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dana1981 at 07:01 AM on 17 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
JMurphy - I'll be doing a blog post on that Inhofe interview in the near future. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:00 AM on 17 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
Excellent to see the scale of this problem brought down to something more of us may intuitively grasp; the result with Sydney Harbour is pleasingly accessible. We're wretched at dealing with large numbers; I've often thought that much of the communications problem with our gassy dilemma is down to our poor fitness for thinking about "billions." Ten fingers and a horizon a few miles away just doesn't equip us very well. -
garethman at 06:54 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
I rather like being described as a warmist, and being part of the warmistas. I like my warmy community. It sounds great to me, because it means so much more than just a belief in the science of climate change. I’m proud of my associations with protecting the environment and see no shame in having serious concerns with what we as a species are doing to our own home. But I’m not so stubborn as to believe there is a defining line between myself and skeptics or those who stick their heads in the sand. There is a continuum from one spectrum to another, we all sit on the spectrum, but hopefully more at the environmental end. Like our views on the nature of health, what we say and think about climate science often says more about ourselves than the subject itself.Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed text. -
chuckbot at 06:34 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
I couldn't help thinking of the classic article, "Arguments we think creationists should NOT use," which took a similar path in that it rejects some of the wackier anti-evolutionary arguments while still maintaining the newer, sexier arguments (irreducible complexity, specified complex information...) http://creation.com/arguments-we-think-creationists-should-not-use If I remember correctly, "Arguments..." actually caused a bit of a schism amongst creationist organizations. It will be interesting to see how Singer's article will play out. -
Eric (skeptic) at 06:32 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Sphaerica and others: I added some questions to some old threads related to sensitivity. Not so much to get new answers because there were some pretty good ones already, but to point out that there is always work to be done defending claims about the applicability of paleo sensitivity estimates and sensitivity in general. I don't think it is really sufficient to attribute it to a new focus by skeptics, although that may be partly true. It is also true that it was a past focus by skeptics. -
JMurphy at 06:05 AM on 17 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
Unfortunately, you can't have a rational debate with people who have already made their minds up because of their political/free-market viewpoint. This, recently, from Senator Inhofe shows what sort of people we are dealing with here : "I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost." That's right : he went along with AGW until he found out he didn't like what he believed it was going to cost ! Listening to the rest of that interview, Inhofe is living in a world of his own creation, constantly battling against those whom he calls "liberals", i.e. anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, it would seem. You can see what sort of rubbish he believes in when you look into the sources he brings out at the beginning - the "liberal" British Telegraph (actually columnist Christopher Booker in the famously right-wing Telegraph); the Financial Times (actually blogger Clive Crook in the Financial Times); and the UN and IPCC, or some blustering combination of the two, somehow (actually Hal Lewis's resignation letter from the APS, and Dr Philip Lloyd Pr Eng, MD - Industrial and Petrochemical Consultants). As for the Newsweek 'condemnation' and the study in the "liberal" Nature : Inhofe is seeing exactly what he wants to see, rather than what is actually there in real life. What a surprise... -
Eric (skeptic) at 05:59 AM on 17 March 2012Pielke Sr. and SkS Disagreements and Open Questions
Where is the forcing from dust in the diagram in this post? If the dust is feedback and not forcing, then how is the paleo-derived sensitivity applicable to today's transition from the present climate to the CO2 doubled climate? (since there is no dust involved now) -
Eric (skeptic) at 05:55 AM on 17 March 2012Weather vs Climate
Last October (sorry for the delay) Tom said: "changes to the position of the jet stream is a response to temperature changes, and hence part of the feedback system." The problem with that logic is that the changes to the position of the jet in response to temperature (more precisely other factors like the continental ice sheets which respond to temperature) when transitioning between glacial and interglacial are completely different from the changes to the jet when transitioning from the present climate to the CO2-doubled climate. There is no way to apply the sensitivity derived from the paleo weather changes to today's weather changes. -
owl905 at 05:29 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
@Lars Karlsson 11 - Thx for the suggestion to read the article's Comment Section. Laughed to the point of tears ... for example: "How can you be sure that it's not just steaming unicorn poop?" Indeed. @dana1981 - Why would you possibly want to do a rebuttal? When combined with the Comments, it stands on its own as a Far Side candidate. Ol' Fred seems to have succumbed to a temporary bout of bucket-list sanity. And the inmates didn't appreciate it. Here's a decent follow-up - hold a contest to see who can find all the real science in the Comments section - no cheating, you have to look. -
