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Video
Ian Woolley talks with his friend, Vern Griffiths, about ‘conspiracist ideation’, CO2 as plant food, the Hockey Stick and Steve McIntyre, and the growing authoritarianism of the left. (55 mins)
Notes:
(1) Around 40 minutes in one mobile phone lost charge and we forgot to keep the good microphone going, so both video and audio quality suffer, but not too much. Of course, what we could have benefitted from is Koch money to do this in a studio with professional camera equipment. We don’t have those connections, alas.
(2) It’s not Sahal, with an ‘a’, it’s Sahel with an ‘e’. And the Sahel is the bit south of the Sahara, which is growing because the desert of the Sahara is greening.
(3) ‘It’s bollocks!’ (24.37) Is the missing heat in the oceans? I’ll put some useful links in here as I find them.
Climate Scepticism 
There can be no questioning the “agenda” because the agenda isn’t about money, it is about world government which is why it originates from the UN. Since it is about world governance, it can not be debated and have it succeed. Until the people of the world realize that this about eliminating sovereignty and freedom, if they instead accept “climate crisis” and following its leaders, they lose everything they have worked for through the last 2000 years.
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Tom, as I say in the video, I absolutely do not think there’s a conspiracy for world government. There is authoritarianism involved, but it’s a soft authoritarianism. I think the only people who have a hard, world-governing, these are the laws you will follow, authoritarian streak at the moment are the Jihadists of IS. Eco justice warriors, like social justice warriors, only have a kind of chip-on-the-shoulder need to preach. that’s my sense of it. A kind of misguidedness, born of a desire to fill a gap.
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Should be mandatory viewing. Not as a science hour but a training video. Not because it covers new ground (for most of us deniobloggers it doesn’t), but because your non-proselytization of your friend respects his intelligence and represents, I think, the only way forward for us qua movement. All other ways are backwards. We won’t win anyone’s vote by treating them the way we treat our Climateball opponents. But it’s always tempting. Perhaps I’m speaking for myself here. So let me rephrase: I’m always tempted. I’m so used to winning over them, I’ve forgotten how to win them over. If you’ll excuse my Cornish.
Minor correction:
Our opposites don’t like to call themselves “realists” so much as ” ” (nothing). To use the postmodern terminology, our side is marked and theirs is the innominate default.
“Realists” is a cute, if rather obvious, attempt to win the argument without having one, and in my experience only a few people—on both sides—have been cheeky enough to try and get away with applying it to themselves.
“Believers” is unacceptable to them. By “them,” I mean the people who call us “deniers.”
“Warmists” is even less acceptable—they profess deep offense at the imputation that they’re in a movement, or religion, or cult, or something. This, despite the fact that the word is about as offensive as “snuggly-wugglyists.”
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Yep, the labels thing was tricky: use of ‘realists’ shorthand in the end, I suppose, for what ‘they’ imagine themselves to be, i.e. people facing up to the ‘reality of climate change’. I also agree with everything else in your excellent review.
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Did non-proselytization come naturally to you, or were you making a conscious effort not to pound your mate into submission with your knowledge of the domain?
PS Your friend might like to know that the final word on “the labels thing” has been written: https://climatenuremberg.com/2013/11/07/climate-thought-for-the-day-2/
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Brad — “our side is marked and theirs is the innominate default.” —
Oh, I dunno. There are some empty nouns that some like to attach themselves to in the broader climate debate. The green movement will flatter itself that it is a ‘movement’. Some will go on about how tackling climate change will create ‘equality’ (or that, vice versa, creating ‘equality’ will solve climate change. (And war, and poverty, and sad puppies). Others talk about ‘climate justice’ in the same breath as ‘social justice’. Granted, these are as often as not commitments as meaningful as extolling Motherhood and etc. But some are more radical. This all reminds of Monbiot, who battled with a climate camp anarchist, who said only a revolution could end climate change. Monbiot accused her of ‘identity politics’, though in fact, of all the things you can say about anarchism, it categorically isn’t ‘identity politics’.
