Were you writing fiction, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Another bastion of people misled by the lack of a Hemingway-brand Solid Gold Sh*t Detector™.
Another person proud as heck of her denial of global warming, points to cattle freezing in South America in July as proof that the Earth’s atmosphere is not warming.
At a blog called Frugal Café Blog Zone, “Where it’s chic to be cheap… Conservative social & political commentary, with frugality mixed in,” blogger Vicki McClure Davidson headlined the piece:
Gee, how to break this news to her?
Vickie, sit down. This is something you should have learned in geography in junior high: In the Southern Hemisphere, winter starts on June 21. It’s cold in South America in July, because it’s winter in South America in July.
Cold in winter. They don’t expect it. These warming denialists provide the evidence those crabs need, who wonder whether there shouldn’t be some sort of “common sense test” required to pass before allowing people to vote, or drive, or have children.
Oh, it gets worse:
Another site picked up the post. No, seriously. (Has Anthony Watts seen this yet?)
- Voting Female [I am convinced that is a sock puppet site designed to insult women; no woman could be that stupid, could she?]
Earth at northern solstice - Wikimedia image
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Back when we had our deep snows in the Mid-Atlantic states, denialists refused to believe that people were dying because of the heat wave in Rio de Janeiro.
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Oh, Gad, it gets even better. You quote his link, then say ‘I don’t get the point’, and then immediately distract to another point. I don’t think you read his link. What a waste of time you’ve been. Bookmark this thread and come back and look at it in six months and a year.
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Oh, man, Ed; you are very bad. I just read Morgan Freeburg’s 7/28 comment at 2:56 PM. He directed you straight to Wirth’s testimony, testimony that you subsequently doubted until you found it yourself.
My questions:
l. Did you read Morgan’s link?
2. If so, why did you doubt such a statement?
3. If you didn’t read his link, why not?
Fish in a barrel, Ed. You need to wise up a little, you are way too easy.
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Man, I try to leave and I pull myself back in. I’d like to mention one further point. The scientists have deceived us in the service of the ‘Noble Cause’ of saving the earth. This noble cause allows you to ignore the clear deception present in Wirth’s words and to fail to see all the other flaws in the meme of AGW. The real problem is that the scientists hid the uncertainties; this is why the word was, and still is, that the science is ‘settled’. When really looked into, they’ve really got nothing but but the behaviour of CO2 in the laboratory. We do not know what it’s behaviour is in the atmosphere where there are feedback mechanisms we haven’t even thought of yet. The science is not settled, we are vastly ignorant about the regulation of climate. Look at Kevin Trenberth’s plaintive cry that the climatologists’ failure to find the ‘missing heat’ is a “travesty”. The honest climatologists are having their doubts. Look to the saga of Judith Curry, the bravest woman in climate science.
Well, I’ve got a countervailing ‘Noble Cause’, and that is the state of poverty that the world’s poor will remain in if the price of energy is artificially raised in pursuit of the chimera of CO2 demonization. This is why Copenhagen failed. India and China have no intention of grinding their poor further just because the Western elite have become deluded with their guilt about carbon based prosperity.
If CO2 had the greenhouse effect that the IPCC wants you to believe, then your noble cause would be worth following. Since CO2 doesn’t have that effect, my cause is the nobler. Nyah, nyah a boo boo.
PS, you did know that there is ‘missing heat’, didn’t you? In a famous 2008 interview with NPR, Kevin Trenberth inadvertently told the truth when he said maybe the missing heat had been radiated back out to space.
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Oops, forgot. Ed, your rhetoric is not trustworthy.
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Heh, I just read Morgan Freeberg’s 7/28 @ 2:13 PM comment. He’s got your number alright. Take a class in logic and rhetoric. You’ve got the brains to understand. Honest, you could be a lot more effective if you could tighten the logic up.
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“The question you implicitly raise, not explicitly, but by backing into it” is how you justify the strawman you thought you erected to demolish. The problem, besides the distraction and the logical fallacy, is that you don’t even destroy the strawman. Look carefully at the projections Hansen made in 1988. He expected it to be a lot warmer than it is today. Watch carefully the three scenarios he projects and judge for yourself.