John Mason at 03:58 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Yubedube #23, Sadly, I am inclined to agree with you here. In turn, your thoughts illustrate very clearly why the actual quote, not the altered one, from Sir John Houghton, was made in wisdom. tmac57, #24, All of this is quite plausible, noting as we have done in this piece and others how the polarity of the argument is drifting about, and yes witness the comments on the original American Thinker post that kicked this and some other SkS posts in the pipeline off. Compared to any discussion on controversial topics here, there's some well crazy stuff that's been posted. The trouble is that guys like Monckton, Inhofe, Morano, Lindzen, Singer and others have positively encouraged such non-critical thinking for as long as I've been in this debate. It's a bit rich for them (or some of them to be more accurate) to turn on their own now, having advocated almost exactly the same over many years. And at the same time they continue uncritically to repeat stuff that is just plain wrong. That ain't skepticism! -
Bob Lacatena at 03:47 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
tmac57, True. A lot of deniers are instead now focusing on climate sensitivity being low (al la Lindzen and Spencer). And when they finally accept that it is more than high enough to be a problem, they'll question the timing of any equilibrium sensitivity (figuring we have 200 years to figure out how to get things under control). And when they accept evidence of the pace of climate temperature change, they will then point out that maybe the effects of climate change won't be immediate, that the wholesale transition of ecosystems and ice melt will still take hundreds of years. They'll also question whether any immediate effects being seen are really a result of climate change, or just plain local weather phenomena. There will always be another denial "but," like one of those Russian nesting dolls.
In the words of Peewee Herman, "Everyone I know has a big but."
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Alexandre at 03:22 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Captain Pithart at 01:44 AM on 17 March, 2012 Well spotted. It certainly deserves a rebuttal. -
tmac57 at 03:22 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Headline: 'Singer Out Of Tune With Climate Skeptics' Let me fix Singer's argument: "Climate 'Skeptics' are giving Skeptics a bad name".There,that's better! I predict that the deniers will keep 'refining' their position to the point that one day they will be claiming "We never,ever said that AGW isn't true,or that it wouldn't be a massive problem.We just said we don't know how much or when...now we know...it's quite massive,and now" Oh,and to that point,I am now regularly seeing deniers claiming that nobody is saying that the greenhouse effect doesn't happen,or that humans are not causing warming with Co2,it's just a matter of how much",(and of course they think it's small to negligible). Nobody?...Really!!!...Nobody? -
YubeDude at 03:21 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
DSL: "Singer et al. are only interested in shaping the opinions of those unable to access and process the evidence..." I completely agree, but this can be a winning strategy for Singer and Company. The fact is that a significant majority of the public have neither the ability nor desire to tackle the scientific nature of this issue and Singer knows that without the support of the majority of the public there will be no political will or public acceptance for change. All the science in the world will mean nothing without the general public buying into the reality. Singer isn't fighting the facts, he is fighting for the public's perception. Magic is about being entertained. True, most educated adults know that it is all done with smoke and mirrors but I would disagree that magics appeal is only in the desire to find the hidden tricks. More than a few just want to be entertained; those that choose to suspend adult reality and buy into the magic do so because it feels good. Climate issues, for the vast majority are too heavy and frightening; many just want to hear nice words and be entertained. Any dialog that is easy to swallow and avoids statements that mention change or suggest looming crises. are what people want to hear. The masses want happy magic not frightening facts. What percentage of the population do you think has the capability to comprehend the science involved? What percentage of the population do you think wants everything to stay just the way things are? Do you think the public wants to hear forecast of rising seas, heat waves and environmental destruction, or do they want to hear "don't worry, it won't be all that bad", which do you think the average man on the street wants to hear? This is not a question of what they need to hear but want they want to hear. I want to hear my wife is faithful and I ignore the parade of men leaving my bedroom when I come home. Singer is selling "science populism" to keep the crowds happy. He has the easy sell, it's what people want to hear and he is rebranding his argument to make it appear to have more scientific weight. Now the public gets a feel good analysis and it sounds like science; how can he go wrong? He isn't talking to you or me, he's talking to the 99.5%. -
Composer99 at 02:24 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
One gets the feeling Singer is putting lipstick on a pig here (or, borrowing a line from Two and a Half Men, putting a goat in a tuxedo). -