For some, the climate debate is an opportunity to breathe life into their dead political ideas. For others it’s an opportunity to present an image of themselves as having eschewed, or transcended ‘ideology’.
Later on, an only slightly better informed Monbiot battled on Ch4 with mark Lynas over GM after the channel aired ‘What the Green Movement Got Wrong’. Both green camps accused each other of putting their ‘ideology’ before ‘science’.
No less of a postmodern phenomenon: casting themselves in historical re-enactments like WW2, Manhattan Project (of all things!), the Moon landing, Suffragettes. Abolition of slavery. I’m sure there’s more, but it’s Sunday Morning.
I think our slippery counterparts just can’t admit to having committed to anything. Ultimately, they’re nihilists. Or perhaps just its victims. Note one recent visitor here complaining that I had dared to suggest that he was swayed by green politics. How could I know, he demanded to be told. It’s as if all you need to know to be completely swayed is the gradient on that curve Brian Cox held up on Australian TV. It’s not as much protesting too much as non-stop shrieking.
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Another thought occurs. I think it was Lenin… but I’ve never been able to attribute the quote… who said ‘once you give something a name, you don’t have to argue with it’.
This has been going on longer than climate change.
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Scott Adams (he of Dilbert fame) has some pertinent thoughts on such matters as labels:
‘When you are trained in the ways of persuasion, you start seeing three types of people in the world. I’ll call them Rational People, Word-Thinkers, and Persuaders. Their qualities look like this:
Rational People: Use data and reason to arrive at truth. (This group is mostly imaginary.)
Word-Thinkers: Use labels, word definitions, and analogies to create the illusion of rational thinking. This group is 99% of the world.
Persuaders: Use simplicity, repetition, emotion, habit, aspirations, visual communication, and other tools of persuasion to program other people and themselves. This group is about 1% of the population and effectively control the word-thinkers of the world.
If you’re a trained scientist, engineer, or other technical person, you might use data and reason sometimes, especially while others are watching and checking your work. But off-duty – and when it comes to anything important – we’re all irrational creatures who believe we are rational. At least that’s how trained persuaders see the world.
You can easily spot word-thinkers when they talk about politics. Their go-to strategy involves identifying enemies and fitting them into whatever category matches their biases and cognitive dissonance.’
More here: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/147595892021/how-persuaders-see-the-world
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Ben, John
Is this happening at the moment with Hillary’s speech on the ‘Alt-right’? David Aaronovitch interviewed Cathy Young and Milo Yiannopolous on Radio 4 too and I got exactly that sense that BBC types are relieved now they’ve got the label and don’t have to think beyond it anymore (Cultural Libertarians, as a lot of those people were calling themselves only a year ago, being harder to compartmentalise).
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Ben,
good points as usual, except that I suspect what we’re seeing here is the exact opposite of Lenin’s (if that who it was) doctrine.
Witness the other side’s refusal to so much as name their own hypothesis. We know it’s “catastrophic AGW” or words in that neighborhood, but they sneeringly deny ever propounding such a thing.
That’s just a denialist strawman, they’ll insist, terrified of allowing themselves to be pinned down to it.
“Our slippery counterparts” as you aptly call them seem to be making use of the trick, er, I mean principle:
If you’re not allowed to name it, you can’t argue with it.
EDIT: You’re also right that members of the so-called green movement are more than happy to be so called. But I wasn’t really talking about them, or not in that capacity at least. I was talking about what people who believe in The Science™ will permit us to call them for believing in the science. And “believers” is a term they don’t accept. “Warmists” is a term they don’t accept. The only term some of them seem to accept—and which is even appropriated by us sometimes—is “realists.” But that’s a bit too brazenly question-begging for most people’s blood. What believer would really prefer to be called, in my experience, is nothing.
