Climate change - the POLITICAL debate. Vol 4

[wc98]

LongQ said:

My surprise was that there was such a long airing on the Beeb in such a prominent news spot.

I friend of mine in scientific academia, fairly recently retired from the day to day politics and pressure of running a University department, indicated to me 20 years ago the problems he and his department faced on a regular basis. Over the years things seemed to get less and less satisfactory from anyone's point of view.

In the end, despite his absolute commitment to his research and students, he was glad to arrive at a point that gave him the opportunity to retire. Absent the dross that went with the position I'm sure he would have been, like his colleagues in previous generations, very happy to continue his work for some years into the future.

All of his work related to "hard" science activity where attempts at replication are both highly possible and very much required. Much of his work was in pharmacology - nothing much was going to get through without a lot more research being deployed. In fact anything that was marginal would be rejected early in order to reduce costs. Some of the rejections might have been missed opportunities but we may never know. Pharma suffers later in the process after millions have been spent and a problem arises that might turn a blockbuster money spinner into a loss making damp squib but early in the research the selections are made cautiously.

Against that background there was no way a fluid and experiment lite subject like CC could be accepted at face value as unequivocally correct science and greater the claim of unanimity amongst the researchers as the research budgets grew the greater should have been the concerns for scientific vs. political influences on the reported results.

A form of religious fervour and a pot of money put up as a type of indulgence payment to Gaia is not, in my opinion, a good supportive structure for analysis that involves enormous amounts of public expenditure yet can prove absolutely nothing for a potentially problematic result far enough into the future that no one will be around to see it even if, somehow, someone can claim to link the result to decision made a century previously.

ahhh ! that makes more sense ,i too was gobsmacked the bbc gave it some air time , fair play to them. i have a good mate whose wife is a cutting edge research scientist (think she may be a professor ) and she is absolutely driven in her research . how she manages to keep abreast of working with students and the research work i do not know .

her demeanor when talking about her work is so far removed from anything i have ever seen from the high profile climate scientists i often wonder if they are different species. she certainly doesn't have time to faff about on marches, spend hours during the working day on blogs and all the other advocacy stuff that seems to be de rigueur among the manns and schmidts of this world.

[wc98]

Gandahar said:

It will be interesting to see how new EPA boss Scott Pruitt deals with the Clean Power Plan and the Paris climate agreement. I assume he will tackle the former first as domestic, but considering his entire staff will not be that "enthused" to help him due to his previous 14 litigations against the department he now runs, and also that Donald has two other big things to sort in the next 3 months

Tax reform
Obamacare reform

As well as walls and immigration, it does make me wonder how much effort will be put into climate, at least in the short term.

i have a funny feeling a lot of those staff will be moving to different departments ,some may have to find new jobs. pruitt will manage just fine ,it is early days and there will be a lot more people of a non watermelon/greenwash persuasion in positions of influence regarding the various departments that deal with "climate" in a year or so. we ain't seen nothing yet

[wc98]

Gandahar said:

As for quoting from blogs, then you might as well quote from one of those rolls of bog paper that has "quotes of the day on it" as both are something connected to wiping your arse with.

Can you start quoting proper news sources Turbobloke? You will have us putting stone cladding on the thread at this rate and having an outside toilet. Cheers.

here was me thinking turbobloke should get some sort of award for having the patience over such a long period of time to keep going over details he has gone over countless times in the past with each new wave of naive believers that come along on a fairly regular basis, only to disappear when the facts presented by turbobloke expose the cagw narrative for what it really is.
i hope he keeps up the good work

[robinessex]

New UN climate chief: 'Action on warming unstoppable'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-3908...

"The UN’s new climate chief admits says she’s worried about President Donald Trump – but confident that action to curb climate change is unstoppable.
President Trump said he’d withdraw from the UN climate deal and stop funding the UN’s clean energy programme.
But former Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa told BBC News that the delay in any firm announcement suggests the issue is still unresolved.
She travels to US this weekend to try and meet the new US secretary of state. "

We'll see

[powerstroke]

Gandahar said:

powerstroke said:

turbobloke said:

¿Qué?