But I’m tired of your sophistry, and bored with your refusal to reconsider the scientific case. You have exactly the wrong interpretation of the whitewashes that followed ClimateGate. Go see the justification Penn State gave for supposedly clearing Michael Mann. It’s uproarious.
We are entering a strong cooling La Nina, in a phase of the cooling PDO that will last another two decades, and possibly cooling long term and lethally if the sun gets into the act. Watch the thermometers; CO2 is too weak a greenhouse gas to even keep the earth as warm as it is now. Natural cycles rule. We are tiny in the universe, as Galileo pointed out. Perhaps the most guilt ridden creatures in the universe, too.
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Haha. What a mess you are. Watch the thermometers.
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Yeah, I don’t think Ed’s being snookered by anything. At least, if it turned out he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be that surprised.
Look Kim; they scheduled Dr. Hansen’s testimony on the very hottest days they possibly could and they messed up the air conditioning system. Ed calls this “rhetorical flourish.” This is crap they teach you in law school. Never ask a question when you don’t know the answer to it, and never, ever, ever concede a point you don’t absolutely have to. Also, conspire with the opposing counsel to offer the appearance that this is a philosophical discussion, conducted for the purpose of arriving at Truth — when it’s really just a couple of egotistical malcontents trying to “win.”
This is why people hate lawyers. They get the feeling…and they’re quite right…that without a legal profession embroiled in the mess, a reasonable compromise would have been codified lots of hours, and lots of dollars, ago. But with the legal beagles in it, the tussle has only just begun.
In a philosophical discussion conducted for the purpose of arriving at Truth, engaged in the fine tradition from Athens, it would have looked like this:
PHILOSOPHER A: Look at this, a bunch of e-mails stolen from Climate Research division of EAU, among the global warming scientists.
PHILOSOPHER B: Are they authentic?
PHILOSOPHER A: Yes, the director of that department has confirmed it. They confirm that the scientists have been conspiring to exclude evidence negating or posing a problem to climate change, and to alter the peer review process so dissenting voices in the scientific community cannot be heard. And it’s already been demonstrated that some of the proposed remedies stand to net a lot of money for a very small group of people, and the scientists are in on it.
(Pause.)
PHILOSOPHER B: Right, so that’s it then. Wanna play a game of Monopoly?
Ed brags a lot about his Hemingway bullshit detector. I’ve seen him activate it a few times now, and psychology has a name for it. They call it “confirmation bias.” It’s a less institutionalized version of what they were doing in East Anglia. A fact comes in, and if it fits the agenda it counts; if it doesn’t, the “Hemingway” detector sounds its shrill alarm.
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You missed the story somewhere. I’m pointing out that “Climategate” was a hoax. Look at the science. Look at the ethical investigations at the universities. Look at the criminal investigations.
Denialism is on the short end of all of those.
I’m not the one who was snookered by “very clever people” making false claims.
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Remember that old country tune, “Been down so long that it looks like up to me?”
That’s a good description of the movement to deny global warming today. It’s been wrong, and so incredibly so, for so long, and deceptive as all get out, for so long, that it looks like the facts to denialists.
I’ve responded directly to your claims and raised a key question that you’ve ducked as well as you can. The question you implicitly raise — not explicitly, but by backing into it — is, was Hansen’s testimony in 1988 accurate?
You’ve offered not a whit of evidence of any error. Instead, you’ve done a feint, claiming that Chairman Tim Wirth made the room hotter to provide a better television image of the event.
I asked you to show me where Hansen’s testimony was wrong, you haven’t done that. I doubted the story, but you found a source for it — but as I pointed out several hours ago, your source for the story rather backs Hansen’s testimony as accurate. Let me say that again: Your source for the story about the hearing backs the accuracy of Hansen’s testimony.
You claimed Hansen made a minor prediction about being able to offer local climate forecasts. I haven’t found that, and apparently you can’t find it either because you’ve failed to point to it after more than one request.
Then you have the gall to dodge and say I have offered distraction.
Kim said:
Why? How? Hansen’s statement was not changed one whit. The climate was warming then, and it warming still.
There was no deception on the facts by Wirth.
