Summary: Yesterday’s post gave an example of conservative propaganda, pleasant myths embraced by believers. Today we do the same, but for the Left. Both sides are Americans, with the same vulnerabilities — exploited by our ruling elites to keep us divided and ineffectual. I believe that reform is impossible while we remain so credulous. That’s a choice that keeps us weak.
Timendi causa est nescire.
— Ignorance is the cause of fear. A useful dynamic, exploited by rulers throughout history.
To prepare for your family gatherings, let’s rehearse a conversation about climate change. John Rennie (science writer, former Editor of Scientific American; see Wikipedia) provides a helpful script: “7 ways to shut down a climate change denier“, Salon, 18 December 2013 — “Comprehensive rebuttals to contrarians’ pseudo-scientific explanations why global warming is just a myth”.
This was originally published at Scientific American on 30 December 2009. Showing how the debate has changed, the original title was the slightly less incendiary and condescending “Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense — Evidence for human interference with Earth’s climate continues to accumulate.”
Sample responses are follow each item.
What follows is only a partial list of the contrarians’ bad arguments and some brief rebuttals of them.
Claim 1: Anthropogenic CO2 can’t be changing climate, because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere and the amount produced by humans is dwarfed by the amount from volcanoes and other natural sources.Water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas, so changes in CO2 are irrelevant.
Rennie, thanks for the info. But this is not a view of “the contrarians”. For example, it is not a belief of prominent climate scientists condemned as “deniers” (e.g., Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Sr), or found on the major “skeptic” websites. The people who believe that are in the far corner of the room, with the creationists, conspiracy nuts, communists, and radical libertarians.
Claim 2: The alleged “hockey stick” graph of temperatures over the past 1,600 years has been disproved. It doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of a “medieval warm period” around 1000 A.D. that was hotter than today is. Therefore, global warming is a myth.
.
Willful Ignorance
… A 2006 National Research Council {NRC} review of the evidence concluded “with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries”—which is the section of the graph most relevant to current climate trends.
… But hypothetically, even if the hockey stick was busted… What of it? The case for anthropogenic global warming originally came from studies of climate mechanics, not from reconstructions of past temperatures seeking a cause. Warnings about current warming trends came out years before Mann’s hockey stick graph.
Even if the world were incontrovertibly warmer 1,000 years ago, it would not change the fact that the recent rapid rise in CO2 explains the current episode of warming more credibly than any natural factor does — and that no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead.
The 2006 NRC report’s conclusion is a consensus viewpoint of both climate scientists and those on the major “climate skeptic” websites, that the world has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age (whatever its geographic scope).
The questions actually discussed by skeptics concern other issues, such as the duration of anthropogenic CO2 releases (e.g., size of remaining economically exploitable fossil fuel deposits, speed of conversion to alternatives), and the magnitude of the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 (aka transient climate response, TCR).
Claim 3: Global warming stopped a decade ago; Earth has been cooling since then.
Now we move into climate activist propaganda.
Warming “paused” almost 14 – 17 years ago by most of the major climate datasets.
That’s a pause in the sense of “no statistically significant warming” (i.e., smaller than the error bars).
We will not know if warming stopped (rather than paused) until 2030 (perhaps longer).
There is a brief period of cooling in some of the global temperature datasets, but not statistically significant. See details here.
Claim 4: The sun or cosmic rays are much more likely to be the real causes of global warming. After all, Mars is warming up, too.
There are scientists who believe this (to varying degrees); they have published a large body of research. There is research suggesting a historical correlations between solar activity and Earth’s climate (see these posts, and the articles listed in sections 6 and 7 here). They’re a minority of climate scientists (even among solar scientists), and will remain that until they have a more convincing casual mechanism.
Despite romantic myths, mainstream consensus theories are usually right. But not always.
Claim 5:
Climatologists conspire to hide the truth about global warming by locking away their data.
Their so-called “consensus” on global warming is scientifically irrelevant because science isn’t settled by popularity.
The first part of this claim is quite accurate. Many climate scientists were guilty of refusling to release data and methods, in violation of the policies of most journals and governments. Much progress has been made, but only after complaints (formal and informal) and freedom of information acts.
In response to a request for supporting data, Philip Jones, a prominent researcher {U of East Anglia} said “We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”
– From the testimony of Stephen McIntyre before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (the July 2006 hearings which produced the Wegman Report).
The second part of this claim is likewise true. On the other hand, consensus opinion of relevant scientists is a useful guide to public policy (i.e., why we have the IPCC). On the other hand, the area of consensus is often exaggerated by climate activists — as Rennie does with the views of skeptics. That’s a common effect of politicization.
Claim 6: Climatologists have a vested interest in raising the alarm because it brings them money and prestige.
This claim is quite correct. Conflicts of interest are part of most professions. That’s why they have standards of behavior, review boards, and procedures to manage these conflicts. These conflicts can bias results even unconsciously. Which is why health care researchers, for example, use double-blind studies.
Claim 7: Technological fixes, such as inventing energy sources that don’t produce CO2 or geoengineering the climate, would be more affordable, prudent ways to address climate change than reducing our carbon footprint.
There are people who believe this, but its hardly an opinion subject to easy disproof. Interestingly, Rennie gives two supporting links. The first to Bjørn Lomborg — which goes to “not found”.
The second makes an argument quite different than Rennie implies: “The Flawed Logic of the Cap-and-Trade Debate“, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Yale360, 19 May 2009 — “Two prominent — and iconoclastic — environmentalists argue that current efforts to tax or cap carbon emissions are doomed to failure and that the answer lies not in making dirty energy expensive but in making clean energy cheap.”
