Climate: LNG in B.C. vs Alberta tarsands

[OldBlackDog]

To Seadna.
As this is your world, how do you like this?
This is a double edged sword for this and possibly lots of losers in the science world.
by Bishop Hill
Magic wands and the greens
Feb 25, 2015
Energy: gas Greens
I think it was Bryony Worthington who once asked a bunch of environmentalists what they would happen if a fairy could wave a magic wand and do away with the warming effects of carbon dioxide. Would they be happy for mankind to continue to burn fossil fuels?

The answer of course was "no".

Interesting then to read the news that Roman Abramovich has made a major investment in a company that claims to be able to fracture rocks without any fluids at all.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has invested $15 million in Houston-based Propell Technologies Group, Inc. (OTCROP) and its new fracking technology from wholly owned subsidiary Novas Energy. Significantly, this new enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology enables ‘clean’ hydraulic micro/nano fracturing of oil reservoirs—that is, without water, without polluting chemicals and without earthquakes.

According to Propell, the Plasma Pulse patented downhole tool creates a controlled plasma arc within a vertical well, generating a tremendous amount of heat for a fraction of a second. The subsequent high-speed hydraulic impulse wave emitted is strong enough to remove any clogged sedimentation from the perforation zone without damaging steel. The series of impulse waves/vibrations also penetrate deep into the reservoir causing nano fractures in the matrix which increase reservoir permeability for up to a year per treatment.

It sounds like the shale gas industry's very own magic wand. You can almost sense the dismay among the green fraternity.

 

[seadna]

Regardless of which "side" of this discussion you are on, here's an interesting paper that explains much of what is going on in this thread

Science vs Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation

Selected quotes [My restatement thereof]

"The World Wide Web has changed the dynamics of information transmission as well as the agenda-setting process [1]. Relevance of facts, in particular when related to social relevant issues, mingle with half-truths and untruths to create informational blends [2, 3]. In such a scenario, as pointed out by [4], individuals can be uninformed or misinformed and the role of corrections in the diffusion and formation of biased beliefs are not effective. In particular, in [5] online debunking campaigns have been shown to create a reinforcement effect in usual consumers of conspiracy stories. In this work, we address users consumption patterns of information using very distinct type of contents—i.e., main stream scientific news and conspiracy news. The former diffuse scientific knowledge and the sources are easy to access. The latter aim at diffusing what is neglected by manipulated main stream media. Specifically, conspiracy theses tend to reduce the complexity of reality by explaining significant social or political aspects as plots conceived by powerful individuals or organizations. Since these kinds of arguments can sometimes involve the rejection of science, alternative explanations are invoked to replace the scientific evidence. For instance, people who reject the link between HIV and AIDS generally believe that AIDS was created by the U.S. Government to control the African American population [6]. The spread of misinformation in such a context might be particularly difficult to detect and correct because of the social reinforcement—i.e. people are more likely to trust an information someway consistent with their system of beliefs [7–17]. The growth of knowledge fostered by an interconnected world together with the unprecedented acceleration of scientific progress has exposed the society to an increasing level of complexity to explain reality and its phenomena. Indeed, a shift of paradigm in the production and consumption of contents has occurred, utterly increasing the volumes as well as the heterogeneity of available to users. Everyone on the Web can produce, access and diffuse contents actively participating in the creation, diffusion and reinforcement of different narratives. Such a large heterogeneity of information fostered the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews and narratives." [It is unlikely that anyone is going to change anyone's mind with additional information and in fact continued discussion reinforces hard held beliefs.]

"Our analysis starts with an outline of information consumption patterns and the community structure of pages according to their common users. We label polarized users—users which their like activity (positive feedback) is almost (95%) exclusively on the pages of one category—and find similar interaction patterns on the two communities with respect to preferred contents. According to literature on opinion dynamics [37], in particular the one related to the Bounded confidence model (BCM) [51]—two individuals are able to influence each other only if the distance between their opinion is below a given distance—users consuming different and opposite information tend to aggregate into isolated clusters (polarization)." [Unless you're not too far apart in your beliefs at the beginning, more online discussion will not sway the other person.]

Perhaps (after 253 pages) it's time to let this thread die.

What do I think? See the bottom of the above post.

 

[agentaqua]

What do I think? See the bottom of the above post.

I an now also thinking the same. As long as posters (on either side of the political, non-science) debate realize nobody "wins" this debate by sheer volume of cut and pastes. That is not a "science" debate on the science of climate change.

In fact - if climate change is real - nobody wins at all - maybe except the petrochemical industry and the politicians they paid off.