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(Brad at 10.31 – Get Vern on subjects like the media portrayal of men (ineffectual dullards needing women to put them straight etc.) or the war between the sexes and he’ll talk for ages but generally he’ll avoid politics if possible. I think that conversation was about as far as he’d go with climate – there are just too many Nerdist podcasts to listen to instead. His loss.)
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But Ian,
we do need women to set us straight. Have you seen the kind of stuff that goes on in all-male boarding schools, submarines, prison, the navy, the maritime armed forces, aircraft carriers, etc.? I’ll put it this way: it’s totally gay.
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If you want further proof of how good your video is, notice that our resident believalists aren’t coming anywhere near this post.
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On the video page, where it also is, Russell Seitz accuses us of a galloping gish. Well, maybe. But this is why I was keen to make clear we’re both lay people and also to suggest at the start that conversations along the same lines should be being seen in the mainstream media between key figures in the debate, people capable of ungishing gishes.
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You keep saying things that make it appear that you’re interested in some kind of conversation, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that you really are. At best, what you seem to be suggesting is some kind of dialogue with rules that you get to define. You seem to want people to take your views seriously, and to treat your views with some kind of respect. Personally, having watched some of your video, I think Russell Seitz is about right and that you’re simply repeating the standard misrepresentations of our current understanding and – I suspect – most who are capable of ungishing gallops are quite happy to do so without engaging in conversations with those who are galloping.
It’s my view that if you are serious about wanting conversations, then you don’t get to set the rules. You can, of course, try to do this, but it’s unlikely – I think – to be particularly successful. Okay, it does depend on what your goals are. If your goal is to pretend to want conversations but to set down guidelines so that noone will actually do so, then you may well be successful.
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John: thanks very much for the Scott Adams link. Glad I saw that. Will reuse 🙂
I tend to agree with Brad that consensus types eschew labels for themselves. They’ve also been extremely coy about naming their most substantive critics, thus Steve McIntyre as He Who Must Not Be Named for so many years.
Moronic babytalk? I think that’s being kind.
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I don’t want to set any rules.
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Ian,
That’s what you say, but that is not how it appears. As I said, I’ve seen nothing to suggest that you really are interested in conversation, despite what you appear to be suggesting. A conversation requires two parties; you would typically need to make it worthwhile for both parties.
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ATTP: Did you think it would enhance ‘conversation’ at places like this when you added your name to a piece of malicious crap from Lewandowsky? We think not. A grovelling apology would only be the first step back.
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I’m sorry you haven’t found the evidence, ATTP.
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Richard,
No, but I wasn’t about to use that to determine what I should do or who I should choose to associate with.
Of course you do.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I was you.
Your sense of entitlement is really quite remarkable.
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Ian,
I rather think that I have.
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How?
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Thank you. Stockholm Syndrome not.
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Ian,
Sorry, what I mean is that my impression is that you aren’t really interested in conversation. The evidence for this is basically your conduct here. I may have interpreted this incorrectly, and you may – of course – disagree. Whether you like it or not, my general impression is that there is much discussion here about how to conduct conversations and complaints about the lack of any conversations taking place, but little actual evidence that anyone here is really interested, and plenty of indications that you really are not (well, not in one where the other party is likely to say anything with which you might disagree).
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No, I am interested in conversation. I’m all ears.
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Ken Rice — ” but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that you really are.”
–” That’s what you say, but that is not how it appears. ”
Personalities vary, and the expressions of behaviour vary between individuals accordingly.
The simple explanation for your observation, Ken, is that you are an arsehole. A pub bore, but on the internet.
You’re not in a position, as one of the most prolific commenters in climate blogging circles, to either accuse of Ian of limiting debate to suit his own purposes, or otherwise for manifest bad faith. Your own ‘contributions’ to the debate are so well recorded that there is no need to enumerate your own shortcomings here, again.
Of course you’ve ‘seen nothing to indicate’, your own pathological arseholeness precludes it. On any slight deviation from the orthodox position, your response is always the same “I fail to see…”, “I do not see how…”.