shoyemore at 02:15 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Mostly, these guys are attuned to their audience and shape their message accordingly. Hence, Lindzen's "reasonable" message in London. I am sure if faced with a group of Tea Party Republicans, he would let rip with the usual "Fascist Plot!". You will find Christopher Monckron makes the same assessment of his audience. I saw him once on TV presenting the climate war as a gentlemanly dispute over the value of clmate sensitivity. Within months he was in Australia cutting loose with his usual "Big Government Nazis!" line. Singer is surprising because he chose to make his play to the most inimical of audiences. 99% of the comments on American Thinker attack him, and treat him with even more contempt than climate scientists do. In the 1960s, the Republican Party cut itself loose from right wing crazies like the John Birch Society for the good of the party. They have since been let re-join, but maybe Singer realises that his brand of denialism needs to do the same or they will all sink together. -
dana1981 at 02:02 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Note we also have a post in the works examining Singer's scientific comments in this article. -
Mark Harrigan at 01:48 AM on 17 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
Brilliant. Glenn I don't know what your background is but you obviously have a very clear grasp of the physics here because this is the best explanation of how the increase in thermal energy being retained by the planet due to additional green house gases being added by humans that I can recall reading. It is simultabeously simple, concise, comprehensive and accurate. Thanks - I'm keeping a copy on my system as reference to share and use (attributed of course) -
Captain Pithart at 01:44 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
The "CO2 was higher in the 19th century" is not new, it comes from a E&E study of the late biology teacher Ernst-Georg Beck. Here is the central diagram, which I get a laugh from every time I look at it, and here's the E&E article. Rebuttals are here, here, here, here, and here (among others). David Wojick (the guy that does the K-12 curriculum for Heartland Institute) likes the Beck data too (to be fair, he's smarter than that, pounding the uncertainty; this just to show that the Beck data is still thriving). I was wondering for a while why there was no rebuttal to this crock :) p. -
DSL at 01:10 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Third section should be "Argument is not . . ." -
DSL at 01:08 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
YubeDude@9: "the public will be dazzled by Singers spectacular fashion sense and controlled modulation. Magic is all about deception and debating the bottom side of an argument requires skills of a David Copperfield." Undoubtedly, but it's easier when the audience doesn't want to see the wires, mirrors, and machinery that allows the magic to work. Copperfield's audience doesn't at all believe in the magic; they know it's wires, mirrors, and machinery. They want to see how well Copperfield can hide the wires, mirrors, and machinery. Singer's target audience desperately needs actual magic--something to counter the inevitable transformative march of science across the competing authorities of religion (the future is already written) and the blind, mad dash of unfettered capitalism (the future is the untold story of the production of exchange value by the individual; all other histories/metanarratives--environmental, social, etc.--are illusions and (pardon me) the lies of "academic liberals"). One audience looks for the wires, mirrors, and machinery; the other desperately tries to avoid seeing the wires, mirrors, and machinery. is not the primary activity of the Singers of the world, whatever side. Singer, Monckton, Watts, et al. do not engage in direct dialogue concerning the science (many applauded Pielke Sr. for trying to do so, and rightly so, even if it ended a little muddled). They studiously avoid such direct dialogue. Argument is for people who want to resolve a situation. Singer et al. are only interested in shaping the opinions of those unable to access and process (for whatever reason) the evidence; they are not interested in engaging in scientific discussion with working scientists (unless the event is carefully controlled to produce the desired outcome -- see Monckton). -
Martin Lack at 00:33 AM on 17 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
Further to my #71. Another one of my posts that highlights the fact that the last bastion of denial will always be one of economic rationalism was Being economical with your scepticism (3 October 2011), in which I concluded: "...This would appear to lend weight to the argument of those that have suggested that it is Capitalist economics and/or consumerism that is/are the problem; what [Herman E.] Daly calls 'growthmania' and Hamilton 'growth fetishism'. Whatever you want to call it, some economists... appear to have decided that they cannot afford the IPCC to be right; and are therefore willing to grasp hold of any evidence they can find (or that other conservative think tanks feed to them) that may confirm this view. In other words, this is cognitive dissonance leading to confirmation bias; being dressed-up as economic rationalism." -
Eric (skeptic) at 00:08 AM on 17 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Alexandre, I gave some ideas about the uneven distribution of water vapor here: /detailed-look-at-climate-sensitivity.html, and modeling of ENSO in post 30 here: /Dessler-2011-Debunks-Roy-Spencer-And-Richard-Lindzen.html. Neither thread is very satisfying to me, I still owe scaddenp a more detailed answer, but I certainly do not have the time to build my own climate model. -
