not and most often does not imply “10 on Dawkins’ scale”, and usage of the word that implies that is far less common – and frequently causes confusion.”
True. This was the case as of the day it was coined. I decide to use it my way, which is the simplest, even if apparently not quite acceptable in discussions.

Which says that cRR's position relies on a certain degree of Humpty-Dumptyism: 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

cRR critiques Dawkins' position on Dawkins' scale based on his own interpretation of Dawkin's scale, and then seems surprised that, in the absence of adequate clarification of that point people disagree.

A page of hand-flapping back-and-forth and all we know is that Dawkins is a 9 and cRR a 10 on cRR's scale, which is essentially undefined, but appears to top out at "I'm immune to any proof because I don't believe that such a proof can exist". I'm excited by the new-found knowledge that someone on the internet believes something quintessentially irrational.

cRR has also alerted us that aggressively confronting people about their beliefs can harden rather than soften those beliefs, a point stated textually in various posts but also abundantly clear from cRR's reaction to being confronted aggressively - to double-down on his errors, or simply ignore them.

Since all of us have done time in the trenches against people who feel their beliefs trump the evidence, this has about the same revelatory quality as 50 posts reminding us that water is wet.

Thanks for the heads up.

You will need to back up this hypothesis.

It's not a hypothesis. It's a logical argument grounded in an axiom (and that is clearly valid in this universe).

For this you will need to perform the operation that for some reason always lacks in debates like this.

That is entirely unnecessary to my argument.

Please read it again! It holds regardless of the definitions of the gods in the set. More specifically, it holds regardless of who specifies the definitions, regardless of whether I specify a definition myself for zero or one or any number of the set members, and it even holds if some of the definitions are unspecified! All it requires is that at least one of the god definitions has the property that its existence claim is unfalsifiable.

This condition is clearly satisfied. There is at least one deity definition in the world whose existence is unfalsifiable, as the unfalsifiability is a common objection from atheists (and may be raised by some theists about other theists' deities).

Then we can analyse the mathematicity of arguments proving/disproving His existence.

This is not a topic that I raised. Furthermore your response has the wrong multiplicity to address my argument which might indicate where some of your misunderstanding lies. My argument is about your use of the term "atheism" which is a claim about a property evaluated over the entire set of deities which have been claimed to exist by anyone at any time, rather than one specific deity.

Maybe I can put it as a three liner in case that gets through:

1. The "10" position on the Dawkins scale is an assertion that all gods do not exist.

2. And one cannot prove non-existence for all gods as some of them are unfalsifiable, hence a "10" position can never be proven.

3. The proof that any specific god does not exist (even if someone calls that god "God") changes neither (1) nor (2) nor (2)'s conclusion.

Cue the howls of outrage from the peanut gallery as pseudoscientists and their lay drones claim definitive evidence of censorship* by the Global Climate Conspiracy…

[*...even though the articles are there for all to see...

Et voila!

The high dudgeon is LOLable, but the scary thing is that I think the nepoteurs and their cheer squad genuinely believe that they have credibility.

Oo, and cRR's comment about pseudoscience is apposite...

Scafetta's quibbling about the literal meaning of "nepotism" (when the sense of the statement is perfectly clear) made me laugh hardest.

This is rippling through the deniosphere, leaving a spume trail of outrage and conspiricy ideation in its wake. JoNova also has an article - unaccountably forgetting to include the "nepotistic" sentence until Stoat called her out.

It's hilarious, but not so funny is the blithering incompetence at Copernicus. WTF were the publishers thinking of? Those responsible would be out on their arses had they worked for me.

BBD, I suspect that Copernicus probably believed (or wanted to believe) that the nepoteurs would be true to their word - in which case PRP was another arrow in their quiver, which is always a commercial imperative for this sort of publisher. They've been stung, and embarrassingly so, and I suspect that they fell over themselves to jettison the denialist astrology once they realised what was being printed under their banner.

Of course there were bells ringing from the outset and Copernicus should have seen past the wheedling rhetoric and looked at the roll-card of the promotors - anyone experienced with climate change denial would have immediately recognised a concerted campaign of a good slice of the who's who in the Denialati. In this sense Copernicus is guilty at least of inexperience, but they have partially redeemed themselves by ceasing further publication.

It will be interesting now to see which authors, if any, have the grace to retract their papers. I'm wondering if Copernicus might do so themselves down the track, in order to maximise the smack across the face of those who perpetrated this smuggling of climastrology into a nacent scientific publisher's ledger.

All this aside, I don't think I've laughed this much about the Denialist modus operandi for months. Their pontificating is hilarious, and tragic at the same time - many really seem to believe that their stuff is science, rather than the fodder favoured by Nexus magazine.

Executives at Copernicus failed to exercise due diligence. They did not look into the background of the fake sceptics involved *despite* having misgivings and they were naive. Either failing at senior executive level would justify dismissal, so I would be terminating a contract or two.

While it's good and necessary to see some semblance of quality control asserting itself at Copernicus, the problem-ette now is that the story becomes the freezing out of "alternative" theories, (never mind the ATs complete inability to describe all the convergent lines of evidence and the authors' previous) which he peanut gallery loves.

On the bright side, by this time next week it'll be some other nonsense occupying them.

3 cheers for communism!
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/01/16/un-climate-chief-declares-communi…

Batty, please link to the quote from Figueres - not an interpretation of the original interpretation provided by Bloomberg - that actually says 'Communism is best for dealing with global warming.'

While you're doing that, you can also ponder that it's people like you who are increasing the likelihood of the resort to totalitarian solutions to deal with the problem in future, precisely because you all insist that a democracy must be as stupid as you are. If you strident ideologues had got out the way, we could have been tackling these problems decades ago, preserving your beloved market, and the liberal democratic principles you claim to cherish, in the process.

Your idiot tribe, for instance, is about the destroy a carbon take here in Australia, in the name of a slavish worship of billionaires that you hilariously conceive of as 'libertarian', twinned with a 'you're not the boss of me' infantilism...

Oh, and fans of the PRP fiasco might wander over to Watts' and check out the proprietors remarkable comments about Scafetta's work , and the surprisingly general commentary on the 'curve-fitting skeptics'. A pattern really does emerge: the split with the Slayers; the split with what we might deem, onomatopoieacally, as the PaRPers; the centre of Denial simply cannot hold...

Counteraccount? Hardly! AGW is a theory; its would-be Nemesis is a shambles.

Fortunately for it, and sadly for history, there are many people as dumb as Batty..

For the hatrick - who's surprised that Batty is a Fox shill?

There’s Dirt Stupid, and then There’s Fox Stupid

Its pretty clear what kind of web sites Betty reads to gain his insights on the world. No wonder he can't argue his way out of a soaking wet paper bag.