Excerpt:
The truth is, however, that neither of these approaches will lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions, and for a basic reason: Both Hansen and those he criticizes focus on pollution regulation and pricing to make fossil fuels more expensive, rather than on innovation to make clean energy cheap.
This approach ignores the history of technological breakthroughs, which has primarily been driven by public investment. And public investment in clean energy is what is needed today, because no effort to achieve deep reductions in carbon emissions, domestic or international, will succeed as long as low-carbon energy technologies cost vastly more than current fossil fuel-based energy.
Concluding our holiday party discussion with Rennie
Rennie knows a great deal about climate science. His article suggests that he does not want you to know much about climate science; only that which supports his political position.
Let’s hope Rennie sticks to debating the weirdos in the corner, or at least people uninformed about climate change. I suspect he’ll react poorly to anyone challenging his misrepresentations. I recommend that you smile at his attempt to convert you, and change the subject to something less political.
Fear-mongering propaganda
For More Information
(a) Reference Pages about climate on the FM sites:
It is a nearly laughable absurdity, that some of our most outworn clichés speak the loudest truth; but because of the ridiculousness which resonates from there use, we forget to listen when they are uttered. I left the FM website months ago exasperated and annoyed. Then found myself on occasion, strolling back through the posts only to walk away feeling as if I might myself be of a masochistic nature, enjoying the maddening illogic of it all, yet continued on…double confusion. I came to realize that their was a truth to what most of the posts on the FM web site relay, but then the knock knock knocking of annoyance in the back of my head would begin again. Until finally…ahh I see, it is the blind leading the blind.
FM often speaks of the Sheeple, and how their awakening would solve most of the current issues in the nation and or world. But I ask, would it really? I have walked through a world of sleeping people and encountered a few that are fully awake. The sleepers, though annoying, simple of pursuit and perhaps just a bit daft in ye ol noggin, are content so long as the comforts their nation has provided them continue to be provided. They will complain now and again just to be heard then shift back to the tired and hazy states within which they dwell, living a life some may see as pointless though to a trained eye their lives are the foundations on which the Pyramid rises.
Then I have observed those who live with their eyes wide open, and from where I stood it would seem many if not most of those use their wakefulness as a weapon against those who sleep. It is a strange aspect of our natures that once awakened we seem to turn our devotions to pursuits that lead to wealth power, or both. Could it then be safely assumed, that a world full of awakened people would be anything short of a second hell? The people are content as they are and I question if you disrupt the flock do you run the rick of creating multiple packs of wolves; each one grasping and scheming to over throw the other groups?
I have been thinking that the issues we have with governance as a species is not the system it’s self, but the ideology that is developed once said system is put in place. It would seem most systems thus far seek to govern the people as they would have them be, instead of governing the people as they are. I do not believe you will ever transform sheep into philosophical thinking hairless monkeys…at least not in any reasonable span of time. Therefore you must provide systems of governance that seek to herd them in such a way that allows for the growth and development of the individual while maintaining efficient well balanced communities.
Our current government has failed in this, and has instead joined forces with the watchers in their on going pursuit of acquiring ever more wealth and in turn endless power. How do we fix this…hell if I know, but I would have to disagree with the notion that disrupting the sleep walkers will do much more then unleash chaos on our world.
So I suppose my statement above of the blind leading the blind is made because I am curious how one goes about corralling a country full of awakened aspiring citizens? Or…do you really think it wise to wake us all up?
“FM often speaks of the Sheeple, and how their awakening would solve most of the current issues in the nation and or world. ”
That’s not exactly so. Awakening people does nothing by itself. It merely makes reform possible, with the addition of deep thought, organization, hard work, and perhaps sacrifice.
“I have walked through a world of sleeping people and encountered a few that are fully awake.”
I suspect you have higher standards than mine. We don’t need philosophers or saints. I’m merely looking for us to return to the somewhat skeptical and unruly people we once were — capable of great social cohesion when needed. That sufficed to maintain the Republic for two centuries, in often difficult times (with some close calls).
My theory is that when run efficiently the people do not need to take to the streets and cause “great social cohesion”. It is the responsibility of systems of government to insure the people sleep peacefully. When we need to wake up it is perhaps time for a change in government, or in our case…time to toss out the money changers.
“My theory is that when run efficiently the people do not need to take to the streets and cause “great social cohesion”.”
That is one example of social cohesion, and a VERY rare one. The US response to the Depression and WW2 were more common examples. The response to 9-11 was another, albeit misguided.
Claim 1 is dismissed as a belief only held by a tiny lunatic fringe. In reality, Christopher Monckton made this claim in testimony to the U.S. Congress. Lunatic, yes. Fringe, no. It is true that most ‘skeptic’ scientists concede that CO2 AGW is real and only try to claim that the impact will be small, but there are still plenty of prominent voices spreading the lie that it doesn’t exist at all.
Claim 2 again attempts to portray ‘the actual skeptic position’ differently. This is again false. Virtually every major climate ‘skeptic’ has repeated the lie that the ‘hockey stick’ has been shown to be incorrect. As to the ‘global warming pause’… you cite this as evdience of natural factors offsetting human warming. It is not. The ‘pause’ is a non-statistically significant fluctuation found by looking only at the lower atmosphere… which accounts for less than 2% of global warming. If we look at the oceans, where more than 90% of the extra energy from global warming accumulates, or the entire climate system then there has been no ‘pause’. Indeed, warming has continued to accelerate over the past two decades. Thus, the statement, “no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead”, is ENTIRELY correct. You are simply buying into conservative myths left and right… rather than exposing liberal ones. For liberal myths see genetically modified foods and the dangers of vaccinations.
