Harsh Words for ‘Deniers’ from Nobel Laureate
Posted by jennifer, July 1st, 2009 - under Humour, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, Humour, People
“YET the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.”
This extract from a column in the New York Times by Paul Krugman refers specifically to politicians who voted against the cap and trade legislation last Friday in the US House of Representatives.
Clearly the professor has little understanding of what motivates many so-called sceptics.
In the same column he writes:
“To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.
“The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.”
Apparently the professor also has little understanding of the observational data as it relates to climate change.
According to Kenneth P. Green blogging for the American Enterprise Institute, the column is as an incitement to violence.
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Notes and Links
Betraying the Planet, By PAUL KRUGMAN, Published: June 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html
Is Paul Krugman Inciting Violence? By Kenneth P. Green June 29, 2009, http://blog.american.com/?p=2598
“Paul Robin Krugman (pronounced /ˈkruːɡmən/[1]), born February 28, 1953, is an American economist, columnist, intellectual, and author.[2] He is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, a centenary professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times.[3][4] In 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.”[5][6] Krugman is known in academia for his work in international economics, including trade theory, economic geography, and international finance… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman
Jen – alas the team was kicked off the de Bono course for refusing to share the black hats.
But we do aspire to complete the Ian Mott Diploma in Deportment and Personal Diplomacy.
It has a residential school in the front bar of the Kynuna Blue Heeler Hotel.
Hi Jennifer,
Good to see you back keeping an eye on things and all the best for your sister.
Luke,
I was going to let this continuing diatribe rest. But on rereading your posts, I feel compelled to resond on a couple of issues.
Of course you have not said it would never rain again, nor did I suggest that you had.
What a stupid claim!
However at every available opportunity you have suggested that recent weather conditions in Aus. are an example of the effect of AGW.
Wiser heads and any search of our weather records show this not to be the case.
So yes you have lost that argument.
I make that judgement based on consideration of all of the arguments and information and from the knowledge of 25 years as a debating adjudicator in NSW.
More importantly you claim that I am “trying to defeat it.”
Defeat what?
Surely you, a city academic, could not be suggesting that a third generation farmer was Quixote like, silly enough to tilt at the windmill of weather with the object of changing or controlling it.
All farmers recognise both the vagaries and variability of weather and have always adapted their husbandry to make the most of changing weather conditions.
Maybe you should stop for a while and just contemplate this:
If your annual income varied directly with the changing weather patterns; going from some years of abundance, only to be followed by several years of NO INVOME.
Would you not study the historical patterns of the weather?
Would you not try to adapt what you were doing to minimise the annual variation in income?
Would you not make as much provision as you could afford in abundant years for the leaner years?
Luke, Australian agriculture is, resourceful, adaptive and incredibly efficient.
Finally, you may also consider this thought for life:
We gain warmth support and confidence from those who agree with us.
However as long as we maintain an open mind we gain wisdom from those who disagree with us.
Luke, you are a work in progress. But the invitation is still open to join me on a fact finding trip to the bush.
Pikey.
peterd “I should have heeded his advice.”
Yes indeed you should have and not tried to make a case out of a strawman.
Oh you are just so full of yourself mate.
Yes you do wreak of being a stuck-up snotty adjudicator – there’s no time limit here mate. You’re not involved in a slick co-op vote and need to control the floor.
It’s about facts long term which will be proved right or wrong by history – you don’t have any science facts or indeed eschew them if you’re slightly aware. In a previous tanty your answer to the MDB science was that you don’t trust the engineers – that’s it – bam – well fuck that’s objective. You have had no serious contact with them and no knowledge of the science behind what they’ve calculated.
If you don’t think the fact that it may rain again soon invalidates my argument – why bring it up. Why have you continued to bring it up in a climate argument? Why? WHY have you discussed the now and not the recent decade?
And I may surprise you that I’ve grown my share of crops in my time. So don’t bung on the practical farmer routine. It’s simply irrelevant. (I didn’t say I don’t respect your hard won knowledge of farming). The fact that you’ve assumed I’m a city academic with no feel for the bush simply illustrates your bias an mind that IS CLOSED LIKE A VICE.
“Would you not study the historical patterns of the weather?: – YEP – most don’t. Or if you do they certainly don’t learn. I didn’t say YOU !