It may feel comfortable to someone that his/her belief is supported by others in the anonymous world of internet electrons - but just because some demonstrate science illet-ter-acey and a desire towards belief-based direction - it doesn't mean the rest of the world have the same needs nor beliefs. Many in the world outside the planning boardrooms of Calgary, Ottawa, and Houston actually live in their country and understand it and experience all that climate change has been bringing.

The people up North and the Arctic have been living with the reality of global warming now for some years. The southern boundary of, and the depth where you find permafrost - has been shrinking and increasing; respectively. The number of frost-free days have been increasing - and presumably the number of days of operation of ice roads to get equipment in and out of tar sands operations has been inversely shrinking. Maybe that's the real reason for the rush to extract tar sands bitumen.

All of this - and more - is documented.

Only a bizarrely detached and disconnected person wouldn't understand this. Maybe by having a totally migrant work force - corporations can get their employees to ignore that largely unregulated damage resource extraction can do sometimes. By not feeling a connection and responsibility and intergenerational history for the land and water and air - only then can we not care enough to let sh*t happen.

Only an extremely shellfish person without vision would assume that any person or corporations privilege to play the stock market would outweigh our responsibility to future generations and to ourselves.

I'm done with this thread, too CDNA. Good luck and God-bless you GLG.

 

[OldBlackDog]

To seadna, sorry this is the article I meant.
This is a double edged sword.


The ‘Skeptical Seven’ Witch Hunt is Just the Beginning
February 26th, 2015 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
painting-david-and-goliathCongressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has sent letters to universities requesting information on the sources of financial support of seven climate researchers. A few of these might well have some portion of their funding come from energy companies, I don’t know.

The implication, of course, is that research money from fossil fuel companies to any skeptics is bad, even though much greater amounts of fossil fuel money goes to Green organizations.

Can you spell “hypocrisy”?

One of the biggest misconceptions about climate research funding is that government funding is unbiased. That is, the belief that government funding does not favor one outcome over another.

This might be true for benign research projects, like the mating habits of the Arctic sea slug, but when it comes to research topics with massive political and economic implications, nothing could be further from the truth.

Government funding programs are, in part, formulated by government political appointees who prefer research with outcomes that support their government programs.

Similarly, university research scientists who provide peer review of proposals for funding favor those proposals which offer to make findings that everyone knows will help to perpetuate funding. After all, it is difficult to get Congress to agree to fund non-problems, and yet climate research funding has to continue in order for the current marching army of lifelong climate researchers to have jobs.

Furthermore, in my experience both government employees and university researchers tend to have a distorted view of where research money comes from, and how prosperity (which is necessary for us to afford scientific research) is achieved. Government managers call their research budgets “funny money”, as if its value did not derive from actual work performed by actual taxpayers.

For many years now, government funding of climate research has been infamously resistant toward any theories that climate change isn’t primarily human-driven. I am not aware of any NSF, NOAA, NASA, DOE (or any other funding agency) request for proposals (RFPs) that offered funding to investigate alternative theories of climate change.

This is an unfortunate situation that continues to astonish me, given the immense human cost of proposed energy policies.

I also believe this situation is not what a majority of taxpayers (who foot the bill) would want. The disparity in government funding is not easy to remedy. We have told Congress for years that a Red Team approach to climate research funding is needed, but government funding agencies (which fall under the Executive Branch) would just put the foxes in charge of the hen houses when it came time to form the Red Teams.

The fact that the agencies which fund climate research are technically part of the Executive Branch of government means that the White House has considerable control over outcomes. The recent WH release of what amounts to a directive to go after “climate change deniers” (who the hell denies that climate changes?? Sheesh!) seems to have been the start of an orchestrated effort to shut us down.

That Roger Pielke, Jr. is one of the current ‘Skeptical Seven’ targets is especially troubling. Roger is quite green and hardly considers himself a skeptic. In fact, he largely agrees with the IPCC. All he asks is that people stop making demonstrably incorrect claims that “climate change” is causing greater damage today than it ever has. (Total monetary losses due to weather rise as prosperity and infrastructure increases, even if weather becomes somewhat less severe). Yet, Roger is now backing out of climate change related research due to the current witch hunt.

I’ll leave it to others to decide whether McCarthyism is a good description of the current situation.

Due to a lack of funding for alternative theories of climate change, a handful of skeptical researchers have turned to private funding from time to time to help keep their research going. Now, I personally don’t care where people get their funding. Their published research must stand on its own merits. And if government refuses to fund both sides, what choice is there other than find a new line of work?

So, will Congressman Grijalva also make similar requests of warmist researchers whose universities took money from energy companies? Does he really think everyone will be blind to the naked hypocrisy of such a move?