Claim 3 repeats the nonsense about the non-existent ‘pause’ in warming. There has been a tiny fluctuation in the DISTRIBUTION of the warming throughout the climate system… not a pause in warming.
Claim 4 waffles about, but is generally accurate save for giving claims of solar impact on current global warming more credence than they deserve.
Claim 5 you flat out lie. It is simply not true that, “Many climate scientists were guilty of refusling to release data and methods,,,”. In support of this lie you cite McIntyre… a climate denier who has repeatedly made false statments and accusations. The ONLY instance of data being with-held by climate scientists was that Jones did not immediately supply temperature data which had been purchased from a private source because it would be ILLEGAL (i.e. theft) to do so. The CRU had purchased access to the data… not the right to distribute it. However, because McIntyre went around LYING about them hiding information Jones sought and received permission to release the data publically. Yet here you continue to spread the conservative LIE as an example of liberal indoctrination. Sorry, you’re still buried FAR inside the conservative denial chamber.
Claim 6 is another lie. Climatologists have no vested interest in falsely promoting AGW. That is pure nonsense. From the time Arrhenius first suggested the possibility of AGW in 1896 there were climatologists disputing it. Indeed, it was at first dismissed almost universally and then the minority opinion until the 1960s. The near universal acceptance now is only due to the overwhelming evidence. There would be FAR more “money and prestige” in disproving AGW at this point than in being another of the horde accepting it.
Claim 7 actually IS disproved rather easily if you track down Lomborg’s actual ideas (e.g. geo-engineering the entire planet rather than just switching to cleaner and less expensive power sources).
Liberals are certainly just as capable of buying into propaganda as conservatives. However, you have failed spectacularly in demonstrating that by advancing nonsensical conservative propaganda as ‘truth’.
Thank you for your rebuttal, which perfectly illustrates my point about people’s indoctrination. Rather than a point by point I’ll take one point as illustrative of the whole.
“claim 3 repeats the nonsense about the non-existent ‘pause’ in warming.”
You have your opinion. The consensus of Climate scientists differs. Why do you disagree with them?
The first mentions of the “pause” or “hiatus” of global surface temperatures in the climate science literature appeared aprox in 2009 (e.g., “Is the climate warming or cooling?“, Daid R. Easterling and Michael F. Wehner, Geophysical Research Letters, April 2009. Since then there have been scores of articles in the peer-reviewed literature, plus frequent mentions by eminent climate scientists. See excerpts and links to 18 examples here.
For an introduction I recommend reading this large and detailed report by the UK Met Office (big pdf’s) from July 2013:
The focus of the debate has moved to discussions of the causes of the pause and forecasts of its duration. See this post with excerpts and links to statements and articles by climate scientists giving forecasts for the pause. A good starting point is, as always, the IPCC. Most recently, their Fifth Assessment Report. See this from Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis: Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability (bold emphasis added):
Overall, in the absence of major volcanic eruptions and, assuming no significant future long term changes in solar irradiance, it is likely (>66% probability) that the GMST {global mean surface temperature} anomaly for the period 2016–2035, relative to the reference period of 1986–2005 will be in the range 0.3°C – 0.7°C {0.5°F – 1.3°F} (expert assessment, to one significant figure; medium confidence).
However, the implied rates of warming over the period from 1986–2005 to 2016–2035 are lower as a result of the hiatus: 0.10°C–0.23°C per decade, suggesting the AR4 assessment was near the upper end of current expectations for this specific time interval.
Do we argue this particular point (global climate change) because it’s easier then arguing the issue behind it? In my way of thinking climate change is easy, and a decisive way to turn ones head from another issue that is perhaps more difficult.
First we see that there are two sides to this debate, one extreme says the climate is not changing. Absolutely ridiculous the climate is always changing and in fact in a few months its going to change from winter to spring (that means it is rather quickly going to get warmer).
The other extreme insists that this is an indication that the world will be ending within the year.
If you stand in the middle of the two extremes you see more clearly that, yes we can influence the environment, and the science argues to what extent we are doing this. Pretty easy, though it is science, it is a developing science and they do not have all the answers…yet.
So what might be the issue which we are not looking at while we argue is the climate changing? Energy, it’s the issue I believe we ought to pay closer attention to. I have heard all the normal conspiracy theories regarding this point and would be interested in seeing the FM website shed some light on the validity behind these sometimes outlandish claims. Nikola Tesla, did he invent alternate forms of energy? Have there been others, and are we ignoring these innovations for the sake of acquiring wealth?
If we are going to be waking the sheep, perhaps we should think of that which we are awakening them to.
“First we see that there are two sides to this debate, one extreme says the climate is not changing. … The other extreme insists that this is an indication that the world will be ending within the year.”
While correct, why do we listen to either of these fools? Climate scientists are quite clear that neither is remotely correct. They have a range of views, but those of lay activists on both sides lie outside the range of consensus — represented by the IPCC and the major climate agencies (e.g., UK Met Office).
So long as we eagerly believe such obvious falsehoods — Conrad provides a clear example — I doubted we are capable of self-government. Perhaps we don’t even deserve it.
“Have there been others, and are we ignoring these innovations for the sake of acquiring wealth? ”
There is not the slightest degree of truth about the existence of suppressed wonder energy sources. Other nations — China, Russia, Indonesia — would buy such in a heartbeat, and care not a jot about the power of western corporations or governments.
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KAWeitzel
” I doubted we are capable of self-government. Perhaps we don’t even deserve it.”
But, here we are and I fail to see that we have another option. Though I agree with our inability to govern well if at all.