You complain that the air conditioning in the room wasn’t on to make it artificially cooler than it was.
So, what you ask for is deception. Wirth offered the truth, unvarnished.
Cue Jack Nicholson, oddly appropriate here.
You were right. But even though Wirth told a great tale about public relations, the effective public relations stunt did not change the accuracy of Hansen’s testimony. You’ve offered nothing to suggest that the information about warming was inaccurate, and your source for the public relations stunt says Hansen’s testimony was right. If you’ll look at that Frontline video (especially the third segment, on denialist spinning of the story), you’ll see it makes quite a lot about deceptive public relations efforts, by those who work to deny the truth of Hansen’s testimony.
Hoist on your own petard, you know?
You think that warming is a political issue only, and a rather artificial one at that. When Galileo was forced to recant his description of the orbit of the Earth about the Sun, so the legend goes, as he left the room where his censure was pronounced he said, quietly, of the Earth’s orbiting, “Still, it moves.”
You see? Denialism cannot stop the orbiting of the Earth, even when the Denialism comes from the Pope. Modern denialism hasn’t altered global warming. We’re in the 341st month of temperatures above the 20th century average. We’re in one of the hottest Julys ever, at the end of one of the hottest six-month strings ever. You say that’s wrong — the thermometers don’t lie. The plants don’t lie. The oceans don’t lie. The glaciers don’t lie. Turning off the air conditioning in a hearing room in Washington, D.C., doesn’t change the facts of warming.
But I can’t find any such prediction that is not instead found accurate by scientists. I’ve asked you repeatedly to explain this, but you’ve refused, saying I have to find it for myself.
Well, I’ve looked. It’s not there. What is there, as I’ve cited and quoted, is science noting how eerily accurate Hansen was, 22 years ago.
You’ve not responded.
Oh, Obi Wan, the denialism is strong in Kim!
Average temperatures are soaring worldwide, despite a few, local, record colds.
According to the scientists, the Earth is hotter than ever, despite your denials here. While you’ve been expelling hot air, the Sun’s been adding even more, and greenhouse gases are holding the heat on the planet, like a blanket. To your denials, the scientists respond explicitly and directly, you’ve erred:
The most powerful claim denialists had was an odd one, not based on any measure of climate anywhere on Earth. Instead, your guys stole several thousand e-mails. You’ve waved the bloody flag of “stolen e-mails!” for several months, but five separate investigations have confirmed that, though somebody on your side is a crook, no one on the science side is. No one publishing the evidence for global warming has not been accurate, the studies find. Here are ten specific responses to the stolen e-mails.
You say, without any evidence of support, “We are cooling big time.” But the evidence, the old Earth itself, says the opposite — we are in the warmest decade ever recorded, one of the warmest in human history, with no explanation for cause other than greenhouse gases. (Warning: That’s going to take some time to load — it’s a 229 page report showing that the Earth is warming, and directly and completely refuting all the most serious claims of denialists.)
In response to the careful work of 300 scientists, you point to winter, and say “it’s cool in winter.”
Sure. But it’s not cooler all winter, and it’s not cooler in winter worldwide. Even with record lows and frozen cows in South America, the Earth warms, dangerously.
That fiddle tune you denialists are dancing to? Better ask the name of the fiddler. He was last seen performing that tune in Rome . . . (urban legend, I know — but an appositive, here.)
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Also, pal, google ‘Livingston and Penn’ and start to wonder what the sun is up to. The chances that your grandchildren will have to deal with holocaustic cooling is a lot greater than them having to deal with social catastrophe from warming. Raising the price of energy by demonizing carbon will amplify the social costs of such cooling. So enough of the guilt trips about our descendants.
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Man, I really don’t think you see the degree to which you depend upon distraction as your main rhetorical device. My point is that Wirth’s action was deception, and also that you jumped to the conclusion that no such statement had been made because of your bias. And my point about Hansen’s 1988 testimony is that he claimed regional predictive skill for his model which was a lie.
The lengths you go to to avoid these issues….sheesh. Your inability to stay on point is boring. I’ve got advice for such as you; watch the thermometers. We are cooling bigtime.
