“A COLD front is sweeping across Europe after gripping swathes of North America last month, but the deep freeze does not mean the threat of global warming has abated, caution scientists.” [Read more here.]
But at least one cartoonist in Belgium appears to be fed-up with the pronouncements from the warmaholics, inparticular Al Gore. [Via Anthony Watts.]
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I just had to highlight this bit from the news article to get the feeding frenzy happening:
“Scientists now agree that climate change is a reality, and that human activity is largely to blame”
Just dropped some relatives off at the airport, going back to -10 in The Netherlands. From swimming to skating in 24 hrs. They are waiting to see if their Elfstedentocht (eleven cities tour) will be held this year.It has only been held 15 times in the last 100 years so it is a pretty rare event.
Could somebody explain how ever increasing amounts of Co2(cue steam coming out of power stations) can cause the coldest winter (so far) in 13 years?
When does the theory become obsolete?
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere will never become obsolete.
The current climate is just coming off a La Nina. It took a while to kick in, but the effects are just being felt and, as the latest curve on the temperature readings is heading up, the effect may already be over.
But is global warming cool?
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001802.html
Chrisl,
So you have noticed the toxic steam from power station cooling towers too? I thank God that we have the ABC to point this out to us, so saving us from the wrath that is to come. Also the drowning polar bear, the cracking mud, and the crumbling icebergs. But should we allow ourselves to be persuaded by tricky pictures, without understanding the context?
I have just revisited the late Garrett Hardin’s essay ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’. He said that ‘It is tempting to ecologists as it is to reformers in general to try to persuade others by way of the photographic shortcut. But the essence of an argument cannot be photographed: it must be presented rationally – in words.’
Was Garrett naive? Is SJT naive in saying that the ‘latest curve on the temperature readings is heading up’? Surely Statistics 100 taught us that we should never extrapolate a trend line into the future? The Stock Market is a good example of that. Yeah verily, beware of pictures.
By the way, Garret Hardin’s essay is at http://www.dieoff.org/page95.htm
Green davey etc. Just as I learnt how to lay bricks by the footage of houses being built whenever there is an interest rate rise, I learnt of the evils of co2 by the steam coming out of power stations ( some of them nuclear)
And how come we can see a graph of the stock market and analyse it ourselves (up, down, nothing to see here) but when it is a climate graph we have to have special statistical powers lest we misinterpret it?
Maybe I will learn to ice skate with all the pictures of Europe frozen over!
You guys are joking, right?
chrisi in the Netherlands is obviously being fed the same deceptive images and we are in Australia.
The steam coming out of the power stations is just that – steam – water vapour. Why didn’t you correct them, Luke?
Water vapour is also a GHG however, you can’t see CO2 – try breathing out in your hands or looking closely at the PHHHZZzz when you next open a can of Coke.
Mainpring No I am in Australia being fed the same deceptive images you are. It is my relatives who are in the netherlands waiting for the co2 to do it’s thing and freeze the ice to 15cm so they can have their ice-skating tour.
And speaking of deception, what is a CPRS (carbon pollution reduction scheme)
1. It is not carbon at issue, it is Carbon Dioxide (like calling H20 Oxygen)
2. It is not Pollution (Co2 is plant food, part of a natural cycle)
SJT “The current climate is just coming off a La Nina. It took a while to kick in, but the effects are just being felt and, as the latest curve on the temperature readings is heading up, the effect may already be over”.
Some La Nina this is. We are having the coldest winter in 20 years and the most December snowfall in 40 years. Since the mother of all El Nino’s in 1997/98, we have supposedly had a series of El Nino/La Nina’s. The overall decadal effect is +0.04 C, no average warming. In the US, their has been a decadal trend of -0.78 C. You just live in the wrong part of the world. Most CO2 emitted is in the northern hemisphere, so why is it cooling?
If you remove the 1997/98 El Nino, there would likely be no atmospheric warming still.
Anything can be a pollutant, natural or not, if it is in excess. A 100% CO2 atmosphere would kill us all.
Met Office press release:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081230.html
In particular:
“Professor Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre said: “Phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña have a significant influence on global surface temperature. Warmer conditions in 2009 are expected because the strong cooling influence of the recent powerful La Niña has given way to a weaker La Niña. Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Niño develops.””
Roger Pielke observes:
This communication of misinformation is not isolated to the media but is embedded within the climate science community, as illustrated by the December 30 2008 UK news release. Indeed, to assume that a La Niña can mask warming that otherwise would occur ignores the obvious that the La Niña is an integral part of the climate. Its controls on the global average temperature illustrate that other effects besides the radiative effect of added CO2 exert a major influence on the climate system.
http://climatesci.org/
I suppose my point is that I would have some (any?) confidence in climatology if the BS wasn’t flowing so heavily from every imaginable direction these days… (sigh)
Well Will – if Pielke thinks that he should retire. What a goober.
And Mainpioing – you want me to tell TV journos not to take piccies of cooling towers. OK I’ll ring them all immediately.
CO2 levels around the world become ‘well mixed’, and are pretty well the same all over the world.
Compare Cape Grim http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/reports/caa03/images/fig5-14.gif to Mauna Loa
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/csiro/CSIROCO2MAUNALOA.JPG
Once again you avoid the question at hand with flippant remarks. You really are pathetic Luke, I bet you rely on a government salary………… Ever been in the real world?
Pielke seems to be unable to distinguish the difference between a cycle, and a trend. One causes changes around a fixed point, the other moves that point in fixed direction. That is, El Nino and La Nina cause temporary changes up and down in temperature for a short time, AGW causes a long term change in temperature upwards.
However, if anyone wants to talk short term trends, (you pickin on me, Davey? I’m just joining in the spirit of things here, it’s all about short term wiggle watching), look at the NW USA.
http://news.theage.com.au/world/floods-hit-us-northwest-thousands-flee-20090108-7clm.html
SJT: ‘The current climate is just coming off a La Nina. It took a while to kick in, but the effects are just being felt and, as the latest curve on the temperature readings is heading up, the effect may already be over.’
Keep drinking the kool aid, sonny. And don’t fortget to check emails every morning for todays talking points from Team Climate. So this ‘latest curve’ of which you speak would be what? Last week’s Hansen surface readings from behind the boiler room in Vladivostok? And why would these be significant?
I think the point went over your head. The explanation of why the climate is cooling is because “the climate is causing the climate to cool.” That explanation came from a professor at the Met office. I don’t believe what the cranks who think they know better tell me, but this kind of explanation is not exactly awe inspiring from a science I’ve been told is 100% equivocal or at least 90% certain, whatever that means, and depending on who you listen to.
“Well Will – if Pielke thinks that he should retire. What a goober.”
Yeap, your opinion is important to everyone here. I mean, how can you compare the credentials of an anonymous internet forum poster who goes by the name of “Luke” with that of a PHD scientist with credientials in the field? Delusions of grandeur perhaps? 😉
And the stupid just keeps coming.
Look, look – it’s cold in winter!! No AGW!!!
I especially like the conspiracy take on photos of steam being emitted from smoke-stacks / cooling towers. Gee, I wonder what the steam signifies – heating perhaps? And how is heat generated? Burning perhaps?
If only the evil media would only use photos of smoke being emitted, that would be far less deceptive, ’cause we all know that you can see CO2, it’s that black stuff coming out of smoke-stacks…………………
Jimmock – would be the boiler room where the Arctic has melted and is having trouble reforming ice. Hahahahahahahaha !
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Well if Pielke thinks ENSO and anti-ENSO doesn’t affect world temperature he’s by himself !
Luke said:”And Mainpioing”
Surely you didn’t know me as a wee bairn when I was known as Boing Boing? Although I seee you gave me an extra “i”.
Was that to watch your doublr shuffles?
Luke: “Well if Pielke thinks ENSO and anti-ENSO doesn’t affect world temperature he’s by himself !”
They can’t – they are abstractions from empirical data – talk about being a scientific ninny Luke, you excel yourself.
Is weather the same as climate?
Comment from: SJT January 8th, 2009 at 5:05 pm:
“…Most CO2 emitted is in the northern hemisphere, so why is it cooling?
CO2 levels around the world become ‘well mixed’, and are pretty well the same all over the world.
Compare Cape Grim http://www.bom.gov.au/inside/eiab/reports/caa03/images/fig5-14.gif to Mauna Loa
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/csiro/CSIROCO2MAUNALOA.JPG…”
Agreed SJT, finally some sense.
So if CO2 is a temperature forcer that threatens to destroy the world, why has the southern hemispshere shown no warming over the last 30 years?
http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/soe/display_indicator.cfm?soe_id=1
Why can’t you and Luke and all the other clowns who spruke this stuff accept that the CO2 hypothesis has been falsified?
That there is not even a correlation (much less a causal connection) between CO2 and temperatures?
What causes this delusion?
Reminds me of the joke about the man testing the indicator in his car. He asks his friend to let him know if it is OK or not. His friend replies, “It’s working, no not working, working now, stopped working….”.
Didn’t I already answer this? The SH is slower than the NH due to there being more ocean area in the SH. As predicted by the models.
SJT How cold and for how long would it need to cool before you had a teensy weensy doubt about your beloved models?
Supplementary question: If it hasn’t warmed in the Southern Hemisphere(as your beloved models predicted) then what is the use of an Emissions Reduction Scam(did I get that spelling right?)
Will – was that a serious question – or are you just a dumb yank? WHy would you actually think that the SH would warm like the NH. Threshold question of stupidity?
But anyway …
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi?variable=tmean®ion=aus&season=0112&period=1970
CO2 is not well-mixed;
http://yly-mac.gps.caltech.edu/A_EGU2008/YungEGU08CO2/SCIENCE%20CO2_Paper_V2F%20copy.pdf
SJT: “Didn’t I already answer this? The SH is slower than the NH due to there being more ocean area in the SH. As predicted by the models.”
Not necessarily. The latest thinking is that the oceans are the main perpetrators of climate variability. Remember ENSO, PDO, AMO etc and their shifts? More ocean, more effect! But that has yet to be picked by the AGW believers. Ocean’s heat absorption may have a damping effect temporarily but it will get to you eventually.
Here I like to quote Roger Pielke Sr. from his paper:
HEAT STORAGE WITHIN THE EARTH SYSTEM
“Moreover, the latest assessment of tropospheric heat (November 2002) shows that the atmosphere has returned to near its 1980 value, after the warm 1997–1998 ENSO event. This rapid cooling of the atmosphere, in terms of where the heat has gone, provides an example of why precise observations of the global heat content should be a scientific priority. An assessment of the heat storage within the earth’s climate system offers a unique perspective on global change. If the heat actually remains within the earth system in the deeper ocean, for example, while the heat content of the remainder of the heat reservoirs in the earth system remains unchanged, sudden transfers of the heat between components of the system (from the ocean into the atmosphere) could produce rapid, unanticipated changes in global weather.”
SJT: “Didn’t I already answer this? The SH is slower than the NH due to there being more ocean area in the SH. As predicted by the models.”
Not necessarily. The latest thinking is that the oceans are the main perpetrators of climate variability. Remember ENSO, PDO, AMO etc and their shifts? More ocean, more effect! But that has yet to be picked by the AGW believers. Ocean’s heat absorption may have a damping effect temporarily but it will get to you eventually.
Here I like to quote Roger Pielke Sr. from his paper:
HEAT STORAGE WITHIN THE EARTH SYSTEM
“Moreover, the latest assessment of tropospheric heat (November 2002) shows that the atmosphere has returned to near its 1980 value, after the warm 1997–1998 ENSO event. This rapid cooling of the atmosphere, in terms of where the heat has gone, provides an example of why precise observations of the global heat content should be a scientific priority. An assessment of the heat storage within the earth’s climate system offers a unique perspective on global change. If the heat actually remains within the earth system in the deeper ocean, for example, while the heat content of the remainder of the heat reservoirs in the earth system remains unchanged, sudden transfers of the heat between components of the system (from the ocean into the atmosphere) could produce rapid, unanticipated changes in global weather.”
Being a bit mean there, aren’t you? This is the “latest thinking”, but the AGW camp is supposed to believe it instantly? Are they expected to believe everything that comes from the other side immediately, even though half of what does contradicts the other half?
As for the rapid changes in climate due to PDO etc, that is only to be expected. The issue is what is the long term trend. People seem to keep forgetting, this is only just the start of AGW, there is well over a century of change to come.
SJT says:
“The issue is what is the long term trend.”
But what evidence do we have that there is a long term trend to be concerned about?
The jump from 1910-1940 was natural according to the climate models.
There was a downward trend from 1940-1980
There was an upward trend from 1980-1998
Now we have a flat declining trend for 10 years.
The entire AGW case is built on a upward trend of 20years bracketed by 40 years of flat or declining trends. It is getting to the point where we have enough data to say that any long term trend is too small to be concerned about.
Well, the AGW camp has a good track record of believing things instantly. Hansen opened his mouth and, bingo, AGW was created. The politicians took him for God and a decade later or so there was this immaculate conception under the Bristlecone pines and Mann was born. The Trinity was completed by Real Climate’s holy ghost Gavin Schmidt. The gullibility of the AGW congregation preached by consensual scientific apostles did the rest.
And the religious analogue is completed with skeptics being disgraced like atheists.
That is nothing like what happened.
Read Weart’s history of AGW. You may not agree with it, but there is much more to AGW than Gore, Hansen, Schmidt and Mann. If you read Climateaudit, you may get that impression, but that’s only because McIntyre has an obsession to feed.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
You might want to read the same link.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
You may not agree with the science, but the case for and research of CO2 as a climate forcing is much more in depth than you are making it out to be.
The cartoon is hilarious … Describes what is now happening to the people of the world exactly.
This thread is about weather – not climate. If you want to see what the weather is doing in terms of temperatures anomalies take a lookie here – http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop.html . The current cold in Europe is coupled to exceptionally warm temperatures over all of Siberia and warm temperatures to the south over northern Africa and west over Iceland. These contrasts get set up by Rossby Waves.
Personally, I find this cartoon insulting to Al Gore and our collective intelligence. Anthony knows that December was well above average globally as was the whole of 2008. He also knows that Arctic Sea Ice is running at record low extent and record low volumes. This is occurring against a backdrop of low solar activity and lingering La Nina – which is an extraordinary thing.
BTW Jen, any progress on defining what would make for a dramatic warming?
“This thread is about weather – not climate”
With the absence of a detectable global warming trend (much less an accelerating trend) over the decadal scale, and given the fact that we’re talking about a .6-7c temperature rise over 100 years, all discussions of the climate boil down to discussions over weather events. Because there is nothing else to go on. That must include very recent changes in Arctic sea ice if you want to be intellectually honest about this. From a PR perspective you can see the disaster coming, when every weather related warming event has been blamed on AGW by the Warmers. In the minds of the public (and rightly so) they are now asking why if unusual warm events are proof of AGW whey aren’t unusual cold events disproof of AGW? Nothing to do with the science, just a perception issue.
Luke –
“Well if Pielke thinks ENSO and anti-ENSO doesn’t affect world temperature he’s by himself !”
Right, so the climate is what causes the climate to heat or cool? Circular reasoning and it was what I was making fun of before by pointing to the illogic in the Met office press release. Which Luke now rephrases… convinced of the truth of whatever a higher authority pronounces, even if it makes absolutely no sense, and even if only a few weeks before, Luke was pointing out the absurdity in the logic of such an argument, when the discussion was about ocean cycles.
When Luke was arguing against ocean cycles as any kind of “explanation” of temperature, this seemed logical and plausible to me and I agreed with him. Now Luke’s defends the opposite position. (Rather than defend an illogical position, surely it would have been more plausible to explain the Met Office press release as no more than ‘poor wording’.)
As for me, my opinion will change as the facts change. I’ll wait for that long term temperature signal to rise out of the satellite data. Until that happens all that’s moving around is a lot of hot air from all sides.
>With the absence of a detectable global warming trend (much less an accelerating trend) over the decadal scale…
Why would you look for global warming over a decadal scale? We have 600 years of glacier records, 150 years of surface records, 60 years of weather balloons, 30 years of satellites and they all show LOTS of warming. The 10 year trend – particularly when the start point is the strongest El Nino in a century and the end point is La Nina – is dominated by variability not change.
Being a “sceptic” is not about constantly moving goal posts and setting up strawmen to confirm your perceptions.
“Why would you look for global warming over a decadal scale?”
Because a tiny warming trend by itself is not risking the health of the planet. A dangerous, obvious, accelerating warming trend is what is of concern.
“Being a “sceptic” is not about constantly moving goal posts and setting up strawmen to confirm your perceptions.”
I’m looking at the data. You, on the other hand, are stuck in some kind of reality denial. I don’t care if the decadal trend is up, flat or down. If there’s a problem to worry about, then the decadal trend should be up, and it should be accelerating relative to the prior decade and so on and so on. Until that happens, one should be “alert but not alarmed” as they say…
SJT says:
“You may not agree with the science, but the case for and research of CO2 as a climate forcing is much more in depth than you are making it out to be.”
You and other warmers constantly fail to make the distinction between a hypothesis and experimental results. The CO2 hypothesis has been around for quite awhile but there is no way to theoretically determine how much warming should occur when adding CO2 because of the complex interactions within the earth system. The only way to determine is to look at actual experimental data. In this case, we only have 30 years of coherent satellite data and in that 30 year record we have 10 years with no warming despite ever increasing CO2 levels.
How many more years of cooling/no warming will it take to convince you that the effect of CO2 is a lot less than currently claimed? 5 years? 10 years? Never? If the your answer is “never” then you are expressing a religious belief and you should not pretend you care about the science.
Personally, I accept that current trend is too short to make definitive conclusions, however, if the temps are still lower than 1998 after the next solar max then I would conclude that catastrophic AGW has been proven wrong.
This thread is about weather – not climate. If you want to see what the weather is doing in terms of temperatures anomalies take a lookie here – http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop.html . The current cold in Europe is coupled to exceptionally warm temperatures over all of Siberia and warm temperatures to the south over northern Africa and west over Iceland. These contrasts get set up by Rossby Waves.
none of the denilaits on this page, including the owner, knows the difference. they are all burning all their books, whenever it is snowing outside, in fear of a new ice age.
How many more years of cooling/no warming will it take to convince you that the effect of CO2 is a lot less than currently claimed? 5 years? 10 years? Never? If the your answer is “never” then you are expressing a religious belief and you should not pretend you care about the science.
“cooling” or “stagnation” with an easy explanation of course really can NEVER contradict AGW theory. if we see a big volcano eruption every year over the next decade, nobody would be surprised if warming stopped…
2008 was a HOT year. the little snow, doesn t make a difference.
““cooling” or “stagnation” with an easy explanation of course really can NEVER contradict AGW theory. if we see a big volcano eruption every year over the next decade, nobody would be surprised if warming stopped…”
Then there would be a clear explanation for the cooling and there would be no argument from either side.
So why the insults and the evasions? You must have an opinion on this? What time frame of cooling would disprove AGW in your mind? Nobody has to agree with it, but I would be curious to know what it is.
David
“Personally, I find this cartoon insulting to Al Gore and our collective intelligence.”
Oh my God, you remind me of the muslims and the danish cartoons.
And you say belief in AGW is NOT a religious experience!
“December was well above average globally as was the whole of 2008. ”
Was it?
“He also knows that Arctic Sea Ice is running at record low extent and record low volumes.”
Look up some historical records, the Artic was ice free many times before.
Even in relatively recent times, like the 20s
“BTW Jen, any progress on defining what would make for a dramatic warming?”
Can’t speak for Jennifer, but to my mind it would have to be more than the error range of the instruments. At least let’s say 1 or 2 C/decade.
Also we are talking about average temps here, is there any record of how it is arrived at?
I mean, are the night time temps higher, or the daytime, or both?
“As for me, my opinion will change as the facts change. I’ll wait for that long term temperature signal to rise out of the satellite data. Until that happens all that’s moving around is a lot of hot air from all sides.”
We already have a long term signal from the ground data. Waiting till we get a long term signal from satellite data (one that suits your demands) will be too late. For my money, there already is a long term signal, and it’s easy to spot. Just look at the graph http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rss-msu-global-temps_2008-copy.gif.
Split it in the middle. Look at the amount of time below the long term average on the left of the middle. Look at the amount of time spent above the long term average on the right. Pretty clear to me, it’s warming.
Quote SJT: Pretty clear to me, it’s warming.
but so what? – yesterday I pointed to 3 papers showing that it was warmer in MWP – it was avoided by the warmers, topo hard to answer apart from Lukes pathetic reference to the Global Warming book – we know there are still graves in the permafrost in Greenland etc. We have got a way to go before we reach the temps of the MWP and history shows life and coral reefs weren’t wiped out by the additional temps AND the higher temps of the MWP were not caused by man’s CO2, it’s just the temp variability of this damn planet.
You’ve been screaming “wolf” for too long now with no result – we have all assumed there is NO wolf!!
“You’ve been screaming “wolf” for too long now with no result – we have all assumed there is NO wolf!!”
The wolf is a noble creature, a yapping chihuahua would be more appropriate.
SJT:
“Waiting till we get a long term signal from satellite data (one that suits your demands) will be too late.”
Too late for what and why? If it’s taking so long (30+ years) for a definite accelerating signal to emerge out of the sat data, surely it logically follows we have more time, not less, to make an informed decision based on good empirical data, rather than panicky speculation.
“For my money, there already is a long term signal, and it’s easy to spot. Just look at the graph http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rss-msu-global-temps_2008-copy.gif.”
There’s definitely a step up after the super el nino event. Might be suggestive of something, yes. But you’re pointing to a very short time period, relatively speaking. How can a short time period be dismissed when it doesn’t support your argument but use the same data as evidence for your argument? Bottom line is, the data we have is ambiguous, which is why it’s easy for Coolers to use it to support their claims just as Warmers use it to support *their* claims. That’s highly suggestive in itself of something, isn’t it?