“would buy such in a heartbeat, and care not a jot about the power of western corporations or governments.”
I am going to hold off on this, which I feel at this point is a bold statement. I feel it must be considered that the powers that be are not beholden to any one nation and therefor would suppress any information that allowed independence from their control. However, I am still in the process of researching this possibility and therefor have built no firm opinion on the matter.
Since Conrad’s third claim is easily the most debatable, it seems a little convenient to choose it as illustrative of the whole. This interesting and well-researched article suggests that “the IPCC was baited, by skeptics and the media, into addressing a nonissue.” http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/global-warming-pause-ipcc
Conrad’s third claim was the clearest and most empirical. And hence easily disproven by citing reports about the consensus of climate scientists.
Thank you for your rebuttal, providing yet more evidence of indoctrination in defiance of actual science.
* I cite 18 examples from the IPCC, UK Met office, peer-reviewed climate science literature, and statements by eminent climate scientists.
* You cite an article in Mother Jones.
Case closed.
Another demonstration of the futility of debate with climate activists.
When we find a key to open minds closed by indoctrination, then we will have taken a large step to the reform of American. Until then Americans will continue to mill around in their pens, labeled Left and Right, baaing loudly at one another in response to signs from their leaders.
(1) The Mother Jones article you cite was a doozy, in the great American tradition of anti-intellectualism. Chris Mooney appears not to understand much about science. As in this:
“If the ‘pause’ was just the result of statistical selectivity rather than a robust trend, why wasn’t the IPCC saying so? Instead, the scientists’ own words seemed to suggest that there really was a global warming slowdown, and that the scientific community didn’t really understand it.”
It does not occur to Mooney that the IPCC said this because that’s what the literature says. Many causes have been suggested; there is as yet no consensus on their relative importance.
(2) Other examples of climate propaganda in Mother Jones:
The fact that you changed your wording suggests that you KNOW you are being disingenuous.
Original post: “We will not know if warming stopped (rather than paused) until 2030 (perhaps longer).”
Latest rebuttal: “The first mentions of the “pause” or “hiatus” of global surface temperatures in the climate science literature appeared aprox in 2009…”
Notice the difference? The “global surface temperatures” qualifier appeared NOWHERE in your original writeup. You repeatedly stated that warming as a whole had ‘paused’ and even that it may have stopped… which is false. The reality is that global warming has continued to accelerate. The ‘pause’ is a non statistically significant fluctuation in the measured warming of less than 2% of the climate system. You might as well claim that global warming has ‘paused’ because it was cold in Cleveland yesterday. To make a case for global warming potentially having stopped you need to look at the ENTIRE climate system… not less than 2% of it. When we DO look at the entire climate system we see that there is no ‘pause’ AT ALL, and indeed the rate of warming has continued to increase.
You also accused me of differing with the consensus of scientists on the ‘pause’, but that is just more misdirection or self-delusion on your part. I specifically cited the surface temperature data fluctuation in my post. I don’t deny it exists. Rather, I’m saying, just as most climate scientists do, that it IN NO WAY calls global warming into question.
YOU are the one displaying indoctrination. The ‘pause’ is conservative propaganda. It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe (see Cowtan and Way 2013 for a paper showing that using satellite data to fill in thermometer measurement data gaps causes the ‘pause’ to disappear), it is PROBABLY just statistical ‘noise’ hiding the trend over a short time period (note that while there has not been “statistically significant” warming at the standard 95% thresh-hold since 1998, the warming DOES pass 90% statistical significance and the ‘pause’ itself is NOWHERE NEAR being statistically significant), but it is CERTAINLY irrelevant to the question of whether global warming is continuing… because it is a measure of less than 2% of the global climate and the other 98%+ has shown no signs of a ‘pause’ at all.
If this is the ‘most debatable’ of my points then you really don’t have a leg to stand on. You, like conservative propagandists everywhere, are attempting to turn a non statistically significant ‘pause’ in “global surface temperatures” (i.e. less than 2% of the climate) into both an ACTUAL pause (as distinct from one which is statistically very unlikely but not outside the 95% bound) AND covering global warming as a whole. Your position is blatantly contrary to the facts.
Most of this is silly. But I’ll toil thru these fallacies and reading FAILS, again.
(1) “The “global surface temperatures” qualifier appeared NOWHERE in your original writeup.”
The article cited states what they mean by warming at the beginning: “A 2006 National Research Council {NRC} review of the evidence concluded “with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during …” I am responding to that article. It is standard practice in even the peer-reviewed literature to state the subject as “man surface temperture warming”, then refer to just “warming” thereafter. The reasons are obvious to most of us.
(2) “I don’t deny it exists. Rather, I’m saying, just as most climate scientists do, that it IN NO WAY calls global warming into question.”
That’s why scientists call it a “pause” and “hiatus”, not a “stop”. As I said in this post: “The cause of the “pause” (aka “hiatus”) is an active subject of research, and estimates of its causes and duration vary. Some say the pause might last for a decade or two beyond the current 14 – 17 years.” For citations see:
One of the most important questions we face: when will the pause in global warming end?, 25 August 2013
(3) “You also accused me of differing with the consensus of scientists on the ‘pause’, but that is just more misdirection or self-delusion on your part. … The ‘pause’ is conservative propaganda.”
I gave a detailed rebuttal to this to your earlier comment, showing that you do differ, with specific quotes from reports of the UK Met Office and the IPCC saying otherwise (with another 16 citations from climate scientists). Closing your eyes does not make the facts go away.
