Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 3

[LongQ]

CR6ZZ said:

In the other direction there are 7 notable skeptics who have jumped ship - Bjorn Lomborg, Dmitri Medvedev, Michael Hanlon, Michael Schermer, Gregg Easterbrook, Stu Ostrow and Greg Fishel. Once again, can anyone add to the list?

I don't recall Lomborg ever being a sceptic - he just used the idea in the title of a book. He is, after all, not a "climate" scientist.

Michael Hanlon? The chap that used to be Science Editor of the Daily Mail - or is there another one? Was he a sceptic?

Dmitri Medvedev. Well, as a politician his name is welcome on this thread, obviously. Personally I have never seen or read anything that suggested he had a position on matters of Climate - other than the political climate.

I had to look up Shermer. Hmm. 2006. That's a while back. Probably more interested in his bicycling now and that is unlikely to be populated with sceptics.

Easterbrook. Another journalist. Another to change his mind from 2006. An interesting coincidence? What was happening back then?

Stu Ostrow. Who? Google only throws up someone who is part of theatre, particularly musicals. Must be another one.


Fishel is a more interesting case, although I had never heard of him. Still, notable in NC is probably good enough.

This recent article popped up on Google. Interesting I thought.

Political content too - so it fits here nicely. The former Representative chap, influenced by his kids apparently, seems to have had an Al Gore moment.

"Climate change aside, Fishel hasn’t given up the basic beliefs that once made him a Republican, including his Christian faith. He says he looks at science as being the discovery of God’s creation.

He finds kinship with another Republican who changed his mind about climate change: former U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina. After his children urged him to take a closer look at the issue, Inglis decided the science and his Christian faith compelled him to push for measures in Congress to combat climate change, including a tax on carbon. In 2010, the tea party backed another Republican, and Inglis lost in a landslide after 12 years in office.

Inglis has since founded the Energy & Enterprise Initiative and a website called republicEn.org that urges his fellow conservatives to get behind market-based solutions to climate change. These include a carbon tax offset by tax cuts elsewhere and an end to subsidies on all energy sources, including fossil fuels.

“His argument is, ‘I’m still a conservative. Conservatives have the answer to this,’ ” Fishel said. “And I’m thinking, ‘Now there’s somebody who’s thinking outside the box.’ ”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/science-tech...


I would imagine that part of the story is going to confuse the heck out of the most common or garden warmists.

I'm not totally convinced by the list or convertees - in either direction.

In fact it seems to me to be a rather pointless exercise in attempted labeling.

So just right for the politics thread!

[CR6ZZ]

Thanks LongQ. Good post.

[turbobloke]

Mr GrimNasty said:

As for intimidation and threats and ruining careers and lives for refusal to toe the line - that boot is very much on the warmist camp's foot, and is used to prevent defectors or even refusal to endorse - how can you possibly expect an honest accounting of views when people are under that sort of pressure to conform to the PC consensus?

Agreed, the article turns reality on its head. State Climatologists in the USA are removed/resigned from their jobs. University researchers are hounded out. A prof signing up to GWPF is subjected to ostracisation and resigns. David Bellamy has his career stopped in its tracks. Johnny Ball is subjected to harassment. Politician told she is a flat-earther by smug jounalist. Researchers in no doubt about where they stand.

[turbobloke]

CR6ZZ said:

I don't believe I claimed it was a neutral article.

You certainly did say 'make of it what you will' but folks will do that anyway, and it hardly exonerates the implications of another comment: 'the author appears to at least have talked to both sides' which suggests some sort of balance. Clearly if the author did talk to both sides it didn't do them much good.

CR6ZZ said:

turbobloke said:

Believers think this matters, right?

As do non-believers apparently.

Apparently not, non-believers in the green myth-hoax politico-religion may parody such a silly position but that's as far as it goes.

[powerstroke]

turbobloke said:

From the political blog Climate Depot there's more on the movie 'Climate Hustle' including clips and with transcript.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/12/02/watch-now-h...

Looking forward to seeing this, wonder if it will be on BBC1 or 2???

[turbobloke]

powerstroke said:

turbobloke said:

From the political blog Climate Depot there's more on the movie 'Climate Hustle' including clips and with transcript.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/12/02/watch-now-h...

Looking forward to seeing this, wonder if it will be on BBC1 or 2???

Good question

[robinessex]

powerstroke said:

turbobloke said:

From the political blog Climate Depot there's more on the movie 'Climate Hustle' including clips and with transcript.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/12/02/watch-now-h...

Looking forward to seeing this, wonder if it will be on BBC1 or 2???

Er, I'm not holding my breath.

[robinessex]

Well, that's that setteld then.

John Kerry said

“And I don’t believe you can be elected president of the United States if you don’t understand climate change”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13...

[turbobloke]

robinessex said:

Well, that's that setteld then.

John Kerry said

“And I don’t believe you can be elected president of the United States if you don’t understand climate change”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13...

There's already incontrovertible proof that Kerry is wrong - Obama was elected President of the United States, twice.