You’re the only one saying it, however, and demanding that we have to submit to some nebulous test of our commitment to ‘discussion’. One reason for which is the sheer abundance of your comments. It’s clear you spend more time commenting than reading. Hence you don’t ever approach the substance of discussion. You’re preoccupied with undermining the character of everyone else — a psychopathic trait, as discussed at Nick Brown’s blog — to justify your own.
The unfortunate corollary of you telling Ian that he doesn’t ‘get to set the rules’ is that you do.
The climate debate has not happened. As we, and many sceptics have observed, the ‘consensus’ is used to shut out debate in the mainstream and elsewhere by individuals such as yourself, and organisations who will brook no dissent, even from climate scientists. The electorate have been denied a debate by the fact of a cross-party consensus on climate change policy, and a substantial (until now) democratic deficit across Europe. The very principles — never mind ‘the science’ — of political responses to climate change have not been tested at the ballot box.
Your weak, wimpish and narcissistic protest that Ian wants to ‘set the rules of debate’ look, characteristically, like the words of a climate activist who has failed to develop a sense of proportion.
You see, only a first order arsehole could form the impression, rightly or wrongly, that some other person was not really interested in debate, and decide that this made an opportunity to intervene in that debate. Yet you are here, once again, to say how sceptics don’t want a debate, counter-positions having been banned from your own blog. Your entire online purpose, it seems to me, is to poison any possibility of discussion in which perspectives that deviate from official climate ‘science’ or policy might get an airing.
I doubt even you know why you do it. People are mysterious creatures. I used to live near a woman who was in the habit of standing in the middle of the road, and lifting up her dress to expose herself to passing traffic. It took a long time for the authorities to intervene. She was clearly nuts, and therefore not entirely accountable for her behaviour. Yet as nuts as she was, depriving her of her freedom would seem to be a worse thing than the occasional terror she would inflict on the B480. I point it out because, no matter what you have ‘failed to see’, your claim that this blindness reflects on Ian sounds like her claim that the rest of the world’s behaviour is obscene.
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An arsehole walks into a pub….
— “The evidence for this is basically your conduct here.” —
Should he be surprised that the other punters and bar staff treat him like an arsehole?
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Ben,
If you’re ever in Edinburgh, let me know.
I find the topic interesting and I’m always hopeful that I will – one day – be pleasantly surprised. So far, no such luck.
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“If you want further proof of how good your video is, notice that our resident believalists aren’t coming anywhere near this post.”
Reverse psychology works, kids!
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— “If you’re ever in Edinburgh, let me know.” —
Now why would I do that?
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Ben,
It was just a suggestion. It would be interesting to know if you’re this mouthy in real life. My guess is no, but I could be wrong.
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ATTP, if I may be so bold, would you keep in mind my last comment –
No, I am interested in conversation. I’m all ears.
– while you compose a reply to Ben? Then get back to me later?
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Ian,
Feel free to start. You’re the one who has expressed an interest.
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You said I gave the impression I wasn’t interested in a conversation. I refuted by stating that I am interested in a conversation. What did you want to say?
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Ian,
I believe that I’ve said it. If you have anything to add, please feel free to do so.
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You haven’t said anything. Apart from the fact that your impression is that I don’t want to have a conversation.
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Ian,
That was what I was wanting to say. That was my conversation. If you wish to add anything, please do. However, this is starting to become a little like this. In fact, this is more apt than I had at first appreciated.
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Well, then, I can only say ‘I am interested in a conversation’ if ever you want to have one.
And conversations between sceptics and their opposite should be had in the mainstream media. With no rules applied.
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— “It would be interesting to know if you’re this mouthy in real life.” —
Right. But why would I want to hook up in real life with someone who strikes me, in cyberspace, as being a first-order arsehole? Merely to satisfy your curiosity? What?