(3) “It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe, see Cowtan and Way 2013 for a paper showing that using satellite data to fill in thermometer measurement data gaps causes the ‘pause’ to disappear”
As climate scientists have explained scores of times since this mad politization began, a consensus is not disproven by a single paper. That’s a technique used by laypeople using the issue for political purposes, like yourself. Scientists always explore on the fringes of the consensus.
(4) “It is PROBABLY just statistical ‘noise’ hiding the trend over a short time period”
Yes, that’s why they call it a “pause” or “hiatus”, and why the consensus is (as I have stated several times) that warming will resume.
(5) (note that while there has not been “statistically significant” warming at the standard 95% thresh-hold since 1998, the warming DOES pass 90% statistical significance and the ‘pause’ itself is NOWHERE NEAR being statistically significant),
Please provide a citation for this claim using current data.
(6) “because it is a measure of less than 2% of the global climate and the other 98%+ has shown no signs of a ‘pause’ at all.”
I assume you refer to another theory, about warming in the deep ocean. The ARGO data can be re-interpreted to show a warming of hundredths of a degree in the deep ocean since 2004 (when it provided moderately complete coverage), per work of Trenberth et al. The IPCC and UK Met office list this as a possible explanation, but still tentative. Among other reasons, such a small change is at or beyond the ARGO system’s temperature resolution.
Does it really matter if global warming is ttrue or not? Shouldn’t the question be why is this a debate? Policies in governments are for control, pure and simple. For example, Dr. Days tape explains how false reasons are given in order to advance an agenda or plan… quote from doctors le three or just listen yourself. ” FOOD CONTROL
Food supplies would come under tight control. If population growth didn’t slow down, food shortages could be created in a hurry and people would realise the dangers of overpopulation. Ultimately, whether the population slows down or not the food supply is to be brought under centralised control so that people would have enough to be well-nourished but they would not have enough to support any fugitive from the new system. In other words, if you had a friend or relative who didn’t sign on, and growing ones own food would be outlawed. This would be done under some sort of pretext. In the beginning I mentioned there were two purposes for everything – one the ostensible purpose and one the real purpose, and the ostensible purpose here would be that growing your own vegetables was unsafe, it would spread disease or something like that. So the acceptable idea was to protect the consumer but the real idea was to limit the food supply and growing your own food would be illegal. And if you persist in illegal activities like growing your own food, then you’re a criminal.” http://rense.com/general94/nwoplans.htm
I wrote: “It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe (see Cowtan and Way 2013 for a paper showing that using satellite data to fill in thermometer measurement data gaps causes the ‘pause’ to disappear)…”
Fabius responded: “As climate scientists have explained scores of times since this mad politization began, a consensus is not disproven by a single paper. That’s a technique used by laypeople using the issue for political purposes, like yourself. Scientists always explore on the fringes of the consensus.”
I did not claim that a single paper had disproven anything. You need to look up the meaning of the word “MAY”. Your continual use of gross distortions and straw-men indicates there is no point in ‘debating’ things with you. You just constantly change the facts of the discussion itself to support your delusions.
Let’s replay the tape to see this trivial point in full. You said…
“The ‘pause’ is conservative propaganda. It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe (see Cowtan and Way 2013 ”
The Cowtan study was the support you gave for your claim. That was the basis for my reply.
Why do you believe this disproves the consensus of the major climate agencies and so many peer-reviewed papers? Let’s leave that for readers to guess at.
Can you really not see how absurd you are being? I say, “I did not claim that a single paper had disproven anything” and your response is “Why do you believe this disproves the consensus…”
I don’t! I just SAID that. I cited the Cowtan and Way paper when I said that the ‘pause’ “MAY” be due to incomplete data. You keep pretending that I said it had disproven the pause. That is BLATANTLY false yet somehow you can’t see it.
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It is a nearly laughable absurdity, that some of our most outworn clichés speak the loudest truth; but because of the ridiculousness which resonates from there use, we forget to listen when they are uttered. I left the FM website months ago exasperated and annoyed. Then found myself on occasion, strolling back through the posts only to walk away feeling as if I might myself be of a masochistic nature, enjoying the maddening illogic of it all, yet continued on…double confusion. I came to realize that their was a truth to what most of the posts on the FM web site relay, but then the knock knock knocking of annoyance in the back of my head would begin again. Until finally…ahh I see, it is the blind leading the blind.
FM often speaks of the Sheeple, and how their awakening would solve most of the current issues in the nation and or world. But I ask, would it really? I have walked through a world of sleeping people and encountered a few that are fully awake. The sleepers, though annoying, simple of pursuit and perhaps just a bit daft in ye ol noggin, are content so long as the comforts their nation has provided them continue to be provided. They will complain now and again just to be heard then shift back to the tired and hazy states within which they dwell, living a life some may see as pointless though to a trained eye their lives are the foundations on which the Pyramid rises.
Then I have observed those who live with their eyes wide open, and from where I stood it would seem many if not most of those use their wakefulness as a weapon against those who sleep. It is a strange aspect of our natures that once awakened we seem to turn our devotions to pursuits that lead to wealth power, or both. Could it then be safely assumed, that a world full of awakened people would be anything short of a second hell? The people are content as they are and I question if you disrupt the flock do you run the rick of creating multiple packs of wolves; each one grasping and scheming to over throw the other groups?
I have been thinking that the issues we have with governance as a species is not the system it’s self, but the ideology that is developed once said system is put in place. It would seem most systems thus far seek to govern the people as they would have them be, instead of governing the people as they are. I do not believe you will ever transform sheep into philosophical thinking hairless monkeys…at least not in any reasonable span of time. Therefore you must provide systems of governance that seek to herd them in such a way that allows for the growth and development of the individual while maintaining efficient well balanced communities.
