Culture

It’s Time To Lynch Those Who Deny Climate Skepticism

Torcello: Smug? Smarmy? Me?

Let us agree with the enlightened that the world is imperfect and ought not to be. The cause of imperfection is human error which ought to be eradicated with extreme prejudice. One form of error is deliberate misinformation and the most harmful misinformation comes from those who ought to know better and who are trusted. Professors of philosophy ought to know truth from falsity and are trusted.

Therefore those professors of philosophy who spread misinformation ought to be gutted and strung up by their intestines until dead, both as punishment and as discouragement to others.

Now there is very little in that argument different from the one put forward by academic philosopher Lawrence Torcello in his essay “Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent?

The very self-satisfied Torcello says scientists have a moral and “ethical obligation to communicate their findings as clearly as possible to the public.” He claims it is a known truth, one with no uncertainty, that “climate change”, i.e. global warming, kills people and causes multiferous harms. Those that deny these truths publicly deliberately spread misinformation.

Worse, these “deniers” do so for the unethical and immoral gain of thirty pieces of silver. Thus “funding of climate denial” is “criminally and morally negligent.” Poor Torcello concludes the “charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding”. “Deniers” are “criminally negligent in their willful disregard for human life.”

From this, we know Torcello would round up his enemies and exile them. He does not mention how long “deniers” should linger in jail nor whether they should be executed.

There is a technical, philosophical term for the kind of argument Torcello used (and I parodied). But it is harsh and vulgar. I restrain myself from using it to make a larger point. That his pathetic screed can only be the product of blind zealousness coupled with bloodlust and an ignorance of his subject so massive that children as young as three would gasp in horror were they to hear of it.

I have searched Torcello’s public record and nowhere can I discover the man has any familiarity with the physics of fluid flow, nor the chemistry or clouds, nor the field of radiative transfer, nor the science and practicality of computer modeling, nor the statistical and mathematical methods of forecast verification and inverse problems.

Whereas I have formal training in all these subjects; indeed, even certification of them—a PhD from Cornell in Mathematical Statistics (forecast verification), a Masters of Atmospheric Physics (climate model uses and skill), and even a Bachelors in Meteorology (I served a year as a forecaster in the NWS). Add to this a stint as member of the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee, a several-year term as Assistant Editor of Monthly Weather Review, several “peer-reviewed” articles in the Journal of Climate (these are the leading journals), and many other similar things. (See my Who is WMB page.)

Plus, I have spent years investigating not only the skillfulness of climate models (none, outside a few months ahead) but also the myriad papers which purport to show the evils which await us when global warming finally strikes. These papers, if the authors were to go back and assiduously rework them, might reach the standard of horrible. As it is, they are garbage. Bandwagon, confirmation-bias confirming, intellectually bereft, gimme-a-grant garbage. (See my Classic Posts page.)

Now I have come to the conclusion (it took me many years) that the terror of global warming is akin to many other “fear bubbles” or overblown alarums in history. It is no different in character than the “Satanic Panic” of the late 1990s, where legions of women “remembered”, via the kind assistance of “trained” therapists (folks who also relied on “peer-reviewed” literature), to have been abused by their fathers and to have eaten their babies in dark rituals. The only reason global warming lasted longer than that entertainment is that Global Warming Panic is truly global, involving Peu de Poulets as far away as France (incidentally, birthplace of our modern world).

The grand total of monies and any other form of consideration I have received or been offered for my services to call the ideas of people like Torcello idiotic is, to this date, precisely $0.00 (in 2014 dollars). And, in sad fact, my skepticism has actually cost me money in the form of lost jobs and missed opportunities. Taking a position against the majority is rarely a career-enhancing move. And now would-be Consensus Enforcers are calling for my arrest and imprisonment? And how much money have global warming proponents received?

The earnest enlightened must needs have enemies. Taking the place of Satanic cults and Goldstein in the great Global Warming Conspiracy are the Koch brothers and oil companies. The weak-minded (like Torcello) do not have the mental facilities to imagine there could be honest disagreement. So they invent nefarious forces to explain the derision their obviously brilliant ideas receive—then come the calls for torches and pitchforks. It’s only a wonder they haven’t (yet?) hit upon Jews as their “true” enemy.

Update Delingpoile on the same subject.