Ditto, why are you here, if you think we’re such arseholes? Such arseholes in fact, that you’ve banned many of us from your own blog.
It’s an odd thing to do, isn’t it — ‘engaging’ with people you don’t believe can take part in a productive engagement?
Who would do that? To what end? Why?!!!
You’re a very odd chap indeed.
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Ian,
Fine, I shall even reconsider my view if we ever actually manage have one.
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ATTP, the door’s always open.
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Ben,
Then don’t. It was just a suggestion. I happen to hold the view that people should try to engage online roughly as they would in real life, and I was just fascinated by the idea of you storming up the Royal Mile effing and blinding at Greens, Consensus Enforcers, etc, and calling everyone you met an arsehole. Would make an interesting act at next year’s Fringe Festival?
I don’t think I’ve ever described anyone here in quite those terms (although I may have not hidden my views quite as well as I should have). I’ve also banned far fewer than you may think. I do find the topic interesting and even though my attempt to maintain some kind of civil dialogue has mostly failed, I still hold out some hope of it being possible. The more time I spend here, the less likely it seems, but I still hold out some hope.
I don’t think you can, but you could always try to prove me wrong.
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Ian,
Thanks, and if you ever feel like having a conversation, I’m less averse to the idea than it may seem.
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How about this as an opener: would it be good to see sceptics and their opposite having no-rules debates/conversations in the mainstream media?
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ATTP,
let’s have a conversation about the scientific or other legitimate academic purpose of your CoC study.
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Sorry, our conversation streams crossed. Never cross the conversation streams.
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Ian,
I don’t have a problem with this, but I don’t actually see sceptics being prevented from engaging. If you mean an actual conversation/dialogue/debate, then you need to conduct yourself in such a way that other parties feel like engaging. It also depends on what you mean by “no rules”. If you mean “behave like Ben Pile does, if you want to” then you’re unlikely to get many people who would be interested in having such a conversation. If you mean “express whatever view you like, without being explicitly rude” then, of course. The problem, though, is that some people (who many would regard as experts) regard some views as particularly silly and probably won’t want to engage with someone who promotes these views. So, if you want to have conversations, I think you need to both be willing to listen to the other party and accept that you might be criticised if you choose to express views that many regard as fundamentally flawed.
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Ken — “It was just a suggestion.” —
Right, but why would you even suggest it?
— “I was just fascinated by the idea of you storming up the Royal Mile effing and blinding at Greens, Consensus Enforcers, etc, and calling everyone you met an arsehole” —
Luckily for you, there’s a test case. I’ve been to Edinburgh several times. A few years ago, I went to debate Climategate at the University. The hosting organisation’s website no longer seems active, but you can read the convener’s announcement here.
You can read what I said here. And you can read Ken McLeod’s follow up words and some discussion between me and someone who sounds an awful lot like you here.
I don’t know if I stormed up the Royal Mile, because I didn’t notice any street names. Or storming. I climbed, rather than stormed up Arthur’s Seat before I got my train home. I didn’t call anyone an arsehole, and neither did anyone else. The panel went for pizza and drinks after, I stayed for pints with one of the other speakers, who is now ‘Programme Director for MSc in Carbon Management and Lecturer in Carbon Policy’ at the school of Geosciences, just down the road from you. We disagreed with each other, but didn’t do any ‘effing or blinding’.
The exchange under the blog does get slightly more heated. A prolific, pseudonymous climate commenter, who had been somewhat following me around online for a while had mentioned at the announcement of the talk that he hoped I would get ‘ripped to shreds’ in the discussion. He would have been disappointed. I can’t say it’s because I won everyone over… It just wasn’t the kind of discussion in which people get ripped to shreds. You see, his symptom, too, is a prior understanding of the debate, and over-confidence in his own rectitude, before he’d even heard the argument — an ongoing preconception with a mission to vanquish the opposition in some highly polarised battle between goodies and baddies. You’re of the same species. It doesn’t matter is actually said, it must be denial.