The temperature trends don’t look anything like the IPCC forecast, yet. Maybe something we don’t know is “masking” the warming signal “temporarily”. Possible. But even that suggests there is a lot we don’t know. To panic over this when there is so much we don’t yet understand… there is just not enough data there pointing in a particular direction to leap to conclusions. “Be alert but not alarmed” as they say.
SJT,
Agreed that 100% CO2 would kill us. But the inconvenient truth is that only .038% (by volume) of the atmosphere is CO2. Even if it doubled, it would only be .076%.
Nitrogen is 78.8%, oxygen 20.95% by volume. If either of these were 100% we would die too. Do you think nitrogen and oxygen are pollutants? Should we abolish lightning, and destroy all plants? Why pick on poor old CO2? And what about water vapour from cooling towers? So stop boiling cabbage and opening cans of fizzy pop. Stop breathing out. Your argument is a furphy. You have the brain of a hamster. Go and play with Luke.
SJT did not seem to have too much trouble extracting the signals in the satellite data. In contrast was Jennifers view ‘This data does not suggest dramatic global warming’. That was based on eyeballing being enough as justified by a scholar from a business school. Now business schools are the home of the case study. If it is science you want and you dont want to go off half-cocked you would go to the less well-endowed but more rigorous psychology departments. You would quickly learn that it is the human condition to sometimes miss bleeding obvious patterns and unearth misleading ones. Part of the answer is in the left brain – right brain facts and surmises. It depends too where you start from. If you are in the jungle you should trust your intuition if it hints at a tiger lurking. More so if you have recently had a tiger by the tail. But if you have time for logic and have never seen a tiger, you can look a little harder for the devil in the detail. Left brain is said to be worth cultivating to police and arrest some of the fantasies that the right brain is inclined to get carried away by. If you have the time that is.
This sort of comment automatically qualifies the author as a denialist goose “Hansen opened his mouth and, bingo, AGW was created. ” Utter bulldust …. then he follows with a quasi-religious rant.
“coral reefs weren’t wiped out by the additional temps ” – well duh ? well you didn’t have the CO2 concentrations with it nor the speed of increase – nor the runoff from 20th century agriculture nor the fishing … (and who said “wiped out” anyway …. but see the PETM and report back !!
“You’ve been screaming “wolf” for too long now with no result ” – what utter crap – here’s a ninny living a human life measured in hours and days having a whinge about processes talking decades – ignores science of major meteorological changes documented worldwide – especially in natural systems – lack of reading ability obviously a problem.
Then we have the ye olde teensy weensy argument from Dirty Brown Davey Esq. Davey – you’ve obviously gotten older eh …
Well what a bunch or moronic statements.
Even Sinkers is doing better than you lot …
Bazza – I have to say that your thesis is fascinating – but I think we’re dealing with morons here who only have a 25% of one brain hemisphere to deal with.
A mob so stupid – so tedious – so wanky – so utterly ridiculous that it’s painful to watch.
“A mob so stupid – so tedious – so wanky – so utterly ridiculous that it’s painful to watch.”
But that’s the nature of the internet… you can’t respond to every stupid or fallacious argument made by someone who considers himself a cooler, sceptic or warmer. I read equally stupid comments from warmers, like, “the fact that we’ve had warming proves empirically that AGW is true.” etc. Does that disprove AGW? How is it even relevant?
By focusing on and complaining about the “dumb” posters, you conveniently create an environment for yourself in which you can escape facing any reasonable, tough or good questions. You just convince yourself that everyone who disagrees with your opinion is stupid by pointing out the stupid posts. No need to do that, most of us can work that out for ourselves.
The scleractinian corals, which are the major builders of the reefs of today, have been around some 200 million years, during most of which time both the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration and its temperature were much greater than they are today. Coral reefs have existed as far south as the coast of Albany in WA.
How about replying to the science instead of acting like a schoolboy taunting the local girl’s school.
janama,
Maybe most of them did get wiped out back then and over millions of years regrew and adapted again? The “200 million years” argument just means the corals were not driven completely extinct. Hard to assess specific damage done, though.
I think the other argument I’ve seen is that the rate of CO2 increase (putting aside the warming effect issue for a moment) if “unprecedented” may not give the corals sufficient time to adapt/evolve to the higher acidity.
The counter argument seems to be that the geological record shows periods of extremely sudden temperate change, much faster than anything we’ve experienced recently, and the corals are still around today.
“SJT,
Agreed that 100% CO2 would kill us. But the inconvenient truth is that only .038% (by volume) of the atmosphere is CO2. Even if it doubled, it would only be .076%.
Nitrogen is 78.8%, oxygen 20.95% by volume. If either of these were 100% we would die too. Do you think nitrogen and oxygen are pollutants?”
Didn’t you read what I said? If you had, I have already answered your question. Stop playing games. If you have a response to make to what I said, please feel free.
Maybe most of them did get wiped out back then and over millions of years regrew and adapted again?
Will – that’s what happened in the Marshall Islands when they were all wiped out by nuclear testing yet today they’ve recovered to be some of the finest reefs in the Pacific.
Anyone who thinks Pielke doesn’t understand much better than anyone posting here is only demonstrating a severe case of ignorance.
Pielke is pointing out that the climate is much more complex and full of feedbacks than Hansen and the rest of the AGW promotion community can imagine- or admit.
Things are not warming if they are cooling.
That is a point AGW hysterics cannot fathom.
Janama,
That’s very interesting but you have to be careful; the situations aren’t exactly analogous. Reefs might recover by regrowing from nearby populations, but if ocean acidity kills them, there will be no “near by”. But I hear what you say; possibly they are more robust than certain people are giving them credit for.
“By focusing on and complaining about the “dumb” posters, you conveniently create an environment for yourself in which you can escape facing any reasonable, tough or good questions. You just convince yourself that everyone who disagrees with your opinion is stupid by pointing out the stupid posts. No need to do that, most of us can work that out for ourselves.”
Thanks Will, for attempting to put the debate back into the realms of normalcy.
Hope a few people listen.
the situations aren’t exactly analogous.
yes – I’m aware of that – but they truely are more robust than we credit them.
Ben Cropp has been diving the GBR for decades now and he says they are the same today as they were 40 years ago. He’s not the only oldtimer to have said that.
Will Nitschke “if we see a big volcano eruption every year over the next decade, nobody would be surprised if warming stopped…”
Then there would be a clear explanation for the cooling and there would be no argument from either side.
Will…we have a clear explanation now for the warming, which makes a heck of a lot more sense than CO2-based warming, yet the AGW crowd completely ignores it. Tsonis et al have linked the coupling and decoupling of ocean systems like ENSO, the AMO, and the PDO to warming/cooling cycles over a hundred years. Keenlyside et al have openly declared that we should expect no warming till 2016 because of the AMO. I find it a lack of insight on the part of Keenlyside et al that maybe the AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc, ‘are’ causing the warming.
It has been acknowledged in two papers that oceanic systems are behind the warming and another recent paper has gone so far as to claim the oceans are causing warming over the land. When you consider that atmospheric warming of the lands and oceans contravenes the laws of thermodynamics, due to the inability of a cooler body to warm a warmer body, why do you guys not acknowledge the oceans as ‘possible’ causes of the warming?
It’s the hardline claim that it ‘is’ CO2 behind the warming, despite good evidence to the contrary, that sets skeptics off. It seems that no matter what evidence is presented, you guys have it stuck in your heads that warming ‘must’ be caused by CO2 because there is no other answer. When the warming trend stops for 10 years, you try to find reasons for that based on the CO2/model paradigm rather than look at other possibilities.
SJT said……[ “That CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere will never become obsolete.”]
….. However SJT. CO2 is a trace gas. Out of 100,000 molecules of ‘air’, 38 are CO2, of which just 1 is Anthropogenic….. Secondly Water vapor is 95% of all GHG’s and absorbs the same IR spectrum as CO2 thus rendering it insignificant…. The Sahara desert at night may perhaps be warmer for a few minutes longer than it would otherwise have been…. But you’ll have a hard time trying to measure it.
So is CO2 Significant in it’s effect on warming the Earth?….. NO.
Observation would seem to bear this out as the current lower global average temperature diverges from rising CO2 levels which is counter to the AGW Hypothesis…. Also no Computer models made in the mid nineties have predicted the last 10 years. The tropical troposphere modeling was wrong.
Gordon,
No that’s not an explanation as a climate driver. Yes, the ocean cycles can cause fluctuations in weather from year to year. That is obvious and nobody is arguing that (I think). The interesting question is: what combination of factors, forcings, etc., drive the ocean cycles?
I think Luke and others have tried to make this point before, but it’s fallen on deaf ears. (Sigh)
Will Nitschke…my apologies…I have lumped you in with the AGW crowd. I just woke up and my brain has deteriorated to the level of the alarmists.
Disclaimer: my last post to Will Nitsche was meant for sod, Luke, SJT and…where is NT anyway? Hopefully is off being deprogrammed from his religious cultism.
Will Nitschke “if we see a big volcano eruption every year over the next decade, nobody would be surprised if warming stopped…”
But I would be very surprised in another context – where is all that energy coming from which would cause that possibility? A volcano is simply an eruption of molten magma on the earth’s surface – so what cause the thermal surge in the upper mantle etc to raise the temperature to form the magma? Does this not imply that part of the solid earth would have experienced a local increase in temperature? And when the volcano does erupt it then causes cooling at the surface.
And the fleabrained here believe CO2 is the main thermal driver in the earth system.
Will – This is supposed to be an evidence based blog – not a home for stupid statements.
Anyway – the pseudo-sceptics love to maneuver these debates to extremes – try to marginalise the argument – so because corals survive in geological time – AGW is irrelevant. This is really silly stuff.
You don’t report how many species go extinct in major climate events/shifts in the geological past. Even humanity probably went close – http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-04-24-human-extinction_N.htm
You don’t discuss the rate of change. The regional extent of change. The prospects for recovery.
Whether a tourism industry or fishing industry would survive 50 years with an impoverished reef as the “non-attraction”.
You haven’t considered multiple stressors – like terrestrial runoff from agriculture (sediment, nutrients, herbicides), sewage and overfishing.
You don’t consider 30 days food supply on a crowded planet with 6 billion humans going to 9 billion.
So SOME SPECIES of Life on Earth has survived geological history to the present. SO BLOODY WHAT ! Most have not.
This does really inform what might happen in a human lifetime or even a generation.
Humanity has always been at war with climate – droughts, floods, heatwaves, cold snaps, storms. It’s not like there have been no modern day climate catastrophes.
Humans have already changed the planet’s albedo, changed what photosynthesis is undertaken by agriculture instead of natural systems.
So changing our environment to suit ourselves is well ingrained. Which is why air-conditioners were invented.
But if our best science makes a good case that increasing emissions of greenhouse gases will change the planet’s energy balance – altering extreme events and whole circulation patterns – well it’s a serious issue of risk management.
“why do you guys not acknowledge the oceans as ‘possible’ causes of the warming?”
Lordy – this is tedious – more and more recycled bilge.
Barnett et al – show temperature being sunk from the surface down.
http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;292/5515/270
We’ve got good evidence of PDO over not 100 years but 400. ENSO for thousands. So PDO, ENSO and AMO are running all the time. Cohenite has an outstanding task of getting the PDO data and show how it matches the long term trend of temperature over 100s of years.
On the PDO theory – we should at 1000C by now. LOL !
These quasi-periodic phenomena can operate on a backdrop of longer term change.
And that longer term change might be solar or CO2 or planetary albedo (land use).
Just think guys if the temperature starts to climb again – you guys will be philosophically obliterated.
What are you going to say if the Arctic goes ice free…
Pray really hard guys. Squeeze those little pinkies tight.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5732/284 the better reference
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
Read this and the second part, which is linked from the first part. It gets a little complex for my gray matter, but it makes sense.
It’s not saturated yet.
Pressure band broadening.
CO2 is acting in the atmosphere in bands where water vapour is not active.
Water is a feedback, so more CO2 creates more water vapour.
Can people please agree to stop it with the ‘trace gas’ argument. If something is present in small amounts, it can still have a significant effect on it’s environment. Try arsenic and the human body as an interesting case.
“Try arsenic and the human body as an interesting case.”
After you SJT if you don’t mind, and please let us know how it went eh?
Luke:
“You don’t report how…”
I don’t discuss these matters because I’m not in disagreement with you on any of these particular points. It’s one thing to say that a small temperature shift is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, or for the planet as a whole. But it would be inconvenient at best for human populations, which aren’t, say, built in deserts. For example, if a small climate shift caused wind pattern changes that caused rainfall to decrease. And many animal species can’t freely migrate up or down continents any more. Most are reserved to specific zones/national parks.
So broad appeals to geological time scales as “proof” of anything don’t impress me much.
But it doesn’t necessarily follow that therefore humans are in a position to the control the climate system… nice if we could… humans have natural tendencies towards delusions of grandeur.
It only takes a trace amount, what could be the harm?
Kuke – This is supposed to be an evidence based blog – not a home for stupid statements.
Your link – evidence-based?
“Human beings may have had a brush with extinction” May have, may not have??
Well Brownie – http://www.cell.com/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(08)00255-3 here’s the science reference – entirely possible. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424130710.htm
As for “a small difference” in temperature doesn’t make much difference. But oh yes it does – small differences in ocean temperature cause things like El Nino and Indian Ocean Dipoles etc.
SST anomalies are not that large in degrees centigrade terms.
And a small change in mean temperature in itself is irrelevant. But it’s also what happens to the tails of the climate distribution – the extreme events that is the important thing.
Yes of course your daily experience of temperature ranges over many degrees. But the experience of the diurnal cycle is not a good analogy to climate or climate shifts.
Temperature in itself is not the AGW concern – it’s how that manifests in terms of circulation changes (like a decreasing Walker circulation with more drought for Australia perhaps? – a changing sub-tropical ridge over Australia? ) and changes in heatwaves, hurricanes, peak rainfall intensity.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424130710.htm
“Previous studies have shown that while human populations had been quite small prior to the Late Stone Age, perhaps numbering fewer than 2,000 around 70,000 years ago, the expansion after this time led to the occupation of many previously uninhabited areas, including the world beyond Africa.”
Perhaps! Is that like possibly true; maybe true;
Science 101 How to write a science report.
“It only takes a trace amount, what could be the harm?”
Actually sjt, arsenic is a wrong example, because if you take it in a small but ever increasing dosage your body will get used to it and tolerate quite a large amount in the end.
Don’t try this at home!!!!!!!
Luke warbled:
“Well if Pielke thinks ENSO and anti-ENSO doesn’t affect world temperature he’s by himself !”
You pathetic child, does a thermometer or other measuring device affect what it is measuring??
Speaking of El Nino, La Nina, ENSO, AMO… as if they are DRIVERS of something is the same as saying the thermometer you stick in the turkey cooks the turkey!!!!
Do elevated SST’s evaporate more water or is the measurement of elevated SST temps a reflection, or proxy, of the underlying physical processes?? No this is NOT a trick question!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
SJT:
“Can people please agree to stop it with the ‘trace gas’ argument. If something is present in small amounts, it can still have a significant effect on it’s environment. Try arsenic and the human body as an interesting case.”
I think you’re missing the point of the sceptical objection here. The argument is NOT that something very small can have a very big effect. (Well, if any sceptic is making that sort of argument, they are confused.) It is that, if something so small DOES have such an enormous effect, than adding more of it to the atmosphere should have very obvious and measurable impacts. So where are they?
As per the arsenic analogy… well, we are injecting it into ourselves in very high doses right now, so why aren’t we showing obvious signs of sickness?
As for the science itself, that’s all very interesting but if you’re not an atmospheric physicist you’re unlikely to be qualified to talk about it and if you do so anyway, you’re probably self deluded. I doubt many sceptics would engage in arguing over the finer points of, say, Boundary Theory versus Matrix Theory in particle physics unless they were actually physicists. Yet when it comes to climatology, too many people with very little knowledge seem to think they are qualified to form an opinion on the technical details. (sigh)
The only reasonable thing you can do to evaluate the merits of such arguments/theories is to look at the predictions made and compare them to the empirical data as best you can.
SJT: “Can people please agree to stop it with the ‘trace gas’ argument. If something is present in small amounts, it can still have a significant effect on it’s environment. Try arsenic and the human body as an interesting case.”
Not a good example – check out arsenic on Wikipedia – it is used in trace amounts medically.
Hey Lukeguru, Please help me here
Your link:
You don’t report how many species go extinct in major climate events/shifts in the geological past. Even humanity probably went close – http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-04-24-human-extinction_N.htm
you say indicates extinction-ie DOWN to 2,000 beings,
however your further link
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424130710.htm
to a mere mortal like me does not indicate a great reduction – to near extinction – rather than – until that time – a slow BUILDING of the species to 2,000 beings.
O learned Luke, which is the right reading of your two links?
Well Brownie I assume early humans just sucked stones for water during the African mega-drought phase. How hard is that. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008171121.htm But hey – I’m sure like with coral polyps – humans in African would somehow survive a future mega-drought no worries too. You just”adapt” or “recolonise”- its’ easy !
So KockheadKat I assume you don’t think ENSO changes world temperature. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2002/2000JD000298.shtml So how long have you been mental now. One day you might write more than a quip ….
So Will, if we accept that last statement of yours as reasonable… how do we account that you and I come to totally different conclusions.
For mine I guess that I am at least in part influenced by the fact that say every national academy of science in the G8 + 5 (inc INdia, Russia, China, Brasil) say it is so. That does not mean I take their word over my own observations of the evidence, but I’m comfortable to be guided by their thoughts.
IN fact the only way I see that the sceptics are right is if there has been just about the most successful conspiracy ever known to humanity to hoodwink every science academy out of an entrenched viewpoint in to a false one.
This is not equivalent to say Galileo as that changed entrenched science towards the facts… but somehow the whole scientific community at a time where our science and tech is mind bogglingly advanced were convinced to jump on board a totally flawed bandwagon using dodgy science… and now are clinging to falsehoods in the face of good science showing they are wrong? Sorry excuse me but I just don;t buy it.
I really strugfgle to believe that our scientific bodies could be so foolish/corruptable/ignorant… it woul dbe the biggest scam of all time. You could send a billion dollars to Nigeria and not look as gullible and stupid as our science academies and leading scientists…
There is king canute and the emporeres new clothes going on here….. but just who is king canute, or who is the emporer, seems to depend totally on personal opinion and character… which I refer to but no one ever likes as the ultimate challenge to science by the Postmodern era….
By which POstmodernism rejected MOdernisms pure science, but replaced with many branches of which the two main ones are neotraditionalism/neo conservatism, and for want of a better term those who still pursue the science and the future and technology, and they clash in climate science just as they are clashing and fighting for dominance in just about every discipline on the planet from urban design to medicine.
Now take Jen for example, if she does not mind… well to me she is a neo-traditionalist… as represented by her old-skool environmentalism views of conservation, wheras to me I see the push for a low carbon future as very futuristic and deconstructivist… if you get my drift.
So excuse my ramble which will surely now have me labelled by all as a complete nut job… but I’m afraid that my only explanation of the different conclusions that you and I come to is not about the science at all, but ideology which is pretty much hard-wired in to us.
This is why the AGW issue gets people so heated… it is not about science, it is about a science that actually says to them “your way of thinking is being threatened here – in fact everything that makes you tick will be crushed at the end of this” (and that goes for many on both sides).
How it plays out will be very interesting indeed…
lol soprry about all that:)
Lukeguru
Like your early humans, your answer sucks. You provide two links supposedly supporting the one proposition:
1 Even humanity probably went close (to extinction) – http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-04-24-human-extinction_N.htm
indicating that the 2,000 alive 70,000 years ago saved us from extinction
2 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424130710.htm
“Previous studies have shown that while human populations had been QUITE SMALL PRIOR to the Late Stone Age, perhaps numbering fewer than 2,000 around 70,000 years ago, indicating a slow build up of the race.
One link indicates reduction in population, the other growth in population.
You say “humans just sucked stones” Hey Lukeguru, unfortunately you can’t put brains into a stone statue or a sealed mind not open to latterday thinking.
Pity
SJT: Marcus isn’t giving you the bum steer, just don’t forget to wean yourself off the arsenic at a similar rate to which you built up to the final dose.
Austrian peasants of the 19th-Century weren’t afraid!
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/arsenic/Image_Makeover1.htm
MattB,
Part of the answer to your question was in my previous post. It doesn’t matter if 10,000 scientists and every national academy of science in the world takes the position that “X” is true. “X” can be global warming, or it might be some aspect of the general model of physics, or something else. The only people who are qualified to assess the science are the atmospheric physicists who actually understand this technical stuff. The rest just play follow the leader.
If you are looking at the IPCC report, then I’ve been told (but have not had time to verify yet), that the critical chapter on climate physics (and everything rests on this) was written by 44 physicists, most of whom have engaged in joint publications of research. So we are talking about a relatively small and relatively specialised group.
No conspiracy theories are needed to explain anything. This is exactly how cutting edge science works in our society at present, and anyone who thinks Hansen, et al, are evil or whatever, are just being ridiculous. Scientists go with the theory they believe is best, until the evidence overwhelms it, then gradually over years or decades it dies out and gets replaced by better theories. If a theory is still around after 50 or 100 years we give it more confidence in its veracity. If it’s been around for shorter periods of time, we treat it more cautiously. If you read the scientific papers, they are full of doubts, concerns, and are generally honest about stating the unknowns. If you read the press, then there are no doubts or concerns and the science is, apparently, 100% settled.
Let me try to use an example from my own field of study to illustrate how this works, which is psychology. When I did it in uni, talk theory (Freud, etc.) definitely had a bad smell about it. The consensus was for chemical, behavioural and other approaches. Some recent work has been done on new drugs that effect memory, and there is now a new theoretical basis for how talk theory may help in that field, so talk therapy may be back in fashion again. If that research does not pan out, talk therapy is likely to reacquire a bad smell. The “consensus” (or at least, the majority opinion) had flip flopped many times, because this is a very young science and there are many unknowns. This is the *normal* scientific process.