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Acually, Hansen was right. The only source I’ve found for your claim said Hansen was off by “4 times,” his having predicted a rise of 0.45 degrees C, while the measured rise was claimed to be 0.11 degrees C. Of course, the claim is wrong. That would be an error of about 75%, which is not 400%.
But, it turns out, Hansen was accurate to within 5% to 10%, according to scientists I trust (and you should, too).
The evidence shows that there bad math and misrepresentation on your side. Did you have a different source you’d like to share?
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I’m quite hopeful. I haven’t given up on you, Kim, though you’ve certainly done all you can to justify it.
You know, it doesn’t matter where you find the story about Wirth and that 1988 hearing. The fact remains that there is no allegation from any of those sources of anything untoward, nothing wrong, nothing illegal, and nothing but solid science showing that global warming was known and we were warned about it, in 1988.
Is there a different point you’re trying to make?
Watson and Crick weren’t my idea of ideal people, but that doesn’t change their finding the structure of DNA, you know? One of them was quite the womanizer — DNA remains the same.
The hearing room was warm. So what?
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Omigod, Ed, I think you are hopeless. You find the Wirth quote at Watts with a reference to the Frontline report, and cast aspersions because you found it at Antnee’s. The Hansen testimony I was talking about was 1988, not 2008, as I clearly stated. Again, what I see from you is poor reading comprehension and/or deliberate misrepresentation. You’ve got sophistry deep in your heart, but you really aren’t very good at it.
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Kim said:
I appear to have mistaken you for someone with a serious concern about the issue, but other flaws are not apparent to me.
But, as we can see, you didn’t find it well enough to link to it.
Do you need some instruction on linking in HTML? Or are you just normally so opaque?
But I see why you didn’t link. The top sites that come up on a search for “Tim Wirth” +window +”James Hansen” verify what I said: Hansen was right. Kate Sheppard in The Guardian wonders why Congress dallied for 20 years, when the science is so clear — exactly the opposite of what you claim.
I found the claims you make at Anthony Watts’s site — but Watts’ bias makes it so that’s about as reliable on any warming issue as asking Baghdad Bob how soon the U.S. tanks will arrive in the city. And again, Watts only states the claim with major snark, suggesting what you suggest, that the testimony is false — but of course, there’s not a shred of evidence that the testimony was anything other than completely spot on.
Here’s a copy of Hansen’s testimony in 2008. You claim there’s a problem, but I see no problem on Hansen’s side — instead, I see your denial, and nothing false from Hansen. He said nothing about local forecasts from models that I see (am I missing it? will you point out what he said, at that link?).
Did you imagine what you said before about his claims?
Hansen’s opinion isn’t rosy, is it. He says that, largely due to delays caused by denial of the facts such as you have demonstrated here, Kim, we don’t have any time to sit around and think about what to do. We must act now. Hansen said:
What did you read different in his testimony?
< It is well known that the General Climate Models still do not have regional predictive skill. All you had to do was check his 1988 testimony to see if he claimed it then for his model.
Okay — got a link? Or is this another case of “believe me or else you’re an idiot.”
I don’t expect you to take my word on anything. You should not demand we take your word, either, especially since, to the best of our knowledge, you have no particular authority in this field, and you’re asking us to disbelieve 150 years of climate science and about 99% of all the scientists involved in the research on the issues.
You’re making extraordinary claims against evidence. Do you have extraordinary evidence to back any part of those claims?
Asking you for a citation is not “jumping to a conclusion.” Quite the opposite, it’s a defense against accepting your blind, conclusionary leaps.
If you can’t back up what you say, that’s certainly no indication of bias on my part.
You appear confused by the entire concept of evidence and science, to me.
While you’re at Anthony Watts’ joint, be sure to take the link to the PBS program, Frontline, in which that entertaining description of a hearing comes from Tim Wirth. Read the transcript. Better, watch the program. Be sure to watch the third segment, describing your work, Kim.
The program is pretty clear, I think most fair-minded listeners would agree, that it was time for the world to act against global warming. And that was 2008.
There’s nothing in that transcript which supports your points, at least nothing that I see.
You don’t know much about cargo cults, either, it appears.