[durbster]

Beati Dogu said:

Warmunists see affirmation of their faith in everything. They're like loony Christians who see Jesus' face in pieces of toast and stains on the wall.

Wow, an astonishing statement.

Warmists see the "affirmation of their faith" in science institutions, all the mainstream science literature and magazines, pretty much all mainstream news media and every major news network, the world's top Universities, the world's Governments etc.

And yet you claim it is them that are having to look in obscure places to find something to uphold their views.

Even more amusingly, you posted this in amongst a series of posts spitting about the BBC daring to run a story on the entirely newsworthy fact that it was 16 degrees in the middle of December, which contained no mention of global warming whatsoever.

[robinessex]

durbster said:

Beati Dogu said:

Warmunists see affirmation of their faith in everything. They're like loony Christians who see Jesus' face in pieces of toast and stains on the wall.

Wow, an astonishing statement.

Warmists see the "affirmation of their faith" in science institutions, all the mainstream science literature and magazines, pretty much all mainstream news media and every major news network, the world's top Universities, the world's Governments etc.

And yet you claim it is them that are having to look in obscure places to find something to uphold their views.

Even more amusingly, you posted this in amongst a series of posts spitting about the BBC daring to run a story on the entirely newsworthy fact that it was 16 degrees in the middle of December, which contained no mention of global warming whatsoever.

That comment has gone over the top of Durbsters head again. Can someone explain it to him ?

[turbobloke]

durbster said:

Beati Dogu said:

Warmunists see affirmation of their faith in everything. They're like loony Christians who see Jesus' face in pieces of toast and stains on the wall.

Wow, an astonishing statement.

Not at all. If you had kept up-to-date with various claims about weather, or if not but had clicked the 'Climate Hustle' link, you would have been reminded that everything weather-wise and any convenient event-of-nature gets painted as climate change by believers: "As you pointed out in Climate Hustle, if it snows, if it doesn’t snow, if it rains, if it doesn’t rain, tsunami no tsunami, volcanic activity or not. It’s always climate change, no matter what it is!" I know for a fact that global warming means more hurricanes and that global warming means fewer hurricanes because I posted the peer-reviewed (obviously, shockingly reviewed in at least one case) papers making these heads-AGW-wins-tails-AGW-wins claims in this thread as well as others. I also pointed out Viner (UEA) claiming that snow would be a very rare event, now more snow is due to global warming.

durbster said:

Warmists see the "affirmation of their faith" in science institutions...

As already pointed out n times, it's not the institutions it's a small number of zeaolts pushing themselves onto committees that then make statements supposefly on behalf of the insitutions, but are nothing of the kind. Illustrations in this thread have been posted regardind the NPA and the RS, there are others.

The point you're making is also a logical fallacy given that argumentum ad verecundiam isn't worth the pixels. Essentially you're acknowledging lack of basis, not a basis.

durbster said:

...all the mainstream science literature and magazines

Only when warmists get to define 'mainstream' and another logical fallacy is at work anyway as argumentum ad populum has nothing to offer here.

durbster said:

Even more amusingly, you posted this in amongst a series of posts spitting about the BBC daring to run a story on the entirely newsworthy fact that it was 16 degrees in the middle of December, which contained no mention of global warming whatsoever.

It's not newsworthy because it's not, the BBC indicated it happened all of 'several years ago' and other news outlets rightly remind people that there was a warmer December only ~70 years ago. In addition when the BBC is ramping global warming with incessant propaganda they know that a slot has been created in the minds of the willingly or unwilingly gullible and that dropping items that resonate with this guff won't need any dots joining as those gullible types will join them before the presenter has stopped spinning. Maybe you know of somebody who has already joined the dots and seen the invisible signal.

Edited by turbobloke on Monday 21st December 09:29

[Otispunkmeyer]

mko9 said:

XJ40 said:

Edited by XJ40 on Friday 18th December 15:24

Sorry to go back several pages on this. I haven't read the thread in a couple days, and things seem to have been moving right along.

Charts like this just kill me, as they have clearly been designed to show the simplistic conclusion you are jumping to. There are two different vertical scales for two completewly unrelated data sets that have been designed to show a correlation. What is so significant about the exact temperature range of 56.5 to 58.5F (not C or K) and the CO2 concentration of 260 to 400ppm? What if the scales were different? Say the CO2 scale was 0 to 1000ppm? Then you would look at the chart and, at best, conclude that both are on an upward trend. But by deliberately scaling the two completely different data sets so that they overlay one another, suddenly CO2 is causing global warming!!!! ZOMG!

Yeah, when I was doing my PhD graphs like this popped up all the time. I was told to always be wary of graphs with odd axes and especially those with wacky units or some queer non-dimensionalisation going on, or showing things as logs or whatever. Generally means they're trying to prove something (which they are of course) but the raw data didn't really produce what they were looking for.

You can at least excuse Farenheit here as the US use it all the time. But the extremely narrow Y-axis range is there to make the casual observers think "holy st!".

[durbster]

robinessex said:

That comment has gone over the top of Durbsters head again. Can someone explain it to him ?