When “pseudo sceptics” (to use Luke’s term) come along and beat up on the field of climatology, well I think these people are being a little deluded. This is how science is done. It’s the scientist’s job to defend his position strongly, and they are not to blame for the current situation. It is people outside the actual science that are beating things up and if anyone wants to finger point, most of the finger pointing should be in that direction.
“If you are looking at the IPCC report, then I’ve been told (but have not had time to verify yet), that the critical chapter on climate physics (and everything rests on this) was written by 44 physicists, most of whom have engaged in joint publications of research. So we are talking about a relatively small and relatively specialised group.”
The IPCC reports are not actual research, but summaries of research. There are hundreds (IIRC) of papers, by hundreds of scientists, and all the papers that the conclusions are based on are listed in the IPCC report. These reports and papers all go through the peer review process, which involves many more scientists. Although the climate part might be written by 44, if you are correct, the number of climate specialists involved is much larger.
“I think you’re missing the point of the sceptical objection here. The argument is NOT that something very small can have a very big effect. (Well, if any sceptic is making that sort of argument, they are confused.) It is that, if something so small DOES have such an enormous effect, than adding more of it to the atmosphere should have very obvious and measurable impacts. So where are they?”
The climate is such a large system that the changes will go on for centuries, and have only just started. We can detect a signal now, and the science is in the IPCC report. The Arctic ice is one obvious effect, the temperature record another, glaciers another. The models predicted the NH would warm more quickly, correct. That the Arctic would melt quicker than the Antarctic, correct. That temperatures would rise, correct. That the stratosphere would cool, correct.
I am not a scientist, never claimed to be, hence my reference to work by people who are. Weart’s “saturated gassy argument” makes sense to me, however.
Will – your comment of 4:57 pm was substantive. Hat tip.
“There are hundreds (IIRC) of papers, by hundreds of scientists, and all the papers that the conclusions are based on are listed in the IPCC report.”
One would hope so!
As for your other claims, maybe. Maybe not. The problem is the climate system is cyclical and has a lot of inertia and there are many overlapping cycles of different kinds (oceans, solar, etc.)… very complex. I suppose my major interest is in how people interpret ambiguous and contradictory data, rather than in the data itself. But to appreciate one, one has to keep an eye on the other.
So Will if we have honest scientists doing honest work saying “look guys this is serious, and if we are right, and we are pretty sure we are, we really need to reduce carbon emissions” when what is the problem with doing that? I mean I could not agree more with your post to be quite honest.
I just don’t see how that sensible appraisal could lead to anything other than a decision to set in motion actions to slash carbon emissions, while at the same time rigourously investigating the science to make sure we are acting in the correct manner (whether that means great cuts or AGW was all a big mistake).
Even if I gave all the counter “science” significant weighting I still come to the same policy conclusion… act now, track the science to see if we need to do more, and hope like hell that in actual fact we never needed to do anything.
But you are not the norm Will… the norm is for sceptics to think that it is a global conspiracy to force us back to the dark ages, or install socialist/deep green ideologies, to usurp capitalism (take your pick)… led by an illuminatie hell bent on propping up the FIAT money system;)
As an example, I think the solar issues/cosmic rays are well worthy of research, the potential lack of “hotspot” sure lets really get in to that… but I just don’t see anything that debunks the general principles of what the IPCC concludes… but I do see the same old suspects using them to maintain the status quo, and the track record of such interestes groups is NOT to act in the best interests of the people or the planet.
MattB,
I understand where you’re coming from, but my opinion (since you’ve asked) is that we shouldn’t be doing the “wrong” things for the “right” reasons. It’s important to discover the truth.
The car companies developed hydrogen powered vehicles, but no one is interested. In other words, they got screwed. The government has to invest in the infrastructure, not come up with new taxation schemes. Almost everyone is connected to the internet these days, so we need smart appliances and a smart grid, so we can feed power back into the grid locally, and our appliances need to know when there is plenty of solar or wind power around to do things like operate the hot water system or the best time to recharge your electric car if you have one… And are we serious about fusion reactors or not?
If everyone is focused on reducing our “carbon footprint” and that turns out to be distraction, then we’ve been distracted from doing very important and useful things. I wouldn’t want to have discovered that millions or billions invested in carbon sequestration, was the equivalent of burning dollar bills. Since my personal hero is George Orwell, I strongly believe that getting to the truth is the most important thing one can do, and ends never justify means.
Will N,
“shouldn’t be doing the “wrong” things for the “right” reasons.”
Agree with you completely, to me this much talked about “cautionary principle” in most cases, is a piece of crock.
Under this principle we would never be doing anything useful, but prepare for somet that may or may not happen.
I think more substantial proof needed, before we go down that road.
“Since my personal hero is George Orwell, I strongly believe that getting to the truth is the most important thing one can do, and ends never justify means.”
Now you are getting onto the philosophy of science. From what I have read, science is not like the good old days when an experiment took place in a laboratory and you just followed a procedure in a book.
My understanding is that much of science these days is involved in areas of research that are stretching our limits of understanding, on scales that are beyond our natural comprehension. Climate is one of those areas.
Even though I have followed it as an amateur for several years now, I realise I will never come to an experts understanding of what is involved, even though I do know a researcher and can have an interesting conversation with him on the topic. He is quite happy to talk to me on the topic for a few hours because, even though I am not an expert, I still know a lot more about the topic than the general public. I don’t have the maths, the physics, the climate expertise to make atruly informed opinion, nor am I ever likely to. In such a situation, the only rational response is to have a look at the information presented as best as I can, and decide if it looks like they know what they are talking about.
From what I can tell, the science is as correct as it can be. When I look at the opposing point of view, I see two groups. The ‘skeptics’ and the ‘deniers’. The ‘deniers’ will believe anything, no matter how ridiculous, absurd, or contradictory of another piece of denier theory. The ‘sceptics’ are actually a pretty small group, people who have not been convinced, but respect the work of the scientists.
What constitutes “Truth” in science? Truth is an objective view, it is very simple, it is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A lot of science is not compatible with such a simple point of view. Quantum Dynamics destroyed our ability to see the world in such a binary way. Albert Einstein found it hard to accept a world in which ‘god played dice’.
Scientists have told us, as best as they can tell, with the tools they have got, within the limitation of our human abilities and social structures, with the science as it stands now, AGW is most likely correct. People don’t like to hear that, but much of science works that way now. It’s not the fault of the scientists, it’s just the nature of ever more complex knowledge.
What do scientists do if they honestly believe AGW is true, and will cause huge problems not just for us, but for life as it now exists on this planet? The ‘end’ is us not causing a huge disruption to the global climate, which just about all life depends on, including us. The means, they thought, was a clever way to avoid the ‘stalinist’ command economy that the libertarians are so up in arms about. They would let the market do the adjusting, by adjusting the price of CO2 to reflect the damage it was going to do. Put the price up, and the market will adapt, and find other forms of energy. What seemed like a reasonable proposal to me has instead been distorted out of all proportion to be a stalinist type attempt to take over the world and destroy the economies. With AGW, the economies will have to adapt either way, carbon based forms of energy will run out anyway, why not make it happen a little sooner rather than later?
I can’t see the flaw in that logic. The economy will have to adapt to less and more expensive carbon based energy no matter what, all we are doing is making that act of adaption happen sooner.
Marcus
Excellent point raising the issue of the Precautionary Principle – it is one that I have been trying to understand for quite a while but I finally worked it out.
It reduces to the logic that if a particular activity is thought to be dangerous or might affect others, based on the opinion of the proposed activity’s opponents, then the those who oppose the activity demand that they who wish to pursue that activity, must demonstrate that it will not be harmful.
This means that if I object to some or other proposal, for whatever reason, then according to the precautionary principle I don’t have to prove my hypothesis that the proposition will have bad effects, but that its proposers prove that it has NO bad effects.
Svante Arrhenius adopted the same logic with his CO2 – Ice Age hypothesis – paraphrasing what he wrote in his 1906 paper, I am right until you prove me wrong. This is the ploy of inverting the burden of proof from the proposer of an hypothesis , to those of its sceptics.
It is the hall mark of pseudo or junk science.
But I must disagree with your summation that it is in most cases, a piece of crock – it is a piece of crock in ALL cases.
SJT: “What do scientists do if they honestly believe AGW is true, and will cause huge problems not just for us, but for life as it now exists on this planet? ”
It means its not science in the first place. Science is not driven by belief but from observation, interpretation followed by deduction to frame a test to verify the hypothesis used to explain the initial observation.
Anthropogenic global warming has never been observed to require an hypothesis for it.
Science is the business of explaining natural phenomena using previously empirically determined facts.
Science is not about explaining novelties with things that don’t exist.
This has not occurred in climate science.
Oh and the market is simply the collective behaviour of individual humans making decisions on what, or what not to buy, and activity that so far has been extremely resistent to mathematical description.
Matt B. “IN fact the only way I see that the sceptics are right is if there has been just about the most successful conspiracy ever known to humanity to hoodwink every science academy out of an entrenched viewpoint in to a false one”.
It doesn’t have to be a conspiracey, or fraud, or anything sinister, it could just be plain stupidity based on ego and ambition. It’s been done before. In the early 1900’s, the US medical community was looking for a viral or bacterial cause for an outbreak of pellagra in the southern United States. Almost immediately after the outbreak, a health officer pointed out that it was likely a dietary problem, since that was the era in which bleached flour became the vogue. People were simply deficient in B-vitamins, which had not yet been discovered. Medical researchers carried on looking for a viral/bacterial cause for the pellagra for 30 years, till someone finally discovered B-vitamins.
Since then, Linus Pauling was scoffed at for claiming nuclear radiation was dangerous, after the US army claimed it was harmless. He was regarded as a communist by the US passport office, and had to declare in writing that he was not, before they’d issue him a passport. When the US army drilled a hole one mile deep near Denver, Colorado, and began pouring nuclear wastes into it, Denver started experiencing an ongoing spate of mini earthquakes. A young scientist suggested the nuclear wastes, in liquid form, were lubricating the cracks in the basement rock under Denver. He theorized the liquid, under tremendous pressure was being squeezed into the cracks and setting of earthquakes by lubricating the cracks. He was laughed out of town, but he was right. The US army had to removed all the liquid waste, and the earthquakes stopped.
More recently, an Australian researcher was nearly laughed off the planet when he suggested stomach ulcers were caused by a bacteria, not stress. Guess who was right? One guy against the many. In the late 1980’s, one of the top viral researchers in the world, Peter Duesberg, claimed HIV could not possibly cause AIDS. His basic reason was simple: those people dying of AIDS were more than 90% males, and he claimed no known virus could distinguish males from females. Even today, more than 80% of people getting AIDS in the US are male.
HIV was introduced as the cause of AIDS by the Reagan administration in the US in 1983, after they annointed Robert Gallo as the founder of the cause of AIDS. There was no peer review, so lets here it from those of you in this blog who hooted at me in the past as the messenger of this news. You all ridicule papers introduced by the likes of G&T and Jaworowski, who claim the IPCC theories are rubbish, because papers by the former are not peer reviewed. How about HIV being introduced as the cause of AIDS with absolutley no peer review? In fact, the guy who introduced the theory, Gallo, had already made a fool out of himself by declaring he’d found a virus that caused cancer. He applied the same reasoning and research techniques to his conclusion that HIV causes AIDS.
No peer review has ever been allowed on the HIV/AIDS paradigm because the consensus has always been that it’s the correct paradigm. Anyone who is skeptical about the theory is treated as a heretic, and Duesberg, once the golden boy of the retrovirus world, has lost all his funding. Even though the vast majority have accepted that HIV causes AIDS, the virus has never been isolated or seen under an electron microscope. If you look for the pictures of it on the net, please note they all look different and none of them have details on them, as they should have, to show the relative size. As Stefan Lanka, a biologists and an expert on viruses claims, the pictures represent the cell mass the virus is supposed to be in, but not the virus.
If they had a virus identified, why would they need two tests, neither of which tests for a virus? The tests test for proteins produced by high risk behaviour and produced by the immune system in defence. In one of the tests, the serum has to be diluted several hundred times. If it isn’t, everyone would test positive for HIV because those proteins are available in all humans.
It is ‘ASSUMED’ that the proteins are produced by HIV. I’m writing all this to show how closely the global warming nonsense follows the HIV/AIDS nonsense, which precedes it by several year. After 25 years of this monolithic research, where any skepticism was suppressed by Draconian measures, we are no closer to finding a cure for AIDS. We can’t produce a vaccine because none have worked. The longer that carries on, the more likely it will become that we have been poisoning people to death with noxious drugs like AZT, trying to eradicate a possibly harmless virus.
John Christy has sat on IPCC reviews, both as a lead author and as a reviewer. He jokes about his share of the Nobel that he and the rest of the IPCC scientists share with Al Gore. No one who can see the terrible joke represented by Al Gore receiving half of a Nobel, while all the other scientists on the IPCC panels share the other half, could possibly understand why the IPCC could be suffering from terminal stupidity. Here’s what Christy had to say about that stupidity:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081331.stm
The title of the piece is “No Consensus on IPCC’s Level of ignorance”.
Christy goes on, “While most participants are scientists and bring the aura of objectivity, there are two things to note:
-this is a political process to some extent (anytime governments are involved it ends up that way)
-scientists are mere mortals casting their gaze on a system so complex we cannot precisely predict its future state even five days ahead”.
The he says, “The political process begins with the selection of the Lead Authors because they are nominated by their own governments.
Thus at the outset, the political apparatus of the member nations has a role in pre-selecting the main participants”.
Can anyone imagine who Penny Wong would send as a lead author? It certainly would not be Jennifer or Louis, although either would likely do a better job than the rest.
In a lead author’s luncheon, Christy introduced himself and sat quietly listening. The discussion from several other lead authors boiled down to this, according to Christy: “”We must write this report so strongly that it will convince the US to sign the Kyoto Protocol.”
That’s politics, not science. Who was ever naive enough to presume that scientists are immune to politics and ego, especially when they are nominated by those governments? Even the heads of the IPCC are biased politically, making irresponsible statements to the effect that only a few scientists throughtout the world are skeptical. How the heck would they know?
Christy mentioned that kind of stupidity when he said, “And, while the 2001 report was being written, Dr Robert Watson, IPCC Chair at the time, testified to the US Senate in 2000 adamantly advocating on behalf of the Kyoto Protocol, which even the journal Nature now reports is a failure”. Here we have the head of a so-called scientific body getting ‘adamantly’ involved in a political process. Chris Landsea, a hurricane expert, recruited by Kevin Trenberth, a lead author, resigned over what he saw as political interference by Trenberth.
The IPCC group that deals with blaming humans for global warming is made up largely of scientists who all know each other and have cited each others work. How objective are they going to be? A lead author and several reviewers who were responsible for rewriting the hockey stick mess for AR4, were related in some way to Michael Mann, the hockey stick creator and his crowd, who Wegner claimed were a little too cosy as a community. When they were asked specifically by Susan Solomon, an IPCC bigwig, to take a closer look at bristle cone data, which NAS pointed out was not appropriate for use in the graph’s data, they ignored her. Mcintyre and McKitrick pointed that when the bristle cone data was removed, the graph was meaningless.
When the hockey stick debacle unfolded, showing the utter failure of this 4000 person peer review system, the errors were never acknowledged by the IPCC. Instead, they revised the pseudo-science behind it and republished it in AR4. Jaworowski revealed how they produce the Summary for Policymakers, written by about 50 IPCC diehards, several months before the main scientific report is released. Their reasoning? Why, that gives them time to review the main report and bring it in line with the Summary. In exasperation, Jaworowski claimed, “first the politics, then the science”. In the end, the IPCC bases its output on 50 scientists, not the 4000 who participated.
Anyone who makes mealy-mouthed statements to the effect that most scientific bodies agree with the IPCC theories, is in denial. Or, at least, completely uninformed. That’s why I have no problem with the jeers about my statements on HIV/AIDS. I have done my homework on both the HIV/AIDS and global warming paradigms, and I am confident both paradigms are seriously flawed. After watching so-called learned scientists crucifying their peers over the HIV/AIDS paradigm and seeing the pseudo-science that goes into it, I am no longer shocked that the IPCC could be equally stupid.
At the end of WW II, Eisenhower, as leader of the Allied forces went to look at a concentration camp. He was so disgusted that he rounded up people from a village just over the hill from the camp and made them look at what went on there. They were all shocked, of course, claiming they did not know. I can understand that because even if they had known, and spoken out, they would have ended up in the camp as prisoners.
At a much lower level, the same kind of thinking is going on in the world of science right now. If one day it is revealed, and lets hope this is never the case, that people have been poisoned to death by noxious drugs while trying to eradicate a harmless virus, there will be a plethora of “I didn’t know”. There’s no excuse in this case, or in the global warming case, for not knowing. The skepticism is all there on the Internet, and it is being spoken by qualified scientists, many of them emminent. There should at least be grounds for doubt in both the HIV/AIDS theory and the global warming theory. There should be none of this crap about basing science on consensus or in worshipping the IPCC as an authority figure.
Arguments have been put forward in this blog that we need to act now on CO2 emissions reduction since it would be irresponsible not to act. Following that reasoning, if there’s the least chance that people who have tested HIV positive, but who do not yet have AIDS, are being poisoned by AZT in an attempt to kill the virus, as an expert like Duesberg claims, would it not be responsible to stop for a minute and look at that possibility? Apparently not. Anyone suggesting such caution is immediately written of as a flat-earther. It’s that kind of stupidity that runs wild in the HIV/AIDS community as it does in the IPCC and the AGW community.
People just don’t want to know. They have their minds made up and there’s no longer any room for science.
Typical AGW spruke from SJT: “…There are hundreds (IIRC) of papers, by hundreds of scientists, and all the papers that the conclusions are based on are listed in the IPCC report. These reports and papers all go through the peer review process, which involves many more scientists. Although the climate part might be written by 44, if you are correct, the number of climate specialists involved is much larger…”
All of the so called science is in Chapter 9, and it is all modelling assuming that CO2 is a significant climate forcer. All the other “science” just assumes that this is correct, except that the models have failed to predict the temperature trends over the last 10 years, and they fail to account for zero warming in the southern hemisphere.
It couldn’t just happen to be that the modest 0.4degC warming in the northern hemisphere is due to urbanisation and the spread of human settlement and wealth and prosperity to allow more development and heating, could it?
“People just don’t want to know. They have their minds made up and there’s no longer any room for science.”
EXACTLY !! Very especially you lot ! Witness the clamour to knock down the latest reef paper.
“Can anyone imagine who Penny Wong would send as a lead author? It certainly would not be Jennifer or Louis, although either would likely do a better job than the rest.” – well yes I do Gordon – and your statement just pulls down the rest of your argument
Rude actually, Uninformed and farcical . Offensive to the lead authors. Unless you wish to inform me why they are bad choices.
This alone just shows how misguided and uninformed you are.
And Spencer & Christy – as arbiters of good choice – the guys who had their satellite data cocked up ! Spare us.
Gordon Robertson: “When the US army drilled a hole one mile deep near Denver, Colorado, and began pouring nuclear wastes into it, Denver started experiencing an ongoing spate of mini earthquakes. A young scientist suggested the nuclear wastes, in liquid form, were lubricating the cracks in the basement rock under Denver. He theorized the liquid, under tremendous pressure was being squeezed into the cracks and setting of earthquakes by lubricating the cracks. He was laughed out of town, but he was right. The US army had to removed all the liquid waste, and the earthquakes stopped.”
This is a paragraph of non sequiturs,
Burying nuclear waste into one mile deep boreholes is not different to having an undiscovered deposit of uranium at one mile down.
The assumption made by the young scientist that this nuclear waste, in liquid form, was causing the earthqaukes has some problems. If his assumption that the nuclear waste, in liquid form, was being forced by extreme pressure into fractures to cause earthquakes, then how, under those assumed pressures were the milirary capable of pumping it down there in the first place.
But we are faced with another furphy – waste products from nuclear reactors cannot, by definition, and fact, produce products that are more energetic than their precursors.
Luke,
I know it might be hard but if you want to shit can me or Jen, at least supply references to previous posts?
I have no interest in following your unattributed statements – life is too short for these trivialities.
“zero warming in the southern hemisphere.”
Will – utter bunk
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi?variable=tmean®ion=aus&season=0112&period=1970
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi?variable=tmean®ion=aus&season=0112
Now Willy – why should I listen to you hey?
Louis – I didn’t say anything about you or Jen. Did I?
SJT:
“Now you are getting onto the philosophy of science.”
I haven’t found that a productive subject to spend too much of my time discussing on this forum. When you talk on this subject, the “nutters” come out of the woodwork, so to speak.
“From what I have read, science is not like the good old days when an experiment took place in a laboratory and you just followed a procedure in a book. My understanding is that much of science these days is involved in areas of research that are stretching our limits of understanding, on scales that are beyond our natural comprehension. Climate is one of those areas.”
I don’t think there were ever any “good old days” when it comes to science. The very definition of science is that it is about stretching the limits of what we know. When we know something well enough to control it, it ceases to become science and gets handed over to the engineers to manage.
“From what I can tell, the science is as correct as it can be. When I look at the opposing point of view, I see two groups. The ’skeptics’ and the ‘deniers’. The ‘deniers’ will believe anything, no matter how ridiculous, absurd, or contradictory of another piece of denier theory. The ’sceptics’ are actually a pretty small group, people who have not been convinced, but respect the work of the scientists.”
I think they (genuine sceptics) are a relatively small group too, but not as small as I once thought. There are some amazingly good comments, observations and logical reasoning to be found on web blogs scattered across the net. The sceptics are getting more sophisticated in their argumentation and they are taking on board the criticisms of their opponents and revising their ideas accordingly. It is very interesting to watch this evolve. But most posts, of course, continue to consist of fallacious arguments from all sides of the debate.
“What constitutes “Truth” in science? Truth is an objective view, it is very simple, it is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. A lot of science is not compatible with such a simple point of view.”