What is ironic is that it is the fossil fuel companies which have given money to both sides of the global warming debate. Their giving to Big Green groups has far exceeded their giving to any skeptics. In contrast, government has been the most biased source of funding, refusing to fund virtually all research that might in any way cast doubt on humans being the cause of “climate change”, since it would jeopardize energy policy changes which some politicians and environmentalists have been lusting after for decades.

I suspect my current views on climate change happen to be consistent with what most of the CEOs of coal and petroleum companies would like to hear. But even if they all decided tomorrow that the IPCC is correct after all, and they even offered to pay me to go along with them, I would not change my mind. In my opinion, the bulk of evidence suggests more CO2 in the atmosphere will be good for life on Earth, and in any event there is nothing substantial we can do yet to prevent steadily increasing CO2 without causing immense human suffering.

If we could, then fine, do it as an insurance policy. But no one in their right mind buys insurance that costs more than the payout.

In fact, if government pressure on energy companies continues, I fully expect most CEOs will decide to go along with the government’s desires. They know they are going to get paid anyway, because humanity for the foreseeable future will continue to run on ~85% fossil fuels. They probably will expect to get additional government subsidies to “reduce their carbon footprint”, or some such nonsense.

Follow the money, folks.

So, while we wait to see just how the current witch hunt plays out (which I am told has now been extended to some skeptical-leaning think tanks), let me ask:

1) Are you OK with the fact that U.S. energy policy has been informed by an international scientific organization (the IPCC) whose outgoing chairman this week admitted that global warming is his “religion“? Or that others in the IPCC have admitted their goal is global income redistribution? Is this the “unbiased” source of scientific information you want your government to rely on for energy policy?

2) Are you OK with the fact that U.S. government funding for research into natural sources of climate change has been almost non-existent?

The governmental Goliath is coming after David. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Not a 100% believer? Even borderline climate apostates like Pielke must be punished in the witchhunt

The witchhunt over tenuous connections to fossil fuel funding wants to do a lot more than just silence a few people. The aim is to maintain the global chill over all of academia. That’s why it’s so important we support the individuals under fire, and don’t give in.

Congratulations to Richard Lindzen, John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Hayward, Roger Pielke, David Legates, and Robert Balling. All of them have been named to be investigated and lined up for character assassination like Willie Soon. Obviously they are effective and convincing speakers, and a threat to the climate-industry.

Stephen Hayward is flattered, and mocks the critics: “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Climate Skeptic?”

“Let’s start by axing a simple question: If I say “two plus two equals four,” does the truth of that proposition depend on whether I’ve received a grant from the Charles G. Koch Foundation? Apparently it does for Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. He has sent letters to seven universities targeting seven academics who, according to the Democratic spokesman for the committee, were chosen because they seem “to have the most impact on policy in the scientific community.”

Even a tiny step beyond the approved line will be punished

Consider how hard-line the inquisition is. Roger Pielke Jr. accepts most of the consensus IPCC positions, even calling for a carbon tax, and supporting Obama’s proposed EPA regulations, but he’s under fire as much as those who question everything. The aim here is much larger than just stopping Pielke — the real audience are the thousands of silent borderline skeptical academics watching on. Imagine if they spoke their minds? The message to them is “don’t even think it”. All academics must be 100% believers, and even the smallest deviation from the permitted line will receive the same treatment.

The harassment and pressure work on whistleblowers. We are all human. Sadly even Pielke admits, despite having tenure, that the harrassment means he has changed the way he writes and researches:

The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no doubt, I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate issues. I am simply not initiating any new research or papers on the topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly diminishing blogging on the subject.

As Mark Steyn would say the process is the punishment.

Judith Curry writes: This whole issue has now become personal.

As Paul Homewood says: McCarthyism is not dead.

The real conflicts of interest in climate science matter for people waving unreplicable models

Judith Curry discusses the conflict of interests and points out that it not as relevant in climate science as in other areas where things are not so easily replicable:

The issue is this. The intense politicization of climate science makes bias more likely to be coming from political and ideological perspectives than from funding sources. Unlike research related to food and drug safety and environmental contaminants, most climate science is easily replicable using publicly available data sets and models. So all this IMO is frankly a red herring in the field of climate science research.

I would argue that many of the results used in climate science are not replicable in practice. They come from mysterious black box models or detailed homogenization methods, which even if the full code were available, would take individuals months of work to replicate. In the total absence of funding and grants, no one independent is going to replicate them.

In other words, the people who have conflicts of interest that really need exposing are not skeptics reporting on public datasets which can be replicated, but climate modelers and temperature adjusters who make public announcements with billions of dollars and lives resting on them, but which have not been independently replicated. And when I say “independently” replicated, I don’t mean by another group with the same conflict of interest.