Just more personal angle stuff and a flounce, nothing to see here.

I think you will find a certain member of the community is riding the subsidy gravy train

fakenews , or in my old northern way of putting it "complete bks you just pulled out of your arse with no evidence whatever"



3 out of 10 for that comment, and that's just me being generous as I am a big softy at heart.

Thanks for that But it should be 10 out of 10 as the op is a subcontractor to the wind subsidy industry

[durbster]

LongQ said:

I was out in the car early this morning and for some reason the radio cut the CD player and threw me into a BBC news program and right into the middle of a piece that was discussing why 85% of science papers (i.e. peer reviewed published science in a major published literature source) are rubbish not exactly quality items, often very wrong and published without verification or even replication at least once by the authors.

I was utterly amazed.
...
I was astounded.

Hmm, I don't find any of that surprising. The fact you're "astounded" and "amazed" says a lot.

It seems to me that you had an idealised view of science in general. You took an interest in climate science in particular and found that it's not always amazing, or the scientists aren't always honest, or are sometimes even greedy or exploitative. And there are people willing to use it to make themselves wealthy or to gain power.

What you haven't done is extrapolate those facts out to see that this is true of all science, of all walks of life.

It suggests you hold climate scientists to completely unrealistic ideals. As was mentioned recently and I've said several times in the past, medical science is far more dodgy than climate science but despite that, it still basically works.

Consider this: what percentage of footballers are brilliant at their job? What percentage of used car salesmen are brilliant at their jobs? What percentage of University lecturers are brilliant at their jobs?

You have to understand that climate scientists are people, and people are fallible, make mistakes and have egos. Just as in any field of science since the scientific method was established. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

wc98 said:

here was me thinking turbobloke should get some sort of award for having the patience over such a long period of time to keep going over details he has gone over countless times in the past with each new wave of naive believers that come along on a fairly regular basis, only to disappear when the facts presented by turbobloke expose the cagw narrative for what it really is.
i hope he keeps up the good work

That's not what happens. People just get bored of the repetition and having to refute the copy and pastes from tb's propaganda handbook. It's clearly in turbobloke's personal interest to keep the thread going indefinitely as he has an agenda to spread. The only battle being won here is the motivation to bother debunking the myths over and over.

Read through the soundbites and catchphrases and it's glaringly obvious there's nothing but rhetoric there.

The facts are simple: the science doesn't support his view. The scientists he cites don't support his view. The scientists he admires don't support his view. The data doesn't support his view.

All that's left is faith, and only the truly faithful could still believe in him.

Sorry but it's pretty clear to me that turbobloke is a busted flush.

[durbster]

Mrr T said:

With regard to sea ice there is a lot of data you can look up and its inconclusive. Some areas have seen a fall is sea ice others an increase most is almost certainly weather related.

I think sea ice is less of an issue and far more volatile anyway, but all the data I can find says ice on the whole - sea and land - is decreasing rapidly.

I have firsthand experience of this - just over ten years ago I hiked up a glacier, and the bit I was on has now gone. There were markers to show the rate of retreat showing how it had sped up in recent decades.

Mrr T said:

As for rising in sea level read the views of Dr Morner the warming due to CO2 would have minimal effect on sea level rise.

This is a perfect example of why I find this discussion so intriguing.

NASA have satellites that measure sea levels very accurately:
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

I've read Dr Morner's views but answer me this: why do you think he is right, and NASA are wrong?

This is the internet. You will always find somebody who has written something that will validate pretty much any point ever made, no matter how absurd - see flat-earth.

That means, unless you are an expert in the field, the only decision you can make is who do you believe? Who is most likely to be right.