“Truth” is about control and predictability. I think it’s a practical concept. Can this cancer be cured or not? If not, we don’t understand it enough yet. I wasn’t specifically referring to truth in science though, but truth in general.
“Scientists have told us, as best as they can tell, with the tools they have got, within the limitation of our human abilities and social structures, with the science as it stands now, AGW is most likely correct.”
Look, I love science. Always have, always will. And for as long as I can remember. I even wrote for science magazines (the popular ones found at your local news stands across the country), before I’d even left high school. But the facts are this: no matter how smart they are, most scientists in cutting edge research fields are wrong most of the time about most of the things they believe in. That’s not my opinion, that’s the cold hard truth of the matter, whether you look at these issues historically or scientifically.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1182327
That’s the nature of the scientific endeavour. And it’s always been like this. One Einstein for every 10,000 guys who got it wrong. Yes, I know that sucks, but it’s the way the world is. Even so, science and logic and rationality still remain the best tools we have at our disposal and they are very fragile things and easily lost.
Just look at the previous post by Gordon Robertson… yes there are elements of truth in everything he’s written, but since I know about some of the topics he’s written on, I can see the distortions and misrepresentations. These sorts of people are not interested in seeking the truth, but rather seek to create their own reality, and seem to successfully live in their own personal universe.
“All of the so called science is in Chapter 9, and it is all modelling assuming that CO2 is a significant climate forcer.”
No, it’s not. They build models incorporating all the known climate factors as well as they can. There is no ‘assumption’ built in.
Will Nitsche “Let me try to use an example from my own field of study to illustrate how this works, which is psychology. When I did it in uni, talk theory (Freud, etc.) definitely had a bad smell about it”.
I studied 3 years of psychology as a minor subject. Before doing that, I had immersed myself in the work of Carl Rogers because his humanistic approach interested me. Along the way, one of his students, Eugene Gendlin, did his work on ‘focusing’, which was a technique to contact unconscious processes in an attempt to ‘move’ stuck neuroses.
Rogers took time out to evaluate how psychotherapy was doing and Gendlin did some work to see why certain types of psychotherapy work while others did not work so well. From his research, Rogers claimed only 60% of ‘all’ therapy had any effect. He claimed that psychonalysis was the worst being no better than no therapy at all. That’s what eventually turned me off psychology. At one time, I thought it was the cat’s meow. Gendlin concluded that those who benefited from therapy had an in-built ability to recognize the process to recovery.
I was fascinated by the work of Freud and I think people are too unkind to him. Remember, he was the first psychologist/scientist to have the guts to stand up and be counted. He was roundly hooted at lectures when he first introduced the notion that humans are run by unconscious processes. He was right and those deriding him, another majority, were wrong. As is the case with many scientists who make a discovery, they often go off in the wrong direction afterwards.
Freud really had nothing to go on since he was the pioneer, but at least he had the guts to theorize. I mean, who was going to peer review him? As I move along in life, I’m not so sure that he was completely off-base with his theories, maybe a bit outrageous at times. I think most humans, and even psychologists, are in denial about the unconscious processes that run our bodies and prompt us to act based on reasons that are unknown to us consciously.
There are processes under the surface that can reach out and byte you hard if the right combination of stresses can act long enough or deeply enough. Until someone experiences the power of those processes, as I have, they have no right to talk about them theoretically with respect to psychotherapy. It bugs me when a well-meaning counsellor tries to tell me what is going on inside my skin, without so much as enquiring first.
After my dad died, I went into a hell of grief and guilt, although much of it was not so apparent at the time. It wasn’t till several years later, when the underlying stress manifested itself physically, that I knew something was amiss. For a couple of years, I was treated for those physical symptoms, with neither myself nor the doctors suspecting anxiety as the cause.
When we talk about the IPCC, we are talking about humans and the peculiar variation of psychological baggage each one brings to the table. It surprises me that so many people see scientists as infallible beings who are immune to stress, anxiety, image (ego), and all other problems that affect the human psyche. They are experts in their fields, and may be highly intelligent, but they are no more sane than the rest of us. They are prone to lying, cheating, denial, closing their minds to the truth, and any other vice available to humans.
It is presumed that scientists working in a large group, as in the IPCC, will operate more objectively and truthfully. Why?? I can see a scientist doing much better in a lab than on the world stage. It’s like handing an amateur a microphone at a karaoke bar and shining a spotlight on him. He’ll either crap his pants or make a fool out of himself. As John Christy has pointed out, scientist are human and prone to ignorance. We all are, especially in large groups.
There’s an old story about the Zen disciple who goes to meet a Zen master. The master can’t get a word in edgewise because the disciple is full of himself. As the master pours the disciple a cup of tea, the cup fills to the brim. The master keeps pouring till the tea overflows into the saucer. The disciple protests, pointing out the master’s error. The master tells him that is his problem: his cup is full to overflowing, and he needs to empty some of his knowledge to make room for truth.
Don’t we all suffer from that, especially the IPCC? They are so caught up in presenting a glossy brochure of climate problems to policymakers, they have no room for other science that contradicts them. In fact, they go out of their way to stifle any skepticism, by ignoring it, as the satellite data, or emphasizing only the science that supports their argument. I’d say their cup was full to overflowing and it’s time they emptied some of it and took another look.
Luke 1:37 pm:
Your claim that “Barnett et al. show temperature being sunk from the surface down.” is not a conclusion that appears in the abstract of the paper. They actually phrased it as follows:
“This suggests that the observed ocean heat-content changes are consistent with those expected from anthropogenic forcing, which broadens the basis for claims that an anthropogenic signal has been detected in the global climate system. Additionally, the requirement that modeled ocean heat uptakes match observations puts a strong, new constraint on anthropogenically forced climate models. It is unknown if the current generation of climate models, other than the PCM, meet this constraint.”
So they “suggest” that something is “consistent” with something that is “expected” and that “broadens the basis for claims”. Wooly phrasing, hardly something that sounds scientifically persuasive. At least they are critical of current climate models, but this was written in 2001.
It goes without saying but I say it anyway: the heat content of the ocean has of course two sources: solar and geothermal.
Will Nitsche “Just look at the previous post by Gordon Robertson… yes there are elements of truth in everything he’s written, but since I know about some of the topics he’s written on, I can see the distortions and misrepresentations. These sorts of people are not interested in seeking the truth, but rather seek to create their own reality, and seem to successfully live in their own personal universe”.
I find your statement above disappointing. If you see the distortions and misrepresentations, why don’t you respond with evidence? You claim to have a background in psychology yet you use a term like “those sorts of people”. Where did you study that? In your psychology, does it come with convenient groups of people packaged nicely so they can be identified?
You made a statement in a previous post about truth. Do you seriously think the human mind has the ability to ‘know’ truth? Don’t you understand how the conscious mind works in general? It’s a memory storage and retrieval system. All you ‘know’ about the truth is generally what someone else told you. All you ‘know’ about science is generally what you have been told…and believed. A few people take the time and energy to transcend that basic system by studying through awareness, but you don’t seem to have evolved to that point.
How about gravity? We all know how it works, in principle. We even call it a force. The truth is we don’t know dick all about gravity other than we’d better respect it. We don’t even ‘know’ what a force is, other than conceptually. We have even invented a parameter, called time, to measure the effect of gravity on a falling body. We call it acceleration, but other than our ‘ideas’ about it, we have no idea what it is, or how it works.
The scientific method has been the traditional way of observing reality. Somewhere in the 60’s, or so, when computers became available, we started modelling reality using computers. Somewhere along the way, someone, or a group of someones decided that virtual reality was a good way to do science. As Louis has pointed out, many of them are just lazy bastards who can’t be bothered to go out and observe reality directly. And when somone like John Christy does observe directly, and confronts modelers with his findings, he is told essentially that reality is wrong and the virtual reality is right.
If you’re going to slur me, at least have the guts to use an intelligent arguement rather than your superficial, somewhat amateur psychology.
Chris – well of course it has those heat sources. Pity they don’t account for the changes seen. Don’t mistake the understatement of Barnett for the obvious.
So it’s seems OK for a denialist gimp like Roberston to disparage our Aussie IPCC lead authors and he can’t even bothered substantiating the point. What a hypocrite !
Louis..”how, under those assumed pressures were the milirary capable of pumping it down there in the first place”.
Gravity. When you pump fluids into a mile-deep hole, and let them build up in the hole, their own weight will cause the pressure. I’ll try to retrieve the original story for you. Meanwhile, look at this one:
http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/moran4/index.htm
“Just look at the previous post by Gordon Robertson… yes there are elements of truth in everything he’s written, but since I know about some of the topics he’s written on, I can see the distortions and misrepresentations.”
He makes some sense, then he gets on to AIDS….
As for scientists making mistakes, the history of CO2 research is over a century old now. Wearts history details the learning curve, and why it is a GHG. The physics is quite solid by now. The only issue is the one the models are dealing with, IMHO, what is the actual climate sensitivity going to be? There is variation between teams. There is no one, certain, answer.
Louis “It reduces to the logic that if a particular activity is thought to be dangerous or might affect others, based on the opinion of the proposed activity’s opponents, then the those who oppose the activity demand that they who wish to pursue that activity, must demonstrate that it will not be harmful”.
The source is obviously mothers. How many times have we been told not to play with pointy objects because they ‘might’ poke our eyes out? Good grief. It just occured to me that the IPCC are, in general, a load of mommies’ boys.
Gordon,
“I find your statement above disappointing.”
Don’t want to particularly single you out, but your post happened to be directly before mine and it was a good example of what I had in mind. Case in point:
“More recently, an Australian researcher was nearly laughed off the planet when he suggested stomach ulcers were caused by a bacteria, not stress. Guess who was right? One guy against the many.”
OK, the scientific community said this was a controversial idea. Bring us more evidence. He did. They accepted his findings fairly quickly after he managed to produce more solid evidence. So what does your example prove or disprove other than description the normal process of science?
I can’t respond to everything you’ve written because I don’t have the time. But although I disagree with nearly everything you write, I still read your posts because I find them interesting (if also disturbing at times). As for Louis–I stopped reading his posts months ago. He is just too whacky unfortunately…
My general observation is that you, Louis, Luke, Will, SJT and many others here are far too sure of yourselves concerning subjects humankind understands precious little about. More humility needed by all parties. Hence my earlier reference to “hot air”.
Will “It couldn’t just happen to be that the modest 0.4degC warming in the northern hemisphere is due to urbanisation and the spread of human settlement and wealth and prosperity to allow more development and heating, could it”?
Naw….that’s too obvious. You’d never get a grant for a theory like that. The basis of funding a theory is to come up with evidence that can’t be proved, and then apply liberal amount of fear to scare people into funding you.
Luke:
“Can anyone imagine who Penny Wong would send as a lead author? It certainly would not be Jennifer or Louis, although either would likely do a better job than the rest.” – well yes I do Gordon – and your statement just pulls down the rest of your argument”.
What could be called inversed compliments? Or could it be a metaphorical nactihs?
You are becoming tiresome.
SJT “Although the climate part might be written by 44, if you are correct, the number of climate specialists involved is much larger”.
Why don’t you take a look at the notes from AR4 outlining the objections from skeptics and the flimsy reasons for rejecting them. We’re talking a very thin line in places between the IPCC prevailing views and the views of those IPCC scientists who disagreed. What it came down to was the views of the 50 who wrote the Summary. They had the power to rewrite the main report, and they did.
When McIntrye complained about evidence being admitted after the deadline, from research that had not even been completed, he was told to shut up. When he asked to see the research, it was refused, and he was essentially threatened with contempt if he persisted.
Will,
I am whacky? So was Kristian Birkeland.
I am honoured by your comment.
Not rushing into this Russian view but:
The Hindu July 10th 2008
Challenging the basis of Kyoto Protocol
Vladimir Radyuhin
Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community.
As western nations step up pressure on India and China to curb the emission of greenhouse gases, Russian scientists reject the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming.
Russian critics of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in CO2 emissions, say that the theory underlying the pact lacks scientific basis. Under the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, it is human-generated greenhouse gases, and mainly CO2, that cause climate change. “The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse,” says renowned Russian geographer Andrei Kapitsa. “It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round.”
Russian researchers made this discovery while studying ice cores recovered from the depth of 3.5 kilometres in Antarctica. Analysis of ancient ice and air bubbles trapped inside revealed the composition of the atmosphere and air temperature going back as far as 400,000 years.
“We found that the level of CO2 had fluctuated greatly over the period but at any given time increases in air temperature preceded higher concentrations of CO2,” says academician Kapitsa, who worked in Antarctica for many years. Russian studies showed that throughout history, CO2 levels in the air rose 500 to 600 years after the climate warmed up. Therefore, higher concentrations of greenhouse gases registered today are the result, not the cause, of global warming.
Critics of the CO2 role in climate change point out that water vapours are a far more potent factor in creating the greenhouse effect as their concentration in the atmosphere is five to 10 times higher than that of CO2. “Even if all CO2 were removed from the earth atmosphere, global climate would not become any cooler,” says solar physicist Vladimir Bashkirtsev.
The hypothesis of anthropogenic greenhouse gases was born out of computer modelling of climate changes. Russian scientists say climate models are inaccurate since scientific understanding of many natural climate factors is still poor and cannot be properly modelled. Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Ocean Studies, and many other Russian scientists maintain that global climate depends predominantly on natural factors, such as solar activity, precession (wobbling) of the Earth’s axis, changes in ocean currents, fluctuations in saltiness of ocean surface water, and some other factors, whereas industrial emissions do not play any significant role. Moreover, greater concentrations of CO2 are good for life on Earth, Dr. Sorokhtin argues, as they make for higher crop yields and faster regeneration of forests.
“There were periods in the history of the Earth when CO2 levels were a million times higher than today, and life continued to evolve quite successfully,” agrees Vladimir Arutyunov of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Chemical Physics.
When four years ago, then President Vladimir Putin was weighing his options on the Kyoto Protocol the Russian Academy of Sciences strongly advised him to reject it as having “no scientific foundation.” He ignored the advice and sent the Kyoto pact to Parliament for purely political reasons: Moscow traded its approval of the Kyoto Protocol for the European Union’s support for Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation. Russian endorsement was critical, as without it the Kyoto Protocol would have fallen through due to a shortage of signatories. It did not cost much for Russia to join the Kyoto Protocol since its emission target was set at the level of 1990, that is, before the Russian economy crashed following the break-up of the Soviet Union. According to some projections, Russia will not exceed its target before 2017. Notwithstanding this, the Russian scientific community is vocal in its opposition to the Kyoto process.
“The Kyoto Protocol is a huge waste of money,” says Dr. Sorokhtin. “The Earth’s atmosphere has built-in regulatory mechanisms that moderate climate changes. When temperatures rise, ocean water evaporation increases, denser clouds stop solar rays and surface temperatures decline.”
Academician Kapitsa denounced the Kyoto Protocol as “the biggest ever scientific fraud.” The pact was lobbied by European politicians and industrialists, critics say, in order to improve the competitiveness of European products and slow down economic growth in emerging economies. “The European Union pushed through the Kyoto Protocol in order to reduce the competitive edge of the U.S. and other countries where ecological standards are less stringent than in Europe,” says ecologist Sergei Golubchikov.
Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community. Academician Kapitsa complains that opponents of the man-caused global warming are routinely denied the floor at international climate forums.
“A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace,” the scientist says. “As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact.”
Critics concede that the thrust of the Kyoto Protocol is towards promoting energy-saving technologies, but then, they argue, it should have been just that — a protocol on energy efficiency and energy conservation. The problem with the Kyoto process, critics say, is that it shifts the emphasis away from genuine ecological problems, such as industrial, air and water pollution, to the wasteful fight against harmless gases.
Cheers Will, I don;t have a prob with any of that. except I fundamentally agree with the mainstream opinion on the science if you guys will accept that definition. Just because the mainstream has been wrng before does not mean it always is… in fact it is the job of the entrenched view to be very stubborn and sceptical of the new…. force them to be entirely rigorous and deserve their respect or it would be chop and change every day. AGW science spent decades int he wilderness doing just that, and it will take a lot more rigorous science than the sceptics have at present to shift it.
I don;t believe the alarmist clap trap about action to prevent AGW killing people, holding nations back from development, that is just a political ideology from the right – and I think the evidence is stong enough that this deserves action, but I really cannot see what money would actually be wasted in the next 5 years (assuming that is how long the “science” takes to debunk the present day mainstream position.
I mean take Jen’s front page… she waffles on about rainfall and global warming as though she has some secret facts the world ignores… simply wrong… and totally anti-science in her approach. No onder she is up for a communit web award not anything to do with environment or science! I mean note how the climate change graph is months out of date for starters, and ignores stats. sheesh. I could not find a place on the front page to comment on that, but seriously this is SCIENCE!!!!
Louis… how come the Russian academy signed the 2008 statement saying they concurred with the AGW theory?
Gordon.
Pumping stuff down a hole and letting it settle due to gravity might seem plausible but as I have been in the business of drilling holes, for some 30 plus years, this explanation is a new one.
Learning all the time I find myself doing.
This was posted elsewhere by Derek of San Jose,CA, and it was so good I couldn’t help but share part of it:
“.. Short of the inane ramblings of paid schills and mental midgets, I am quite encouraged to see the overwhelmingly rational viewpoint that AGW is a crock, well represented here. The curtain is quickly coming down on AGW propaganda. In fact 2008 has been labeled “The year that Global Warming died”. But long before that it was proven that CO2 and temperature trends do not correlate at all. Long before that it was proven that sunspot activity and climate DO correlate quite well. Long before that we knew that the “hokey-stick”, pieced together from random sources, none normalized to the other, was a crock. Long before Mark failed to answer, many other pro-AGW “scientists” failed to answer how evolution took place in a climate that allegedly never changed in 600,000 years, or more specifically how plants evolved to breathe CO2 while humans evolved to breath O2. Long before 2008 we knew that most “observed” sea level rise was actually due to subsiding (sinking) coastlines, not rising sea levels, a fact ignored by scientists who figured we wouldn’t ask, and who insulted us when we did. Long before 2008, we knew that the same AGW theory had been popular in the 30’s only to be replaced by “global cooling” in the 70’s, then by AGW again. Long before 2008 we knew that the alleged scientific consensus was nothing more than 40 or 50 scientists peer reviewing each others propaganda pieces in the interest of keeping special interest funding coming their way. And long long before 2008 we knew Al Gore was much more liar than scientist, consumer than conservationist and politician than practitioner. Having known all of this for so long, the only logical question is “do AGW believers know ANYTHING?”
“My general observation is that you, Louis, Luke, Will, SJT and many others here are far too sure of yourselves concerning subjects humankind understands precious little about. More humility needed by all parties. Hence my earlier reference to “hot air”.”
I have said before, and I’ll say it again, I am not a scientist. But even I can see when some junk is being passed as science, such as Miskolczi. Lindzen and Christy should be telling their followers when such junk is being presented. Instead, you don’t hear a word from them.
”
“My general observation is that you, Louis, Luke, Will, SJT and many others here are far too sure of yourselves concerning subjects humankind understands precious little about. More humility needed by all parties. Hence my earlier reference to “hot air”.””
Take this from Louis.
“Russian scientists deny that the Kyoto Protocol reflects a consensus view of the world scientific community. ”
Even I can spot the flaw in their logic with their claim. All they are doing is referring to past events when we weren’t around. The “A” in AGW is what makes this event different. IIRC, some research has discovered a couple of past events when large amounts of CO2 were released naturally, and preceeded a warming event.
Honestly, though, what are you supposed to do with people who deny HIV/AIDS? Louis is a firm believer in Immanuel Velikovsky?
SJT “Can people please agree to stop it with the ‘trace gas’ argument. If something is present in small amounts, it can still have a significant effect on it’s environment”.
I took a look at your realclimate link. I hate doing that because I cant think of a source further from science than RC. This article is by Spencer Weart and Pierhumperdink. Here’s the dope on Weart:
“Spencer R. Weart (sweart@aip.org), born in 1942, received a B.A. in Physics at Cornell University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1968. He then worked for three years at CalTech as a Fellow of the Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observatories, publishing papers in leading scientific journals. In 1971 Dr. Weart changed his field, enrolling as a graduate student in the History Department of the University of California, Berkeley. In 1974 he took up his present post as Director of the Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, the oldest institution dedicated to preserving and making known the history of a scientific discipline”.
He hasn’t done any research in physics since 1971. That means he called on Pierrehumbert for his so-called expertise. I’ll tell you right now that I don’t like Pierrehumbert because I think he’s a seriously arrogant man. He has a degree from MIT, which is impressive, but it’s in geophysical science and his specialty is modeling.
Here’s the dope from…yuck…realclimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=207
Note that the closest he gets to a physics degree is at the undergraduate level, an A. B, Physics. Also note that his interests are in modeling. In the article you provided, he and Weart refer you to an article on atmospheric gases by Gavin Schmidt. He’s a mathematician for God’s sake, and a modeler to boot. I’ll get back to that in a minute.
What do you have against Lindzen, Christy or Spencer, who have actual degrees in atmospheric climate science? Even Trenberth, their equivalent, would be a far better source than any of them, and he claims the science is far from settled and that models suck. Why do you turn to people who have degrees in mathematics, geophysics and astronomy (Hansen)? What do you have against practicing physicists like Gerhard and Tscheuschner?
You admit to not having a background in science, but I do. I am not trying to lord that over you, I am only expressing my repugnance for taking advice on the atmosphere from the likes of Gavin Schmidt, a mathematician and a modeler. I likely have as much of an understanding of basic physics as he does. He was already taken to task by an engineer, who revealed his lack of understanding in basic physics. He dodged Lindzen at a debate by refusing to debate him.
In the article on atmospheric CO2, Weart and Peirrehumbert talk tp the reader like he’s a schoolchild. They give no theory whatsoever other than basic platitudes. They refer you to remote studies done years ago and infer everything else. Why don’t you read an article by Lindzen to see the difference? He does the research himself and teaches it. He also explains the atmosphere far better than anyone at RC and he points out where the models are wrong. He’s positive about modeling per se, he just doesn’t think they have arrived.