Our current government has failed in this, and has instead joined forces with the watchers in their on going pursuit of acquiring ever more wealth and in turn endless power. How do we fix this…hell if I know, but I would have to disagree with the notion that disrupting the sleep walkers will do much more then unleash chaos on our world.
So I suppose my statement above of the blind leading the blind is made because I am curious how one goes about corralling a country full of awakened aspiring citizens? Or…do you really think it wise to wake us all up?
KAWeit,
“FM often speaks of the Sheeple, and how their awakening would solve most of the current issues in the nation and or world. ”
That’s not exactly so. Awakening people does nothing by itself. It merely makes reform possible, with the addition of deep thought, organization, hard work, and perhaps sacrifice.
“I have walked through a world of sleeping people and encountered a few that are fully awake.”
I suspect you have higher standards than mine. We don’t need philosophers or saints. I’m merely looking for us to return to the somewhat skeptical and unruly people we once were — capable of great social cohesion when needed. That sufficed to maintain the Republic for two centuries, in often difficult times (with some close calls).
“capable of great social cohesion when needed.”
My theory is that when run efficiently the people do not need to take to the streets and cause “great social cohesion”. It is the responsibility of systems of government to insure the people sleep peacefully. When we need to wake up it is perhaps time for a change in government, or in our case…time to toss out the money changers.
KAWeit,
“My theory is that when run efficiently the people do not need to take to the streets and cause “great social cohesion”.”
That is one example of social cohesion, and a VERY rare one. The US response to the Depression and WW2 were more common examples. The response to 9-11 was another, albeit misguided.
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Claim 1 is dismissed as a belief only held by a tiny lunatic fringe. In reality, Christopher Monckton made this claim in testimony to the U.S. Congress. Lunatic, yes. Fringe, no. It is true that most ‘skeptic’ scientists concede that CO2 AGW is real and only try to claim that the impact will be small, but there are still plenty of prominent voices spreading the lie that it doesn’t exist at all.
Claim 2 again attempts to portray ‘the actual skeptic position’ differently. This is again false. Virtually every major climate ‘skeptic’ has repeated the lie that the ‘hockey stick’ has been shown to be incorrect. As to the ‘global warming pause’… you cite this as evdience of natural factors offsetting human warming. It is not. The ‘pause’ is a non-statistically significant fluctuation found by looking only at the lower atmosphere… which accounts for less than 2% of global warming. If we look at the oceans, where more than 90% of the extra energy from global warming accumulates, or the entire climate system then there has been no ‘pause’. Indeed, warming has continued to accelerate over the past two decades. Thus, the statement, “no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead”, is ENTIRELY correct. You are simply buying into conservative myths left and right… rather than exposing liberal ones. For liberal myths see genetically modified foods and the dangers of vaccinations.
Claim 3 repeats the nonsense about the non-existent ‘pause’ in warming. There has been a tiny fluctuation in the DISTRIBUTION of the warming throughout the climate system… not a pause in warming.
Claim 4 waffles about, but is generally accurate save for giving claims of solar impact on current global warming more credence than they deserve.
Claim 5 you flat out lie. It is simply not true that, “Many climate scientists were guilty of refusling to release data and methods,,,”. In support of this lie you cite McIntyre… a climate denier who has repeatedly made false statments and accusations. The ONLY instance of data being with-held by climate scientists was that Jones did not immediately supply temperature data which had been purchased from a private source because it would be ILLEGAL (i.e. theft) to do so. The CRU had purchased access to the data… not the right to distribute it. However, because McIntyre went around LYING about them hiding information Jones sought and received permission to release the data publically. Yet here you continue to spread the conservative LIE as an example of liberal indoctrination. Sorry, you’re still buried FAR inside the conservative denial chamber.
Claim 6 is another lie. Climatologists have no vested interest in falsely promoting AGW. That is pure nonsense. From the time Arrhenius first suggested the possibility of AGW in 1896 there were climatologists disputing it. Indeed, it was at first dismissed almost universally and then the minority opinion until the 1960s. The near universal acceptance now is only due to the overwhelming evidence. There would be FAR more “money and prestige” in disproving AGW at this point than in being another of the horde accepting it.
Claim 7 actually IS disproved rather easily if you track down Lomborg’s actual ideas (e.g. geo-engineering the entire planet rather than just switching to cleaner and less expensive power sources).
Liberals are certainly just as capable of buying into propaganda as conservatives. However, you have failed spectacularly in demonstrating that by advancing nonsensical conservative propaganda as ‘truth’.
Conrad,
Thank you for your rebuttal, which perfectly illustrates my point about people’s indoctrination. Rather than a point by point I’ll take one point as illustrative of the whole.
“claim 3 repeats the nonsense about the non-existent ‘pause’ in warming.”
You have your opinion. The consensus of Climate scientists differs. Why do you disagree with them?
The first mentions of the “pause” or “hiatus” of global surface temperatures in the climate science literature appeared aprox in 2009 (e.g., “Is the climate warming or cooling?“, Daid R. Easterling and Michael F. Wehner, Geophysical Research Letters, April 2009. Since then there have been scores of articles in the peer-reviewed literature, plus frequent mentions by eminent climate scientists. See excerpts and links to 18 examples here.
For an introduction I recommend reading this large and detailed report by the UK Met Office (big pdf’s) from July 2013:
The focus of the debate has moved to discussions of the causes of the pause and forecasts of its duration. See this post with excerpts and links to statements and articles by climate scientists giving forecasts for the pause. A good starting point is, as always, the IPCC. Most recently, their Fifth Assessment Report. See this from Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis: Chapter 11: Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability (bold emphasis added):
Do we argue this particular point (global climate change) because it’s easier then arguing the issue behind it? In my way of thinking climate change is easy, and a decisive way to turn ones head from another issue that is perhaps more difficult.