Categories: Culture, Philosophy, Statistics

59 replies »

  1. Actually, the science is only settled when it’s convenient for it to be. Skeptical Science says “No science is ever “settled”; science deals in probabilities, not certainties. When the probability of something approaches 100%, then we can regard the science, colloquially, as “settled”.” Then they use the vote of the IPCC to “prove” the science is 95% (who votes for certainty? Maybe skeptics should take a vote. Except that’s just dishonest…..). I find commenters on blogs saying it has consensus, but is not settled. Or that a tiny piece is settled so that implies that all of it is settled. (As in we know there’s a “greenhouse” effect so the theory must be right. I use quotes because even statement of the theory varies widely.)

    Of course, the people saying we should jail climate change skeptics are the same or akin to the people who opposed gun control and then said we should shoot NRA members (actually, the speaker hoped someone else would do it for her). There is no rational thought in much of this.

    My criteria is when you start calling for jailing opponents and using ad hominem attacks on those who disagree, it’s safe to say there’s not a drop of science involved, except by accident.

  2. Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo and others endured the wrath of the politically correct environment 400 plus years ago. Today, the topic has merely moved from heliocentricity to climate. The political environment has changed little in its dark nature over the intervening centuries and today still treats as viciously as it ever did at any time in history any valid science that is not useful to maintain the power status quo.

  3. Matt,

    I have almost nill training in the areas you identified as relevant to the science/”science” of Global Warming/Climate Change, so take the following thoughts with a grain of salt.

    1. To make this a legit area of study (at least as far as taxpayer’s money is concerned) one would need to demonstrate either some change in the object of interest (Climate). Furthermore this change should somehow be linked to human activity as opposed to natural variation.

    2. There is great potential for Climate Change to wreak havoc in our way of life or doing business i.e. food production, agriculture, water supply etc.

    3. If (1) and (2) are demonstrated (which to me are only possible in a Bayesian probability sense) then one can and should go figure out ways to mitigate or adapt. Given the scale of the problem and the fact that the experimenter does live inside the experimental arena, the use of computer simulation modeling does appear unavoidable to me.

    Without going to (2) and (3), which are actually much more complex issues that one thinks, do you agree that that there is some evidence that the rate of surface temperature changes is much more pronounced in the years since the Industrial Revolution, compared to records before that period? The lay-person’s understanding is that this issue has been settled, so I would appreciate your thoughts if you think it is still open.
    Now if the evidence for “Human Made Climate Change” (defined as rapid increase in surface temperatures that is not explained by natural variation) is not there, we may still have to revisit issues (2) and (3) for policy reasons.
    For example if there is evidence that there have been periods in the past during which surface temperatures DID rose (or fell) to a degree similar to the one we are observing now and that these temperature variations preceded biomass extinction episodes then rather than praying to Zeus/Christ/Allah/Buddha we may want to think about engineering responses. For starters, these may involve the massive expansion of power generation using all means available, GMO food production and other nastiness (at least per the rapid left and their Conservative Conservationists) to shield the human biomass from extinction.

  4. This sort of irrational thinking is a sign of the realization by the warmists that they are wrong. When everything one believes turns out to be based on erroneous assumptions, one tends to fight the growing realization that one has been an idiot.

    This screed is a prime example of a persons last gasp resistance to reality crashing in on him.

    Fortunately, no one in a position of power will pay any attention to this ivy tower ostrich.

    In the climate blogs of today, we are now debating whether TCR (transient climate response) is 1.8C – 2.0C (warmists cling to this range) versus 1.2C – 1.35C (a bunch of recent papers show this range based on observations).

    This is much closer than the two sides were a few years ago, and this progress (as I define it) is very troubling to the true believer warmist.

    Given another 20 or 30 years – we will see which side was correct.

    My money is on Nic Lewis and the other rational people who are using science based on observations and not models built on assumptions derived from short term trends, and which have not been validated.

  5. Christos: Your suggestion that massive expansion of power generation, GMO food and so forth might well be the way to go, but the true believers in global warming will not be pleased. The only solutions that will work involve no more fossil fuel usage, no nuclear (though James Hansen is pushing for nuclear power–one rational idea on his part), and everything is fixed by a tax. Virtually every solution to global warming involves a tax of some kind. Which is a clue that this is not about science at all.