“Would you not try to adapt what you were doing to minimise the annual variation in income?” YEP – but many don’t – uptake of Income Equalisation Deposits is poor.
“Would you not make as much provision as you could afford in abundant years for the leaner years?”
“Luke, Australian agriculture is, resourceful, adaptive and incredibly efficient.” not really – your industry is propped up by BILLIONS of drought aid dollars over decades which I documented in detail here a number of times. Billions spent further in land restoration in Land Care, NHT, and Caring for Country. Save the Murray. Save the Reef. etc. Much aimed at land management practices. BILLIONS !
Don’t think I’m anti-agriculture but you have your head up your arse if you think you have not been recipients of massive ongoing subsidy and creation of massive areas of land degradation. We’ve driven it, recorded it, photographed it over 100,000s kms.
“Would you not study the historical patterns of the weather?” AND if you did do this and were interested perhaps in seasonal forecasts, and kept up with the science – you would be aware of how concern is emerging about climate drift in the key indicators that make up those seasonal forecasts? Are you – can you name them? If not – why not?
You would have read the incredible amount of work in the recent decade by Australian scientists in CSIRO, BoM and the universities trying to see if there is an anthropogenic influence among the natural variation. Have you? Evidence being? If not – why not?
Pikey – all agricultural experiments or trials and all surveys are prisoners of sites and seasons – a year here or there isn’t the trend.
And to be clear – (1) I’m not advocating an ETS in current Wong style (2) I’m not wanting to shut down your farm or align any forces against your livelihood (3) I am saying that there is an imperfect but more than reasonable case to be made for SOME anthropogenic involvement based on the science that you have not read. The supposed objective adjudicator person. (4) some anthropogenic involvement is NOT an either/or for natural forces also at work.
To be specific – the science – measured by atmospheric observations – puts some case of concern (did not say 100% perfect – but as a farmer surely you understand risk management) for changes in long term behaviour – as trends. Some of these trends have been mooted by classical greenhouse theory – some more novel.
Those changes are (1) changes in El Nino/La Nina frequency – not a cincher but it’s there (2) decrease in the Walker circulation (part of ENSO) (3) a “perhaps” new mode of ENSO and anti-ENSO – called Modoki mode (4) changes in the Indian Ocean temperature and Indian Ocean Dipole patterns (5) changes in the annular mode – modelled attribution to changes in greenhouse gases in troposphere with ozone depletion in the stratosphere, (6) changes in strength of the sub-tropical ridge (7) rapidly warming parts of the Tasman Sea (8) warming in Queensland and WA coastal currents (Lough) (9) changes in quasi-decadal periodic variability this century (Lough but also others) (10) a longer term trend to drying in eastern and southern Australia contrasting with an increasing trend in NW to central Australia
Have you read all this research and rejected it? If not – why not? Surely someone who espouses to be seriously interested in their climate risk profile would have checked it all out.
Others have and do.
Pikey – it is you who is the work in progress. I am the sceptic – you’re not. A fair dinkum sceptic will look at a whole diversity of evidence – not just what suits them.
Luke,
How reasonable.
Thanks,
Cohenite: Many thanks for your comment, showing as it does a level of comprehension far beyond Paul Krugman’s: “the discrepancy between rising ACO2 and the decline in the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration means that natural sinks are increasing, one of which must be increased plant absorbtion; it also follows that when the rate of CO2 increase was greater that most of that increase must have been due to natural sources of CO2; the idea that ACO2 has been the source of all the increase in atmospheric CO2 has always been a problematic one”.
BTW, before I comment further has anybody spotted the link between the sunspot cycle and the quality of Nobel prize winners? Krugman won his last year at the peak of the solar minimum, and exactly 11 years after Scholes, Merton, and Obama’s Energy man, Stephen Chu! Oddly, Scholes & Merton mislaid US$65 billion in 1998, just like Bernie Madoff 11 years later; Chu does better, with $65 trillion the likely annual cost of his ETS.