zinfan94 at 00:02 AM on 17 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
Some of the confusion on the thread with power (or energy flows, or even energy flow density) versus total energy (heat) could be avoided if we kept to using heat units. I really dislike the focus of talking about energy balances in terms of Watts per square meter, for example. This is misleading because of significant variations in energy flows around the planet and from year to year. I am a chemical (process) engineer, and we do energy balances all the time, so the focus on heat transfer and heat units comes naturally to my thought process. Thats why I prefer to think of global heating. I like to compare to the total energy released by burning fossil fuels, because I can relate to this. I think of all the power plants, with their massive heat sinks; all the refineries that consume about 10% of energy moved through the refinery, and all the engines on all the cars, all the jet engines on all the planes, all the heaters and furnaces on all the houses and buildings, with all the hot exhaust heat, and so forth... And if I add all that up, its still only a few percent of the heat being absorbed by the planet due to the imbalance in the planetary energy budget caused by greenhouse gases. Then when I think of this massive energy imbalance, and realizing only a small portion (about 1%) of this massive imbalance currently heats the atmosphere and raises surface temperatures; then I can start to recognize what a dangerous and risky position mankind has created by ignoring greenhouse gas emissions. The heat sinks (ocean, ice packs, land ice, and continental land/waters) are keeping the planet from seeing much faster atmospheric temperature rises. Only a small reduction in the ability of the heat sinks to store heat, would drive atmospheric temperatures much higher. We are betting our lives on the untested assumption that the heat sinks will continue to absorb 99% of the energy imbalance. Then I can realize that something similar is happening with the CO2 sinks. Carbon dioxide levels could start rising much faster if the uptake in CO2 by the oceans and the continental soils slows... Again we are betting our lives on the untested assumption that these sinks will continue to absorb about half of our fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Humans are taking a risky bet that the planetary processes for sequestering heat and carbon dioxide will not change, even as the planet heats and carbon dioxide concentrations rise. If the sinks do begin saturating, and either CO2 levels climb faster, or the heat ending up in the atmosphere increases, the forecasts by climate scientists of future global warming, will be too low. In my opinion, the issues regarding heat and CO2 sink saturations, along with other possible tipping points, are the "elephant in the room"; difficult to talk about or quantify, but potentially what could kill us in the end. -
Dave123 at 23:55 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Reading the comments at Amerian Thinker (and seeing some of the usual idiots over there...ie -Snip-) makes me think this is just part of Singer's shtick. He can whip out those comments to show "See, I'm in the reasonable middle!"Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped. -
Seeking answers at 23:49 PM on 16 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
The post says: "So what we are left with are just 2 possibilities. High level clouds are increasing - relative to low level clouds, because it is the difference between their 2 effects that counts, or the GH gases are causing more of the GH effect." It seems to me that there are two supposed effects of clouds: 1) Neutralizing the warming effect of GH gases 2) Causing the observed warming It also seems to me that clouds would have to have both these effects simultaneously, to explain GW. Am I right in suggesting that? And, is this actually possible? -
Alexandre at 23:28 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Eric (skeptic) at 23:23 PM on 16 March, 2012 I'm sure you have already explained this before here, but I'm not that regular here. What has convinced you that the sensitivity should be in the lower end of the uncertainty ranges? -
Eric (skeptic) at 23:23 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
I can't speak for Singer, but many skeptics accept greenhouse gas theory because it is well established and coherent with all the evidence, not just as a "tactic". Similarly, most skeptics do not promote or endorse deniers, but to the contrary spend numerous but mostly wasted hours explaining basic physics to them. I agree with the substance of Singer's argument, but his writing is bad, using terms like warmista is ridiculous. I agree with Dikran above, since I am skeptical of high sensitivity I cannot claim to be a moderate in that debate, I am clearly on the left end of the estimate curve. As for being associated with the cranks, it happens 100% of the time in any thread with people who don't know me. I find it's pretty much useless to explain that I am not anti-science. -
Bob Lacatena at 22:59 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
73, jzk, So you really think that the best way to get China, a potentially emerging superpower, to cut back is to just do nothing ourselves, because they're not cutting back, and even if they are, no one else is, and even if we do, they're going to emit more than us eventually anyway? WTF?Response:[DB] Note that a response to you was moderated out due to ideology and inflammatory tone.