    Most global warming believers will argue that there is no way to adapt to the catastrophic warming we are about to heap upon ourselves. They just don’t see that as possible. We have to stop with the fossil fuels–plan and simple. It makes sense to them since CO2 is what we get from burning fossil fuels and they are sure CO2 levels will cook the planet, even when in the past that was not always true.

    (There are times when the climate did change rapidly in the past, but those are generally attributed to natural causes. Current increase is not attributed to nature, though the justification for that is tenuous. The more you look at the math and science, the more frightening the whole thing becomes. I don’t have the pedigree that Briggs has for climate science, but so much of what is done is such blatently bad math and science that anyone who studied either subject startst to realize just how bad the whole theory is. At this point, it is doubtful true believers can ever be convinced. The best you can hope for is for believers to sit around waiting for the oceans to rise, temperatures to force migration to the north and south poles and to be ready to scream “We told you so.” They will not be persuaded of an error on their part and will die believing the warming will come.)

  6. “ethical obligation to communicate their findings as clearly as possible to the public.”

    So why isn’t decrying the fact that the alarmists refuse to release code and data with their “friend reviewed” papers? Even someone as mis-learned as this foolish professor should understand what it means when people shy from transparency.

  7. Like most movements in history that initially were thought to be based on science there is at first a group of people that are drawn to it for what appear to be the right reasons. However, once it becomes clear that the science is just “not there”, the good ones tend to drift away. And those that hang around or join late are the real dregs. I don’t know if Torcello is a Johnny-come-lately or a hanger-on, but it’s clear that he is clueless.

    It’s typically these people, in the dying days of a movement, that do the most destruction – not only to society, but themselves as well. They aren’t too bright to begin with, but they tend to end up being the “brightest” guys (left) in the room.

  8. RIT faculty member Lawrence Torcello is just mimicking what Naomi Oreskes (formerly UCSD and now Harvard) has been advocating for many years.

    I see her as a main early proponent of advocacy of coercion by the collectivized thinkers on public expressions by independent critical thinkers.

    Her longstanding views are mimicked also by Lewandowsky’s and Mann’s advocacy of stopping publically expressed thoughts via coercion.

    John

  9. John: I note that of the four mentioned individuals, Mann is the only actual climate scientist. Torcello is in philosophy, Oreskes is History of Science and Lewandowsky’s in psychology. Now, if you try listing anyone who is not in “climate science” and who is a skeptic, such listing are immediately dismissed as “unqualified” by the global warming community. Yet much, if not most, of the global warming “heroes” are not actually climate scientists–they are not actually scientists at all unless you group psychology and philosophy into science. Even then, the math and rigor found in physics is not found in psychology or philosophy. When I was in college, there was math for math/science majors and math for psych majors. They were no where nearly the same. I am not saying that someone with a degree in psych cannot understand the math of global warming (though I would need to see proof thereof), but the global warming people all demand degrees in climate science and publication in peer reviewed journals (of their choosing) before accepting things as “science”. The standards are so hypocritical.

  10. When someone cannot even predict the weather in two weeks with any consistency, why should I believe those same people can predict climate 50-100 years from now? Probably repeating something from Briggs’ past blogs, but around 1900 in New York people were concerned about what to do with all the horse manure and did’t have any idea what the landscape would look like just a mere 75 years later. We have some greater foresight now? Our intelligentsia are woefully short on common sense anymore and as Briggs keeps stating – they attempt to impose changes in our lives with way too much certainty.

  11. Sheri on 16 March 2014 at 12:48 pm said:

    – – – – –

    Sheri,

    The playing field of the intellectual engagement between CAGW proponents and independently critical thinkers may appear to have a hypocritically imposed ‘standards’ bias toward CAGW. But I think that, because of the unreasonable and frantic overreaction by CAGW proponents to balanced public criticism, the playing field in effect is actually pretty even . . . . . n’est ce pas?

    John

  12. Mike Mangan: One supposes then that Mann would say war protesters of the sixties were precisely the same thing, as they opposed the Pentagon’s ideas. Also, Michael Mann’s thought processes seem more characteristic of a scientist who values “appeal to authority” because he thinks he is the authority. Educated is a relative term in this case.

    John: At this point, is may be that the playing field is becoming pretty even. Good point.

  13. You have to understand the AGW zealots are true believers and the empirical evidence doesn’t matter. Prof. Chris Folland at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research said “The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.” He is saying, have faith and believe in AGW and ignore the data that shows no warming.