Personally, I think that the harder you have to work to find evidence to validate your point of view, the less likely you are to be right. It's the reason I changed my mind to accept AGW in the first place. I found myself digging into increasingly obscure sources to try and find evidence to back me up and I just had to accept I was probably wrong.

[Mr GrimNasty]

durbster said:

You have to understand that climate scientists are people, and people are fallible, make mistakes and have egos. Just as in any field of science since the scientific method was established. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Hilarious, coming from you, a person who has a childlike credulity and blind faith of climate science and a complete lack of insight into human nature.

Climate science, above all other fields, does not adhere to the scientific method. The CAGW 'side' is totally politicized and distorted by advocacy and money.

Climate science as a field is new - in fact there is actually no such thing as a climate scientist - it's a fake figure of authority, so that the orthodoxy can label who is and is not to be a credible source - or fake news to give it the latest buzzword. Climate scientists, unlike most other fields of science, are never, or ever likely to be, held to account for mistakes.

We've seen as every prediction fails, the timescales of predictions have moved to be conveniently just outside retirement age!

All science is imperfect by it's very exploratory and theoretical nature and ideas slowly evolve and adapt.

Twisting every single outcome or data point to fit with a preconception is not science.

[turbobloke]

Mr GrimNasty said:

durbster said:

You have to understand that climate scientists are people, and people are fallible, make mistakes and have egos. Just as in any field of science since the scientific method was established. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

Hilarious, coming from you, a person who has a childlike credulity and blind faith of climate science and a complete lack of insight into human nature.

Quite unbelievable at first sight, but par for the course on reflection.

Mr GrimNasty said:

Climate science, above all other fields, does not adhere to the scientific method. The CAGW 'side' is totally politicized and distorted by advocacy and money.

Correct, nobody can hide that decline post-Climategate.

Mr GrimNasty said:

Climate science as a field is new - in fact there is actually no such thing as a climate scientist - it's a fake figure of authority, so that the orthodoxy can label who is and is not to be a credible source - or fake news to give it the latest buzzword. Climate scientists, unlike most other fields of science, are never, or ever likely to be, held to account for mistakes.

Indeed; those involved from the outset had no qualifications in climatology as they didn't exist. They were/are geologists, geographers and so on. Apart from being a backwater, it wasn't a discipline in higher education until the era of grant-funding largesse made it worthwhile. Previously, the current number of eco, enviro, climo (etc) grads would have looked forward to flipping burgers, or riding a public sector desk in a department of social something or other.

Mr GrimNasty said:

We've seen as every prediction fails, the timescales of predictions have moved to be conveniently just outside retirement age!

That's a key point, those responsible want to be retired at the least when the current crop of lamentably silly predictions fail as per the earlier guff.

Mr GrimNasty said:

Twisting every single outcome or data point to fit with a preconception is not science.

It's climatewang!

[robinessex]

durbster said:

LongQ said:

I was out in the car early this morning and for some reason the radio cut the CD player and threw me into a BBC news program and right into the middle of a piece that was discussing why 85% of science papers (i.e. peer reviewed published science in a major published literature source) are rubbish not exactly quality items, often very wrong and published without verification or even replication at least once by the authors.

I was utterly amazed.
...
I was astounded.

Hmm, I don't find any of that surprising. The fact you're "astounded" and "amazed" says a lot.

It seems to me that you had an idealised view of science in general. You took an interest in climate science in particular and found that it's not always amazing, or the scientists aren't always honest, or are sometimes even greedy or exploitative. And there are people willing to use it to make themselves wealthy or to gain power.

What you haven't done is extrapolate those facts out to see that this is true of all science, of all walks of life.

It suggests you hold climate scientists to completely unrealistic ideals. As was mentioned recently and I've said several times in the past, medical science is far more dodgy than climate science but despite that, it still basically works.

Consider this: what percentage of footballers are brilliant at their job? What percentage of used car salesmen are brilliant at their jobs? What percentage of University lecturers are brilliant at their jobs?