The main article with respect to CO2 densities is the one by Schmidt, the mathematician. He insists that CO2 accounts for 9% to 26% of global warming. Why the range? Likewise, he claims water vapour accounts for 36% to 66% and water vapour with clouds from 66% to 85% of global warming. Again, why the range?
That means all other GHG gases, including CO2 account for up to 15% of global warming, according to him and his sources. Gerhard and Tscheuschner, two practicing physicists claim that is not possible. If CO2, at it’s present rarity, had that ability, which has never been demonstrated in a laboratory setting, it would be a new super-insulator, they claim. If you wade through their paper, they show you all the pitfalls and the bad assumptions made by the likes of Schmidt, Hansen and Peirrehumbert.
But wait a minute. Schmidt is all over the place with his numbers. How can all other GHG’s, including CO2, account for 15% of warming when he claims the range can be 9% to 26% for CO2 alone? He’s playing with us here, slipping in ‘theoretical’ effects in very dry regions and in the upper troposhere, where GHG is ‘theoretically’ the primary GHG. There’s a lot of very unproved theory here. Being a mathematician, I don’t really think he gets that.
I got my views on CO2 largely from Roy Spencer, although my basic instincts from years in a science based career told me something was wrong. When I read that statement a couple of years ago from the IPCC, that it was 90% likely global warming was caused by humans, I immediately smelled a rat. Using a confidence level in that manner is wrong. It’s not science, but political, and it feels wrong. Hundreds of hours of reading have brought it through to me that something is definitely wrong with the paradigm.
Spencer put forth those numbers like 1 molecule of anthropogenic CO2 added to 100,000 molecules of air every five years to counter the equally ludicrous notion that Al Gore’s gigatons of CO2 were a serious amount. One molecule in 100,000 is not something we can visualize but neither is several gigatons. The latter seems humungous so we fear it, whereas the former is so tiny it seems neglible. Neither are good science, but you have to fight fire with fire.
I think the work by G&T is a serious work and well laid out. It’s the kind of science I’m used to, where problems are broken down to their basics and analyzed with the facts of physics. If you will take note, the paper that critiqued their work focused on a tiny part of their article. I accosted the author about that when he was on the blog and he did not reply. Neither did he reply to my comment that he had made a leap of faith by assuming it ‘must’ be CO2 causing the difference in his energy balances.
It’s small minded physics like that, put out by a guy who no longer works in actual physics, that grates me. It took a great deal of arrogance for him to criticize G&T on such a simple basis, then to ignore someone asking him questions pertinent to that fact. I wouldn’t last longer than 2 minutes on RC, and if that’s you’re idea of a good source for climate science, what can I say?
Why is Spencer Weart even writing articles if he hasn’t practiced physics since 1971? And why does he need Peirrehumbert along for the ride? Is it to add credence to his writing? Why do they both keep it in-house by passing the reader along to Gavin Schmidt for a lecture on CO2. Are they afraid of passing you to a legitimate source in case you learn something outside of their peculiar slant?
I realize you probably hate my guts but I’m not doing this to be a contrarian as the article suggests. Even they have to ad hom. I was brought up with the scientific method and I’ll be damned if I’m going to step aside for a load of computer modelers. They can earn their stripes, they have no right to impose virtual science as the new science. If you can’t prove their point with direct observation, they can go suck eggs.
SJT, as far as identifying the flaws in the logic, this statement takes the cake: “All they are doing is referring to past events when we weren’t around. The “A” in AGW is what makes this event different. IIRC, some research has discovered a couple of past events when large amounts of CO2 were released naturally, and preceeded a warming event.” This kind of circular logic is rampant on both sides. Let me ask these questions: What is “this event”? And, why doesn’t “… couple of past events when large amounts of CO2 were released naturally, and preceeded a warming event.” disprove/falsify the “A” part of the AGW theory?
Yes very boring Gordon – who cares about your life story as an expert on the “scientific method”.
Given much of modelling is about reconciling obs with models I’d say you’re a modelling ignoramarse ….
But strangely here’s one of those papers that never seems to get reported on places like here…
1. Solar warming pales versus human influence
Both natural and human-induced influences have changed twentieth-century climate, but their relative roles and regional impacts are still under debate. For example, most model-based studies point to increasing human-generated greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations as the dominant cause of global surface warming after 1967, while some empirical analyses suggest that solar variability accounts for as much as 69 percent of warming seen in the past 100 years and 25-35 percent of recent warming. To help resolve this, Lean and Rind analyze the best available estimates of both natural and human-induced climate influences and compare them with observed surface temperatures across the globe from 1889 to 2006. They find that solar forcing contributed negligible long-term warming in the past 25 years and 10 percent of the warming in the past 100 years. Additionally, in contrast with recent model results by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which estimates that anthropogenic warming has minimum values in the tropics and increases steadily from 30 degrees N to 70 degrees N, the authors find that the zonal surface temperature changes from the historical surface temperature record are more pronounced between 45 degrees S and 50 degrees N.
Title: How natural and anthropogenic influences alter global and regional surface temperatures: 1889 to 2006
Authors: Judith L. Lean: Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington D.C., U.S.A.;
David H. Rind: Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) paper 10.1029/2008GL034864, 2008; http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008GL034864
Most interesting conclusion….
“None of the natural processes can account for the
overall warming trend in global surface temperatures. In the
100 years from 1905 to 2005, the temperature trends
produce by all three natural influences are at least an order
of magnitude smaller than the observed surface temperature
trend reported by IPCC [2007]. According to this analysis,
solar forcing contributed negligible long-term warming in
the past 25 years and 10% of the warming in the past 100
years, …..”
Dr Pielke Jr has a very intriguing set interview re: climate science and politics. It can be found here.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/pielke-on-journalists-and-climate-change-4855
I think the money line is: “The climate change story is now 100% political. Science plays a role in it, but there is no separating the science from the politics. Thus the most important questions will be about politics — US action, EU performance, Copenhagen, etc. Understanding the different perspectives on the politics will require some effort. It is not alarmists and deniers, but something far more complicated and nuanced.”
MattB “… but I just don’t see anything that debunks the general principles of what the IPCC concludes…”
They don’t ‘conclude’ anything…have you read the reports? They speculate, not only in one direction, but in several different directions. The IPCC has never concluded that CO2 is warming the atmosphere or that humans are the cause. They have said it is ‘likely’.
The IPCC said in TAR (2001) that it is not possible to predict future climate states. That’s about the most direct statement they have ever made. They went to on to say…BUT…if we’re going to do it anyway, even though we told you it can’t be done, we’ll use computer models to ‘guess’ it. However, not all computer models agree, and the predictions range is large. So, the IPCC decided to base their ‘guesses’ on probabilities based on several other probabilites from various computer predictions.
The IPCC has no conclusions, it has probabilities based on probabilities. It ignores the conclusions based on real data from satellites that show the atmosphere is not warming very much at all. Besides, you have it backwards. It’s not up to anyone to debunk their theories, it’s up to them to prove they are right. So far, they have been terribly wrong.
What a denialist daydream – “real data” – real data that has to be adjusted for sensor drift, satellite drift and multiple platforms. Yea sure. Real data that purported to show cooling until it was tidied up. Spare us !
SJT “It’s not saturated yet. Pressure band broadening. CO2 is acting in the atmosphere in bands where water vapour is not active. Water is a feedback, so more CO2 creates more water vapour”.
I didn’t respond to this part of your post. What they were getting at in there article about pressure band broadening had to do with CO2 being denser at lower altitudes hence lower pressure levels. If the CO2 is packed more densly, it absorbs more IR frequencies than higher up where it is thinner. Broadening is a reference to the spectral lines of energy observed which show up as thin bands on a display where the absorbed energy frequency is missing. The width of these lines is affected differently by neighbouring atoms at lower altitudes and higher pressure levels than it is at higher altitudes and lower pressures.
I think all of this is a red-herring. It’s probably impressive to someone who is trying to understand the theory but it comes across as ludicrous to trained physicists like G&T. They said as much. You can’t treat the atmosphere as a blanket, using single-line diagrams. Those are the diagrams you see in AR4 where an arrow points into the atmosphere representing all heat tranmitted from the surface to the atmosphere. Pierrehumbert and his partner seem to be visualizing IR as straight-line vectors radiated from the surface.
I’ll have to read G&T again, but they seem to be saying that this kind of radiation is highly unlikely and that convection is more likely the transport mechanism. That means the air immediately above the surface is warmed directly by the surface and that warmed air is transported up by wind and the phenomenon of hot air rising. Lindzen seemed to say as well that warm air from the tropics is transported into the higher latitudes before it can escape into the higher atmosphere.
The models presented by Pierrehumbert et al are incredibly simple. Even if the Earth was surrounded by a uniform blanket of CO2, give that a thought for a minute. CO2 represents 0.03% of the atmosphere. If IR is radiating from the surface, it will radiate in one model as a uniform field of vectors, like a highly dense field of arrows pointing up the way. This model in itself is juvenile because it skips over so many fundamentals of physics. It assumes the surface is a perfect blackbody radiator and that the atmosphere is as well. It also presumes that the rare CO2 atoms can intercept enough IR radiation, and reflect it back, to make a significant difference. That reads more like science fiction, even to my relatively layman mind. That’s why I dwell on CO2 being an extremely rare gas.
The RC pundits admit that water vapour is by far the most influential GHG, and that CO2 at best plays a role that could affect temperatures by no more than 1.0 C. So, how much of the 1% of the atmosphere that is water vapour, covering the planet at any one time? How dows 1% of an atmospheric gas trap that much heat, and when that is considered, how the heck can CO2, at 0.03% do anything?
What if it’s not the IR that is causing the warming? What if it’s the convection? Convection warms via a different mechanism, not IR. Spencer has pointed to a different mechanism involving water vapour and that’s why he is skeptical about the rarity of CO2 based on his satellite data. According to Spencer, warm air is transported to higher altitudes, releasing it’s warmth there as it condenses to precipitation. Do you ever hear Schmidt or Peirrehumbert talking about the precipitation cycles? Of course not, they are mathematicians, geophysicists and modelers, not atmospheric physicists like Spencer. Models are notoriously bad with precipitation, is it any wonder?
I’m really uncomfortable with this notion of feedback in the atmosphere. As I tried to explain before, true feedback requires amplification. Where is that amplification coming from? They are using feedback in a different manner and it probably stems from mathematics. They are claiming that more heat from CO2 means more water vapour evapourated from the land and oceans, hence more heat in the atmosphere. That’s a theory that is completely untested.
I’m not trying to be a contrarian, I have serious doubts about these theories owing to the physics I have studied. After reading the arguments of G&T, I feel even more doubt about the arguments.
Will Nitsche “My general observation is that you, Louis, Luke, Will, SJT and many others here are far too sure of yourselves concerning subjects humankind understands precious little about”.
My intention is to stay away from my own opinion as much as possible. I try to cite references for anything I claim but sometimes I feel what I’m saying is obvious. Even at that, I have references up my sleeve if I need them. I sometimes throw things out to see if someone will offer an intelligent response. Besides, I’m a Scotsman, and there’s something fundamentally wrong with us. Have you never watched Monty Python, with the kamikaze Scotsman? Or the skit where Louis the XVI spoke with a Scottish accent? Or how about MacAdder in Blackadder?
I have ticked a lot of people off with my insinuations about HIV/AIDS but I can back any claim I have made with a solid, scientific reference. So far, all I’ve had in response are ad hom attacks and weak, party-line references spewing the religion. I want to hear hard evidence of the existence of HIV. It’s not there. Nobelists like Kary Mullis, a guy who knows infinitely more about science than I’ll ever know, has looked for a scientific paper that will show how HIV causes AIDS. He even went to Luc Montagnier, the scientist co-credited with finding HIV, and all he got was a bum steer. Montagnier had no idea where such a paper existed.
That’s what people like yourself have got to try to understand. There is crap being foisted on us in the name of science and it’s nothing but pure rhetoric. Yet people like you are under the false impression that pseudo-science backed by numbers must be legitimate. It’s like that guy from RC who visited us here to defend his paper critiquing G&T. He came around with a good build up of radiative balances, but when it came down to the crux, where he had to account for an imbalance, he claimed it MUST be CO2 causing the imbalance because there’s nothing else to account for it. That was one of the lamest scientific arguments I’d ever heard.
It’s almost as bad as the one used by astrophysicists. There’s an absence of light in some parts of the universe therefore there must be a black hole absorbing it. What else could it be?
If I was in a purely scientific forum with people whose sole purpose was learning, I’d take a very different approach. On this blog, certain people are more interested in attacking the messenger, and I am prepared for that too. I realize I tend to shoot off at the lip sometimes, but if you call me on it with an intelligent response, I’ll respond in kind. I have tried that with some people on this blog and just got more crap.
If all of us took the approach that we know nothing of importance, which we don’t, and tried to understand what is true, we’d probably learn a lot more. If you take that approach around here, you’ll be crucified, and this is a relatively polite forum.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than an intelligent discussion in which I learn something. Sometimes that requires eating crow on my part, but I’ll do it if the evidence is overwhelming. I don’t respect someone because he has a degree; I’ve met professor who were complete dickheads. I met a head of internal medicine at a local hospital who insisted Linus Pauling was a quack. We’re talking about one of the top researchers in chemistry of all time and this twit called him a quack. I looked him straight in the eye and told him who Pauling was, about his two Nobel prizes, and told him if anyone was a quack, it was him.
I know that I go on ad hom attacks against people like those at RC but I don’t appreciate how far they have set science back. As Clint Eastwood is fond of saying, “a man’s gotta know his limitations”. I know mine all too well and it grates me when I see someone out of his depth advising people on global warming. RC is a menace to science and I have no reluctance to ad hom them.
“He dodged Lindzen at a debate by refusing to debate him.”
Not true. He has had a public debate with Lindzen and Crichton.
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/crichton_wins_live_debate_with_globalalarmists/
The audience scored it as a win, because Crichton was a better salesman. You can see the same outcome with creationism debates.
“What do you have against Lindzen, Christy or Spencer, who have actual degrees in atmospheric climate science? ”
I stated it already, they will quite happily share the stage with deniers, and not debunk their ignorance.
“It’s almost as bad as the one used by astrophysicists. There’s an absence of light in some parts of the universe therefore there must be a black hole absorbing it. What else could it be?”
You do realise you inhabit the realms of wackiness with you scientific beliefs?
“I think all of this is a red-herring. It’s probably impressive to someone who is trying to understand the theory but it comes across as ludicrous to trained physicists like G&T. They said as much. You can’t treat the atmosphere as a blanket, using single-line diagrams. Those are the diagrams you see in AR4 where an arrow points into the atmosphere representing all heat tranmitted from the surface to the atmosphere. Pierrehumbert and his partner seem to be visualizing IR as straight-line vectors radiated from the surface.”
G&T comprehensively beat up several straw men in their paper. IANAS, but even I can tell that when what purports to be a scientific paper has to resort to strawman arguments, something is seriously wrong. They take a publication that is meant for public consumption, with simplified arguments, and completely misrepresent the understanding of the science.
Mattb
Because the Russians were doing politics and signing that was the only way of getting the Europeans to hand over the money for the carbon credits.
I would be more concerned with the Huffington Post’s latest comment about AGW – affectively accusing Al Gore of telling a whopper :
:Huffington Post Features Article Demanding Apology from Gore
The left-wing blog Huffington Post surprised many by featuring an article on January 3, 2008, by Harold Ambler, demanding an apology from Gore for promoting unfounded global warming fears. The Huffington Post article accused Gore of telling “the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind” because he claimed the science was settled on global warming. The Huffington Post article titled “Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted” adds, “It is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers,” not the skeptics.
Again, it is not Jim Inhofe calling Gore a “flat-Earther,” it is the left-wing blog Huffington Post calling him these things.
The Huffington Post article continues, “Let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.”
Luke and others will soon be selling life jackets for those wishing to leave the sinking the Jolly Global Warming Ship.
Anyone who believes in black holes, dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars, and other things that have no physical existence could be also described as whakky.
And it doesn’t get more whakkier than SJT, a self confessed scientific ignoramus, admonishing others for their scientific beliefs.
Scientific belief’s?????? That’s what AGW does – and as the polititcally left are now starting to realise, it isn’t a scientific fact but a scientific belief, the science being the technically sophisticated mathematically complex cloak shrouding it.
sjt
“There’s an absence of light in some parts of the universe therefore there must be a black hole absorbing it”
Could it be, that there is no light coming from that direction because there is nothing there?
Open your mind a little!
:Huffington Post Features Article Demanding Apology from Gore
The left-wing blog Huffington Post surprised many by featuring an article on January 3, 2008, by Harold Ambler, demanding an apology from Gore for promoting unfounded global warming fears. The Huffington Post article accused Gore of telling “the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind” because he claimed the science was settled on global warming. The Huffington Post article titled “Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted” adds, “It is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers,” not the skeptics.
Again, it is not Jim Inhofe calling Gore a “flat-Earther,” it is the left-wing blog Huffington Post calling him these things.
The Huffington Post article continues, “Let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.”
sorry, nothing to see here. this post was an ERROR:
Arianna Huffington has put out the following message:
Harold Ambler reached out to me about posting a critical piece on Al Gore and the environment. We are always open to posts that present opinions contrary to HuffPost’s editorial view — and have welcomed many conservative voices, such as David Frum, Tony Blankley, Michael Smerconish, Bob Barr, Joe Scarborough, Jim Talent, etc., to the site. We have featured also countless posts from the leading lights of the Green movement, including Robert Redford, Laurie David, Carl Pope, Van Jones, David Roberts, and many others — and I myself have written extensively about the global warming crisis, and have been highly critical of those who refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence.
When Ambler sent his post, I forwarded it to one of our associate blog editors to evaluate, not having read it. I get literally hundreds of posts a week submitted like this and obviously can’t read them all — which is why we have an editorial process in place. The associate blog editor published the post. It was an error in judgment. I would not have posted it. Although HuffPost welcomes a vigorous debate on many subjects, I am a firm believer that there are not two sides to every issue, and that on some issues the jury is no longer out. The climate crisis is one of these issues.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/on-global-warming-is-it-h_b_155379.html
the post itself, of course is complete bullshit.
just look at this part:
That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth’s oceans.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html
lol, “modern Galileo” discovers “cosmic rays” that explain everything. great!
the post itself, of course is complete bullshit.
whjich post are you refering to? Harold Ambler or Arianna Huffington.
For me it’s Arianna Huffington!
QUOTE:Harold Ambler reached out to me about posting a critical piece on Al Gore and the environment.
you mean he accepted the idea and DIDN’T read the article!
pull the other one.
sjt
“There’s an absence of light in some parts of the universe therefore there must be a black hole absorbing it”
Black holes are supposed to be at the centre of gravity of galaxies in order to supply the missing mass in order to explain the observed galaxy rotation speed.
And are we talking about visible light? Amazing what is there when the rest of EM spectrum is used.
But Marcus is right, if there is no light at some part in the universe, then the simplest explanation is to conclude there is nothing there.
you mean he accepted the idea and DIDN’T read the article!
“she”.
you mean you are making wild claims about her, but you haven t figured out her gender?
so you agree with Svensmark being a modern Galileo?
Ok – so it’s a lady – the point is the editor of a major left wing newspaper accepted an article which was to be negative to Al Gore and the AGW movement and didn’t bother to read it?
yeah – sure.
Robertson – I simply barfed after reading your last rambling essay. For all your supposed interest in “objectivity” and evidence you’re just another denialist – don’t bother trying to justify yourself or dress it up. You’re interested in science are you? (LOL) and you know your own limitations do you ? (ROTFL)
Now are you going to substantiate your sledge on Aussie’s IPCC lead authors or just do a runner like a typical skunky pseudo-sceptic.
“Could it be, that there is no light coming from that direction because there is nothing there?”
The general contempt for science this blog generates never ceases to amaze me. No idea is too wacky, the extent of accepted science that is rejected just gets broader every day. Do you see the monster you have created, Jen?
The evidence for black holes is much more than just an absence of light. I would suggest you do some homework and read up on them.
SJT
You are just too gullible and a lover of authority.
I say again, try to think for yourself for a change.
I can’t remember how many times you cited the IPCC, what makes you think they are right in everything? Just because they are the “authority”?
Why can’t you except the possibility that the universe can have empty spaces where there are no stars, so no light is coming from there? What has this to do with black holes.
———————————————–
“The general contempt for science”
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Your subservient sycophantic citing of “science” at every turn is sickening, maybe because as you admitted you know nothing about it.
Not knowing doesn’t seem to stop you opining on practically every topic.
No, I do not have any contempt for real science, but I do question the pseudoscience the modern day snake oil salesman are peddling.
I am an engineer, with enough knowledge of basic scientific principles, to allow me at least to question some of the claims, and not take everything at face value, and if I’m not clear about something, my training helps me in discovering the facts.
———————————————————–
“I would suggest you do some homework and read up on them.”
————————————————————
Physician heal thyself!
SJT “Could it be, that there is no light coming from that direction because there is nothing there? Open your mind a little”!
The official reason given for the absence of light is that light ‘should’ be there because it’s coming from behind the so-called black hole region. The theory goes that the light is being bent out of it way or it is being absorbed by a body with super-density. That’s why it’s called a black hole. It supposedly absorbs any matter in it’s vicinity. I have no problem with that notion as a theory, I object when people begin talking about black holes as if they actually exist.
When I studied that theory many years ago in an astrophysics class, I swallowed it verbatum. I was agog with this new knowledge and did not question it in the least. Later, I began to wonder how they knew all this, at such a distance, when they had very little idea what was going on in a nearby planet, like Mars. Then I read the debates between Jiddu Krishnamurti and the physicist David Bohm, who was an expert in the field of quantum mechanics.
