AGW "experts" - Know Thyselves

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No prize. Nothing in the site you cited said anything about report on Exxon-Mobil's propaganda activities, which happens to echo the comments of the U.K.'s Royal Society.

As usual you have cited a document which fails to support the argument that you seem to be trying to make.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

No they are about exhibitions of fatuous over-confidence and agressive self-delusion.

Not true, not that Graham knows enough electronics to be a reliable witness.

What you know about science could be written on the head of a pin in large letters, and this - like every other "scientific" opinon you produce - is totally worthless.

A particularly ironic claim, coming from Graham.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

SNIP

No, it discussed the delusions of the Union of Concerned Scientists, AKA anti-scientists. If scientists join a union thsy ain't scientists.

The relevence of that is of course is that they wrote the document you wanted comments on.

Or you are unable to follow the the argument.

In fact ActivistCash.com is is a front group for the alcohol and tobacco industries, who have reason to dislike the activities of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Activistcash.com paper discusses other reports of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which they didn't happen to like. You would like their disdain for particular reports to be taken as evidence that the report that I cited is unsound. You'd also like to think that if scientist join a union, they aren't scientists, which doesn't strike me as a logical proposition - the defining character of a scientist is that he or she has published at least one paper in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. If the paper has been cited, you can promote them to the catagory of a recognised scientist. Nothing in that definition has anything to say about membership - or not - of any other organisation or grouping.

Since I'm not interested in the reports that Activistcash discussed, I don't know whether their disdain is justified. Granting the Sourcewatch information, the disdain seems more likely to be self- interested, and to represent a back-handed compliment to the effectiveness of the Union of Concerned Scientists, scarcely a good reason to distrust their reports as a whole.

On further investigation it seems that you have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find any kind of support, no matter how suspect.

It isn't difficult to follow your specious argument, though it is difficult to take it seriously.

If I were into constucting your kind of specious argument, an obvious conclusion that I could draw from your choice of support would that you were a paid shill for the denial industry. I don't actually think that they would throw away their money subsidising such a transparent nitwit, but less realistic observers might buy it.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

What you are saying is that you are happy that we continue with a vast experiment that reason says may be injurious.

Not only is that crass, but it is also irresponsible.

I think what he's saying is that he doesn't have any scientific background. If he had, he'd realize that (a) science doesn't prove, just disproves; (b) many alternative explanations have been tried with none remaining other than anthropogenic forcing to explain the last century or two of observation -- certainly the last 50 years; (c) that the anthropogenic explanation not only is the only one left standing but that it does succeed remarkably well given the areas and state of knowledge; and (d) that to be in a position of independent "thinking" at all on any of this, one that doesn't rely purely and solely upon the propaganda and bias of others, a comprehensive study (serious, extensive personal effort, in other words) must be undertaken.

So far as I have been able to ascertain, not one single naysayer in the group has shown even the slightest inclination towards applying themselves for more than what it takes to read a comic strip -- and even then without engaging their brains. Not even so much as lifted a finger in that direction.

Jon

I'd like to explore the psychology of the so called alarmists..

do you really think the world is coming to an end or do you just like the idea of controlling other people

the politicos are on a power trip..

Mark

The difference between a climate model and a weather model gets down lines of:

Weather model is used to predict a time schedule for high and low states of the switching transistor in a switching buck regulator that is powered by rectified-filtered household AC. Climate model is used to predict changes in duty cycle of state of the switching transistor as a result of change in line voltage, load conditions, and/or other external factors that are non-constant but vary over timeframe of decades-plus.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

I'm interested in science knowledge. That's bounds my care. As I wrote elsewhere, I know no naysayer willing to actually engage themselves, without ad hominem and focusing only on the methods, source materials, and conclusions in a serious way of any facet of climate science. It may be because they lack sufficient training, it may be simply because they are too lazy, but it always is because they don't respect themselves and don't care about the value of their own opinions. That part shows in spades. They simply hate themselves and don't believe in their own abilities. Which is a sad state to be in.

If you are willing to sincerely engage the science itself, let's cover a recent paper, "Nonlinear threshold behavior during the loss of Arctic sea ice," by I. Eisenmana and J. S. Wettlauferb, 2009. There's a few partials, boundary conditions, and diff eqs, plus references to papers going back to at least 1969.

A referenced paper, "The effect of solar radiation variations on the climate of the earth," M. I. Budyko, 1969, for example, is actually very interesting. I see someone's interpretation here:

That is an interesting read. However, that site fails to mention something I found far more interesting in Budyko's paper towards the very end. But I'll leave that for a later discovery by _you_, should you dare to take this up and sincerely engage your brain and do some real, personal work on the subject.