  14. Sheri,
    no one needs advanced environmental or climatology degrees to answer my Q1. It only takes access to the time series of temperatures at different sites and a construction of a (relatively simple) geospatial time varying model. This is the kind of model that one would built in my field to answer the question about the existence (or not) of a global epidemic.

    So has anyone ever done the exercice?

  15. Good review of the title (after rephrasing it from a question to an assertion no less!). But the piece actually only addresses the question of whether “an organised campaign funding misinformation ought to be considered criminally negligent”, spends as much time on the Italian earthquake fiasco as on AGW, and ends with “We must make the critical distinction between the protected voicing of one’s unpopular beliefs, and the funding of a strategically organised campaign to undermine the public’s ability to develop and voice informed opinions”.

    Presumably any criminal prosecution (as opposed to civil suit) should be under the assumption of innocent until proven guilty and so any conviction would require evidence “beyond reasonable doubt” of collusion for reward to suppress information known (by the participants) to be probably true (as I believe DID happen, for example, in service of the tobacco industry).

    If you either don’t believe in AGW, or didn’t get any money for denying it when you knew it to be true, or didn’t pay anyone else for denying it when you knew it to be true, then it appears that Mr Torcello has no problem with you.

    So why do you have a problem with him?

  16. Christos: If I understand what you are asking, the answer is no. The way I have been told global averages are determined involves a 5 by 5 grid, homogenization of the data therein and the run it through a model and see what you get. If you lack actual temperature measurements, use proxies. I have not seen anything that resembles what you are describing. (I have asked.)

    Why do we have a problem with Mr. Tocello? Because one of the firm beliefs of many in the global warming camp is that everyone who argues against the so-called science is being paid off somehow and is financially motivated. He means bloggers, anyone who is conservative and says they don’t believe, all republican congressmen who voice doubt. His list is actually endless. Generally, warmists do not require proof of payment received. The fact that you doubt is all the proof required. You were obviously paid off.

  17. Thank you for making that sustained comparison between the “Climate Change” and “Recovered Memory” Moral Panics. It is something I have been mulling over since E. Loftus unfortunately allied herself with M. Mann (as you noted with sadness).
    Your essay was better than anything I could come up with. Well done!

    — Bad News

  18. I don’t think philosophers are concerned with telling the truth.. they merely ask questions like “What is Truth ?” and then write long academic papers about their own ideas on defining Truth being better than any other philosophers’ ideas. Truth itself gets lost somewhere on the way to the publisher. They have to make a living!

  19. Neil King from the Skeptical Science team has been unable to fault the physics in my derivation and proof of the existence of the gravito-thermal effect. I presume no one else from the SkS team can do so, even though about 1 in 6 of them have qualifications in physics, including John Cook.

    So I think that just about wraps it up as cogent proof, because no one from Judith Curry, Jo Nova, The Air Vent, WUWT, DrRoySpencer, Australian Climate Madness, Clive Best, Bishop Hill, Stoat-Connelly, Open Mind, The Lukewarmer’s Way or any other climate blog has been able to prove wrong the answer to the trillion dollar question, namely that the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect is a reality..

    Hence the greenhouse conjecture is debunked once and for all.

    Are there any last minute challenges?

  20. Christos: CO2 didn’t substantially begin to rise until about mid century of the last century, so the temperature rise from the earliest thermometers to mid 20th century is considered to have been natural. You mistakenly begin your treatise from the beginning of the industrial revolution. What year did that start?

  21. “Plus, I have spent years investigating not only the skillfulness of climate models (none, outside a few months ahead)…”

    Really? Which models are these? I regularly check the NOAA-GFS weather forecasts and find it most instructive to check the forecast eight days ahead with that one day ahead. They are generally dramatically different. If there’s a model that works out to a couple of months I think someone should tell them!

  22. I think the debate over whether or not climate change is real — with both sides trying to unconditionally prove the truth of their beliefs — is completely misguided. The skeptics have every right and reason to doubt the claims of the “warmists” and vice versa. This kind of pitched rhetorical battle misses the point.