They both exposed time as a psychological artifact and thought without awareness as a detriment to understanding reality. In fact, they distinguished reality from actuality, because the term reality is used by most people in a personal manner that is different from person to person. Actuality refers to the world as it would exist if no humans were on the planet. In other words, there would be no thought systems to corrupt the reality observed but the physical structures would still be there.
I ran the time theory past one of my physics profs who was adamant that time had no existence and that humans had invented it to keep tract of changing events. You’d be surprised how many people with Ph. D’s get angry when you suggest time has no existence. What’s with the anger? Is it a natural response one gets when his belief system is challenged?
SJT “The evidence for black holes is much more than just an absence of light. I would suggest you do some homework and read up on them”.
I hope you’re not talking about computer models again. The atronomer has a very limited set of tools at his disposal. He has an optical telescope and a radiotelescope. With land-based optical telescopes, he can see Jupiter at about the size of a large coin. Most atronomical research is done with radiotelescopes.
With a radiotelescope, emissions from distant gases are gathered as spectra, much like the spectral lines you mentioned in your other post related to pressure broadening. If gases are emitting or absorbing certain frequencies in the energy spectrum, they show up as lines on the radiotelescope display. By examining the lines, they can tell what atoms there may be out there and by examining shifts in the lines from where they should be, they can tell whick way a distant object is moving.
How can you tell anything about black holes with that limited input of data? The rest is pure conjecture…educated guesses…the results of thought experiments. I predict that if they ever get out there to observe directly, their theories will be far different than what they predicted. When you read about this on the net, you have to be super-careful about your sources. Astrophysicists like to blather on about complete theories as if they are fact. Carl Sagan, one of the most famous astronomer was one of the worst for pure rhetoric.
Luke “Now are you going to substantiate your sledge on Aussie’s IPCC lead authors or just do a runner like a typical skunky pseudo-sceptic”.
Lukey…you’re in fine form today. I only made a comment that Penny Wong would not send Jen or Lous Hissink as lead authors. I have no idea who the other lead authors would be from Australia, so how about you filling me in. Can you see Penny Wong, or anyone from the Rudd government, sending a lead author who had anything but a commitment to the AGW paradigm. If you have the IPCC stacked with AGW types, how do you expect an objective peer-review?
As far as you barfing over what wrote, tell the truth. You’re bullimic, aren’t you? You actually enjoy my repartee, ya big platypus.
Will Nitsche “My general observation is that you, Louis, Luke, Will, SJT and many others here are far too sure of yourselves concerning subjects humankind understands precious little about”.
Will,
Luke has put in many hours preparing posts with references to scientific evidence. The more work he put in to them, the more he was ignored. He knows a lot more about the subject than you realise, I think.
SJT “”He dodged Lindzen at a debate by refusing to debate him.” Not true. He has had a public debate with Lindzen and Crichton”.
That’s the debate I’m talking about and it can be found on Youtube if you’re interested. Each person had the opportunity to stand at the podium to give a preliminary speech. In his speech, Schmidt declared he would not be debating global warming and that if anyone wanted answers about it from him they should contact realclimate. All he did through the entire debate was spout pro AGW rhetoric and heckle people like Phillip Stott. He would not address the issues. The other two passengers with him were just as bad.
BTW..the audience voted in favour of AGW after the first segment of the debate then changed their minds on the final vote.
SJT “I stated it already, they will quite happily share the stage with deniers, and not debunk their ignorance”.
once again, no answers out of SJT. I ask a question about scientists and their theories and you retort with your prejudice.
Why can’t you understand that you allow your feelings to get in the way of your life? I don’t like Gavin Schmidt, James Hansen or Raymond Pierrehumbert, but I’ll listen to what they are saying and find fault with that by comparing it to what other scientists are saying.
I have ambivalent feelings about Kevin Trenberth, a Kiwi who I think could be doing better. Even though he’s an AGW advocate, I respect what the guy says because he’s an honest to goodness climate scientist. He was the professor in charge of John Christy’s graduate work, so Christy learned from him. Trenberth has tried to find fault with Christy’s work but so far has only discovered a minor anomaly in the tropics.
The fact that you wont read experts in the field, like Lindzen, tells me volumes about you. You run purely on emotion and have little understanding of the scientific method. You’re an AGW groupie and science in not one of your interests.
SJT: “The general contempt for science this blog generates never ceases to amaze me. No idea is too wacky, the extent of accepted science that is rejected just gets broader every day. Do you see the monster you have created, Jen?
The evidence for black holes is much more than just an absence of light. I would suggest you do some homework and read up on them”
Black holes have no physical existence SJT, and they cannot be directly observed eitehr – this is wacky science. It’s based on a belief that the only force in the universe is gravity operating on matter which is comprised of electrically charged particles.
In any case as you admit to being a scientific ignoramus, how then are you able to discern which is whacky or not whacky when you have not the skills and training to do that.
That is a classic argument from ignorance.
SJT…”G&T comprehensively beat up several straw men in their paper. IANAS, but even I can tell that when what purports to be a scientific paper has to resort to strawman arguments, something is seriously wrong. They take a publication that is meant for public consumption, with simplified arguments, and completely misrepresent the understanding of the science”.
All their arguments were based on physics, which you confess to not understand. How then do you get this straw man bit? Read the paper as well as you can, and bring back your arguments. That’s how you’ll learn, not from me, but through presenting the argument and munching through them.
There’s a lot of heavy math in there but when you get the general drift of what a differential equation or and integral is set up to do, you can get the general drift of the argument without understanding the math.
For example, an integral is a summation of tiny parts called differentials, and often, that’s how nature presents itself, as tiny, changing events. By summing those events we get a ‘whole’ picture of what is happening. G&T is full of that, and how you relate actual physics calculations to strawman arguments is beyond me. Did you get that from the mathematician Gavin Schmidt, or the computer programmer, William Connolley?
SJT: “That is a classic argument from ignorance.”
As opposed to a classic response from ignorance?
That’s the spirit Gordon – don’t hold back and stand your ground – good to see some reverse sledging.
But why would Penny Wong send Jen, Louis or even me or you…. good looking, intelligent and svelte though we may be …
Our Aussie IPCC authors are listed clearly in the 4AR report – what’s wrong with them? They’re domain experts from the climate sciences. Do you think they lack expertise or integrity? And why? Don’t tell me you’d like them to make some random sceptic points just to make the report look” balanced and make you happy?
SJT January 10th, 2009 at 6:17 am
“The audience scored it as a win, because Crichton was a better salesman. You can see the same outcome with creationism debates.”
There we go again: always this reference to creationism. Yawn! The fact is that Crichton was not very convincing by having cheap shots at Gore rather than addressing the science. The win was attributed to he convincing arguments of Dick Lindzen and Philip Stott and the appalling emotional performance of Schmidt and co.
It is telling that the well reasoned contributions by Gordon Robertson are so easily dismissed by the likes of Luke and SJT. They attack him on trivialities and with ad homs and refuse to respond to the observation/fact that Lindzen and Spencer are reputable climate scientists as opposed to Gavin Schmidt. I have noted that the AGW believers are very good at ignoring Lindzen. Apparently they must have recognized that he is just too knowledgeable on the subject and wouldn’t want to burn their fingers on him. That’s why a proper one to one debate could never be arranged.
Am I missing something here. Claims that mainstream science that has been accepted for years no is ‘well reasoned’. All gordon is saying is that he has no idea what the current state of the science is.
I have done calculus of vector functions in three dimensions before I decided I found computers more interesting. I know what a differential equation is. But their paper starts of with a completely ridiculous attack on the term ‘greenhouse’. No one has ever claimed that the ‘greenhouse effect’ works just like real greenhouse, it’s just a simple analogy that has stuck in the public mind, so it works as a convenient label. That they even bother to attack that ‘strawman’ indicates they have no idea what the actual science is on about, or they are being mischevous and dishonest.
Lindzen is the coward. He won’t put out a paper on his claims. Instead he just preaches to the public without testing his ideas in the scientific domain.
SJT,
Lindzen is certainly not a coward. The mere use of a pseudonym (i.e. SJT) is the hallmark of a coward. Who are you? Use your full name! You dare argue that Lindzen doesn’t test his ideas in the scientific domain? Ha, Ha.
Lindzen publishes enough and he dares to debate his views.
What about the recent Lindzen vs Rahmstorf exchange? You can download the pfd files of their papers here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/03/lindzen-vs-rahmstorf-exchange.html
Lindzen, R. S., 1997: Can increasing atmospheric CO2 affect global climate? Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 94, 8335–8342.Lindzen, R.S., M.-D. Chou, and A.Y. Hou (2001) Does the Earth have an adaptive infrared iris? Bull. Amer. Met. Soc. 82, 417-432
Lindzen, R.S. (2002a) Do Deep Ocean Temperature Records Verify Models? Geophys. Res. Ltrs., 29, 10.1029/2001GL014360.
Lindzen, R.S. and C. Giannitsis (2002) Reconciling observations of global temperature change. Geophys. Res. Ltrs. 29, (26 June) 10.1029/2001GL014074
Bell, T. L., M.-D. Chou, R.S. Lindzen, and A.Y. Hou (2002) Response to Comment on “Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?” Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., 83, 598-600.
Besides, Lindzen has other things to do than just trying to debunk the pseudo science of AGW. It’s just a side issue that comes with his job, unfortunately.
From lindzens own paper.
In other words, he has not come up with the goods yet. Let him publish a paper that supports his own claim.
SJT: “Lindzen is the coward. He won’t put out a paper on his claims. Instead he just preaches to the public without testing his ideas in the scientific domain.”
SJT, you are nothing other than a AGO computer programmer who, on this blog, told everyone you had no science training, and yet you feel compelled to denigrate a scientist of the highest calibre, from the safety of coward’s castle.
Incidentally here is a short explanation of empty space – http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2009/arch09/090106space.htm but given the high probability that a black hole exists between your ears, I doubt we will hear from you concerning the tpod.
SJT: “Am I missing something here. Claims that mainstream science that has been accepted for years no is ‘well reasoned’. All gordon is saying is that he has no idea what the current state of the science is.”
You sure are missing something – it is you who have no idea what the current state of the science is – you admit so here by stating that you have no science training.
MattB ““Scientists now agree that climate change is a reality, and that human activity is largely to blame”
I bit. Anytime a person uses the generic term ‘scientists said’, you can just bet their is a rhetorical argument talking place. The best one is ‘the vast majority of scientists’. That kind of rhetoric is used liberally in this blog by certain AGWers who claim most scientists and most scientific institutions back the IPCC take on AGW.
I challenge anyone using that rhetoric to produce names and direct statements from each one of those scientists and each member of the scientific institute in question. What you’ll find is that many of the institutes are run by a board that presumes it is speaking on behalf of its members. For example, the IPCC chiefs have no problem speaking on behalf of the 4000 scientists involved, even though many of them disagree with the chiefs.
On page 15 of this document, Ross McKitrick describes this behavior from the IPCC chiefs:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/APEC-hockey.pdf
***In April 2001 just after the release of the TAR, then Chairmen Robert Watson and Sir John Houghton gave a news conference in which they dismissed the idea of substantial disagreement with the IPCC Report:
Watson, described by many diplomats as the world’s most authoritative voice on global warming, dismissed suggestions that there was a 50-50 split in the scientific community over climate change or humanity’s role in producing it.
“It’s not even 80-20 or 90-10 (in percentage terms). I personally believe it’s something like 98-2 or 99-1,” said Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)…
John Houghton, a British expert who co-chairs an IPCC panel investigating climate change, said his work involved between 600 and 700 scientists writing and reviewing 5,000 papers. “That’s a very large body of scientists”, he said. Houghton said that worldwide there were no more than 10 scientists active in the field and well-versed in the arguments who disagreed with the notion of human-induced climate change.
These are very telling quotations. Watson and Houghton are commenting on the scientific community as ‘they encounter it’. They are describing the group of people with whom they had just worked for two years producing the TAR. It is, according to Watson, 99% lined up on one opinion. According to Houghton, no more than 10 qualified scientists disagree with them. But that tells us nothing about the range of qualified opinion on climate issues. It only tells us about the self-selection process (deliberate or unconscious) within the IPCC.
Group efforts are always at risk of self-selection and groupthink.The pressure to conform within the IPCC should not be underestimated.***
People trying to influence an arguement often making sweeping statements. When that technique is used by leaders of the IPCC, one has to ask why they find it necessary. Are they trying to sell something, or do they have a vested interest in the AGW theory? In this blog, rhetoric is understandable, and if you understand that the media is in the business of selling news, you can understand that too, although you don’t have to agree with their greed. When large scientific institutions resort to the same rhetoric, the science community is in trouble.
SJT “Lindzen is the coward. He won’t put out a paper on his claims. Instead he just preaches to the public without testing his ideas in the scientific domain”
That’s exactly the point I’m trying to make about you. You have bought into the arguments of the activists at RC who preach computer model theory as the new science. Schmidt said that. He, a mathematician, working for an astronomer, claimed that Lindzen represented old science while his (Schmidt’s) science was ready for textbooks.
What he actually said was that virtual science was replacing the tried-and-trued obsevational science. Not a chance!! Only a supremely arrogant mathematician in his wildest dreams could envision that scenario. A computer program is the refelection of human thought, and when we think we have replaced reality with human thought, we’re in big doo doo.
Fortunately we still have legitimate scientists like Lindzen, Singer, Christy, Singer, Michaels et al who observe the atmosphere directly. All of them are writing papers although some of their efforts are being stifled by the status quo in the scientific publications business. Maybe that’s why pou haven’t found any of Lindzen’s papers because they are not in the journals you subscribe to.
Here’s a recent paper in which he uncovers the AGW scam:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0809.3762v2
Here’s one on ‘alleged scientific consensus'”
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html
Oh…you wanted one that talks about the science…here ya go:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/ArmstrongGreenSoon08-Anatomy-d/Lindzen07-EnE-warm-lindz07.pdf
Here’s an in-depth one on water vapour budget that even Gavin Schmidt likely wouldn’t understand:
http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/178wvapbud.pdf
If you read carefully through these papers and articles, you might find Lindzen’s comments on unusual procedures being taken by scientific journal editors to throw roadblocks up in front of him. Now why would they do that? Maybe for the same reason lightweights like you and Gavin Schmidt slang him. He’s an expert in climate science with 40 years experience in atmospheric physics. On top of that, he teaches at MIT. People like you fear his understanding of the atmosphere because it directly contradicts the pseudo-science you are taught at the likes of RC.
After a career in chemistry, in which he accumulated two unshared Nobels, Linus Pauling turned his attention to the field of nutrition. It wasn’t as if the field was new to him, having already done considerable related work. The basis of nutrition is chemistry and one would think an expert in chemistry of Pauling’s esteem would have been welcomed by the medical community. Not so. Pauling’s expertise was rejected by the small-minded twits who saw him as a threat.
Some examples highlights this snobbery. There was a controversy in nutrition that synthetic Vitamin E was not as good as natural Vitamin E. Not so, said Pauling, they have exactly the same chemical structure. Another perception was that high doses of Vitamin C would be wasted, since they would be immediately excreted. Pauling went into the laboratory and tested that theory on himself. Remember, this guy was one of the emminent researchers in history. He found that half of a 10 gram dose, a huge amount, was excreted through the bowels, a good thing he commented because it protected the bowels from cancer. The other 5 grams remained in the system, doing good work, both as an antioxidant and for the normal processes affected by Vitamin C.
Even at that, the medical community shunned Pauling for his work, even though he was an expert in chemistry. The same thing is going on with Lindzen. The activists and extreme environmentalists who jumped on the psudo-science behind the AGW theory, did not want the likes of Lindzen contradicting them. He has spoiled their party. Aw, shucks.
Rave on all you want about Lindzen. anyone with an interest in science will gladly welcome his expert input.
SJT “Claims that mainstream science that has been accepted for years no is ‘well reasoned’. All gordon is saying is that he has no idea what the current state of the science is”.
Mainstream science took a turn for the worst when the US government started funding it heavily. Since then, scientists from all over the world have been lining up for the gravy train. When the UN got in on the act, the gravy train got longer. The same thing happened with the HIV/AIDS paradigm. Billions of dollars were ear-marked for research to support the theory and many scientists were willing to cover their ears and eyes rather than pass up the funding. If you want to call prostitutes, scientists, that’s up to you.
If you want to infer that mainstream science, with reference to computer modeling, is legitimate, that’s down to your naivete. Universities, especially in the States, are heavily funded by the US government, with respect to grants for research. When Peter Duesberg, a world class expert on viruses, claimed that HIV could not cause AIDS, his funding was immediately revoked. That sounds more like Russian-style communism to me rather than open-minded science. Don’t forget that Al Gore was very influential during his term as VP with respect to how funds were disbursed. He took good care of his buddy Jim Hansen.
You can call me a fossil on that respect. I’ll never accept this high-tech garbage being passed off as science.
Gordon,
We should realise that SJT is a computer programmer and probably thinks he is Gavin’s equivalent here in the AGO – doing the new science – virtual science lost in mathematical irony more like it.
I don’t get it Gordon. Compared to some people here you seem informed. But you get hung up on things like AIDS. They have photographs of the AIDS virus now. If you want proof, you can’t get much better than that.
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/photos/aids/aids-virus.html
That’s it, popping out of a white blood cell. That’s why AIDS is do dangerous, it attacks the immune system itself.
I’m not getting any younger myself, but I try to keep aware of what they can do, even if I can’t understand it all. And in this day and age, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, or much much you have learned, it’s the age of specialisation. The human brain can only do so much.
“http://arxiv.org/pdf/0809.3762v2”
He can’t even prove is own theory, but he can trash everyone else for being scientist like he is. Amazing. You don’t become a climate scientist for the money.
SJT “hey have photographs of the AIDS virus now”.
Obviously that photo has convinced you. I don’t know if HIV exists or not, I am merely following scientific arguments, just as I am in the global warming debate. All I’m saying is that certain people have put forward very good arguments that it does not exist, and we are 25 years into a campaign to find a cure for AIDS. If you follow the story as closely as I have, you might agree that the virus has taken on a mystique that makes its existence unlikely.
No known virus has the cloaking properties of HIV, it behaves more like a mutation out of Star Wars than a real virus. Also, even in very sick people with AIDS, the T-cells in their immune system outnumber the calculated HIV cells by 800 to 1. With that ratio of good guys to bad guys, how does HIV overwhelm an immune system? No one knows. And, why does it take 10 to 15 years to manifest? Just about every other contagious virus strike within 2 weeks, does it’s dirty deed, and clears off.
Unfortunatley, retroviral particles are not identified with photos like that. For all we know, that could be the photo of a chicken pox virus. There is no indication on the photo of scale. Here’s what Eleni Papdopulous, an expert, has to say in this interview:
http://www.theperthgroup.com/INTERVIEWS/cjepe.html
“Sticking to particles all the evidence comes from electron micrographs of whole cell cultures. Not density gradients. From this evidence it can be said that cell cultures contain a large variety of particles some of which are claimed to look like retroviral particles. That’s all. None of the particle data has been taken further. No purification, no analysis and no proof of replication. In these cultures several research groups including Hans Gelderblom and his associates from the Koch Institute in Berlin who specialise in this area have reported not just one type of particle but a stunning array of particles.(13,19,20) This raises several questions. If one of these particles really is a retrovirus experts call HIV, what are all the others? If the HIV particles originate from the tissues of AIDS patients, where do all the others come from? Which of these particles band at 1.16 gm/ml? If the HIV particles cause AIDS why doesn’t one or several of the other particles also cause AIDS? Why don’t all the particles cause AIDS? Or why doesn’t AIDS or the cultures cause the appearance of the particles? And when it comes to HIV, the HIV experts can’t even agree what is the HIV particle. There are three subfamilies of retroviruses and HIV has been classified by different research groups under two of these subfamilies as well as three different species”.
Eleni explains elsewhere in the interview, that HIV has to be identified by use of density banding. The culture is centrifuged in a sugar solution, and that forms a density gradient in the solution when it is centrifuged. Retroviruses always show up in the 1.16 gm/ml density band. They also have a specific size and mass. The photo to which you linked has no scale to determine the size.
Later in the interview, she said this (Gallo is credited with co-discovering HIV):
“Let me repeat, there is no question of isolation. Gallo did not isolate a virus. There were no electron microscope pictures of a banded specimen that one would expect to show nothing but retroviral particles. How could there be? There were no EMs at all of a banded specimen. Just pictures of cells with a dozen or so particles lying nearby but no extraction and analysis and proof that these particles could replicate into identical particles. But what we must ask is whether Gallo had the proof to say he had even detected a retrovirus. In our view he did not. And it’s vitally important at this point to state that finding particles and reverse transcriptase is not proof that a retrovirus is present”.
She seems to be saying that the photo should have been taken of the density gradient solution showing the virus in it with a size marker.
Later, this gem, “…for what he called isolation of HIV Gallo regarded the antibodies as the crucial evidence”. That is what the two HIV tests are based on…antibodies. When a virus infects the immune system, the immune system produces antibodies. Gallo was satisfied that the antibodies themselves were the required proof of the virus. He never did find HIV in the 1.16 gm/ml density band.
Peter Duesberg was the skeptic I admired more, but even he defended the notion that HIV exists. I felt really let down by his explanation. He argued with both Eleni and Stefan Lanka in defence of the existence of HIV, but all he could drum up for evidence was a partial isolation of the virus, which he thought was enough. I felt disappointed with that because there is a method agreed upon in medical research for identifying viruses and it’s very clear. That method was not followed, and even an eminent researcher like Duesberg decided that a partial isolation was good enough. Well, that partial isolation did not demonstrate the virus isolated or the fact that it could replicate. All the evidence of its existence is that antibodies are found in infected patients. That’s why I think your picture is bogus.
Of course, what do I know. I’m caught in the middle, not knowing what to think and not having the basic expertise to find out. So, I get caught up in other peoples’ arguments.
The thing to note is how hot people get about this subject. I raised this argument at a party once and a guy got so angry I thought he was going to take a swing at me. What’s all the emotion about? It’s the same thing with the global warming debate, if I dare call it that. I get emotional at times because I think of all the money proposed for the cure and what I see as unnecessary legislation that may soon have neighbours reporting neighbours to the AGW police.