Nothing comes to one in a pill or injection form. You really _do_ have to work hard, to learn something. No escaping the effort. Laziness is your enemy.

Yes, it would require some small effort and study by anyone wishing to intelligently discuss the starting 2009 paper mentioned above. Luckily, it includes its development of the math in the SI Appendix and the main article segues with a very simple and basic understanding of a bistable state and a mathematical bifurcation surface. But the paper is recent, relevant, and I sincerely doubt any but a very few naysayers here can begin to understand the math involved, simple as it really is. Let alone discuss the implications with any care and sincere engagement.

There's plenty to attack, much of it already discussed in the paper; more to research; and yet much that is still said there of importance.

The training required to understand that paper is modest and nothing even close to what is required for atmospheric and oceanic fluid dynamics. It's 5th grader child's play, by comparison.

If you feel up to it, let's have at a sincere, informed and comprehensive discussion. The paper is freely available here:

That Budyko paper is also available here:

There are others, of course, and some will have to be gotten by requesting them from the authors. But that's what a serious discussion entails, right?

...

I have NO respect for those here willing to espouse firm name-calling directed at _all_ climate scientists as a group, unless they are willing to do the necessary work for their opinions. And I've yet to see the slightest shred of that willingness.

You willing to call me on this? Or going to run away trying to turn a science discussion into one of personalities, instead?

Jon

Even dedicated oilmen view Exxon Mobil as the dinosaur of the industry, concerned only with maximising the bottom line and CEOs bonus now and to hell with the future. Rockefeller descendents lobbied at the 2008 shareholder meeting to get Exxon to mend its ways, but sadly to no avail.

Since they value the bottom line so highly that is the only way to get their attention. A boycott of Exxon products is as much as consumers can do. The Royal Society has written open letters to Exxon complaining about their funding of dubious think tanks to publish deliberate misrepresentation of climate science in the past. The link is below.

Exxon has sponsored a sophisticated public disinformation campaign to attack perfectly valid science and scientists. They use the same handful of extreme right wing scientists several of whom have well documented previous as "denier for hire" in the tobacco industry.

Their product is to sow doubt in the public mind and prevent rational decisions being made on the basis of scientific evidence. Impossible to deny that they are very good at their job and that communication of real climate science to the general public has been poorly done.

Regards, Martin Brown

The elite and powerful exert their power and try and get ahead of any movement to turn it to their own profound advantage. Been the history of humanity since we've had any recorded history of it -- 6000 years and more. It's a very old human problem.

So what else is new?

Doesn't change the science fact. Nature doesn't care about fair or not fair. You fall off a cliff all the same, no matter how you feel about it or if it is fair or just or not. Sorry. Physics just is a very consistent teacher and completely inexorable to our wishes, cares, or sense of fair play.

The elite will do as they do and the rest of us will always be on the wrong end of that stick. Yes, the rats are winning the rat race. So?

...

I'm just as bothered as most anyone. Look at what's happened in the US, lately. A few very rich, elite, and very powerful people made some very stupid, asinine, gross errors and put the entire banking and monetary system of the US, if not the world, in peril. They were playing games and they wanted everyone else to make good on their idiocy and keep them whole while the rest of us pay the piper for their damned idiocy. And of course, we did. We saved their asses and they are paying themselves richly for it, too. No, I don't like it.

And, of course, if there is anyone to pay for climate change it will once again be... yes, you guessed it... you and me. That's the way of the world. When a country fails, or when the world community of countries get together to put "economic pressure" on some country's leadership... who do you think pays the higher price? You think it is the elite in those countries? Nope. Wrong. It's those without power to act. They are the first, the last, and the primary ones paying the price.

A true story on a small scale points all this out.

I had a conversation with the owner of a mid-sized business, while I was performing some work for him. Since we were together and could talk while I worked, we'd get into various discussions. One was about capital gains taxes, back when Ronald Reagan was making news on the subject. I took the position of supporting the tax and he disagreed with me about it. I made my arguments and he sincerely listened -- which I appreciated because he was quite a bit smarter on the subject than I was. I then asked him why he disagreed with me and it was my turn to listen to him.