    The “point” is not that much different than the alarmist claims made for Y2K not so very long ago. The “point” is that concerns over whether or not the new millenium would freeze computers all over the world bringing global commerce to a halt and plunging us back into some primordial, post-Devonian catastrophe (here substitute: concerns over whether or not global warming has advanced to the point that life on earth itself is threatened) did not stop the nearly global marshalling of resources to blunt its viral spread. And that marshalling of resources amounted to a kind of insurance, a superstitious bet against the uncertainties that the Y2K fear-mongers were threatening us with.

    The “point” is that Y2K was monetizable and, virtually singlehandedly, created the massive offshore industry of analysts, call center operators, mechanical turks, crowdsourcing minions that exists today.

    The “point” is that no one has figured out a way to monetize climate change and insure that humanity has every chance at backing away from the precipice…by creating the analogue to that mad, global scramble to update every 2 digit computer date that was Y2K. Until global warming is monetized, all the rational persuasion in the world won’t change anyone’s opinion one iota.

    You don’t have to agree about the reality and existence of climate change to recognize that — after Y2K — the only rational course is to assume at least the partial validity of the claims of both sides to the argument since the only real “proof” lies in the catastrophic end of the world as we know it.

    The “point” is that psychologically, it’s one thousand times better to continue to pump the bilges of the Titanic, even though you know that the ship is sinking. Anything less than that is tantamount to sticking one’s head in the sand and denying a plausible, possible scenario and reality.

  23. Doug: You just argued that the science is settled and you settled it. Actually, “they” may not be able to debunk your theory because they can’t understand what you are arguing (yes, I read your writings–or try to). Anyway, the lack of debunking may not just be due to one being right. It may be due to an incomprehensible theory or one that does not do what the author says it does. After all, Michael Mann says no one has ever proved him wrong. The entire climate debate is covered with “no one ever proved me wrong” banners.

    XTC: I hope you are being sarcastic with continuing to pump the bilges of the Titanic even as it sinks. I generally refer to that as “head in the sand” behaviour, trying to deny physical reality. Climate change is monetized in carbon taxes. The exchanges keep collapsing, but while they’re out there, they make millions for some people. And climate change requires taxes, new appliances, new light bulbs, billions in aid to third world countries that will have climate refugees. I think it’s more monetized than Y2K and it won’t vanish at the stroke of midnight. Of course, if the world doesn’t get boiling oceans, the global warming crowd will argue they were right and the tiny bit of prevention we spent billions and billions on were what saved us. Personally, I think if a few lightbulbs and carbon exchanges can “save” us, this is an overblown as Y2K.

  24. Below is my latest comment (still awaiting moderation) on Lucia’s Blackboard in the thread about my “heat creep” hypothesis. This information will be included in my official complaints to Australian Authorities and the Government Ombudsman here.

    So it’s time for you to resign from the Skeptical Science team, Neil King,

    You have failed to show any fault in my four molecule proof by mathematical induction of the existence of the gravitationally induced thermal gradient.

    You quite incorrectly misled readers into thinking there were somehow balancing molecular movements, implying that for every downward movement that caused warming, there would be another downward movement that would cause cooling, and vice versa for upward movements. That would be like saying that for every stone you drop which accelerates, there would be another you could drop which would slow down.

    Hence, in failing to disprove the existence of the gravito-thermal effect, you also failed to prove the existence of isothermal conditions in the absence of so-called greenhouse gases.

    Hence you failed to prove that there is any 33 degrees of warming from an isothermal state supposedly due to greenhouse gases.

    Hence you failed to debunk my hypothesis which itself debunks the radiative greenhouse effect conjecture, and which can explain all measured and estimated temperature data in the atmospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores of all planets and satellite moons in our Solar System.

    In contrast, the greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture (supported and actively promulgated by SkS) fails to enable any explanation of temperatures on other planets and also on Earth.

    Consequently the right and honest thing for you to do is admit your mistake, explaining to John Cook and all SkS team members that you now believe, based on sound physics, that planetary surface temperatures are not controlled primarily by incident radiation, but by the supporting temperature at the base of their tropospheres, which temperature is pre-determined by the solar intensity and the autonomous thermal gradient in the troposphere that evolves because of the force of gravity acting on molecules in free flight.

    This comment will be posted on at least ten climate blogs where most of this critically important discussion of the “trillion dollar question” has been duplicated. I may also use it as part of my formal complaints to Australian authorities and the Government Ombudsman here.