If you’re dealing in an intelligent scientific debate, there should be no emotion. It should be objective. The emotion comes when egos and beliefs get involved. So what if I’m completely wrong about HIV? My concern is that people have been dying of AIDS for a long time now and no cure is in sight. What harm could it possibly do to give some energy and funding to an alternative hypothesis? The same with the AGW/skeptical debate. Why can’t people work toward a common goal for the good of humanity rather than being at each others’ throats over who is right and who is wrong?
SJT…just received this in an email from Val Turner at the Perth Group in Australia regarding the legitimacy of your photo EPE refers to Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos and PG is the Perth Group.
“We’re going to post something on the PG website that should address the question you ask. In about two days”.
Val adds:
“PS It’s a mystery why people claim EPE or the PG say “the HIV virus has never been photographed”. In fact the prosecutor at the Parenzee hearing made the same claim even though the court transcripts of EPE’s evidence make it quite plain EPE did not say any such thing. There are many EMs of particles said to be HIV. Including the one you provide. Our point is there is no proof any of them are a virus. There is a lot more on particles which you can study in EPE’s court evidence. 4th file at http://www.theperthgroup.com/montagniernobel.html
Size is a highly signficant distinguishing morphological feature and without a size bar size cannot be determined. No professional electron microscopist would publish such an EM.
If you wish to mention you have asked us at your blog then please do.
In fact ask your bloggers to read all the files at that link. Especially the first and the last. Tell us where we are wrong”.
So…there’s your response from a good, old Aussie group of researchers.
SJT “He (Lindzen) can’t even prove is own theory, but he can trash everyone else for being scientist like he is. Amazing. You don’t become a climate scientist for the money”.
I can see you’re at a stage where no further intelligent conversation is possible. You are obviously bitter about Lindzen. I have no time for Schmidt, but I’ll bellyache about him and explain what I don’t like what he has said. Your replies are two sentences long and ad hom. Is it quotes from Lindzen’s article like this that set you off?
“The situation with America’s National Academy of Science is somewhat more complicated. The Academy is divided into many disciplinary sections whose primary task is the nomination of candidates for membership in the Academy. Typically, support by more than 85% of the membership of any section is needed for nomination. However, once a candidate is elected, the candidate is free to affiliate with any section. The vetting procedure is generally rigorous, but for over 20 years, there was a Temporary Nominating Group for the Global Environment to provide a back door for the election of candidates who were environmental activists, bypassing the conventional vetting procedure. Members, so elected, proceeded to join existing sections where they hold a veto power over the election of any scientists unsympathetic to their position. Moreover, they are almost immediately appointed to positions on the executive council, and other influential bodies within the Academy. One of the members elected via the Temporary Nominating Group, Ralph Cicerone, is now president of the National Academy. Prior to that, he was on the nominating committee for the presidency. It should be added that there is generally only a single candidate for president. Others elected to the NAS via this route include Paul Ehrlich, James Hansen, Steven Schneider, John Holdren and Susan Solomon”.
In other words, the once prestigious National Academy of Science has been scuttled by environmental activists. Maybe that’s why they changed their minds so quickly on the satellite data. If you’ll recall, after TAR, they acknowledged the satellite data was contradicting computer model predictions and that has changed. Wonder why? If you can’t win the argument in the lab with concrete proof, you can take over the scientific institutions and spread rhetoric.
You were on about the current state of science. I would call it a temporary state, till we can get rid of those moth-eaten Neanderthals and get back to real science.
Gordon,
I have asked clarification in another area of expertise – awaiting a reply over the next day or so.
Any reason why SJT shifted the debate from the thread topic apart from a distraction?
Incidentally the cold snap affecting the UK is due to a rather stationary high pressure system with little or low winds.
Wind turbines don’t work too well in the absence of wind so when you need the energy yo turn on the electric heaters and stoves to cook food, nothing.
How in the heck do the mainstream media allow themselves to be so easily duped by the greenies?
Years ago whe working for SMEC our philosophy was that no matter now much advice you gave, people don’t seem to believe the advice until they actually have to experience it.
Given Europe’s historical reputation for barbarity over the centuries, the lastest in the Balkans a couple of years back, I would not wish to be green.
SJT “No one has ever claimed that the ‘greenhouse effect’ works just like real greenhouse, it’s just a simple analogy that has stuck in the public mind, so it works as a convenient label”.
Stephen Schneider, an AGW type, once said that it’s necessary to fool the public to get a message across. That’s patronization and that’s what the greenhouse model is about. If the atmosphere in no way resembles a greenhouse then why portray it as such? Before they proceeded with their arguments, G&T seemed to think it was necessary to destroy that model. It’s an integral part of their argument that greenhouses don’t warm from blocking IR, they warm due to a lack of circulation. The greenhouse theory presented by climate scientists depends heavily on IR radiation from blackbodies, simple vectors and overly simplified heat exchanges, while omitting the effect of precipitaion systems and natural wind and ocean currents of a huge scale.
G&T were not appealing to the public anyway. They would not have included such heavy math if that was the case. They claimed there was no basis for the greenhouse model in physics, or for many other claims made by certain climate scientists. The message I got from them was that climate science was, in general, bad physics. Climate science is not even considered a branch of physics but a branch of geophysics.
I think G&T revealed quite well the licence taken by climate science with gas and heat theory.
SJT “In other words, he (Lindzen) has not come up with the goods yet. Let him publish a paper that supports his own claim”.
He already did. Lindzen developed the iris theory which Spencer has claimed to corroborate with satellite observations. Of course, now Spencer is having trouble getting his papers published.
They are both claiming essentially that clouds form themselves to control heat. Both are claiming that water vapour should have the opposite sign in models, that the modelers are wrong. Why are the modelers not at least talking to them? You have two scientists, both trained in atmospheric physics, one (Lindzen) a heavyweight in that respect, and modelers are ignoring them? Now what could that be about?
BTW…Lindzen is professional in his critiques, unlike many AGWers whom I wont mention.
Louis…”Incidentally here is a short explanation of empty space”.
Kind of mind-numbing, isn’t it? Usually an illusion is something you think you see that isn’t there. This is an illusion of something you don’t think is there just because you can’t see it.
Back in the bad old days, when I worked in electronics repair, I was working on the high-voltage section of a TV. In those days, they developed the entire 30,000 volts at once using one coil. Later, they found out the acceleration involved in the high-voltage coil produced X-Rays, so they split the voltage increases into smaller segments to cut back on X-Rays. I was working one day with the metal shield off the transformer can, and I leaned across the can to do something. I felt my stomach area warming up, just from the radiation.
Recently, I saw a demonstration of X-Rays being produced by Scotch tape. You know the sound you get as the tape separates from the roll? We that action produces X-Rays powerful enough to do an X-Ray of a finger.
Gordon, what is your problem. Are you just too proud to admit you don’t understand the latest science?
Papdopoulos is a fraud. The “Perth Group” is nothing but a bunch of wannabees making themselves out to be more than what they are, a non descript bunch of low level technicians.
“Dr” Papadopoulos is not a “Dr” for a start.
Wikipedia has the story. “Her duties at the Royal Perth Hospital are to test people for sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.”
SJT,
Gordon makes clear compelling comments.Your replies are boorish and empty.It is obvious that you are not at all worried about the steady destruction of science research.
The latest being this: “Gordon, what is your problem. Are you just too proud to admit you don’t understand the latest science?
Papdopoulos is a fraud. The “Perth Group” is nothing but a bunch of wannabees making themselves out to be more than what they are, a non descript bunch of low level technicians.
“Dr” Papadopoulos is not a “Dr” for a start.
Wikipedia has the story. “Her duties at the Royal Perth Hospital are to test people for sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.””
Ad hominems,deflections and plain crap is all you can reply with.
No wonder you guys are losing the debate so easily these days.
“SJT “In other words, he (Lindzen) has not come up with the goods yet. Let him publish a paper that supports his own claim”.”
You are so out of date.Since Dr. Lindzen published his “Iris” paper 10 years ago.Then a couple of more recent papers appear to support the paper.
Meanwhile Realclimate and other hostile no science production centers.Blasted the “Iris” paper.But not a single rebutting published science paper to brag about.
Instead of defending the religion.Why not support real science research and support publication of such research in various publication outlets?
Why are you so distressed with Dr. Lindzen and DR. Spenser anyway?
Sunsettommy,
Commenters like SJT do have a positive function in the climate blogosphere. They make lay people who visit these sites realize that the AGW believers are not on par with the mostly well reasoned skeptics, that they nit pick on side issues or focus on trivialities, use ad homs when cornered and never respond to solid rebuttals. However, they keep us sharp and the debate going.
How boring would this blog be if we would all agree with each other, like on RealClimate with their selfrighteous, self-congratulatory attitude. If a skeptic makes a point on RC it is the moderator who steps in to respond (Gavin most of the time) or worse the moderator deletes the post. Ever tried to make a reference to the Medieval Warm Period project of CO2science.org? RC would never allow the following weblink http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/globalmwp.php .They will block your post if it contains this link.
SJT:
You are somehwat gullible – you linked to a National Geographic image of an aids cell recorded by a color transimission electron microscope image of T-Cells etc. Small problem – all electronmicroscopes image in greyscale, with the color ability only very recently developed (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080221153725.htm), and then in a rudimentary design.
As no one has identified the HIV virus, plenty of lliterature on that, how did they know it was a HIV virus to image it?
Let’s face it SJT, you really have no idea what you are dealing with and I read above that you adopt the usual charlatan ploy of ad homs to counter researchers who come up with inconvenient facts.
You really must make sure of your factoids before posting them here.
SJT
Wikipedia is not a good reliable source of anything save politically correct pseudoscience. It is know William Connelly edits the climate section to sanitise it, so one suspects the AIDs bandwaggoneers would ensure that only authorised PC statements appear on Wiki,
SJT: “Gordon, what is your problem. Are you just too proud to admit you don’t understand the latest science?”
But SJT, you have told everyone here you have no science training – so how on earth are you. of all posters here, capable of discerning whether anyone else understands the science or not.
Louis
Velikovsky.
No wonder I find you so easy to ignore. Nothing more needs to be said.
SJT “Gordon, what is your problem. Are you just too proud to admit you don’t understand the latest science?
Papdopoulos is a fraud. The “Perth Group” is nothing but a bunch of wannabees making themselves out to be more than what they are, a non descript bunch of low level technicians.
“Dr” Papadopoulos is not a “Dr” for a start”.
Seldom have I come across anyone on a blog with your abysmal ignorance. You dropped out of science, not because computer programming was more interesting, because it’s a heck of a lot easier. The convoluted thinking in object-oriented programming suits your addled brain.
Did I say ‘Dr.’ Papadopulos? She has a masters degree in science, which puts here miles ahead of you in understanding HIV and she works in the field. The fact that you cannot read what she has to say, and understand it, speaks volumes for your bias. Do you need a degree in retroviral research to critique Robert Gallo? If that’s the case, all journalists should stop talking about science in a critical manner.
Your logic doesn’t hold up in the least. She is backed by Stefan Lanka, who has a degree in biology and who is an expert in viruses.
I’ve tried to be polite to you and engage you in intelligent conversation. You are not capable of that. I wont be wasting my time in the future stooping to your level of pseudo-science. I don’t even know why someone like you is attempting to discuss science. Obviously you have seen the rhetoric at realclimate and mistaken that for science. You certainly have bought into their deluded notion that they represent the ‘new science’. Wake up you dolt.
I hope Eleni the Perth Group sue your butt for calling them frauds. If you think you can hide behind a blog and a pseudonym, you are sadly mistaken. Someone was sued here recently in North America, even though they were using a nym on a blog. You really should watch your mouth.
SJT “Louis…Velikovsky. No wonder I find you so easy to ignore. Nothing more needs to be said”.
Velikovsky predicted the temperature of Venus based on his research while general science was about 500 degrees out. He is far more intelligent, and has far more imagination that you will ever have. Those of us who have read him were at least entertained by his imagination and impressed with the depth of his research. I doubt if you have even read him.
The more you speak the more stupid you sound. You criticizing the intelligence and imagination of Louis is the joke around here. He has a degree in science and works in the field. You’re a computer programmer and you’re biased toward computer model based virtual science. You’re so obvious.
Your lack of ability to answer questions in the science domain without resorting to ad homs and biased sources is incredibly childish, yet you persist. You insult accomplished scientists while pointing to computer modelers and programmers as the new science. Can’t you find a blog on science fiction?
SJT claims the Perth Group are frauds, zeroing in with ad homs on Eleni Papodopulos. The point of the following, or any other information I have introduced on HIV/AIDS, is not to highjack the thread. I am trying to demonstrate the pseudo-science under which the AGW mind operates, and the circus known as the HIV/AIDS paradigm is a perfect example of that kind of pseudo-science.
This nonsense about removing the funding of skeptics, and even firing them for being skeptical, began with the imposition of the HIV/AIDS paradigm in 1983 by the Reagan administration in the US. The paradigm was imposed without a trace of peer review. Top class researchers, like Peter Duesberg, a former California Scientist of the Year winner, one of many awards he has won, has been ostracized for his skepticism. He has lost his funding and his tenure has been reduced to teaching undergrad lab classes.
This is the business of those of us skeptical of the AGW paradigm. We have seen the threats from scientists like Hansen and Suzuki, that people skeptical of the AGW paradigm should be thrown in jail. Eleni Papdopulos of the Perth Group is having difficulty getting her papers published and now it has started with Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer. We are dealing with a major witchhunt mentality and it is being supported by realclimate, deltoid and all the other AGW groupies who frequent this blog.
Here are the people who contribute to the Perth Group:
-biophysicist Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos
-physician Valendar F Turner
-physicists Bruce Hedland-Thomas, David Causer and Barry Page
-Florida USA biochemist Todd Miller
-Colombian physician/medical researcher Helman Alfonso
Their latest work on HIV is here, and worth the read for anyone trying to understand exactly what HIV is, or is not:
http://www.theperthgroup.com/LATEST/PGRevisitHIVExistence.pdf
Their finding are backed by Dr. Stefan Lanka, virologist and molecular biologist. Lanka has specialized in virus research being the first researcher to isolate a virus from the ocean. On this page he reveals things about viruses you might not want to know:
http://www.neue-medizin.com/lanka2.htm
He has also forced the German government into conceding that work done on HIV/AIDS research has not been very good.
I don’t mind debating the facts of science with anyone. Debating with ignorant jerks who see nothing wrong with stripping a scientist of his/her job, or refusing him/her publication of his/her papers simply because he/she is skeptical of a paradigm is not what science is about. In that case, we are debating with trolls sent to disrupt the scientific debate.
SJT has denounced a woman because she does not hold a Ph. D. She has a degree in science and she has gone to the trouble to defend her views. That’s what science is about. It’s not about snobbishness or chauvinism. Eleni Papadopulos has every right to publish her theories, and to have her views blocked because she is a skeptic, or maybe just because she’s a woman, is completely unacceptable.
SJT, like so many other male chauvinists, did not even read what she had to say. He did not evaluate her on her science, or debate her science. He fell back on the biased media view and an inference from a court case that she is not qualified, hence a fraud. Since when did a judge, trained in law, have the background to rule on scientific matters? They have enough trouble ruling on law, considering all the petty criminals in my country who are released time after time. The other day, A Native, on a reserve, in a drunken stupor, left two children in a field in -51 C weather to freeze to death. He has 51 prior convictions and was not in jail. That’s what judges are good for in many cases, ignoring the victim and releasing the criminal.
SJT: “Velikovsky – No wonder I find you so easy to ignore. Nothing more needs to be said.”
Yes, agreed, it would be wise of the scientific illiterate to avoid saying anything about science they have no understanding or knowledge of.
As Gordon pointed out, Velikovsky made a prediction – and experiment proved him right, but we are still waiting for the experimental evidence that CO2 can raise the surface temperature of any planet to 800F.
And Gordon made one slight error, I am burderned with a couple of science degrees.
So your silence would be appriciated by perhaps all the readers here.
And it’s your choice whether to continue wandering around here wearing the class dunce cap, or not.
Louis “Any reason why SJT shifted the debate from the thread topic apart from a distraction”?
I’ve found from other blogs I’ve been on that the thread has an inertia of its own. I realize the topic is a cold snap in Europe but the underlying theme of the blog is AGW vs. reality, and the thread ultimately gets back to that. We have experienced an uncommonly cold and snowy December in Canada, and any blogs that start out with an article on the weather ultimately get around to an all out discussion of global warming.
I’m guilty of diverting the thread into the HIV/AIDS paradigm but I see such a strong connection between that and the AGW paradigm, that I can’t help but point out the similarities. I’m never trying to disrupt the thread by hijacking it into a discussion on HIV/AIDS. All I’m trying to do is slip in a quick comment regarding the comparisons. TheAGW crowd can’t help themselves when it comes down to skepticism of any sort, however, and jump on me. It’s not the ad homs and insults that bother me, it their inability to respond intelligently to an argument with facts. The best I got on the HIV/AIDS debate, was a link to a Googled site that spewed pro HIV/AIDS rhetoric. That’s akin to people linking to RC as an intelligent source on global warming.
As cohenite pointed out, HIV/AIDS has such a strong stigma surrounding it that introducing it in a global warming blog tends to discredit skeptical arguements in the latter. When you look at that more closely, however, the AGW-type mentality is going to discredit anything that is not status quo. They already regard us as a bunch of bananas, so how much more of a banana can you become by revealing more pseudo-science. Besides, who cares what a load of religious zealots think.
‘SJT has denounced a woman because she does not hold a Ph. D. She has a degree in science and she has gone to the trouble to defend her views. That’s what science is about. It’s not about snobbishness or chauvinism. Eleni Papadopulos has every right to publish her theories, and to have her views blocked because she is a skeptic, or maybe just because she’s a woman, is completely unacceptable.”
My problem is that interview refers to her as being “Dr”, when she isn’t, and it’s on here own website. People have had to research her background to make it clear, she is not a medical doctor, nor is she a Ph D. If she wants to fix that information on her own web site, that would be a good start.
Gordon,
Oh, right – I was not sure who caused the initial distraction but you are right – it’s used (AID/HIV scepticism) to tar climate sceptics with the same tar, so raising it here seems logical enough. Interesting dialog going on Climateaudit re the blog awards – I had no idea the AGW blogs that mean spirited and hypocritical (which means I don’t read them).
I do not it is chilly in your latitudes – same here at the antipodes – summer in Perth this year is decidely cooler than normal – not often one has to keep the quilt on the bed during night.
It’s hard to dismiss Velikovsky when scientists like Harry Hess took his view seriously, among others, but hey, when you are mediocre what could we expect.
SJT:
If it is transcript of an interview and the interviewer called her Dr, then that is a fact, and having an exact copy of the transcript of her interview is the correct procedure.
Obviously inconvenient facts are the ones you would like erase from the record?
Can’t believe it, you are defending someone who tried to free someone from jail for recklesley infecting people with aids and not informing them of his HIV status?
This is what the judge said of Papopoulos.
Maybe she could sue the judge for demation?
SJT “Ms Papadopulos-Eleopulos has no formal qualifications in medicine, biology, virology, immunology, epidemiology or any other medical disciplines”.
When you get in a court room, you are at the mercy of the judge, no matter what kind of fool he may be. If that’s what he said about Eleni, he is a fool, and they can extradite me to answer for my accusations. She has a degree and she is backed by people with degrees. She is backed by Stefan Lanka, a microbiologist with expertise in viruses.
“She has not read or she has chosen to ignore an enormous volume of recently published material on the diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS. She has been selective in the material upon which she relies”.
The judge is describing the HIV/AIDS protoganists. They have been totally selective in what they have read. The issue raised by Eleni is a small part of the argument. The main argument is carried by the likes of Peter Duesberg and Kary B. Mullis, and it is not about whether the virus exists or not, but about how dangerous it might or might not be. Duesberg has citations for his work in retrovirology coming out of his ying yang and Mullis got a Nobel for inventing the PCR test, used by HIV/AIDS advocates incorrectly for their latest pseudo-science find on HIV.
Besides Duesberg and Mullis, here’s a small example of other skeptics:
-Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein, who held a MacArthur Prize fellowship from 1981 to 1986, is associate professor of physiology at Michigan State University. Root-Bernstein, who made like Duesberg a thorough study of the AIDS literature, has published several controversial articles.
-Dr. Valendar Turner, professor of emergency medicine at University of Western Australia, who works with Eleni directly.
-Dr. Gordon Stewart is professor emeritus of public health at Glasgow University, and a former WHO adviser on AIDS
-Dr. Alfred Hässig, (1921-1999) was professor emeritus in immunology at the University of Bern, Director of the Swiss Red Cross Transfusion Service, and President of the Board of Trustees of the International Society of Blood Transfusion.
-Dr. Richard Strohman is professor emeritus in molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley
-Dr. David Rasnick, a pharmaceutical drug designer
-Dr. Etienne de Harven is emeritus professor of pathology, University of Toronto.
-Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, a New York physician and one of the first AIDS researchers
-The German virologist Dr. Stefan Lanka studied the virological data, and came also to the conclusion that HIV is a lab fantasy.
All of their comments are logged here:
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/whistleblowers.htm
Duesberg’s work is here:
http://www.duesberg.com/
Finally, here’s Mullis’s story on his search for a paper that would show how HIV causes AIDS:
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/kmforeword.htm
Gordon,
If you look at all fields of science, you will find the contrarians. No one knows why or how they exist, I guess it’s just a statistical inevitability.
Even I can tell you where Duesberg is wrong on one point. There is no vaccine for the HIV virus yet because it has two advantages over other viruses.
It can change it’s ‘shape’ more quickly than another virus that uses the same trick, the flu virus. (That’s why we have to have a new flue vaccine every year, and why it can’t work as well as other vaccines do).
It targets the actual immune system. Most other viruses don’t. By directly attacking the immune system, HIV has a deadly head start.