He said, "Well, Jon. See the hundreds of employees out on the floor, there? They stand between me and the IRS. Every one of them. I control their wages, their benefits, and their very jobs. I also have some small control, to a degree, on what I charge in the marketplace though competition has something to say about it. If you raise my taxes (and those of my competition as well), I will still buy the same cars, get the same swimming pool, buy the same home that I would, anyway, and on the exact same schedule. Nothing will change for me, at all. But to get there, I may fire someone out there on the floor, or else not provide quite the same benefits I might otherwise have to them, or limit their raises next year, or not hire some people, etc. You see what I mean? My employees are my protection against taxation. And to the degree that I control their lives here as my employees, to that degree I am insulated from the vagaries of taxation. The simple fact, Jon, is that you cannot reach me without first reaching a lot of people who are in greater need than I am. To get to me, you have to come through all of them. It's just a fact of life. My employees insulate me."

That's how it is, Mark. That's the reality. That's the system. The bottom pays, the elite stays. And yes, if a carbon tax is implemented the elite will get ahead of the game and you and I will pay dearly while they get richer from yet another way to force the rest of us to further yoke ourselves up for them.

Oh, well. You want a living planet? Or the satisfaction of feeling that you've stubbed a toe of a few rich bastards scheming to get out ahead of this?

When WW II started to break out, there was all manner of righteous anger but also there were lots of business people figuring out how to make a fortune out of the horrible suffering of tens of millions of people, too. That's humans for you. Oh, well.

The science stands. Psychology is irrelevant to that. Of course, it has a lot to do with why we will, in the end, kill ourselves. You see the depth of that willingness every time you hear from parents willing to give their children up as suicide bombers. That's just how deep our fine-tuned sense of injustice and righteousness goes. And it will be our undoing, in the end.

Jon

How about an equivalent analogy: a slow, precision thermocouple amplifier can be modeled and built without concern for the fact that the opamps are oscillating.

John

Naturally. You consider all references to electronics to be irrelevant.

You can't understand a simulation of a simple 2-fet oscillator but worship impossibly complex and chaotic climate models. What a doofus.

John

I have never pulled into an Exxon station that didn't have three grades of gas available. The quality of their products is literally perfect. The rest rooms are clean and the store has all the snacks and drinks and car fluids I need. A gallon of their excellent gasoline costs less than a gallon of milk or a gallon of cola drink. The mechanics of filling up and paying are foolproof and efficient.

Compare that to anything the government runs.

John

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No. I consider complaints about the inadequacies of weather simulation programs to be irrelevant to discussions of the performance of climate simulation programs. You know so little about the subject that you can't get it into your head that the two classess of model are appreciably and significantly different, and different again from Spice simulations, which are rather simpler.

Since I've got no problem understanding that simulation, that comment makes you the doofus.

I've equally got no problem with understanding that the comparable simulation of a simple 2-bjt oscillator predicts identical behaviour

- which doesn't happen to show up in reality - since I'm well aware that computer models are simplified models of reality. I've hypothesised here that replacing the Gummel-Poon model of the bjt in my model oscillator with a VBIC model might bring the simulation closer to reality, but without access to a VBIC model this is difficult to test.

What relevance this might have to the complex - and deliberately non- chaotic - climate models used by climatologists does escape me, but since you can't even appreciate the difference between climate models and weather models, I can write it off as yet one more of your public exhibitions of fatuous ignorance.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Unfortunately, while their gasoline burns satisfactorily in your car, the denialist propaganda that they dispense with equal care and attention happens to be dangerous nonsense.

You seem to be so charmed by the presentation that you can't bring yourself to believe that the product is concocted out of lies and half truths, and that your redistribution of their rubbish makes you look like a gullible nitwit.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

This is a denialist group, and shouldn't be taken seriously. Willy Soon and Viscount Chistoper Monckton figure prominently

They don't tell us where they get their money from, but the people involved have been directly funded by the usual suspects from time to time.

Willy Soon has daft ideas about solar variablity explaining the recent warming (since 1750).

Viscount Monckton is a lawyer who fancies that he can find fault with the accepted climate models. The American Institute of Physics was silly enough to publish one of his efforts in a non-peer-reviewed forum. There's a detailed list of the errors in that particular effort available at

-- Bil Sloman, Nijmegen

I agree that some businesses are unethical and "sow doubt in the public mind and prevent rational decisions".

If they were any better at it they would be as bad as governments including the British government.

I don't have a strong opinion on Iraq but Bliar's snow job puts big oil into the shade.

Or to put it another way I don't trust what businesses say but I know politicians lie especially when they agree with each other.

Their product is mostly concocted from hydrocarbons, and I redistribute it by burning it in a 250 HP 3.2 litre V6.

Al Gore is a world-class liar, and he produces nothing near so useful as a nice tank of gasoline.

John