  25. There are physicists who understand my theory. I make no excuse for those without much understanding of physics.

    Below is my latest comment (still awaiting moderation) on Lucia’s Blackboard in the thread about my “heat creep” hypothesis. This information will be included in my official complaints to Australian Authorities and the Government Ombudsman here.

    So it’s time for you to resign from the Skeptical Science team, Neil King,

    You have failed to show any fault in my four molecule proof by mathematical induction of the existence of the gravitationally induced thermal gradient.

    You quite incorrectly misled readers into thinking there were somehow balancing molecular movements, implying that for every downward movement that caused warming, there would be another downward movement that would cause cooling, and vice versa for upward movements. That would be like saying that for every stone you drop which accelerates, there would be another you could drop which would slow down.

    Hence, in failing to disprove the existence of the gravito-thermal effect, you also failed to prove the existence of isothermal conditions in the absence of so-called greenhouse gases.

    Hence you failed to prove that there is any 33 degrees of warming from an isothermal state supposedly due to greenhouse gases.

    Hence you failed to debunk my hypothesis which itself debunks the radiative greenhouse effect conjecture, and which can explain all measured and estimated temperature data in the atmospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores of all planets and satellite moons in our Solar System.

    In contrast, the greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture (supported and actively promulgated by SkS) fails to enable any explanation of temperatures on other planets and also on Earth.

    Consequently the right and honest thing for you to do is admit your mistake, explaining to John Cook and all SkS team members that you now believe, based on sound physics, that planetary surface temperatures are not controlled primarily by incident radiation, but by the supporting temperature at the base of their tropospheres, which temperature is pre-determined by the solar intensity and the autonomous thermal gradient in the troposphere that evolves because of the force of gravity acting on molecules in free flight.

    This comment will be posted on at least ten climate blogs where most of this critically important discussion of the “trillion dollar question” has been duplicated. I may also use it as part of my formal complaints to Australian authorities and the Government Ombudsman here.

  26. Michael Mann: You don’t understand physics or you would know I’m right.
    Doug: You don’t understand physics or you would know I’m right.

  27. Scientists – Follow where the evidence leads
    Religos – Form a belief, then cherry pick ‘evidence’ to confirm said belief

    Wonderful parallels to global warming science…..

    Keep flogging the Religious Nutjob (Republican) Party line, Briggsy.

  28. Scotian: Yes, I’ve seen it. Doug has been banned from numerous blogs. His theory might have some validity, but he tends to bomb threads, run off topic, etc. I have read some of his writings on Principia Scientifica. His writing style is difficult to follow. (I don’t have that problem with the physics of climate change in general, even some rather off the wall ideas, so I tend to think it could be that Doug is not clearly presenting the idea rather than I don’t understand physics.)

  29. Roy Spencer is of course just as wrong.

    Roy has not even aver attempted to justify his assertive statement that there would be isothermal conditions in an atmosphere without GH gases. Roy could not come any closer to explaining it than did Neil J. King from the Skeptical Science team. Here’s what I replied in a new attempt to get Lucia to accept her error and Neil King’s.

    No Neal J. King You have made a serious (and obvious) mistake. You wrote …

    “However, my view on that is that, if there are an equal number of visitors from level 0 to level z as there are from level z to level 0, for each “cooling” visitor from 0 to z, there is an equally “cool” native (or visitor) at z, that goes down to level 0.”

    If you have a ball bouncing (under the influence of gravity) it always accelerates towards the ground when it is going downwards. Likewise all (not half) of the molecules going from the higher level “z” to the lower level “0” also accelerate so that all of them are warming molecules, arriving at “0” with more kinetic energy than what they had when the left “z.” So there is no “equally ‘cool’ native (or visitor) at z, that goes down to level 0.”

  30. “Keep flogging the Religious Nutjob (Republican) Party line, Briggsy.”

    I get it now! Deniers aren’t about power and money, they’re about towing the party line and religion(that religion Republicans follow that says destroy the planet I guess). I owe Al Gore an apology now. Can’t believe that I couldn’t see Al and the like were above flogging a party line. It’s only religious nut jobs and Republicans that have something to gain from all this “science” based on models. Perfectly cogent refutation of “Briggsy” all wrapped up in one sentence.