Lacking the confidence to do it yourself?

turbobloke said:

As already pointed out n times, it's not the institutions it's a small number of zeaolts pushing themselves onto committees that then make statements supposefly on behalf of the insitutions, but are nothing of the kind. Illustrations in this thread have been posted regardind the NPA and the RS, there are others.

Yeah I realise you keep pointing it out but I lost any confidence in you as a source of information long ago.

turbobloke said:

Only when warmists get to define 'mainstream'

Mainstream news would be all the major online, TV and print news media. How would you define it?

turbobloke said:

It's not newsworthy because it's not, the BBC indicated it happened all of 'several years ago' and other news outlets rightly remind people that there was a warmer December only ~70 years ago.

1. It's Britain, we love talking about the weather. The Daily Express has that as a business model.
2. The weather at Christmas is a thing. Bookmakers take bets on whether it'll be a White Christmas.
3. This is, as you say, the hottest December in a generation.
4. The BBC article didn't mention climate change.

It is therefore entirely newsworthy, which is why it was in the news.
http://news.sky.com/story/1606889/winter-warmth-co...
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/el-nino-stre...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/12052904/UK-...

etc.

[robinessex]

durbster said:

robinessex said:

That comment has gone over the top of Durbsters head again. Can someone explain it to him ?

Lacking the confidence to do it yourself?

Turbobloke is doing it very well, and I'm fed up with being a parrot. My Granddad once told me, the trouble with arguing with an idiot, is that you think you can get them to see reason eventually. I’m not that patient.

[barryrs]

durbster said:

1. It's Britain, we love talking about the weather. The Daily Express has that as a business model.
2. The weather at Christmas is a thing. Bookmakers take bets on whether it'll be a White Christmas.
3. This is, as you say, the hottest December in a generation.
4. The BBC article didn't mention climate change.

It is therefore entirely newsworthy, which is why it was in the news.
http://news.sky.com/story/1606889/winter-warmth-co...
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/el-nino-stre...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/12052904/UK-...

etc.

"As temperatures edge towards an all-time December high of 18.3C, set on December 2 in 1948"

As it stands aren't we just above the highs reached in the 70's; that's hardly a generation.

You cant claim record temperatures before they are set as news now can you?

[turbobloke]

durbster said:

turbobloke said:

As already pointed out n times, it's not the institutions it's a small number of zeaolts pushing themselves onto committees that then make statements supposefly on behalf of the insitutions, but are nothing of the kind. Illustrations in this thread have been posted regardind the NPA and the RS, there are others.

Yeah I realise you keep pointing it out but I lost any confidence in you as a source of information long ago.

Thereby revealing that not only do you ignore credible untortured data, the lack of any visible causal human signal in any global climate data, the pointlessness of argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentum ad populum, but you have no idea what secondary and primary sources of information are.

durbster said:

turbobloke said:

Only when warmists get to define 'mainstream'

Mainstream news would be all the major online, TV and print news media. How would you define it?

Online, the lack of baseless bias towards AGW junkscience and the failed gigo climate models predicated on it is much more prevalent.

durbster said:

turbobloke said:

It's not newsworthy because it's not, the BBC indicated it happened all of 'several years ago' and other news outlets rightly remind people that there was a warmer December only ~70 years ago.

1. It's Britain, we love talking about the weather. The Daily Express has that as a business model.

We agree on something, almost as they have a joint business model which includes house prices

[turbobloke]

barryrs said:

durbster said:

1. It's Britain, we love talking about the weather. The Daily Express has that as a business model.
2. The weather at Christmas is a thing. Bookmakers take bets on whether it'll be a White Christmas.
3. This is, as you say, the hottest December in a generation.
4. The BBC article didn't mention climate change.

It is therefore entirely newsworthy, which is why it was in the news.
http://news.sky.com/story/1606889/winter-warmth-co...
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/el-nino-stre...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/12052904/UK-...

etc.

"As temperatures edge towards an all-time December high of 18.3C, set on December 2 in 1948"

As it stands aren't we just above the highs reached in the 70's; that's hardly a generation.

You cant claim record temperatures before they are set as news now can you?

When ramping The Cause for The Team anything will do if it gets the right front page headlines, explanations of error come later buried in small print on p14.

[durbster]

robinessex said:

Turbobloke is doing it very well, and I'm fed up with being a parrot. My Granddad once told me, the trouble with arguing with an idiot, is that you think you can get them to see reason eventually. I’m not that patient.

It is remarkable how much some of you rely on him to fight your battles.

Thanks for that. I'll add "idiot" to the list of insults I've received on here. I think I just need a reference to Hitler and I get to complete my keyboard warrior bingo card!

And to think, the other day I was accused of only being able to hurl "insults and slurs" for reasons I'm not sure of

[Jinx]

durbster said:

It is remarkable how much some of you rely on him to fight your battles.

Thanks for that. I'll add "idiot" to the list of insults I've received on here. I think I just need a reference to Hitler and I get to complete my keyboard warrior bingo card!

And to think, the other day I was accused of only being able to hurl "insults and slurs" for reasons I'm not sure of

Jumped up little hitler.....

HTH