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Kim, I hear what you say Tim Wirth said. Got a citation? Can you point me to Jim Hansen’s testimony, and what he said about making local predictions?
I know what your opinion is. Do you have any evidence to justify the opinions?
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Let me give you a couple of fact-checking clues, friend, because your technique is beginning to show systematic flaws.
The two points in your 11:25 post come out of your vivid imagination. They were both about things that you could have checked. I found Tim Wirth’s claim in about a minute just googling for Hansen’s Congressional testimony. It is well known that the General Climate Models still do not have regional predictive skill. All you had to do was check his 1988 testimony to see if he claimed it then for his model.
Twice there, you’ve jumped to your conclusions after filtering stuff through your political gestalt. This is the definition of bias. I’ve found a utensil for the bathroom in my museum of ironies. Ed Darrrell hasn’t tried hard enough to debunk himself. Heh, Cargo Cult politics. Night, night.
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Here’s Tim Wirth(D-Colo): “We went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit it, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room….It was really hot”.
So the deception started early and never looked back.
Look Ed, if you are really interested in debunking you should get on about AGW. There are a few at the center of it who were actively duplicitous, but the vast majority of the true believers have just followed the herd in the panicked stampede. This phony AGW meme is the finest example ever of ‘An Extraordinary Popular Delusion and Madness of the Crowd”. And Michael Mann, of hockey stick infamy, is going down in history as ‘The Piltdown Mann’.
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Ed, as for my 8:59 effort, bookmark it and look at it in 5 years. I’d prefer you investigate my claims, but I haven’t much hope you will. The responses you’ve given so far indicate to me that you are more interested in sophistry than in the pursuit of truth. It’s too bad, because you have intelligence.
Look up ClimateGate and JournolistGate. You’ve been snookered by some very clever people. But you have your uses. Enjoy being useful.
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Ed @ 11:15 PM.
Not very good, Ed. She’s on one point and you’re on another. And you didn’t read carefully; not doing your best to be trustworthy.
Ed @ 11:25 PM
You don’t see anything wrong with deceiving Congress with the open windows? That incident is historical fact, check it out. Hansen didn’t open the windows; someone else was being loyal and helpful. He did lie about the heat wave outside being predictable by the regional skill of his climate model. Not a trustworthy man.
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Jim Brady used to brag about his last-minute, brilliant idea for the losing side’s press conference the morning after the Kemp-Roth budget cut bill went down in flames. Just before Sen. Roth and Rep. Kemp opened the thing, Brady burst through the door with a box of cigars and a sign, “Son of Kemp-Roth.” It saved the conservative movement, it saved Sen. Roth’s career, and it pulled Jack Kemp back from the brink of the abyss of irrelevance.
There was a clause in the bill that passed that at least winked an eye toward slashing federal budgets, but it was mostly fiction. Brady went on to be Ronald Reagan’s press guy, leaving us on the hill with only fond memories of his prowess as a flack, especially after he took a bullet in the attempted assassination.
In contrast, Jim Hansen’s stuff was accurate. Opening the windows didn’t change the science, didn’t change the statements about the science, and only produced good pictures. You appear to be unclear on the concept of fact and truth: Truth doesn’t change when the thermostat goes up five degrees, nor when the humidity goes up 20%.
You’re trying to imply that something dastardly was done. Nothing dastardly was done, and you’re wrong to claim there was.
Sorry, your claim sets my Hemingway™ excrement detector to clanging something fierce. Can you explain what that is you’re talking about, and show us the citations?
By the way — have you ever been in any House hearing rooms? Care to explain which hearing room it was, and just how the windows got opened? While all three House office buildings were built in an era when air conditioning was not stellar, the buildings have been retrofitted, mostly. That story doesn’t make a lot of sense on a couple of different levels.
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I don’t recall that phrase being there, but I could have missed it. It doesn’t change the unnecessarily snarky, “I-know-more-than-every-scientist-on-earth” tone of the piece.
Nor can anyone read the entire post without understanding that Vickie thinks cold anywhere nullifies all warming, everywhere.
Yeah, it’s record breaking cold. The chaos caused in the atmosphere by global warming produces greater oscillations. Record cold does not nullify warming everywhere else.