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Alexandre at 22:59 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
And Martin Lack is right. Enough hijacking. -
Alexandre at 22:58 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
jzk at 04:32 AM on 16 March, 2012 I understand. The US cannot afford to let China take the lead as the largest per capita emitter, because it would mean lowering their life standards to, say, swedish ones. Or in more direct terms: The raise of Chinese emissions is a lame excuse to do nothing. The US could emit as little as many European countries which have pretty much the same life standards for their citizens. The phasing out of fossil fuels is a sensible path EVEN if we do not take AGW into account. A leader that sets the example could even have the moral and political power to demand that others do likewise, be it in commercial or political negotiations. Apparently, you prefer the look-I-said-he-is-bad-so-there's-room-for-my-worsening attitude. -
jzk at 22:52 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
The Tracker@70. "so why speak for them?" (-snip-)Response:[DB] The topic of this thread is Roy Spencer's Bad Economics. Please stay on-topic, cease with the ideological statements and the inflammatory digs.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
Comments Policy violations snipped.
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Doc Snow at 22:47 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
The bulk of Singer's publications are well in the past, though he was a co-author on Douglas et al 2004--the 'tropical troposphere' paper manhandled by Santer et al 2008. See: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/10/tropical-tropopshere-iii/ -
Lars Karlsson at 22:45 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
The deniers are not very happy with Singer's piece. Just read the comments over at American Thinker. 153 comments loaded with hard-core denial and conspiracy theories. I think Singer will find it quite lonely in the "middle". -
Martin Lack at 22:16 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
Many of you are wasting far too much time trying to win an unwinable war with jzk (-Snip-). Over a four week period he posted over 100 comments on my blog; some in excess of 800 words in length. He is a complete waste of your time.Response: [DB] Inflammatory snipped. -
CBDunkerson at 22:07 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
"To those who have been in this debate for a long time, some of the above are familiar, although the 19th Century one is novel." Actually, I suspect he was referring to Beck's 're-evaluation' of Callendar's work. This has previously been debunked in discussion threads here on SkS and Real Climate has a writeup on it here. Singer wrote: "So we just make our measurements, perfect our theories, publish our work, and hope that in time the truth will out." Wait. Singer has done actual scientific research? Published results? News to me. I've only ever heard of him as the go to guy for 'scientize' nonsense. Need a 'scientist' to say that asbestos is safe for kids? Singer's your guy. Want to discredit that whole 'smoking and cancer' link? Fred's already on it. DDT. Acid rain. CFCs and ozone. He's been an all purpose denier for decades. I thus find this change of gears incomprehensible. Nobody who knows his history, or observes the many 'factually challenged' claims he continues to make in the same article, is going to be fooled... so what gives? I don't recall Singer ever having taken 'his own side' to task for insanity before. I wonder if, like Spencer, he made the mistake of digressing into discussion of actual science with some of his 'followers'. Anyway, this should be filed away with similar statements of reality by other 'experts' on the 'skeptic' (not) side as things to show people who go around citing them for claims that AGW is 'all a hoax'. It is long past time that the moonbats should be fighting >each other< over their countless contradictory claims rather than acting in unison despite the insanity of it all. -
YubeDude at 21:46 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Dikran Marsupial; "positioning skeptics as moderates" "is transparent rhetoric" Will the public perceive this positioning as transparent or will it appear to be a reasoned debate? The science community can see that the emperor has no clothes...the public will be dazzled by Singers spectacular fashion sense and controlled modulation. Magic is all about deception and debating the bottom side of an argument requires skills of a David Copperfield. -
Robert Murphy at 21:42 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