You have to understand that climate scientists are people, and people are fallible, make mistakes and have egos. Just as in any field of science since the scientific method was established. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

wc98 said:

here was me thinking turbobloke should get some sort of award for having the patience over such a long period of time to keep going over details he has gone over countless times in the past with each new wave of naive believers that come along on a fairly regular basis, only to disappear when the facts presented by turbobloke expose the cagw narrative for what it really is.
i hope he keeps up the good work

That's not what happens. People just get bored of the repetition and having to refute the copy and pastes from tb's propaganda handbook. It's clearly in turbobloke's personal interest to keep the thread going indefinitely as he has an agenda to spread. The only battle being won here is the motivation to bother debunking the myths over and over.

Read through the soundbites and catchphrases and it's glaringly obvious there's nothing but rhetoric there.

The facts are simple: the science doesn't support his view. The scientists he cites don't support his view. The scientists he admires don't support his view. The data doesn't support his view.

All that's left is faith, and only the truly faithful could still believe in him.

Sorry but it's pretty clear to me that turbobloke is a busted flush.

When did you put your claim in for the $100,000 then ?

[turbobloke]

durbster said:

Sorry but it's pretty clear to me that turbobloke is a busted flush.

Your independent unbiased opinion is appreciated off-topic and carries the same appallingly bad judgement that true believers apply to agw junkscience and gigo climate models.

In one way it really is appreciated, so thanks for the latest personal attack style attention - it supports my view that true belief has nothing better to offer.

It's also as predictable as it is ineffective, see point 12 below.

[LongQ]

durbster said:

LongQ said:

I was out in the car early this morning and for some reason the radio cut the CD player and threw me into a BBC news program and right into the middle of a piece that was discussing why 85% of science papers (i.e. peer reviewed published science in a major published literature source) are rubbish not exactly quality items, often very wrong and published without verification or even replication at least once by the authors.

I was utterly amazed.
...
I was astounded.

Hmm, I don't find any of that surprising. The fact you're "astounded" and "amazed" says a lot.

It seems to me that you had an idealised view of science in general. You took an interest in climate science in particular and found that it's not always amazing, or the scientists aren't always honest, or are sometimes even greedy or exploitative. And there are people willing to use it to make themselves wealthy or to gain power.

What you haven't done is extrapolate those facts out to see that this is true of all science, of all walks of life.

It suggests you hold climate scientists to completely unrealistic ideals. As was mentioned recently and I've said several times in the past, medical science is far more dodgy than climate science but despite that, it still basically works.

Consider this: what percentage of footballers are brilliant at their job? What percentage of used car salesmen are brilliant at their jobs? What percentage of University lecturers are brilliant at their jobs?

You have to understand that climate scientists are people, and people are fallible, make mistakes and have egos. Just as in any field of science since the scientific method was established. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

wc98 said:

here was me thinking turbobloke should get some sort of award for having the patience over such a long period of time to keep going over details he has gone over countless times in the past with each new wave of naive believers that come along on a fairly regular basis, only to disappear when the facts presented by turbobloke expose the cagw narrative for what it really is.
i hope he keeps up the good work

That's not what happens. People just get bored of the repetition and having to refute the copy and pastes from tb's propaganda handbook. It's clearly in turbobloke's personal interest to keep the thread going indefinitely as he has an agenda to spread. The only battle being won here is the motivation to bother debunking the myths over and over.

Read through the soundbites and catchphrases and it's glaringly obvious there's nothing but rhetoric there.

The facts are simple: the science doesn't support his view. The scientists he cites don't support his view. The scientists he admires don't support his view. The data doesn't support his view.

All that's left is faith, and only the truly faithful could still believe in him.

Sorry but it's pretty clear to me that turbobloke is a busted flush.

durbster,

It is almost comically ironic that you seem not to understand the irony of your comments.