If the evidence was so solid, and the models so reliable, climate scientists would be demanding and welcoming funding to outright skeptics to settle the issue. Instead, fans of the complex unskilled and failing models know that their assumptions are dubious and unsupported, and if a truly skeptical scientist were given equivalent resources to replicate it, they would probably tear it to shreds, exposing how fickle the projections were and how dependent it all was on a few key, baseless, guesses.

The antidote to pressure and intimidation is the support of the crowd

 

[GLG]

Well there you go OBD looks like your team is going to get some scrutiny.
Seem's like the shoe is on the other foot now.
I await the new term your side comes up with and I'm sure it will have "gate" in it.
Here I will help... Duh-gate, Denial-gate, Watt's-gate, PoorMe-gate, ItTheSun-gate, Soon-gate, Nova-Gate......

It's a shame that we mix "skeptical" with "denial' but that's the point we have gotten to.
I have no problem with skeptical but when the arguments are made, in the peer reviewed science, they don't hold up. Take "Soon" and his "it's the sun" idea. Well that didn't work out for him now did it. A skeptic would change his mind if the evidence was convincing to him. That has happened with Mullen at his "BEST" team. A denier doesn't have the ability to change his mind, regardless of the evidence. They are not using science but rather ideology as a guide. So until the ideology changes then there is no hope for the denier. There is an old saying.... When the facts change I change my mind what do you do?

Now Spencer thinks there is some other reason we have warming but he is at a lose as to what that may be. Until your team can come up with a theory as to why the observations of a warming world can be explained then we will have to blame it on CO2. Let me remind you OBD that a Nobel Prize awaits the first one with a new theory that explains all the observations, without CO2. Until that happens we better start cutting back on the CO2 that we produce.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Well like I said a double edged sword.
Takes very little to find a lot about your group taking gas money.
I will post it for you if you like.
You leader is not happy about this either, want me to pull that up for you?
This is not about science it is about politics.

Science will loose over this in the long term. You and yours will loose for this reason.

Well there you go OBD looks like your team is going to get some scrutiny.
Seem's like the shoe is on the other foot now.
I await the new term your side comes up with and I'm sure it will have "gate" in it.
Here I will help... Duh-gate, Denial-gate, Watt's-gate, PoorMe-gate, ItTheSun-gate, Soon-gate, Nova-Gate......

It's a shame that we mix "skeptical" with "denial' but that's the point we have gotten to.
I have no problem with skeptical but when the arguments are made, in the peer reviewed science, they don't hold up. Take "Soon" and his "it's the sun" idea. Well that didn't work out for him now did it. A skeptic would change his mind if the evidence was convincing to him. That has happened with Mullen at his "BEST" team. A denier doesn't have the ability to change his mind, regardless of the evidence. They are not using science but rather ideology as a guide. So until the ideology changes then there is no hope for the denier. There is an old saying.... When the facts change I change my mind what do you do?

Now Spencer thinks there is some other reason we have warming but he is at a lose as to what that may be. Until your team can come up with a theory as to why the observations of a warming world can be explained then we will have to blame it on CO2. Let me remind you OBD that a Nobel Prize awaits the first one with a new theory that explains all the observations, without CO2. Until that happens we better start cutting back on the CO2 that we produce.

 

[OldBlackDog]

Democratic Congressman Draws Backlash Over Climate Funding Probe

"It does come across as sort of heavy handed and overly aggressive,"
"It does come across as sort of heavy handed and overly aggressive," Mann told National Journal.
A House Democrat looking for ties between climate skeptics at several universities and fossil fuel interests is facing allegations that his probe goes too far. And they're not just coming from his political opponents.

Following revelations that a prominent climate skeptic failed to disclose funding from Exxon, Southern Company, and other fossil fuel industry sources, Rep. Raul Grijalva, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, sent letters to seven schools demanding information about—and "communication regarding"—specific professors' funding sources and their preparation of testimony before Congress and other bodies.

Grijalva's effort marks a flipping of the script of sorts. In recent years, some of the highest-profile probes of climate scientists have been generated by Republicans and global warming skeptics, notably former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's campaign against the prominent researcher Michael Mann.

"Politicians should not persecute academics with whom they disagree. No ifs or buts," tweeted Bob Ward, policy and communications director with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in the U.K.

The University of Colorado's Roger Pielke, Jr., one of the recipients of the letters, slammed Grijalva's probe as a 'witch hunt.'

Grijalva's letters cite recent reports of Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, a scientist affiliated with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon disputes the scientific consensus that human activities are the main driver of global warming, and documents obtained by environmentalists showed that Soon referred to his work as "deliverables" for funders.