So, when Singer repeats over and over again that the satellite record shows no warming he's admitting that it gives "skeptics" a bad name? Does saying, "Climate science is not what we call real science. It’s not physics or chemistry" give "skeptics" a bad name? Does saying, "The people who did the IPCC reports were essentially crooks" raise or lower the conversation, Fred? Fred Singer: “The people who did the IPCC reports were essentially crooks.” Ironically, Watts posted a link to this Singer piece this week as a rebuttal to none other than Doug Cotton, who was trying to peddle his 6,000 word manifesto against the greenhouse effect. What people like Watts and Singer don't get is that it's too late to disassociate themselves from the Cottons and the Goddards (and in this case the difference isn't too big anyway). -
Dikran Marsupial at 21:18 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Prof. Singer's rhetoric is rather transparent, firstly saying: "On the one side are the “warmistas,” with fixed views about apocalyptic man-made global warming; ..." and then positioning skeptics as moderates "In principle, every true scientist must be a skeptic. That’s how we’re trained; we question experiments, and we question theories. We try to repeat or independently derive what we read in publications—just to make sure that no mistakes have been made." and then the actual moderates as extremists "But everyone working in the field knows who is a warmista, skeptic, or denier. The warmistas, generally speaking, populate the U.N.’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and subscribe to its conclusion that most of the temperature increase of the last century is due to carbon-dioxide emissions produced by the use of fossil fuels." In other words the IPCC are not proper scientists as they have fixed views (not actually true, their conclusions are based on an assessment of the evidence, if the evidence changes I'm sure they would be only too happy to change their conclusions) and that they conclude there will be apocalyptic MMGW (which isn't true either, AGW will have severe consequences for some parts of the world, but hardly "apocalyptic"). The attempt to represent climate skeptics as moderates is transparent rhetoric, they are nothing of the sort, mainstream science is the moderate position. There are extremists on both sides, but the skeptics, whether they like it or not are not moderates. -
Martin Lack at 21:16 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
Well done, Dana - You are beginning to sound like me: Sceptical economists are intellectually bankrupt (10 August 2011) -
shoyemore at 21:07 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
There is a strong of "pot, kettle, black" about this. I would have expected the mass of deniers to eject Fred Singer because of his embarrassing connections to the Heartland Institute, Big Tobacco, and his long record as an anti-environment crusader. He gave evidence to Congress on behalf of companies denying Sherwood Rowland's research on the ozone hole. Rowland (who just passed away) won a Nobel Prize and continued researching (among other things) global warming. The relative merits of Rowland and Singer as scientists seems to have been missed by Singer's admirers. Singer argued for companies defending their right to cause acid rain. If anything, Fred is a prime exhibit for the anti-denialist case. I suppose it just emphasises just how much a chaotic crock denialism is. -
TheTracker at 20:20 PM on 16 March 2012Roy Spencer's Bad Economics
""Leading the way" makes for a nice, costly symbolic gesture, but if you can't get India and China on board, the results will be difficult to measure." A few points about this: 1. The belief that we know all about what China and India will or won't do, what energy policies they support, etc., is ill-advised and, I think, sometimes a little prejudiced. We think we know what they "must" want or "must" do based on a very simplified idea of them as poor countries pursuing rapid development. We don't know what our own society is going to do, so why speak for them? 2. The US and Europe produce about half the carbon emissions in the world. We can make a measurable difference regardless, although we need China and India on board. 3. Leading the way is step one. Step two is stiff economic penalties on any trading partner who doesn't want to pull their weight in reducing global emissions. Check out this short interview with Arthur B. Laffer (he of the famous curve): http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2012/02/santorum-2012.html. -
Sceptical Wombat at 20:00 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
This is becoming a standard tactic among the more literate of the contrarians. In his presentation at Westminster Lindzen has a slide which says Carbon Dioxide has been increasing There is a greenhouse effect There has been a doubling of equivalent CO2 over the past 150 years There has very probably been about 0.8 C warming in the past 150 years Increasing CO2 alone should cause some warming (about 1C for each doubling) He then goes on to say Unfortunately, denial of the facts on the left, has made the public presentation of the science by those promoting alarm much easier. Emphases mine So much for the D word being a cruel attempt by the "team" to brand contrarians as holocaust deniers and so much for there being no such thing as settled science. Of course he then goes on to claim that none of this matters and there is nothing to be worried about. -