  31. What’s always funny is that people that define themselves as skeptics, don’t even realise that science is driven by and founded on skepticism. Hence the whole purpose of peer review.
    More ignorance, more denial.

  32. Realist: That’s not how peer-reviewed is explained by the global warming crowd. It’s to keep out bad papers–even though hundreds of bad papers and even computer generated papers make it through peer-reivewed journals on a regular basis. There are retractions of papers constantly. There’s nothing about skepticism in that–besides, how can you be skeptical about “basic physics” that is 97% settled? Ever read a skeptical paper quoted and lauded on the wamist’s sites? Ever see praise for anyone with a dissenting view? Thought not.

  33. Realist,

    Very well. You have no peer reviewed publications, your gold standard. Now tell us exactly what training you have on these subjects. Documentation, please.

  34. Seems The Realist reads climate blogs, not actual papers. A common thing for those who advocate for belief in global warming. Perhaps it’s easier when they turn out to be wrong that they can blame someone else for the idea: “It’s not my fault Scienceblogs misrepresented the data. I can’t be expected to understand. They made the mistake, not me. I was mislead by an authority.”

  35.  

    $5,000 REWARD offered to prove GH conjecture correct

    No average model prediction will ever be anywhere near correct because models are based on an incorrect assumption of isothermal conditions in the absence of greenhouse “pollutants” like water vapour and carbon dioxide.

    When my book is available late April there will be advertised in Australian media and on websites a $5,000 reward for anyone in the world who can use valid physics to debunk the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect (on which my hypothesis is based) and produce a similar study to mine which does not show a negative correlation between temperature and precipitation records, but rather one which is in keeping with the implied greenhouse sensitivity of about 10 degrees of warming for every 1% of water vapour in the atmosphere, this calculation being based on a mean of 2.5% water vapour causing 25 degrees of the claimed 33 degrees of warming.

    The WUWT article about the Loschmidt effect was flawed in that it overlooked the thermal gradient in solids. When you connect a conductor to the top and bottom of a cylinder of gas you create a new combined system. Then a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium (with a thermal gradient based on the weighted mean specific heat of the gas and metal) evolves and perpetual circulation of energy is of course impossible.

    My four molecule thought experiment clearly demonstrates why the gravito-thermal effect is valid and has set up thermal gradients in tropospheres over the life of planets throughout our Solar System. This occurs by convection, where I use the term as physicists do to embrace both diffusion and advection. Such convection is restoring thermodynamic equilibrium (with maximum entropy) in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. An isothermal troposphere would not be what the Second Law indicates would evolve.

    All this is a matter of thermodynamics at a level requiring at least a major in physics. Only five out of 29 on the SkS team have such qualifications, as I do also, and Neal King is one of them. You can see how he fumbled on Lucia’s blog and his final post has possibly bluffed you, but it depends on a totally false claim that some molecules accelerate downwards under gravity, whilst he incorrectly claims an equal number decelerate – yes, slow down, when “falling” towards the surface.

    Climatologists are incorrect in assuming isothermal conditions in tropospheres and even in sealed cylinders. Graeff did at least find some gradient in virtually all his 850 experiments. He got his physics theory wrong, but not his measurements. Advection is measurable net molecular movement which appears to amount to gas flowing over the sloping thermal plane, always in all accessible directions away from any new source of thermal energy which disturbed the previous state of thermodynamic equilibrium.

    It is not a waste of time to consider the validity of the gravito-thermal effect, because it does away with any need to explain the observed thermal gradients in tropospheres using radiation calculations relating to heated surfaces. Of course you can’t do that for Uranus, because there is no direct Solar radiation or any surface at the base of its nominal troposphere. You need to think outside the sphere that is Earth.

  36. Realist,

    So. No training of any kind in the subject matter about which you are so passionate. And no work in the area, either. Add to that the absolute shunning of material which you find difficult or frightening. Plus no qualifications whatsoever, formal or informal. At least you have your faith, your untutored, blind, contradictory faith. It must be a great comfort to you.

  37. Realist: Maybe you need to define “ouch” moment. I think missed something here. You have no published papers, apparently little/no knowledge of science and somehow that’s an ouch for someone else? Come on, I’m still waiting for the peer-reviewed papers you’ve even read–I’d be happy with that. So much talk of “peer-review” and than you quote from blogs.