And — have you and Vickie been out of the country for a few months, or off the planet? — record cold in a small part of the world is more than offset by the record heat everywhere else — we are on a pace to be the warmest year for Earth ever recorded.
Do you understand the difference between climate and weather?
I read it all before, found no inkling of the fact that winter comes to South America on June 21 (or 20, in some years); and even with the disclaimer in there now, it’s clear that the author doesn’t understand what the issues are. It’s not clear she understands the difference between climate and weather, nor the concept of a global average temperature.
Why are you misrepresenting her now? She’s not saying that the cold in South America is a local anomaly. She’s saying that it refutes global warming. I’ve made no representation — go look at the headline, and read it, with all its smarmy snark. It’s not a piece that’s nuanced, or informed by science.
This site is dedicated to debunking urban legends, bad history, junk science, political smears, and in general improving the quality of information in discourse. I’ve called a blog on a badly-written, ill-thought, misleading article.
Which part of “don’t tell lies” did you miss growing up, or in journalism school, or in any other schooling?
“Accuracy! Accuracy! Accuracy!” Joseph Pulitzer demanded. It sells. It makes good policy in government. It fends of libel suits, and disappointments on the night of the wedding.
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Aw, heck. I meant ‘the global cooling at the turn of the 19/20th century’.
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Ed @ 10:12
Do you realize that Accumulated Cyclone Energy is at a recent low? That’s the total of all the energy in the world’s cyclones and hurricanes. I’ve asked Chris Mooney if his next book will be ‘Calm World’.
And all this talk of recent hot months and decades is kind of silly. The world has been on a warming trend ever since the end of the Little Ice Age, long before CO2 started rising, and it should seem obvious that the endpoint(now) of that temperature rise would have the highest temperatures. Also, La Nina is now present and cooling the earth. This will not be the hottest year.
The global cooling at the turn of the 18/19th Century was from the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in its cooling phase and we are entering that again. The cooling from 1940 to 1970 was the PDO in its cooling phase. The sun is on a trend to have its sunspots become invisible or scarce in about half a decade. The last time that happened, the globe cooled significantly, but there were volcanos to raise the albedo of the earth and cool it then, too. So we don’t know if the coming Grand Solar Minimum will cool the earth or not. If it does, we may cool for a century.
Few skeptics claim the earth hasn’t warmed. We object to the implication that CO2 caused that warming, without proof. Do you know that three separate times in the last century and a half the earth has warmed at the same rate as it did for the last quarter of the last century and only the last of those times had a rising CO2? That’s pretty good evidence(not perfect) that CO2 isn’t causing the warming.
You should read up on ClimateGate, investigate the details of the subsequent whitewashes, and read Andrew Montford’s book ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ in order to figure out the state of climate science today.
Look, it’s all a matter of the sensitivity of climate to CO2. Surely, in the laboratory, CO2 has radiative properties that show it might warm the earth a degree Fahrenheit or so per doubling of CO2 concentration. The fearmongers who tell you that it will warm 3-6 degrees Centigrade depend on the output of mistaken computer models that use a large positive feedback from water vapor to reach those high numbers. Recent observation of real natural phenomena, instead of computer runs, are showing that water vapor feedback is small and possibly even negative.
Furthermore, the relatively flat temperatures of the last decade also argue that CO2 is only a weak greenhouse gas.
If we are wrongfooted into mitigating a warming that isn’t happening instead of adapting to a cooling that is happening(see cooling phase PDO and the disappearing sunspots) there will be Hell to pay, and we are talking about many millions freezing or starving to death. We will be grateful for the crop fertilizing effect of CO2 and wishing its warming effect were stronger.
AGW was largely a hoax. The scientists lied about the uncertainties. We really don’t know very much about climate and we surely don’t know what CO2 does in the vast analog computer that is the earth’s climate regulating mechanisms.
I’ve got more if you like. Scout’s Honor.
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The point of the story about Hansen and his 1988 Congressional testimony is that the windows were left open on purpose to manipulate the Representatives, the press in attendance, and the spectators. It worked, in fact the man who did it brags about it.
Hansen also claimed regional predictive skill for his climate model, something the GCMs still don’t have. He lied.