Back to Krugman and Cohenite. The latter unlike the former can do budgeting. The uncensored (by IPCC) carbon budget is that the increase in atmospheric CO2 in a year as measured at Mauna Loa is the outcome of GROSS global emissions of CO2 from all sources (anthropogenic fossil fuels, cement, and LUC, as well as from total biospheric plant and animal life, so it includes respiration and our own exhalation of around 2 GtC p.a. according to none other than the EPA) in a year MINUS all (TOTAL) uptakes of CO2 by the globe, chiefly plants on land and at sea. Tiny minds like those of Krugman Stern Garnaut and Chu & the whole gamut of the IPCC cannot cope with GROSS emissions, so ALL their and the IPCC versions of the carbon budget assume that non-anthropogenic emissions are exactly offset by uptakes, other than those which explain the discrepancy between the annual change at Mauna Loa and the supposed total anthropogenic emissions. That is a cop out.
When will the IPCC’s myriad scientists organise actual measurements of both gross emissions and gross uptakes? Instead they prefer assumptions, like the one I noted which is the basis for ALL the IPCC forecasts of the level of CO2 in the air from 2000 to 2100, that for the whole of this century there will be no uptakes of emissions at all, so that anthro emissions exactly equal accretions at Mauna Loa, hence the smooth curves in the IPCC’s AR4 WG1, and in Solomon et al (2009), Meinshausen et al (2009) and Allen et al (2009). When will climate scientists stoop to doing measurements like those instituted by Keeling at Mauna Loa in 1958? Perish the thought that they could so demean themselves! But when measurements start to creep in, we find the IPCC’s preferred assumptions crumbling (eg Rahmstorf & IPCC 2007 as shown up by David Stockwell and Steve McIntyre).
Timmy – after your massacre on Deltoid I don’t bother reading your pronouncements anymore and neither does anyone in charge. Get published somewhere serious or remain a pers comm non-contributor. BTW that’s not E&E.
Hi Luke,
Well at last we have managed to slightly open the shutters on the Luke attitude to Australian agriculture.
For the record, I have not questioned the work of engineers for the MDB. To my knowledgw they have none.
However I did correctly report on this site and also to the MDB directly that their press release that recent inflows to the MDB were the lowest in 117 years was alarmest and false.
IT WAS FALSE.
In relation to the crops you have grown, I’m just musing as to what they might have been?
Many acres Luke?
It wasn’t that funny weed was it?
Also for the record, I have never supported taxpayer support for any industry and particularly agriculture.
But I would like to point out that the average annual payments to farmers is less than 5% of the annual taxpayer subsidity to capital city public transport.
This is a staggering $9 Billion per year and growing.
Just some food for thought regarding who is subsidising who in this great country.
I read widley on all of the topics you have listed and I have a serious question for you.
Can you give me supportable evidence on your claims regarding:
7. rapidely warming parts of the Tasman Sea.
8. warming in WA and Qld coastal currents.
Finally I challenge you to support your claim with data based on historical evidence.
It would appear you cannot.
The handle is still in the vice and it is certainly not around my mind.
Gotta go now, other things to do.
Cheers,
Pikey
I noticed you answered none of my questions. None.
Nope on dope – we’re talking large scale legal mechanised irrigated agricultural crops.
Your 117 year whinge was just wrong. Their analysis was without Snowy inflows and it holds. When you have their analysis critiqued using their papers I will listen. It’s very strange that you think ongoing patterns of very low rainfall including periods of record low headwater rainfall would not lead to low inflows. It beggars belief. So don’t do be so dodgy as to play shell games hiding sources of storage water in your analysis.
Don’t bother with comparisons to who else may get what subsidies – it’s irrelevant to the argument. You could have also used the car industry here similarly. The level of support clearly indicates a lack of adaptability. BILLIONS over DECADES. You say your sector is AOK – so why have we been spending all these billions then? Doesn’t matter if you personally didn’t support it – your industry did and has used heaps ! NHT and CfoC funding still flowing in millions for fixing land deg. We stupidly flogged off Telstra for this you know !
But our beloved agrarian agriculture has been capitalising gains and socialising losses since European settlement. About to stop actually – so we’ll soon see eh !?
You will learn on everything I quote I’m not bluffing. Don’t think I’m disingenuous like faux sceptics.