The congressman implies that other researchers may have undisclosed relationships with fossil fuel companies. "If true, these may not be isolated incidents," Grijalva wrote.

Joanne Carney of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said she understands the concerns around Soon's work, and noted her organization requires disclosure of funding sources and potential conflicts in its journals. If the group were to find that a researcher has not disclosed the information, they would examine that author's other work, Carney said.

But she was skeptical of Grijalva's letters that probe other researchers. "I think we are questioning why they are making the assumption that other researchers need to be questioned," Carney said, and later added: "It is not clear to us why these other scientists were being targeted."

Pielke said he has "no funding, declared or undeclared, with any fossil fuel company or interest" and never has, he wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "Representative Grijalva knows this too, because when I have testified before the U.S. Congress, I have disclosed my funding and possible conflicts of interest.

"So I know with complete certainty that this investigation is a politically-motivated 'witch hunt' designed to intimidate me (and others) and to smear my name," Pielke said.

On Twitter, University of Washington earth sciences professor Eric Steig said that he has Pielke's back. "Welcome to the new McCarthyism. Congress should not be able to investigate on a whim. You have my *unequivocal* support," Steig said.

Mann, a prominent Penn State climate scientist who has has been subject of Republican-led probes of his work in past years, had a mixed verdict on the letters.

"It does come across as sort of heavy handed and overly aggressive," Mann told National Journal, adding that he is "a little uncomfortable" with the demands for the professors' correspondence. But he said there's nothing wrong with seeking information on funding sources. "That is something that no scientists should have any qualms" about providing, Mann said.

Mann also said the Grijalva letters on funding should not be "conflated" with probes he has faced from GOP Rep. Joe Barton and Cuccinelli.

"The difference being that they were demanding materials that are protected under principles of academic freedom—private deliberations between academics or scientists, unpublished manuscripts, raw source code that was written, stuff that's intrinsic to your work as a scientist," Mann said.

Mann is best known for research that produced the "hockey stick" chart, which that reconstructs global temperature over the past 1,000 years and shows a sharp uptick in the 20th century. His conduct has been cleared in several probes.

Grijalva's office insists it's not crossing the line, and argued there's a difference between these letters and past GOP-led probes of climate scientists.

"We are not asking for drafts of scientific research. We are not asking for raw data. We are not asking for whole hard drives worth of stuff," said Adam Sarvana, Grijalva's spokesman. "This is about finances and it is about the connection between money and testimony, because testimony is not research. Testimony is interpreting scientific information for public consumption to influence policy, and in our view that is not protected entirely by academic shielding."

Sarvana similarly defended the request for communications with funders, to determine if there was an "implicit or explicit promise made."

"The whole Willie Soon story turns on exactly the kinds of things that we are asking for," he said.

The American Association of University Professors does not have an official position on the letters, but the group referred questions to Martin Kich, an English professor at Wright State University.

Kich said Grijalva has every right to ask for the sources and amounts of research grants and specific proposals that have been funded. "But in requesting the personal correspondence of faculty, he is asking the institutions to violate the academic freedom of those faculty members. AAUP will almost certainly be opposed to that," he said in an email.

Pielke is one of several academics who have testified before Congress at the invitation of Republicans to be targeted by one of the letters, which were sent to the presidents of the universities that employ the researchers Grijalva's probing.

Pielke doesn't dispute human-induced climate change, but frequently says advocates have gone too far with claims that it has worsened extreme weather events like hurricanes and severe droughts, or increased their frequency.

Other professors targeted by the letters break in various ways with the overwhelming majority of scientists on climate change.

For instance, Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology has attacked the 2013 finding by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that there's at least a 95 percent chance that human influences have been the dominant cause of warming since the mid-20th century, arguing that evidence had weakened since the IPCC's big 2007 assessment.

Curry, in a lengthy post on her website Wednesday, criticized Grijalva's letters and pointed to statements about her funding sources that she attaches to congressional testimony.

"It looks like it is 'open season' on anyone who deviates even slightly from the consensus," she writes, later adding: "I don't think anything good will come of this. I anticipate that Grijalva will not find any kind of an undisclosed fossil fuel smoking gun from any of the 7 individuals under investigation."

The other professors who are targets of Grijalva's letters are:

David Legates of the University of Delaware; John Christy of the University of Alabama; Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Robert Balling of Arizona State University; and Steven Hayward of Pepperdine University.

Across Capitol Hill, other Democrats are taking a different tack in launching new probes of the nexus between fossil fuel industries and climate research and testimony.

Sens. Ed Markey, Barbara Boxer and Sheldon Whitehouse sent letters to roughly 100 fossil fuel companies, trade groups, and conservative organizations—like this one to the American Petroleum Institute—seeking information on climate-related research they have supported.