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If you’d read a little further in the article headlining this post you’d see: “While South America is in winter mode, this cold is record breaking.
My questions:
1. Did you read that far?
2. If so, why’d you misrepresent her?
3. If not, why not, before going off half-cocked with this silly post?
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I’m missing your point. I’m talking about the science that establishes the fact of global warming.
You’re complaining because the facts are presented, accurately, with a dramatic flourish?
There is no hint that Dr. Hansen changed his testimony because he was hot — in fact, the written testimony was available days in advance, and had been advanced to reporters. Moreover, his testimony was based on already-published papers in peer-review science journals.
I’m missing your point. You’re not saying the science was manipulated. You’re not saying the science was in error. You’re complaining because Demosthenes was a more persuasive orator than Cicero?
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Well on this one, Ed, I’m with you: Local weather patterns being confused with “global climate.” You’re correct in pointing out that the two are not the same. It’d be nice if you were more consistent about it. The cold spell in South America is wholly unsuitable as evidence against global warming, so Frugal Cafe is in error, in fact, it’s a “bozo” and is abysmally stupid…but you’re on perfectly solid ground to say “That dramatically cold weather in South America may well be an effect of global warming”? Huh-wha?
Well, I assume you’re still peeved about this weather/climate conflation. So you must have been REALLY pissed when the Chicken Littles started monkeying around with the air conditioning in the Capitol right before Dr. Hansen’s testimony.
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The irony tsunami here is that “climate change” was proposed by climate change denialists (or whatever you want to call them). The thought was, as I understand it, that warming was too obvious — people would fail to understand “climate change” as easily as “warming.”
Sort of a “Yankee Doodle” thing: Climate change is more accurate.
“Big Bang” was proposed to ridicule the idea of the original cosmic expansion, too, by Sir Frederick Hoyle, who thought his Steady State Hypothesis was the way to go. Sometimes the truth is just a lot more powerful than attempts to ridicule it.
As originally posted, the article whined only about how cold weather in South America in July obviously provides evidence against global warming. Already we’ve educated that blogger and others that it’s supposed to be cold in South America in July — it’s winter.
Every wall of ignorance that falls to education is a step toward freedom.
I’m curious why you think scientists have changed their position. I spent several years in air pollution and air pollution research, XX years ago (XX > 20). The journals were full with articles that worried about the warming that would almost certainly result from dumping greenhouse gases, especially if particulates were controlled well, and if the calculations on the cooling effects of particulates were nearly as accurate as they appeared to be.
Here we are, a couple of decades after particulates were largely controlled, with a 340-month string of months warmer than the 20th century average, and counting.
Scientists didn’t change their positions. They got more data. They refined their models. They got more powerful computers. They got another few decades of data.
But you don’t need a Cray supercomputer to see that trend.
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I followed the link and I read it. There isn’t much evidence to speak of to suggest the author misunderstands the whole winter-in-southern-hemisphere thing. Looks like you’re using a strawman argument again, Darrell.
“That dramatically cold weather in South America may well be an effect of global warming.”
Okay, so first you say Frugal Cafe is stupid for noticing the weather is colder compared to the previous thirty years…then you use this observation yourself. That’s alright, it doesn’t come as news to me at all that you’re all just about “winning” and don’t care what’s true, what’s not, what’s consistent & what isn’t. Just as long as liberals retain a monopoly on smarts. That’s why their policies work so well all the time!
I have a lot of sympathy for this attempt to backpedal and call it “climate change” instead of “global warming,” so that you can find “evidence” of it when there are cold fronts aplenty and not a warm front in sight. Trouble is, if everything proves your hypothesis, then nothing does. Look for, in the years ahead, a fashionable new theory to emerge that if the climate doesn’t change, this proves climate change…then they’ll have to call it “climate” or something.
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304 months?
Interesting way of looking at it. Even non-statisticians can see some trends.
Can see, not necessarily will see. Seeing is a function of what the brain wants to do.
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Steve may be interested to learn that the Earth is a pretty big place. While South America was building up to the Big Freeze, the entire planet had the hottest June ever recorded. Know what else was the hottest ever recorded? May. April. March. Almost looks like a HOT year, doesn’t it?