Shifting climate zones for Australia’s tropical marine ecosystems
J. M. Lough
Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are significantly warming along the northwest (NW) and northeast (NE) coasts of Australia – regions containing well-protected and internationally significant tropical marine ecosystems. The magnitude and spatial distribution of observed warming of annual, maximum and minimum SSTs is examined, 1950–2007. Observed warming is comparable along the NE and NW coasts although greater along the NE coast south ∼15°S, greater at higher than lower latitudes, and greater for annual minimum than annual maximum SSTs. Average climate zones have also shifted >200 km south along the NE coast and about half that distance along the NW coast. If current trends continue, annual average SSTs in northern parts could be ∼0.5°C warmer and those of more southern parts ∼2.0°C warmer within the next 100 years. These rapid changes in oceanic climate are already causing responses in Australia’s tropical marine ecosystems and these responses, if present rates of warming continue, can only intensify.
Received 8 May 2008; accepted 26 June 2008; published 29 July 2008.
Citation: Lough, J. M. (2008), Shifting climate zones for Australia’s tropical marine ecosystems, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L14708, doi:10.1029/2008GL034634.
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The response of the Southern Annular Mode, the East Australian Current, and the southern mid-latitude ocean circulation to global warming
W. Cai
Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia
G. Shi
Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia
Department of Biological and Physical Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
T. Cowan
Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia
D. Bi
Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia
J. Ribbe
Department of Biological and Physical Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Climate models predict an upward trend of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) in response to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, however the consequential impact of this change on oceanic circulation has not been explored. Here we analyse the outputs of a series of global warming experiments from the CSIRO Mark 3 climate model. We show that although for the zonal wind stress change the maximum is located at approximately 60°S, in terms of the change in surface wind stress curl, the maximum is situated at approximately 48°S. This change in the wind stress curl causes a spin-up of the entire southern midlatitude ocean circulation including a southward strengthening of the subtropical gyres, particularly the East Australia Current (EAC). The intensified EAC generates a warming rate in the Tasman Sea that is the greatest in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) with significant implications for sea level rise. The pan-Southern Ocean scale suggests a broad impact on the marine ecosystem of the entire southern midlatitude ocean.
Received 20 September 2005; accepted 31 October 2005; published 10 December 2005.
Citation: Cai, W., G. Shi, T. Cowan, D. Bi, and J. Ribbe (2005), The response of the Southern Annular Mode, the East Australian Current, and the southern mid-latitude ocean circulation to global warming, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L23706, doi:10.1029/2005GL024701.
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Antarctic ozone depletion causes an intensification of the Southern Ocean super-gyre circulation
W. Cai
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia
Recent climate trends over the Southern Hemisphere (SH) summer feature a strengthening of the circumpolar westerly and a weakening of the midlatitude westerly extending from the stratosphere to Earth’s surface. Much of the change is attributable to Antarctic ozone depletion. However, the consequential ocean circulation changes are unknown. Here I demonstrate that the observed surface wind changes have forced a southward shift and spin-up of the super gyre, which links the subtropical South Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Ocean circulation, advecting more warm water southward. The circulation change includes a strengthening of the East Australian Current (EAC) flow passing through the Tasman Sea. The southward shift may be responsible for the observed unusually large warming in the SH midlatitude ocean and may contribute to the reported range extension to the south of many marine species in the South West Pacific.
Received 10 October 2005; accepted 23 December 2005; published 10 February 2006.
Citation: Cai, W. (2006), Antarctic ozone depletion causes an intensification of the Southern Ocean super-gyre circulation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L03712, doi:10.1029/2005GL024911.
All quality Australian work – which you have not read. Nor care to. And that’s not even the half of it. MIND closed like a vice Pikey.
Luke,
again you show your immaturity.
Subsidies, even when new, rarely are paid based on need of the sector. Subsidies are commonly used to purchase votes by politicians or to curry favor with the rich businesses for support, whether legal or illegal.
Excellent examples are the Farm Subsidies here in the US. We support the price of sugar. Sugar growers are in no danger of anything but diabetes. We support the price of grain. If our farmers were allowed to freely contract with anyone in the world for sales, again, there would be no danger for the sector. We pay farmers NOT TO PLANT!! This is alledgedly to keep farmers from ruining their land by overuse and poor farming habits. What it does is help Farmers keep the prices of commodities UP!!! We support the price of milk?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Basically, there is no NEED for farm subsidies here in the US, especially when you check and find most of the $$$$$ go to the largest corporate farms!!!!!
I do not know of ANY subsidies that are paid that are NOT Socialist Policies that are negative to the area involved. Would you care to refute this??
“I noticed you answered none of my questions. None.”