 

[GLG]

Well like I said a double edged sword.
Takes very little to find a lot about your group taking gas money.
I will post it for you if you like.
You leader is not happy about this either, want me to pull that up for you?
This is not about science it is about politics.

Science will loose over this in the long term. You and yours will loose for this reason.

Yea I would not be so sure of that.
The way I see it "Soon" will be the loser along with your sides credibility if they a had any.
Science has nothing to fear from disclosure of funds.
It's worked for Tobacco and Drug Companies so bring it on.
If you did your homework and were honest then no problem.
If you cheated and lied then the game is up....

As an example.....
Let's say you were paid by XYZ fishing tackle company.
You report on this website how XYZ spoon is killer and you don't disclose.
Heck you don't even test your spoon but claim that it works.
Anglers buy the spoon and report that it's a dud.
You insist that they are wrong...
When someone asked you lie and insist that they don't pay you.
Someone finds out that you work for XYZ and has a pay sub to prove it.
What then OBD, how are we to believe anything you claim.
Are we to think it was a simple mistake?

 

[ClayoquotKid]

Josh on Pachauri’s “hacked” emails and resignation
Anthony Watts / 1 hour ago February 24, 2015
Apparently, Pachauri’s troubles are all just due to an “unfortunate series of incidents”… and his resignation from the IPCC is just to give time to set the record straight.

Meanwhile, the world awaits the inevitable mug shot and the perp walk.

February 24, 2015 in IPCC, Satire.

Aaaaaaannnnnd here's the messages in question.

Gonna need some waders and a firehose to clean up afterwards, if you choose to read them...

I'm going to go stand in the rain for a bit.

Yikes.

http://linkis.com/www.liveindia.in/uRTey

 

[ClayoquotKid]

"Finally, suppose that remaining affordably recoverable reserves of fossil fuels are as much as thrice those that have been recovered and consumed so far. Then, the total warming we shall cause by consuming all remaining recoverable reserves will be little more than 2.2 K, and not the 12 K imagined by IPCC on the RCP 8.5 scenario. If so, the case for any intervention to mitigate CO2 emissions has not necessarily been made: for the 2.2 K equilibrium warming we project would take place only over many hundreds of years. Also, the disbenefits of more extreme heat may well be at least matched by the benefits of less extreme cold. It is no accident that 90 % of the world’s living species thrive in the warm, wet tropics, while only 1 % live at the cold, dry poles"

http://wmbriggs.com/public/Monckton.et.al.pdf

It's not the end of the world.

Maybe, for some, the coffers will dry up and they will have to focus on understanding the climate cycle more instead of creating models which match the current political drive - but for the rest of the planet the status quo (as far as C02 is concerned) means they can continue to reap the benefits of fossil-fuel derived energy in to a future in which they may have other viable options.

 

[GLG]

"Finally, suppose that remaining affordably recoverable reserves of fossil fuels are as much as thrice those that have been recovered and consumed so far. Then, the total warming we shall cause by consuming all remaining recoverable reserves will be little more than 2.2 K, and not the 12 K imagined by IPCC on the RCP 8.5 scenario. If so, the case for any intervention to mitigate CO2 emissions has not necessarily been made: for the 2.2 K equilibrium warming we project would take place only over many hundreds of years. Also, the disbenefits of more extreme heat may well be at least matched by the benefits of less extreme cold. It is no accident that 90 % of the world’s living species thrive in the warm, wet tropics, while only 1 % live at the cold, dry poles"

http://wmbriggs.com/public/Monckton.et.al.pdf

It's not the end of the world.

Maybe, for some, the coffers will dry up and they will have to focus on understanding the climate cycle more instead of creating models which match the current political drive - but for the rest of the planet the status quo (as far as C02 is concerned) means they can continue to reap the benefits of fossil-fuel derived energy in to a future in which they may have other viable options.

And that will be the "paper" that is going to bring down your house of cards....
Well maybe not but it sure puts egg on the face of the "experts for rent" on your side.
CK you do know that Soon is the co-author that started this mess right?
Still looking for a "gate" to call this fail.
Free Willie Soon-gate, Mistake-gate, CherryPick-gate, Lie-gate, Error-gate, Amateur-gate, Denial-gate....

 

[GLG]

Aaaaaaannnnnd here's the messages in question.

Gonna need some waders and a firehose to clean up afterwards, if you choose to read them...

I'm going to go stand in the rain for a bit.

Yikes.

http://linkis.com/www.liveindia.in/uRTey

Yea I don't think so... In not a fan at peeking into sex lives.
I'll stick to the science thanks.....