However, February of this year was not the hottest on record. Right. But it *was* hotter worldwide than the average February in the 20th century. The same goes for January this year. And December of last year, November, October… I’m beginning to sound like Puddnhead Wilson.
So let’s just note that every single month in the 21st century has been warmer, worldwide, than the average for that month in the 20th century.
Wanna guess when the last month was that was *not* warmer than the 20th century average?
You won’t believe this, so here are a couple of cites:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/16/june-2010-warmest-recorded
or if you want a lousy right-wing paper for a source,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7899939/World-on-course-for-hottest-year-since-1880.html
Oh, and to save reading through those, here’s the answer: February 1985, that’s 1 9 8 5, was the last month not above the 20th-century average. 304 months in a row.
Nope, no warming going on here, move right along, it’s FREEZING cold in Antarctica.
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Barack Obama was a Scout in Indonesia, and is the Honorary President of the Boy Scouts of America. Alone among presidents since Calvin Coolidge, Obama has met with Scouts to consult with them on policy.
Those wacko conservatives will do anything to stay wrong, won’t they?
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No, Steve, I’m not being dishonest — record colds are predicted by global warming science, so it would be dishonest to claim record cold even in winter, especially in winter, disproves global warming.
Global warming models predict more record swings in weather, higher highs, lower lows, more severe storms of all kinds, more severe lack of storms. The issue is energy in the atmosphere: The more energy, the more dramatic the weather.
Consequently, colder colds in a local area are predicted by global warming hypotheses. However, despite dramatic cold spells in some areas — like the U.S. this past winter — worldwide, this is shaping up to be one of the hottest years ever recorded (pay attention to that news source).
So, on average, even with dramatically colder temperatures in winter in South America, we still suffer global warming. That dramatically cold weather in South America may well be an effect of global warming.
Not that conservative yahoos and denialists would ever admit even minor error, but it’s nice to know that site now acknowledges seasonal differences. Would it be too much for her to recognize that record colds are predicted by global warming theory?
Our dramatic cold weather here in Dallas this past winter produced some benefits: Imported Argentine fire ants still have not recovered from the snows and freezing, short though it was (and this should bring hope to those north of us). On the other hand, it also appears to have taken out all the geckoes, so cockroaches are making a bid to move back into the area in force.
The insurance companies have not dropped home insurance rates, rates that are based on the record of global warming demonstrated throughout Texas, and the record of more severe weather. Those market-conscious actuaries figured out that one record cold winter does not change global warming as a trend. Drat.
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I don’t know if she edited this later, but she acknowledges the seasonal differences. It’s that “record cold” that disproves global warming, you see.
Steve, weather is not climate. A blizzard doesn’t disprove global warming, nor does a cold spell.
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You’re being rather dishonest, aren’t you? The record cold in many regions of South America has been reported by news services as being lower than it’s been in decades. Cattle dying from extreme cold is just part of it – people have been dying from the unexpectedly low temps too. State of emergenices have been declared.
Some news reports that you might be interested in reading-
Bloomberg – Argentine Manufacturers Face Natural-Gas Shortages on Record Cold Weather
CSMonitor – Deadly cold snap hits Argentina, Uruguay, Chile
Santiago Times – State of Emergency Declared after Record Low Temperatures
While it’s not hot in S.A. in July it hasn’t been THIS cold in years. Hate to break it to you, but even global warming zealots don’t know what to make of this record cold. Or the record cold in many regions of the world.
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Regarding the Frugal Cafe: It just reinforces my wish (even though shoulda, woulda, coulda never does any good) that the words “global warming” had never been used. “Severe climate change” is what is happening and it’s a perfectly good and descriptive phrase.
Yes, there are some people who think the weather is supposed to be the same each season no matter where in the world one is.
The other site, with the song, has a Star of David on the sidebar, proclaiming that conservative Christians stand with Israel. Too bad none of them are honest enough to admit that they are only standing there until after “rapture” when all Jews and all non-Just Us Christians will die horribly.
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[…] Barack was never a Boy Scout (musta been too busy having marxist poetry read to him by his communist hero instead). Obama ditches the Boy Scouts' 100 year […]
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