Why is it not contagious like other diseases? The HIV virus is very weak, it cannot survive long in the open air. It is transmitted in bodily fluids.
SciAmerican has a link about the problems with making an HIV vaccine. It’s not well written, but it is correct. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=where-is-the-aids-vaccine
“SciAmerican has a link about the problems with making an HIV vaccine. It’s not well written, but it is correct. ”
There you are, the man has spoken!
SJT: “If you look at all fields of science, you will find the contrarians. No one knows why or how they exist, I guess it’s just a statistical inevitability.”
Usually is the case when the data don’t fit the theory – but I like the derogatory term “contrarians” – why I am beginning to wonder whether the man even deigns to reply to us.
AGO has you tasked to rattle sceptical cages on this blog SJT?
SJT:
“Luke has put in many hours preparing posts with references to scientific evidence. The more work he put in to them, the more he was ignored. He knows a lot more about the subject than you realise, I think.”
I’d be more comfortable with Luke’s posts if he answered some of my direct questions, rather than ignore them or dance around them. And if he stopped cherry picking, and if he treated the discussion with intellectual honesty, rather than as a debating contest (where rhetorical tricks are employed on equal footing with logic).
Also, I’m not sure why you and Luke respond repeatedly to the comments of Louis and Gordon– which only encourages them, as if they needed encouragement. They are both “nutters” who love the attention, and you both feed them endless attention, as if you two have unlimited amounts of free time. Do you both work for the government? 🙂
A bit mystifying…
Once in a while I get holidays, and I’ve been stuck in bed for nearly a week now with a virus.
After the treatment Luke has had here, I’m guessing he thinks it’s mostly a waste of time putting in the effort for a real response. If you convince him you really do want an answer, he may put an effort in. To create a real response to a real question is not a trivial job.
I’m just curious how many people agree with Gordon and Louis. It appears there are a few more at least, and no-one here will call them on it if they do disagree. For a blog that’s supposedly about ‘science’, I would have thought there would be some more people defending science. Jennifer has gone AWOL, and yet there are people on her blog, once again, creating an embarressment for the IPA. I wonder if John Roska knows, as he tilts for Paliament and the prime seat of Kooyong, that the Science wing of his IPA is hosting anti-science opinions. Could be damaging if it ever got out.
“Could be damaging if it ever got out.”
His name is Roskam his preselection is by no means assured.
This is a public blog monitored by all the monitoring services, so never fear, all info IS out.
Will – we used to debate but this is now just sledging. There are no rhetorical tricks. If you can drop-kick Louis you do it any chance you get. He likes it if you pander to his nightmare fantasy about lefties so we just make it come true for him. So given the cold war is over and Western Mining Corp doesn’t exist anymore – he has something to fight for.
So the blog you see is like the loal pub – you just drop in to have a few pints an do some sledging with the denialist scum.
But occasionally it gets good – so this is just shadow boxing if you like before a real contest.
You could also see the blog as a “training ground” for AGW wars. Have you seen the Alien Vs Predator movies? This is THE model. A virtual battle ground?
I guess SJT and I will be the Aliens and the denialist scum can be the Predatosr.
What did they say about the Alien in the first movie of the series- 1979 –
” Lambert: You admire it. Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor. Unclouded by conscious, remorse, or delusions of morality. ”
That’s us !!!
Of course Ash ended up being an android. Perhaps Dear Will – maybe we’re actually Androids…. programmed by the IPCC?
Heaven knows – Louis see that we fail the Turing test?
So if you want to do some serious discussion I’ll have to spruce myself and get some better clothes on. And swap out of Terminator mode.
Will Nitschke
Gordon and I are nutters? I suppose that is a consensus view, which, if you have any idea of history is to not back anything that consensus backs, since the consensus has always been wrong in the long term.
Love the attention? – no, no one likes being verballed and ad hommed but it does serve a purpose – it shows the rest here just what Luke, SJT and the AGW crowd are really like – so baiting them has its purposes. Especially when they hide behing pseudonyms.
As for Luke and his Western Mining Corp obsession – I stopped working for them in 1977 – what’s that, over 30 years ago? So I have no idea why he carps on about it – and I am supposed to be the nutter?
I doubt either Luke or SJT will desist from commenting here – both are government employees (SJT works for the AGO as a computer programmer) and obviously with plenty of time – one suspects they might even be employed to verbal climate sceptics here as part of their job description.
And I see you have no issue with Luke labelling us as denialist scum, as you us nutters. Brushes you with the same tar, doesn’t it.
SJT “Even I can tell you where Duesberg is wrong on one point. There is no vaccine for the HIV virus yet because it has two advantages over other viruses.
It can change it’s ’shape’ more quickly than another virus that uses the same trick, the flu virus. (That’s why we have to have a new flue vaccine every year, and why it can’t work as well as other vaccines do).
It targets the actual immune system. Most other viruses don’t. By directly attacking the immune system, HIV has a deadly head start”.
From what I have read, you are wrong on both points. Regarding the first point, Duesberg is one of the world’s experts on retroviruses. As I have pointed out, he has won awards for his work in the field. If you read through the literature on the link I supplied to his site, he’ll explain why HIV cannot do the things you claim UNLESS is it a new strain of virus that no one has ever encountered. That’s possible, but as the IPCC are fond of saying, highly unlikely.
That’s the contention of the pro HIV/AIDS advocates, that HIV is a super-elusive virus that does not conform to the rules established for all other viruses. Way back in the 1980’s, Luc Montagnier, the scientist co-credited with finding HIV, changed his mind on its action. He claimed HIV could not cause AIDS acting alone. He developed a new theory that a ‘co-factor’ must be working with it because it did not seem possible for HIV alone to defeat the immune system. That partly vindicated Duesberg’s insistence that HIV did not have the ability to overcome the immune system, especially considering it was outnumber 800 to 1 by T-Cells even in a person with advanced AIDS.
The HIV/AIDS advocates then moved to produce another far-out theory for why an outnumbed virus could do such drastic destruction, a practice Duesberg termed, ‘moving the goalposts’. The theories they have come up with to explain the elusivity of this virus come close to science fiction. Why not consider the possibility that no such virus exists and look in another direction? Would it hurt if a parallel approach was taken? Would that not be a better explanation for why vaccines don’t work…there is no virus? I’m just asking.
With respect to your second point about HIV attacking the immune system, Duesberg claims HIV is the only virus claimed to do that. He said that a virus killing its host makes no sense since it needs the host to survive. This is what Duesberg says about it:
“Retroviruses are typically not cytocidal (my note – cytocidal = causing cell death…gr). On the contrary, they often promote cell growth. Therefore, they were long considered the most plausible viral carcinogens (9). Yet HIV, a retrovirus, is said to behave like a cytocidal virus, causing degenerative disease killing billions of T cells (15, 18). This is said even though T cells grown in culture, which produce much more virus than has ever been observed in AIDS patients, continue to divide (9, 10, 18)”.
It’s tough to point the finger at an entire group of scientists and claim they are collectively stupid. However, consider one of their better observation. They treat people with chain terminators like AZT and observe a reduction in HIV cells. Doh!! Chain terminators kill ‘all’ cells. AZT was designed as a drug for chemotherapy in cancer and is highly toxic. Its modus operandi is to kill the patient while killing the cancer cells faster.
Would you not expect a reduction in HIV, if it was there? They are killing the entire body’s cell mass and cherry-picking the reduction in HIV cells. Duesberg has called treatment by AZT ‘AIDS by prescription’. He claims AZT is causing AIDS, not HIV. Another scientist, who helped design the more advanced cocktails called protease inhibitors, claimed he would not put them in his body.
One day, they’ll probably find that the torture we know as chemotherapy was bizarre and unnecessary. We are not far, in many cases, from attaching leeches to people to bleed them. That used to be a cure for many things…bleed them. Today, we bombard the body into submission with chemotherapy and radiation. The notion of trying to eradicate HIV with toxic chemicals surely comes from practices in the field of cancer therapy.
In many cases, if not most, chemotherapy in cancer treatment simply does not work. The patient eventually dies. The question arises as to why cancer patients are tortured, knowing they will die anyway. One of the more blatant cases involved Linus Pauling. In his work with the Scottish surgeon, Ewan Cameron, they started treating cancer patients with 10 grams Vitamin C, after surgery. They found a few had spontaneous regressions of the cancer but they could not put Vitamin C forward at that stage as a cure. They did find that patients treated with large doses of Vitamin C were pain free in the days before they died.
Years later, a researcher by the name of Moertell, claimed he replicated the Cameron/Pauling experiment and found no benefit. When Pauling enquired as to his methodology, Moertell told him he gave 250 milligrams (2.5% of the Pauling dosage) to terminally ill patients who were still on chemotherapy. When Moertell was asked by an astounded Pauling, why he would keep terminally ill patients on chemotherapy, Moertell replied that he wanted to give the impression that something was still being done.
Good grief, you have someone dying of terminal cancer and you’re still poisoning them? That, to me, is exactly what is going on with people diagnosed with HIV. If a person has full blown AIDS, it means he has picked up an opportunistic infection that has attacked him while his immune system is depleted. There is little hope for that person. A person diagnosed with HIV usually has no such infection, but it is theorized he will develop one within 10 to 15 years. So, he is treated with cell killers in an attempt to eradicate the HIV. it might be noted that most of the opportunistic infections listed under the AIDS umbrella are not caused by a virus. In fact, many of them like tuberculosis has a standard treatment, but if you have HIV, they ignore that treatment and poison you.
Here’s a what if. What if HIV is not the problem? Guess what? Thousands of people have been killed by chain terminators like AZT. The Centre for Disease Control in the States has slowly cottoned on to that possibility and they are now suggesting treatment be held off on people newly diagnosed with HIV. No kidding!! There are many people with an HIV diagnosis who are alive and well 20 years later because they received no treatment. Here’s a better one. There are people with AIDS who have no sign of HIV in their bodies.
Louis “Gordon and I are nutters”?
Louis…since I admire your intelligence and imagination, I am happy to be included with you as a fellow nutter.
SJT “the Science wing of his IPA is hosting anti-science opinions”.
You keep harping about anti-science, and I keep providing you with references for emminent scientist with distinguished records. Yet you dismiss them as contrarians without being able to discuss their opinions intelligently. From your rebuttals on HIV/AIDS, I can tell you know nothing about the paradigm.
At the same time, you support a paradigm that has had absolutley no success in 25 years. They haven’t even come close to a cure for AIDS. One could say the same about cancer but some inroads are being made there. They tried blaming cancer on a virus, and the same guy, Gallo, who came up with the HIV/AIDS theory and the viral cause for cancer, had to quickly retract the latter theory, with his tail between his legs. Why they have allowed him 25 years of no results, with essentially the same theory, would be a better description of anti-science.
Your response to the HIV/AIDS boondoggle typifies your position on global warming, and that’s the whole point. You guys just don’t have the facts to support your theory, so you resort to ad homs, quick answers and any means at hand to divert attention away from your lack of understanding. Over at realclimate, they talk down to the bloggers as if they are schoolchildren, which seems quite apt.
Will Nitschke “Also, I’m not sure why you and Luke respond repeatedly to the comments of Louis and Gordon– which only encourages them, as if they needed encouragement. They are both “nutters” who love the attention, and you both feed them endless attention, as if you two have unlimited amounts of free time. Do you both work for the government”?
This coming from someone who claims to have a background in psychology. Hopefully you don’t work in psychotherapy. I can see you telling a client, “your problem is that you’re a nutter”.
You claim to have no background in science yet you feel free to make comments about people who do have such a background. Does that not strike you as odd? You have a background in psychology and SJT is a computer programmer, yet the two of you lead the pack with criticism of people with scientific backgrounds.
I criticize people outside my field but I’m careful to cite sources who are in the field, or who have a valid argument. You criticism is based on a purely gut reaction. You provide no evidence to prove I am a nutter. It just seems to bother you deeply that I am critical and skeptical of certain facets of the status quo. Do I detect a neurotic tendency here? Have you had your 10,000 mile libido check?
What’s the equivalent saying in psychology for ‘physician, heal thyself’? Or are you only presenting yourself as a psychologist? You did not even have a come back when I talked about your field. Now, I’m suspicious.
Maybe I am a nutter, involved in a dialog with a professional troll.
Gordon : “Louis…since I admire your intelligence and imagination, I am happy to be included with you as a fellow nutter.”
As Jimmy Durante might have said, ” Nutts to ’em”.
Thank you! 🙂
Gordon,
one reason the rabble are reticent in their rhetoricisms might be because their Luke (Ken) Walker (Day) has be caught “publicus”.
Some problems in science are hard. HIV just happens to be hard. You can’t blame the scientists for that, I have already linked to the reasons why it is hard. You can read them, or ignore them. That’s up to you.
My response to HIV/AIDS is exactly the same as my response to AGW? Thank you. I’d like to think my position on matters scientific is consistent.
Ha ha louis I jsut got your Avatar!
“Lois the fly, Louis the fly, straight from rubbish tip to you!” hmmm is that the junk science tip?
I think maybe Luke should adopt a can of Mortein as his Avatar!
lol.
“You claim to have no background in science yet you feel free to make comments about people who do have such a background. Does that not strike you as odd? You have a background in psychology and SJT is a computer programmer, yet the two of you lead the pack with criticism of people with scientific backgrounds.”
I had some training in physics as well. It was enough to be able to detect delusional thinking, such as Miskolczi, and to realise that the high percentage of people who will so willingly accept delusional thinking on the ‘sceptics’ side are wrong, and are not sceptics at all but deniers.
“I criticize people outside my field but I’m careful to cite sources who are in the field, or who have a valid argument. You criticism is based on a purely gut reaction. You provide no evidence to prove I am a nutter. It just seems to bother you deeply that I am critical and skeptical of certain facets of the status quo. Do I detect a neurotic tendency here? Have you had your 10,000 mile libido check?”
My evidence that you are wrong is that you stand in the face of accepted science when the evidence is so compelling, and the authorities you cite are not authorities at all. The “Perth Group” is just a motley collection of people who have nothing like the experience of the teams around the world who are doing the actual research. (The “Perth Group” doesn’t actually undertake any of the work that real medical researchers undertake).
I can spend a few weeks chasing up google if you really want, to list all the research groups, etc, but it would be a waste of time, since you and I already know it will list major research gruops from public and private labs, publishing numerous papers. Against them will be a ‘list of signatories’, that will be eerily similar to Inhofe’s list, or the list of scientists who believe in creationism, etc. Why are there scientists who believe wacky things? I don’t know. That Linus Pauling example you gave was a good one. A man of undbouted talent and genius, who just happened to go a little barmy in his later years. Apparently due to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome after he suffered a sever illness. These things happen. That’s why science doens’t depend on the word of an individual, why there his a scientific process, that, while flawed, does offer a level of objectivism we can’t achieve with individuals.
MattB
Obviously you do not frequent ClimateAudit otherwise you would know why I changed my avatar. It’s all there in black and white.
Gadfly.
SJT
Have you ever tried to address your posts to the person concerned? Your last one is best described as a soliloquy.
SJT “Some problems in science are hard. HIV just happens to be hard. You can’t blame the scientists for that…”
There’s no argument there. My beef is with the advocates who resist any attempt by a skeptic to be heard. Duesberg’s record in retroviral research alone should be enough to get him taken seriously. Instead, his career has been ruined.
HIV may be ridiculously hard to decipher, or it may be as ridiculously simple as acknowledging the current paradigm about it has borne no fruit. Coupled with the difficulty in isolating HIV and even seeing it, perhaps we need to begin considering the notion that it ‘might’ not be there. Maybe it’s time we went back to considering the first notions about the cause of AIDS, that it’s a lifestyle issue. We’ve ignored that possibilty for 25 years.
I find it a bit tough to accept outright what Duesnberg claims, that AIDS is a product of drug abuse. Even Mullis doesn’t agree, thinking it may be due to a bacterial overload. One thing we know is that AIDS in North America and Europe involves 90% males, and according to Duesberg, those figures come from the US Centre for Disease Control. The WHO (World Health Organiztion) are claiming an epidemic in Africa, with an equal number of males and females involved. However, the WHO are using…guess what??…a computer model to predict that epidemc.
Duesberg went looking for the epidemic using the actual number of deaths in Africa. The death rate for AIDS related deaths in Africa, from a population of over 600 million, was less that one half of one percent, hardly an epidemic. A reporter from Rolling Stone Magazine, taking exception to Duesberg’s insistence that HIV could not cause AIDS, went home to his native South Africa to check the situation out. He came up with the original idea of checking the graveyards in South Africa. He found out they were laying gravediggers off due to a slow down in the death rate, and no one in the business had noticed an unusual increase in mortality.
Africa has always had problems with clean drinking water and malnutrition. A common illness in Africa has been Slim’s Disease, or wasting syndrome, generally attributed to both of those problems. Till recently, there was no talk of AIDS in Africa till this international hysteria began. Suddenly, Africans had sexually transmitted HIV infections and were dying in epidemic proportions from AIDS. Most of the HIV diagnoses, however, were done without the two tests required in North America for such a diagnosis. In other words, the diagnoses were made on appearance and intuition.
Before the focus turned to Africa, over 95% of AIDS deaths in North America involved two high risk communities: the male homosexual community and the IV drug user community. If you go to the page for the US Centre for Disease Control you will see that is still true today. They have fiddled the categories to include a group of people who hang out with IV drug users, thus breaking the clear 60% – 35% ratio of homosexual to IV drug AIDS deaths into a separate ratio including the groupies.
The question I am asking is this: if we know most AIDS deaths in North America involve male homosexuals and IV drug users, why are we messing around in the general population looking for a viral cause, that is supposedly sexually transmitted, when we already know certain high risk behavior in the homosexual and IV drug communities cause immune-related problems? The predicted spread to the heterosexual community has never materialized. Why are we creating a red-herring by changing the focus to Africa? Is it because the paradigm didn’t work in North America and Europe, and Africa is an easy target?
We already know amyl nitrate, a muscle relaxing inhalant popular with male homosexuals causes lung cancer, which is an AIDS opportunistic infection. We know Kaposi’s sarcoma is due to lifestyle and have considered removing it from the list of AIDS infections. We know some male homosexuals and all IV drug users abuse drugs to the the extent that immune function is impaired. We know IV drug users get themselves into states of malnutrition and some people in the high risk groups suffer from chronic sleep deprivation due to their on-going party lifestyle. We know there are sanitation issues in both lifestyles. I’m not implying all male homosexuals live that way, then again, only 16% of them get AIDS. IV drug users are a different story, getting themselves into such stupors they don’t know where they are most of the time. One female IV user admitted to going as long as a month without food.
In this politically correct world of today, it’s a no-no to criticize the homosexual lifestyle. When John Lauritsen, a homosexual, tried to spread the news in a homosexual community that amyl nitrate was dangerous, he was told to mind his own business. High risk lifestyles become so ingrained that some people would rather die than give them up. Have you ever tried to talk someone into stopping smoking?
We need to take a closer look at this blind pursuit of an elusive virus and re-examine the problem.
SJT “My evidence that you are wrong is that you stand in the face of accepted science when the evidence is so compelling, and the authorities you cite are not authorities at all. The “Perth Group” is just a motley collection of people who have nothing like the experience of the teams around the world who are doing the actual research. (The “Perth Group” doesn’t actually undertake any of the work that real medical researchers undertake)”.
I disagree with you on the Perth Group. This interview with Eleni Papadopulos is one of the best recitals I have read regarding the history of HIV/AIDS.
http://www.theperthgroup.com/INTERVIEWS/cjepe.html
The lady obviously knows her stuff whereas the judge in the case to which you refered was basing his assessment on people paid to discredit her. Even Duesberg, an expert on retroviruses, and who is supposedly on her side as a skeptic could not put up a realistic argument against her. He was willing to settle for partial science as proof of the existence of HIV.
I know she has a degree, not a Ph.D, but a degree in related science. I don’t give a hoot whether she has a degree ot not. If she can put forward a compelling argument based on science, that should be enough. Besides, Stefan Lanka has a degree in microbiology and is an expert on viruses. He backs her argument and takes it even further. Based on the qualifications I cited from the rest of the Perth Group, all of whom have degrees, I think it’s emminently unfair of you to ad hom them as ‘a motley collection’.
It’s that sort of disrespect that bothers me with both AGW and HIV/AIDS types. I would dearly love to say what I think of the crowd at realclimate, using my construction site vernacular, but I hold it down to ‘activist’ or ‘pseudo-scientist’. Even at that, I try not to single out someone like Gavin Schmidt for abuse. I don’t like the guy but I respect his abilities as a mathematician. I just don’t agree with a mathematician presenting himself as a representative of the ‘new science’, while relegating someone like Lindzen, who knows infinitely more about the atmosphere, to the level of ‘old science’.
The people at the Perth Group extended an invitation to you to examine their work and tell them what is wrong with it. So far, all you’ve done is ad hom them. You could use that argument about me, that I wont go to realclimate and argue with them based on fact. I wont do that because they disbar people if what they say does not agree with their POV. They wont even let Steve McIntyre have his say and he has never insulted them.
You claim that I stand in the face of accepted science. Who said it is accepted science, the media, the IPCC, realclimate? What about Lindzen and his work at MIT? What about Spencer and Christy and their traditional observations based on the scientific method? What about Michaels and his colleagues at the University of Virginia who study climate based on hindsight rather than on prediction? How about the several hundred, or maybe several thousand scientists who disagree with this so-called new science?
I have only heard the term ‘new science’ used twice. Once was by you, the other time by Gavin Schmidt.
Gordon, “I have only heard the term ‘new science’ used twice. Once was by you, the other time by Gavin Schmidt.”
Not totally accurate – one of the AGW commentators here, Ender, accused me of doing Nu-Science here, though I hardly think he would have meant Schmidt’s interpretation of the term.
A really good website is Henry Bauer’s on the AID/ HIV issue – http://hivskeptic.wordpress.com/
It has some very topical posts.