Even more so that you pretend to be someone with eyes open to the reality of scientific activity when no one else who posts here, or so it seems according to your view, appreciates that reality at all.

You're also not very good at nuance either are you? No matter how blatant that nuance might be.

Your lecture to me in the first section above completely missed the point that my "amazement" and that I was "astounded" was a comment on the fact (actual fact in this case since I could replay the piece via the BBC web site so I know it existed) that the BBC made the broadcast in the first place.

The problems with the politicisation of the scientific process and the revisions to funding that have been so influential in the past 2 or 3 decades and have resulted in early publication of marginal papers - amongst many other changes to the scientific process of the time - is not news to me.

I certainly don't expect people or the systems in which they operate to be infallible.

I absolutely don't expect a political system that makes use of the fallible output to be competent - yet here we are with hugely influential political policy decisions being taken on the basis of no serious questions at all - or so it seems.

Until now.

Yet this is the very appeal to authority (dubious authority you seem to be suggesting now?) on which you rely to support your arguments.

Mentioning which - your arguments in favour of unquestioning acceptance of, seemingly, all Climate Science "mainstream" papers - I take you point about repetition.

So please stop it it's losing any interest and rarely contains anything of political interest.

Take the repetition to the Science thread if you like. Better still, see if you can repackage it as replication, something that appears to be out of favour in some areas of science these days according to the BBC piece.

Your lack of political content, in its broadest sense, for your posts in this thread is indeed remarkably boring in its repetition.

That's a pity really because there have been times, though not so much recently, when I thought there might be some potentially useful engagement to be enjoyed. Alas, it seems not.

[turbobloke]

Here's “another tiresome example of selective political outrage” by agw believer activists. As Cpl Jones would say, the EPA don't like it up 'em Cap'n Mainwaring.

http://westernwire.net/nyt-quietly-deletes-section...

The above story's ending has almost 50 shades of the BBC's Harrabin rolling over and having his tummy tickled by believer-activist Jo Abbess, resulting in a spot of warm editing that included a red hot headline change. Unsurprisingly, approval-seeking levels are high in agw faith groups, one place where consensus does matter.

[wc98]

durbster said:

That's not what happens. People just get bored of the repetition and having to refute the copy and pastes from tb's propaganda handbook. It's clearly in turbobloke's personal interest to keep the thread going indefinitely as he has an agenda to spread. The only battle being won here is the motivation to bother debunking the myths over and over.

Read through the soundbites and catchphrases and it's glaringly obvious there's nothing but rhetoric there.

The facts are simple: the science doesn't support his view. The scientists he cites don't support his view. The scientists he admires don't support his view. The data doesn't support his view.

All that's left is faith, and only the truly faithful could still believe in him.

Sorry but it's pretty clear to me that turbobloke is a busted flush.

i think you will find it is the observations that do not support the "science" . i was going to link a recent summary from judith curry published by the gwpf highlighting some of the main issues with the "science",modeling in particular, but then i know you won't read it,so i didn't bother .

[wc98]

durbster said:

I have firsthand experience of this - just over ten years ago I hiked up a glacier, and the bit I was on has now gone. There were markers to show the rate of retreat showing how it had sped up in recent decades.

you are aware that is what glaciers do ? they grow some, then melt some according to the prevailing climate of the time. can you tell me what made the glaciers retreat thousands of years ago to make greenland habitable by the people of the day ? the fact that those glaciers recede uncovering human artefacts ,trees etc is a fairly big clue it is nothing new.

[turbobloke]

wc98 said:

durbster said:

I have firsthand experience of this - just over ten years ago I hiked up a glacier, and the bit I was on has now gone. There were markers to show the rate of retreat showing how it had sped up in recent decades.

you are aware that is what glaciers do ? they grow some, then melt some according to the prevailing climate of the time. can you tell me what made the glaciers retreat thousands of years ago to make greenland habitable by the people of the day ? the fact that those glaciers recede uncovering human artefacts ,trees etc is a fairly big clue it is nothing new.