That’s right Luke, that’s because they suffer from denialist evidence blindness, no use pasting any evidence here.
KookyKat – strange that you telling me I’m immature then seem to agree with me.
(1) Australia ain’t the US – so need to be careful with comparisons
(2) Australia has been protesting for decades about all manner of US trade barriers and subsidies that make it uneconomic at times for us to export quality agricultural products to the US market – so yes mate we agree !!
(3) the Australian billions I refer to above are (1) what are called drought exceptional circumstances payments – drought welfare/drought relief to farmers who find themselves out of cash in “one in 20 year” type circumstances or worse. The criteria for drought declaration is fairly strict and quantitatively based. However – after decades the scheme is ending. (so I predict a shake-out in Pikey “stable farmer” low end next drought. The other monies are for works of land restoration and environmental protection – which Pikey tells me again are not necessary as he has it “covered”.
I am not personally criticising (in my point 3) so much as pointing out that it indicates a large number of farmers would go bust if left to the climate and market forces, and land degradation would remain unaddressed without funding.
You also should know a large number of dryland farmers (i.e. not irrigated) in the summer cropping and wheat belt work on numbers something like – for a decade — 3 years good seasons – make money; 4 years so so – pay bills – break even ; 3 years lose money – drought
If climate shifts significantly for WHATEVER reason these production systems can easily go broke from a bad run of seasons.
But to your point about subsidies – yes farmers are a strange quasi-free market bunch of conservatives – agrarian socialists who like to capitalise gains and socialise losses.
However – you tell me – land degradation and its off-site and downstream impacts remain on the public account without funding. Abandoned farms become refugia of feral pests and weeds.
Lose too many farmers – well that affects the support towns. That affects the schools. Doctors and support practitioners leave etc.
Is the greater good served by occasional targeted intervention? I dunno actually.
Our government has reviewed – and it’s our socialist leaning Labor government that has now closed the door. The Productivity Commission says:
http://www.pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/drought/report
Drought-triggered programs for farm businesses
Exceptional Circumstances interest rate subsidies should be terminated, subject totransition arrangements.
The Exceptional Circumstances exit package should be terminated, subject to
transition arrangements. The Re-establishment grants that are provided under theAustralia’s Farming Future initiative should similarly end.
The appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of the Small Block Irrigators
Exit Grant package should be evaluated following its conclusion.
States and territories should, as previously agreed, terminate transactions-based
subsidies.
The Murray-Darling Basin Irrigation Management Grants program should
conclude, as scheduled, on 30 June 2009.
Income support for farm and farm-related households
Exceptional Circumstances relief payments should be replaced, subject to
transition arrangements.
Exceptional Circumstances small business income support should be terminated,
subject to transition arrangements.
All farmers facing hardship should have access to a Farming Family Income
Support scheme designed for farming circumstances. It would provide payments
and have income eligibility thresholds at Newstart levels, subject to:
an overall net asset cap, inclusive of the value of the farm house, beginning at
$2 million with a taper to $3 million
a liquid asset sub-cap of $20 000 inclusive of bank balances and Farm
Management Deposits balances.
While the scheme should operate at the farm household level, eligibility and
payments should be on an individual basis and conditional on:
meeting the definition of a farmer, based on a similar test to that used
currently for the Transitional Income Support scheme
seeking independent financial advice on the viability of the farming business
developing and carrying out a plan of action to improve household
self-reliance
eligibility being reviewed, mutual responsibilities being met and plans updated
every six months.
The scheme should be limited to a maximum claim per farm household for three
years out of every seven. The seven year period should commence from the date of receiving the first income support payment. Payments should be acquitted
annually.
The Farming Family Income Support scheme should commence on 1 July 2009
in conjunction with programs to provide counselling, the recognition of prior
learning and grants for training and professional advice.
luke; as usual I pay you the respect of looking at your new papers; the Lough effort on rapidly rising sea temps around the East coast seems to be contradicted by this;
http://earth.rice.edu/mtpe/hydro/hydrosphere/latest/avhrr_sst/avhrr_ssta.html
Coho for you that is pathetic – a date? ” a date” ROTFL.
And in any case shows what Lough and Cai are saying. LOLZ !
Maaaaattteeee !
Ok, have a fiddle here and you will see that only 1998 was +vely anomalous;
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/sst/anomaly.html
RTF paper !