 

[OldBlackDog]

After two stints as pope of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rajendra “Patchy” Pachauri has seized the opportunity of a pause in global warming to announce, first, his resignation and, second, his undying faith in the cause.

Editorial: Climate Alarmism Rests On Faith

pachauri-bishop-ipcc

In a letter to be read from pulpits and weather stations across the world, Dr Pachauri vindicates the trust placed in him as pope of the IPCC by declaring that for him, “the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma.”

It doesn’t take much faith in the scientific method to accept, as The Australian does, that during the past century or so industrial development and greenhouse gases have been associated with rising temperature. But it’s the overheated rhetoric on climate that shows we are often dealing with a dogmatic quasi-religion, not science.

Lightning and a thunderous voice from the clouds may announce a revelation that believers revere as settled doctrine. But science has a habit of unsettling; as surprising results mount up, they put yesterday’s theories under strain. The current pause in warming may — or may not — mask an underlying trend that fits the global warming thesis. The general mechanism whereby greenhouse gases trap energy emitted by the Earth and push up its temperature may be well understood but much else is not — and should not be anointed as dogma.

Climate models are attempts to mimic the complex interplay between human activity and nature; it’s dopey to hold them out as prophecy. The degree of man-made warming to come, its likely effects good and bad, and the case for remedial action balanced against other claims on scarce public resources are all matters for expert advice, rational debate and decisions open to review as new data comes to hand.

It’s not blasphemy to probe the data, expose the false alarmism of the now notorious “hockey stick” graph or point out the lousy track record of climate models. It’s basic economics and common humanity to wonder aloud whether improving water quality in poor countries would be a better use of funds than the more speculative climate mitigation projects.

Yet, as the 2009 Climategate emails showed, those prone to alarmism react to dissent and debate as if they are high priests of a besieged cult rather than scientists open to inquiry. Dr Pachauri’s panel serves up ex cathedra rulings on phenomena beyond its control and unbelievers — even “lukewarmers”, in the memorable coinage of Matt Ridley, former science editor of The Economist — find themselves anathematised.

The Australian, 27 February 2015

 

[OldBlackDog]

Life Before The Hockey Stick

Before it became profitable to lie about global warming, scientists told a very different story.

ScreenHunter_16 Feb. 26 16.23

Great Plains or Great Desert? The Sea of Dunes Lies in Wait
By WILLIAM K. STEVENS
Published: May 28, 1996

AS devastating as the present drought in the southern Great Plains has been, scientists who study ancient climates are finding that droughts, floods and severe cold far surpassing anything in the modern era have punctuated the 10,000 years since the last ice age.

The discovery has surprised experts because the climate of this most recent period in earth history, called the Holocene, has long been considered relatively stable and serene, and its comparative tranquillity has long been thought essential to the development of civilization.

Now, paleoclimatologists are finding in case after case that the Holocene climate has been more volatile than had been believed. The disturbing implication is that these natural catastrophes could come again at any time, quite apart from any change in climate that might result from emissions of waste industrial gases that can trap heat.

“We like to think of whatever climate we’re in as normal,” said Dr. Daniel Muhs, a geologist with the United States Geological Survey in Denver, “and our natural assumption is that it will keep on that way — that’s a very tenuous assumption.”

It turns out that the climate of the last century and a half, the brief period in which people have been measuring temperature and precipitation, has indeed been relatively placid. These comparatively calm recent decades have nevertheless had their own ups and downs, like the drought that struck the southern Great Plains in the 1930’s, creating the Dust Bowl.

Great Plains or Great Desert? The Sea of Dunes Lies in Wait – NYTimes.com

There can be little doubt the current staff at the New York Times would censor their own article, for telling the truth.

 

[GLG]

Well there you go OBD 1996 is you new argument for what we see today....
Explain this then.... I know you think it's natural.... but what is the mechanism for it then?
Why can't your team come up with an answer?

How about this trend?

 

[OldBlackDog]

Really, what percentage of warming is man responsible for? You argued it is mans fault, yet it happened because of normal global warming.
As to your group saying this will happen and that will happen, not really proven to be right. So why should anyone believe your group?

Well there you go OBD 1996 is you new argument for what we see today....
Explain this then.... I know you think it's natural.... but what is the mechanism for it then?had any
Why can't your team come up with an answer?

How about this trend?

