Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Climate propaganda: A case study
For a fascinating deconstruction of climate activist propaganda, read this. Note particularly the different treatment of "no data" areas in the Arctic vs. other areas.
If the weather is weird, you can be sure that some climate scientist somewhere will claim it is the result of anthropogenic global warming. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but how do they know that all of them are? If their models are that precise in drawing cause to effect, where is my forecast for President's Day?
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Dec 21, 04:32:00 PM:
Whatever you think about climate change, let's agree that a Western Australian town receiving it's expected annual rainfall in one night is an extraordinary event. Likewise, we don't get a lot of white Chrismases down here.
Also, that if people are losing their homes a week before Christmas and you *need* to use this to score points in whatever side of the debate you are on, you're an ar$ehole.
By 
JPMcT, at
Tue Dec 21, 11:34:00 PM:
@ Some Bloke
It's not just political argument points, SB. There are well organized people out there that are literally using our natural weather variations to call for legislation that will cripple our energy resources, increase our energy costs and contribute to social chaos.
When we notice the discrepancy between the observed world and the climate theory...we are told that ALL weather anomalies are the result of our current energy policy.
It reminds me of Orwell's 1984, when Winston is being told that he must recognize the number of fingers held up before his eyes as the STATE defined number...certainly NOT what his eyes are telling him.
It is dangerous...CRIMINALLY dangerous. It must stop.
That's why we have elections.
By Don Cox, at
Wed Dec 22, 05:11:00 AM:
"That's why we have elections."
Science is not done by elections.
If you think the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has not increaded and is not increasing, you will need to show measurements to prove it. If you think CO2 does not absorb infra-red, you wiull need to do some laboratory experiments to show this - and the experiments will have to be repeatable in other labs.
If you think the pH of the oceans is not decreasing, you will have to do the measurements to show this.
Personally, as a scientist who is not a climatologist, I would go along with the views of the vast majority of qualified experts, who have actually done the necessary research.
By JPMcT, at
Wed Dec 22, 07:44:00 AM:
Yeah, Don.
As we all know, Science is actually done by consensus, heh??
Of course, sprinkle in a little hyperbole, fraud and socialism and then you REALLY have a great paper!
By , at
Wed Dec 22, 10:43:00 AM:
We’re in a war people, in case you didn’t know.
In the month after Climategate broke, Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann got a $560,000 grant paid for out of Stimulus. I suspect this was part of an effort to forestall any academic inquiry by his current employer, Penn State.
Thanks to Mann & Co, this bullshit science has led to the EPA declaring CO2 to be a pollutant. This train has already left the station. Lots of bad things will happen unless this Runaway Train is stopped.
The EPA is poised to regulate anything bigger than a newsstand, with CO2 as the excuse.
There’s pending class action litigation based on CO2. One such suit claims that CO2 helped cause Hurricane Katrina. Damage claims include “loss of consortium” … so if you were in New Orleans that week and didn’t get laid you can claim damages
The Supreme Court just granted cert and will review one of these cases in the Spring. Developing ...
By , at
Wed Dec 22, 10:52:00 AM:
As to the actual science, Don Cox is repeating himself, so I will too:
It should be called Climate Studies, not Climate Science because it diverges so much from the Scientific Method.
AGW theory is based on the use of models with assumed feedback loops, etc. To me, models are a basis for formulating a hypothesis. Where’s the experiment?
Physicists are getting into this more. Sunspots drive solar wind. The physicists at CERN believe that when the resulting gamma particles hit the oceans they increase water vapor and clouds. This drives a natural cycle, which along with other natural cycles gives us the bigger pattern over time. Any year now we’re going to start a long, slow move into the next Ice Age — does anyone doubt that?
The CERN hypothesis fits their observed facts. They say that they believe they’re on to something promising but need to do more work. Real scientists say things like that. They’re now working on replicating the actual phenomenon at the molecular level in their lab. Real scientists do things like that.
When you look at centuries of data — as well as 100s of thousands of years of data — AGW theory doesn’t fit. It only fits suspect data sets from the 20th Century. It also assumes that CO2 is this fantastic "lever" even though it's only a trace gas. ps we've had much higher levels of CO2 in the past -- it just doesn't compute.
Thus, I conclude that AGW is bullshit faux science. We should call it out for what it is.
I’ve hypothesized that our tearing down trees to build heat-absorbing asphalt roads has done more to heat up Earth than man-made increased CO2. I want a Nobel Prize and an Oscar.
By Don Cox, at
Thu Dec 23, 05:50:00 AM:
"As we all know, Science is actually done by consensus, heh??"
Not exactly. It is done by observation, measurement and (in some sciences) experiment. Hypotheses can be thought up to explain the observations so far. Then further observations can be made to see if they agree with what the theory predicts. If not, the theory has to be changed.
There is often fierce disagreement among scientists about the validity of favorite theories.
I don't know why you mention socialism. Science has nothing to do with socialism, which is about universal suffrage, free trade unions, progressive taxation, etc.
I think you are right about hyperbole, and about the tendency to link all unusual weather to AGW. The effects of AGW are still very slight, except in the Arctic. What worries some people is that the temperature increase might in the end be 5 or 6 degrees C, or even more. That would have noticeable effects everywhere.
In my opinion, the acidification of the oceans is more worrying.