When one of the eco pressure groups staged a failed glacier stunt on Svalbard, much like the failed glacier stunt above c/o durbster, the local climate prof (Ole Humlum, great name) reminded the green-brained types that on Svalbard the pattern of glacier behaviour logged over many decades involves rapid advance lasting 5 to 8 years, then a retreat taking place over 80 to 100 years generally at a slower pace but with occasional spurts.

It's also worth noting that in an area where there's more than one glacier, as per Svalbard, it's common for one glacier to be advancing and another to be receding. Clearly the ambient climate cannot be causal both ways, so it's ruled out. At the time of the Svalbard stunt, when activists photographed one glacier that had been undergoing retreat, there were a dozen others advancing, including the glacer Friddjovbreen, which had advanced more than a mile in the preceding seven years.

Moreover there has been at least one example of a Himalayan glacier with two snouts, one advancing and the other retreating - at the same time on the same glacier.

Even sillier than simply misrepresenting natural glacier behaviour, an unnatural construct such as mean global temperature has absolutely no influence, it doesn't apply to any specific glacier anyone cares to choose.

All glacier stunting is a massive data fail and causality fail for the faith.

[turbobloke]

Has anyone experienced a hurricane in the last decade or three?
That's evidence of global warming, according to the glacier evidence model. Backed up by solid 'theory' this hurricane experience scenario fits with the sooperdoopercompooter forecast in a study by Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane researcher at MIT. This study found that hurricanes will be more frequent due to global warming. Naturally, if somebody has experienced a single hurricane in the last 30 years, as per experiencing a single glacier retreating (because you only looked at one glacier) nothing more needs to be said as a single data point with associated metadata can tell all.

Has anyone not experienced a hurricane in the last decade or three?
That's evidence of global warming, according to the glacier evidence model. Backed up by solid 'theory' the lack of hurricane experience scenario fits with the sooperdoopercompooter forecast in a study from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at NOAA. This study found that hurricanes will be less frequent due to global warming. Naturally, if somebody hasn't experienced a single hurricane in the last 30 years, as per not experiencing a single glacier advancing (because you only looked at one glacier) nothing more needs to be said as a single data point with associated metadata can tell all.

In both cases, politicians raising more taxes while controlling our behaviour via legislation will solve whatever problem you imagine has beset the planet due to nasty humans.

Here endeth the gospel according to faith in global warming junkscience.

[robinessex]

Talking of Greenland and Glaciers, the Guardian is of on another crusade

OMG measurements of Greenland give us a glimpse of future sea rise

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-co...

"The Oceans Melting Greenland project is taking important measurements to determine how fast sea levels will rise
This NASA Earth Observatory file photo taken on September 22, 2016 and observed from the HU-25A Guardian aircraft shows the Bruckner and Heim glaciers where they flow into Johan Petersen Fjord in southeastern Greenland.
If you meet a group of climate scientists, and ask them how much sea levels will rise by say the year 2100, you will get a wide range of answers. But, those with most expertise in sea level rise will tell you perhaps 1 meter (a little over three feet). Then, they will immediately say, “but there is a lot of uncertainty on this estimate.” It doesn’t mean they aren’t certain there will be sea level rise – that is guaranteed as we add more heat in the oceans."

Notice the article it taking it as defacto that the oceans are rising. No a biased story then? Nice job for a few bobing around on a boat for a few weeks

[robinessex]

A typical AGW advocate propaganda graph



Notice the title. CO2 has now been regurgitated as a pollutant! Best not tell the plants that need it then!!

[dickymint]

robinessex said:

A typical AGW advocate propaganda graph

Note also it doesn't add up to 100% and the "do both" seems to be an addition of "tax" and "regulate" vote!!

Obviously it's a pie porkie pie graph.