 

[Clint r]

Copied from Castanets news service:

UBC prof talks climate
Photo: Facebook
Simon Donner SCUBA diving.
Bill Everitt - Feb 26 7:00 pm
A climate expert from UBC's Vancouver campus will be holding a free public forum in the Penticton library next weekend.
Simon Donner is a climatology professor and research scientist at UBC in Vancouver. The event is hosted by First Things First, a local organization committed to raising the awareness of climate change, through education, presentations and activism.
A panel of local scientists will also join the discussion.
"It is real. It is caused by people. Scientists are certain. Something can be done," Donner says.
Based on his research in the Pacific Islands and in British Columbia, Donner presents his evidence that humans are responsible for climate change.
On March 6 at 7 p.m. he will describe what he believes we can expect to see in the coming decades.
As a researcher, he has studied a wide range of problems including climate change and coral reefs, and climate change adaptation in the Pacific Islands.
Donner has called Climate Change "one of the great challenges of the century."

 

[GLG]

Really, what percentage of warming is man responsible for? You argued it is mans fault, yet it happened because of normal global warming.
As to your group saying this will happen and that will happen, not really proven to be right. So why should anyone believe your group?

What are you talking about show us some proof that it's not man-made. Can't do can you....
That's what wrong with your idea/opinion... you have no proof. Your side has tried (Soon) but that's not working out is it.
You have this pig that you try to put lipstick on but it's still a pig. I does't change the fact it's a pig.

 

[ClayoquotKid]

For the Love of Models

A very odd thing happened in Science. Turns out a famous weatherman has been forecasting highs in the 60s then 70s for New York City all winter long. But the temperature never rose above the single digits, teens, twenties, and thirties.

One day a writer at the New York Post wrote an article telling people not to trust the weatherman, who, it turned out, had issued a prediction for the following day for a “High of 80!”

Climatologists stationed at NASA on the Upper West Side were incensed that a non-scientist would interfere with Science. So the climatologists spoke with the weatherman, who said he was basing his predictions on a sophisticated computer model. The weatherman admitted his difficulties, but said his model would have performed great if only he had better measures of surface snow cover.

This reasoning wholly convinced the climatologists who held a press conference at which they insisted, “Whoever disagrees with this weatherman is a science denier. The weatherman is using a sophisticated computer model, which can only get better since we have provided the weatherman with New & Improved! measures of surface snow cover.”

Cowed, the press skittered away, went home and put on their shorts to await the promised warmth. But the next day the high was only 16oF. And for the next week it was bitterly cold, yet the weatherman went on predicting a heatwave. This raised eyebrows, but since nobody wanted to be called a denier, they didn’t insist the weatherman was wrong.

The climatologists suspected, however, that something wasn’t quite right. So they called another meeting with the weatherman. He admitted he had incorporated the New & Improved! surface snow cover measurements, but that hadn’t helped much. And besides, there wasn’t anything wrong after all. The model was still great—better than great—but it was natural variability that was to blame for the wayward observations. “Nobody,” he said, “Can anticipate natural variability.”

Again, the climatologists were convinced by this argument and they called another press conference. “The model this weatherman is using is correct,” they said. “It is really a quite excellent model. But natural variability interfered with observations.”

A man in the audience, a non-tenured engineering professor, was perplexed. He was bold enough to ask, “But that doesn’t make any sense. Natural variability is what the weather is. What you’re really saying is that the model does a poor job of representing the weather.”

“That is false,” the climatologists said. “The model is terrific. From whom do you receive your funding?”

The engineering professor said, “Well, partly from a company that manufactures a specialized product. But what does that matter? Your model said the temperature would be high and instead it was low. That can only mean the model is wrong.”

Now the engineering professor didn’t know it, but his Dean was watching the press conference. The Dean was embarrassed that he had a science denier in his department and the next day he moved to have the young professor terminated. A reporter (shivering like mad and dressed in a t-shirt) heard about the firing and asked the climatologists for their opinion.

“That this man was fired is proof of his incompetence. He wasn’t even a meteorologist. He obviously had a conflict of interest by receiving money from companies that might benefit from his work. This proves the model the weatherman is using is a good one.” And the reporter believed.

Meanwhile, a team of scientists argued that the model didn’t work and they offered a suggestion why it might be busted. They published their thoughts in a science journal, which caught the attention of the small fraction of the public who were tired of having to wear skimpy clothes in frigid temperatures merely to prove they were not science deniers.

The climatologists quickly called another conference to assure the public that all was well in hand. “The team’s suggestion of why the weatherman’s model is broken can’t possibly be right. Therefore the weatherman’s model must be a good one. Only science deniers can deny this.”

The weatherman continued predicting hot air, but only cold air was to be seen. Some in the public grumbled louder. So the climatologists contacted the state authorities. The governor and state legislature were brought in, as were educational, union, and business leaders. All begin promoting the climatologists’ message that the weatherman was right and the weather wrong. The president of the United States eventually came to the rescue with an official list of Science Deniers. He said that those who love Science should “go after” the deniers.

Which they did. And then everybody died of pneumonia.

http://wmbriggs.com/post/15417/