  38. Sheri-
    Climate change is more monetized than Y2K? Really? Around the world, something approaching $1 trillion was spent on various efforts to immunize legacy computer dates. What evidence is there that anything remotely close to this amount is being spent to defend against climate change? As far as I’m concerned your arguments against climate change are little more than undocumentable, snarky and facile hypothesis-mongering that does little or nothing to advance the debate, one way or the other.
    XTC

  39. XTC: Are you having a bad day or what? How did my idea that climate change is more monetized than Y2K become evidence that my arguments against climate change are snarky and facile? First of all, the money aspect had nothing to do with why I believe or don’t believe climate change. You’re using a strawman argument or misinterpreting what I said, I’m not sure which. I argue on the science of climate change, not the cost. If the climate really is being changed by humans, then the costs of mitigation versus adaption are what would be considered.

    However, numbers with lots of zeros are spent on climate change. See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2473633/Global-warming-costs-world-billion-dollars-DAY–DOUBLE-needed-combat-climate-change-claims-report.html
    For just the US: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/legislative_reports/fcce-report-to-congress.pdf
    If my math is correct, that meets or exceeds the $1 trillion for the Y2K bug and this amount is annual and increasing whereas the Y2K was one time.

  40. Sherri–Your wit exceeds your rhetoric. Please distinguish between mitigation and adaption (sic).
    XTC

  41. XTC–They are both common words. Look it up–Wiki has an answer and the IPCC addresses it. The paths are not mutually exclusive, though some groups consider them to be. You can research those, too.

  42. How ironic that, the sky fairy believer Briggsy, has a go at someone about ‘blind faith’.
    Irony much?
    And no surprises that he ‘co-authored’ a paper alongside Willie Soon. Poor Willie – yet another scientist who is independently incapable of running multivariate statistical analysis. Or, on second thought and more pertinently, his understanding of multivariate stats is so poor such that he couldn’t manipulate the outcome to the ends he desired, so he needed help from another denier that needs to keep flogging their unwavering ideology.
    Out of interest, Briggsy, were you an actual signatory to the Cornwall Alliance statement that “A loving god wouldn’t allow global warming to happen”?

  43. Realist: I checked out that EVIL Cornwall Alliance. How horrible! These people want to take care of the earth and humans. Sacrilege!

    I really couldn’t find anything like you quoted above, although on WottsUpWithThat I did find:
    “presumably because they believe that God created the Earth for us and hence would not allow anything to happen that would risk our future existence on the planet”
    Interesting presumption. There’s a movie coming out at the end of the month about some nasty flood that God was involved in. Plus, in Revelation, some denomiations believe it says the earth will end in fire. Whether or not humans are still here is not agreed upon by the various denominations.

    Typical warmist–ask for peer review and then say it doesn’t count. Why don’t you just admit that if someone disagrees they are summarily dismissed. You know, like religions do. Yes, religions. In addition, you haven’t helped your idea that you are not quilty of blind faith by producing any real (or even a reasonable facsimile thereof) science. Where are the examples and science I previously requested. Hint–try a better blog with more science and less politics and dogma.

  44. Realist,

    You have no qualifications on the subject of global warming except for your blind faith. Please read the articles I suggested and then maybe you’ll be able to intelligently contribute to the conversation. I wonder if you think your insults do anything but make you look like an ass.

  45. This guy is a philosopher so I’m trying to reproduce his bizarre logic.

    For example ‘Misinformation about climate is criminally negligent. There are those who fund climate misinformation. Therefore those who fund climate misinformation are criminally negligent.’ No that’s not valid.

    How about ‘Misinformation about climate is criminally negligent. Everyone provides climate misinformation from time to time. Therefore everyone is criminally negligent from time to time.’ No that’s not valid either.

    Can someone help me out here?

  46. Klem: I believe what the professor is engaging in is to blame the other side for you yourself are guilty of, thus deferring accusations made against you. Since global warming seems to have leveled off, the scientists who promoted it are starting to look bad. So to defer suspicion from themselves, they point fingers, scream “denier” and “misinformation” so people don’t keep looking at their data. Using “criminally negligent” just helps in convincing the people who believe things without question that this is very, very serious. He knows this won’t happen–he doesn’t care. He’s deflecting attention from global warming science failure. The ends (he stays employed) justify the means (accuse others of what you are guilty of and exaggerate as needed.)

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