First we see that there are two sides to this debate, one extreme says the climate is not changing. Absolutely ridiculous the climate is always changing and in fact in a few months its going to change from winter to spring (that means it is rather quickly going to get warmer).
The other extreme insists that this is an indication that the world will be ending within the year.
If you stand in the middle of the two extremes you see more clearly that, yes we can influence the environment, and the science argues to what extent we are doing this. Pretty easy, though it is science, it is a developing science and they do not have all the answers…yet.
So what might be the issue which we are not looking at while we argue is the climate changing? Energy, it’s the issue I believe we ought to pay closer attention to. I have heard all the normal conspiracy theories regarding this point and would be interested in seeing the FM website shed some light on the validity behind these sometimes outlandish claims. Nikola Tesla, did he invent alternate forms of energy? Have there been others, and are we ignoring these innovations for the sake of acquiring wealth?
If we are going to be waking the sheep, perhaps we should think of that which we are awakening them to.
KAWeit,
“First we see that there are two sides to this debate, one extreme says the climate is not changing. … The other extreme insists that this is an indication that the world will be ending within the year.”
While correct, why do we listen to either of these fools? Climate scientists are quite clear that neither is remotely correct. They have a range of views, but those of lay activists on both sides lie outside the range of consensus — represented by the IPCC and the major climate agencies (e.g., UK Met Office).
So long as we eagerly believe such obvious falsehoods — Conrad provides a clear example — I doubted we are capable of self-government. Perhaps we don’t even deserve it.
KAWeit,
“Have there been others, and are we ignoring these innovations for the sake of acquiring wealth? ”
There is not the slightest degree of truth about the existence of suppressed wonder energy sources. Other nations — China, Russia, Indonesia — would buy such in a heartbeat, and care not a jot about the power of western corporations or governments.
” I doubted we are capable of self-government. Perhaps we don’t even deserve it.”
But, here we are and I fail to see that we have another option. Though I agree with our inability to govern well if at all.
“would buy such in a heartbeat, and care not a jot about the power of western corporations or governments.”
I am going to hold off on this, which I feel at this point is a bold statement. I feel it must be considered that the powers that be are not beholden to any one nation and therefor would suppress any information that allowed independence from their control. However, I am still in the process of researching this possibility and therefor have built no firm opinion on the matter.
Since Conrad’s third claim is easily the most debatable, it seems a little convenient to choose it as illustrative of the whole. This interesting and well-researched article suggests that “the IPCC was baited, by skeptics and the media, into addressing a nonissue.” http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/global-warming-pause-ipcc
nnoks,
Conrad’s third claim was the clearest and most empirical. And hence easily disproven by citing reports about the consensus of climate scientists.
Thank you for your rebuttal, providing yet more evidence of indoctrination in defiance of actual science.
* I cite 18 examples from the IPCC, UK Met office, peer-reviewed climate science literature, and statements by eminent climate scientists.
* You cite an article in Mother Jones.
Case closed.
Another demonstration of the futility of debate with climate activists.
When we find a key to open minds closed by indoctrination, then we will have taken a large step to the reform of American. Until then Americans will continue to mill around in their pens, labeled Left and Right, baaing loudly at one another in response to signs from their leaders.
nnoxks,
(1) The Mother Jones article you cite was a doozy, in the great American tradition of anti-intellectualism. Chris Mooney appears not to understand much about science. As in this:
It does not occur to Mooney that the IPCC said this because that’s what the literature says. Many causes have been suggested; there is as yet no consensus on their relative importance.
(2) Other examples of climate propaganda in Mother Jones:
x
The fact that you changed your wording suggests that you KNOW you are being disingenuous.
Original post: “We will not know if warming stopped (rather than paused) until 2030 (perhaps longer).”
Latest rebuttal: “The first mentions of the “pause” or “hiatus” of global surface temperatures in the climate science literature appeared aprox in 2009…”
Notice the difference? The “global surface temperatures” qualifier appeared NOWHERE in your original writeup. You repeatedly stated that warming as a whole had ‘paused’ and even that it may have stopped… which is false. The reality is that global warming has continued to accelerate. The ‘pause’ is a non statistically significant fluctuation in the measured warming of less than 2% of the climate system. You might as well claim that global warming has ‘paused’ because it was cold in Cleveland yesterday. To make a case for global warming potentially having stopped you need to look at the ENTIRE climate system… not less than 2% of it. When we DO look at the entire climate system we see that there is no ‘pause’ AT ALL, and indeed the rate of warming has continued to increase.
You also accused me of differing with the consensus of scientists on the ‘pause’, but that is just more misdirection or self-delusion on your part. I specifically cited the surface temperature data fluctuation in my post. I don’t deny it exists. Rather, I’m saying, just as most climate scientists do, that it IN NO WAY calls global warming into question.
YOU are the one displaying indoctrination. The ‘pause’ is conservative propaganda. It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe (see Cowtan and Way 2013 for a paper showing that using satellite data to fill in thermometer measurement data gaps causes the ‘pause’ to disappear), it is PROBABLY just statistical ‘noise’ hiding the trend over a short time period (note that while there has not been “statistically significant” warming at the standard 95% thresh-hold since 1998, the warming DOES pass 90% statistical significance and the ‘pause’ itself is NOWHERE NEAR being statistically significant), but it is CERTAINLY irrelevant to the question of whether global warming is continuing… because it is a measure of less than 2% of the global climate and the other 98%+ has shown no signs of a ‘pause’ at all.