chriskoz at 18:46 PM on 16 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
owl905 @25, "...claim about the inevitability of escape into space is both technically incorrect about totality, and reduced to meaningless if the return from the its immediate destination is millennium in time-frame" I disagree. Firstly, most of the heat is going into the 0-700m. And it exchanges with atmosphere as the result of welling in a decal time-frame. Hansen 2005 estimated the climate lag time is between 25 to 50 years. I think this estimate still stands. Secondly, even if some of that heat goes into deep ocean and its eventual release to the surface may take centuries (maybe millennia according to your claim), there is no reason to ignore it. Even if not felt as elevated surface temp, it may have some undesirable effects such as SLR due to thermal expansion or decreased ability by the ocean to absorb CO2. Finally, your last (left-unsnipped) remark: "It is not better to talk about AGW in terms of OHC increase. It is technically-balanced ivory-tower nonsense" not only bears somewhat unnecessarily emotional language but may also be your misunderstanding. I see GW in a larger timeframe (note that I did not use AGW acronym contrary to your remark) and for me a warming imbalance in the system that lasts centuries/millenia is still a fast event in the geological timescale. Also, when I talk about something "global" I really mean "affecting the globe" and not just its surface as you seem to imply in your emotional remark. -
Glenn Tamblyn at 17:35 PM on 16 March 2012Breaking News...The Earth is Warming... Still. A LOT
Dale @21 11,000 TWh is the rough increase in total net electrical energy generated. However this is a per annum figure. Since there are 8766 hours in a year this is actually an increase of 1.25 TW. since 1980. However this is net generation - Input energy in the fuel might give us 3-4 TW change. Factor in other uses such as oil for transport, mechanical work, direct heating etc and it may be as high as 10-15 TW. I have heard a figure quoted (don't have a source for it) that total human energy usage is 40% of geothermal energy which would put the current total at 18.8 TW. So still much less than 133 TW. And the 133 figure is the average over 50 years, not the current figure. From Hansen, Trenberth etc, the current figure based on an approximate value of 0.5 W M^2 would be 255 TW vs 18.8. This might alter the numbers I have given somewhat but not the overall conclusions. Warming is still happening and it can't be a terestrial source. This is why I didn't include these extra numbers. They would have complicated a post that I wanted to keep simple, and not alterered the basic conclusion. -
Doug Hutcheson at 17:00 PM on 16 March 2012Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
Australian readers might be interested in watching a 15 minute interview of Michael Mann on our (Australian) ABC's Lateline program, 15 March 2012. -
Doug Hutcheson at 16:36 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
So we just make our measurements, perfect our theories, publish our work, and hope that in time the truth will out.
Just a few questions, Mr. Singer:- Who is 'we' exactly?
- What exactly is your 'theory' explaining all the evidence?
- 'Publish' in which respected journals, exactly?
- What 'truth' do you claim exclusive access to, exactly?
-
YubeDude at 15:50 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
It sounds like Mr Singer is suggesting a "rebranding" for the "skeptics". Creationism was losing ground until the Discovery Institute decided to rebrand the argument and make it one of scientific controversy. It appears Mr Singer is going to use the language of science and scientific methodology to seize the high ground in public debate. Front-line soldiers of science are not the intended target in this war; this is about winning the hearts and minds of our loved ones back home. A well thought out strategy and rebranding effort aimed at the public will easily convince that this is a matter of scientific disagreement between scientist. No one who is a regular to sites like this are going to be convinced by a change in semantics or tone but then regulars to this site are not the ones in the cross-hairs. This could be an opening fusillade where truth becomes the first victim and where science will be the ultimate looser. -
actually thoughtful at 15:25 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Does Singer's work justify his claiming the mantle of skeptic, or does he deserve the title of denier? -
actually thoughtful at 15:21 PM on 16 March 2012Climate Deniers Are Giving Us Skeptics a Bad Name - Fred Singer
Singer is pulling one of the oldest tricks in the right wing playbook - have your surrogates state things even more ridiculous then your own positions, so you look good in comparison. Mitt Romney is hoping to ride that tactic to the White House.
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