If this is the ‘most debatable’ of my points then you really don’t have a leg to stand on. You, like conservative propagandists everywhere, are attempting to turn a non statistically significant ‘pause’ in “global surface temperatures” (i.e. less than 2% of the climate) into both an ACTUAL pause (as distinct from one which is statistically very unlikely but not outside the 95% bound) AND covering global warming as a whole. Your position is blatantly contrary to the facts.
Conrad,
Most of this is silly. But I’ll toil thru these fallacies and reading FAILS, again.
(1) “The “global surface temperatures” qualifier appeared NOWHERE in your original writeup.”
The article cited states what they mean by warming at the beginning: “A 2006 National Research Council {NRC} review of the evidence concluded “with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during …” I am responding to that article. It is standard practice in even the peer-reviewed literature to state the subject as “man surface temperture warming”, then refer to just “warming” thereafter. The reasons are obvious to most of us.
(2) “I don’t deny it exists. Rather, I’m saying, just as most climate scientists do, that it IN NO WAY calls global warming into question.”
That’s why scientists call it a “pause” and “hiatus”, not a “stop”. As I said in this post: “The cause of the “pause” (aka “hiatus”) is an active subject of research, and estimates of its causes and duration vary. Some say the pause might last for a decade or two beyond the current 14 – 17 years.” For citations see:
One of the most important questions we face: when will the pause in global warming end?, 25 August 2013
(3) “You also accused me of differing with the consensus of scientists on the ‘pause’, but that is just more misdirection or self-delusion on your part. … The ‘pause’ is conservative propaganda.”
I gave a detailed rebuttal to this to your earlier comment, showing that you do differ, with specific quotes from reports of the UK Met Office and the IPCC saying otherwise (with another 16 citations from climate scientists). Closing your eyes does not make the facts go away.
(3) “It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe, see Cowtan and Way 2013 for a paper showing that using satellite data to fill in thermometer measurement data gaps causes the ‘pause’ to disappear”
As climate scientists have explained scores of times since this mad politization began, a consensus is not disproven by a single paper. That’s a technique used by laypeople using the issue for political purposes, like yourself. Scientists always explore on the fringes of the consensus.
(4) “It is PROBABLY just statistical ‘noise’ hiding the trend over a short time period”
Yes, that’s why they call it a “pause” or “hiatus”, and why the consensus is (as I have stated several times) that warming will resume.
(5) (note that while there has not been “statistically significant” warming at the standard 95% thresh-hold since 1998, the warming DOES pass 90% statistical significance and the ‘pause’ itself is NOWHERE NEAR being statistically significant),
Please provide a citation for this claim using current data.
(6) “because it is a measure of less than 2% of the global climate and the other 98%+ has shown no signs of a ‘pause’ at all.”
I assume you refer to another theory, about warming in the deep ocean. The ARGO data can be re-interpreted to show a warming of hundredths of a degree in the deep ocean since 2004 (when it provided moderately complete coverage), per work of Trenberth et al. The IPCC and UK Met office list this as a possible explanation, but still tentative. Among other reasons, such a small change is at or beyond the ARGO system’s temperature resolution.
Does it really matter if global warming is ttrue or not? Shouldn’t the question be why is this a debate? Policies in governments are for control, pure and simple. For example, Dr. Days tape explains how false reasons are given in order to advance an agenda or plan… quote from doctors le three or just listen yourself. ” FOOD CONTROL
Food supplies would come under tight control. If population growth didn’t slow down, food shortages could be created in a hurry and people would realise the dangers of overpopulation. Ultimately, whether the population slows down or not the food supply is to be brought under centralised control so that people would have enough to be well-nourished but they would not have enough to support any fugitive from the new system. In other words, if you had a friend or relative who didn’t sign on, and growing ones own food would be outlawed. This would be done under some sort of pretext. In the beginning I mentioned there were two purposes for everything – one the ostensible purpose and one the real purpose, and the ostensible purpose here would be that growing your own vegetables was unsafe, it would spread disease or something like that. So the acceptable idea was to protect the consumer but the real idea was to limit the food supply and growing your own food would be illegal. And if you persist in illegal activities like growing your own food, then you’re a criminal.” http://rense.com/general94/nwoplans.htm
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I wrote: “It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe (see Cowtan and Way 2013 for a paper showing that using satellite data to fill in thermometer measurement data gaps causes the ‘pause’ to disappear)…”
Fabius responded: “As climate scientists have explained scores of times since this mad politization began, a consensus is not disproven by a single paper. That’s a technique used by laypeople using the issue for political purposes, like yourself. Scientists always explore on the fringes of the consensus.”
I did not claim that a single paper had disproven anything. You need to look up the meaning of the word “MAY”. Your continual use of gross distortions and straw-men indicates there is no point in ‘debating’ things with you. You just constantly change the facts of the discussion itself to support your delusions.
Conrad,
Let’s replay the tape to see this trivial point in full. You said…
“The ‘pause’ is conservative propaganda. It MAY be due to incomplete temperature coverage of the globe (see Cowtan and Way 2013 ”
The Cowtan study was the support you gave for your claim. That was the basis for my reply.
Why do you believe this disproves the consensus of the major climate agencies and so many peer-reviewed papers? Let’s leave that for readers to guess at.
Can you really not see how absurd you are being? I say, “I did not claim that a single paper had disproven anything” and your response is “Why do you believe this disproves the consensus…”
I don’t! I just SAID that. I cited the Cowtan and Way paper when I said that the ‘pause’ “MAY” be due to incomplete data. You keep pretending that I said it had disproven the pause. That is BLATANTLY false yet somehow you can’t see it.