— “I do find the topic interesting… ” —
I don’t believe that you do. That’s because I see you poison so many discussions.
Here’s another debate I was at. With Mark Lynas and Joe Smith, both of whom I disagree profoundly with. I can’t say it was my strongest debate performance. But nobody called anyone an arsehole. (Though Joe Smith did call us all animals). Lynas didn’t stick around, but Joe and I had a few drinks later with another sustainablist, who I also managed to disagree with, without calling her an arsehole.
So you see, I have had many debates with people of the seemingly opposite persuasion, which have not gone down the path that I have seen every ‘discussion’ with you go down, whether I am there or not.
–… and even though my attempt to maintain some kind of civil dialogue has mostly failed, I still hold out some hope of it being possible.–
As pointed out in another discussion here, you are the constant in what you perceive — sceptics nastiness. You are an antagonist, who only kids (and flatters) himself that he is ‘trying to keep the conversation civil’. It seems to me that it is Consensus Enforcement that most prevents progress towards reconciling different perspectives, or at least, dialogue across differences of opinion. No doubt the sceptical side has its own trolls. But they’re invariably not part of the higher profile discussion in the way that, for instance, so many academics seem to have appointed themselves as Consensus Enforcers.
And this is why I make a distinction, in fact, between Consensus Enforcers and other people in the debate on the putative ‘pro-climate’ side.
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I’m sure we could set up the rules under which ATTP could have a conversation with one or any or all of us. It’s been done before between me and Green activist/ University Lecturer Adam Corner. We had three conversations and got a lot of internet interest. The first one was at
http://ccgi.newbery1.plus.com/blog/?p=581
ATTP is free to suggest the rules of engagement. With Adam we had the conversation in private, then stopped when we felt we’d had enough and published the result.
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Ben,
Maybe don’t take it so seriously? Just a suggestion. Feel free to ignore it, of course.
Geoff,
You could always just start by actually trying to hold one?
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Ken — “Maybe don’t take it so seriously? ” —
Apart from this blog, I think I’ve commented on maybe 2 or 3 others this last year, once or twice. You’ve turned up at nearly every blog on climate blog I’ve read, never mind commented on. And you’ve commented on them in this style:
— “this is so obviously stupid, that I’m amazed anyone with a basic understanding of the topic would possibly excuse it.” —
So who is taking it too seriously?
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Ben,
Oh, is that still getting to you? Well, it would have been a stupid thing to say and so I was simply commenting that it seemed odd that anyone with a basic understanding would somehow excuse it. Strange that you would object so strongly to that.
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Ken is always “… simply commenting….”. Just sain’, you know?
It’s a way of not taking responsibility for what he writes, while demanding that other people account for what they have written.
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Ben,
That’s just a turn of phrase. Of course I take responsibility for saying that. I think it would be a stupid thing to say (you, of course, keep leaving out the bit I had quoted and that I regarded as a stupid thing to say) and would find it odd to have anyone who understands the topic appearing to excuse it.
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What I think Ken, is that it demonstrates your own considerable lack of self-awareness and poor judgement, that you could enter a forum with people who are broadly sympathetic to your own preferences with respect to climate policy, and yet alienate yourself as the first comment.
The point being, again, that whereas we utter-bastard sceptics seem able to hold perfectly reasonable and productive discussions with ‘warmist’ counterparts — when you’re not there — you can’t even keep yourself restrained in a forum when we’re not there.
You say debate with us is not possible, because of us… But it’s not us; it’s you. You’re the constant, here, there, everywhere. And it if it’s not you, it’s someone with the same pathological inclinations.
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Brad — “let’s have a conversation about the scientific or other legitimate academic purpose of your CoC study.” —
Blog post maybe, where Ken can defend his paper. A viva, so to speak.
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ATTP
So are you willing to have a conversation, on a topic of your choosing, here? Suggest a subject and rules of engagement and interlocutor (I’m assuming you’d prefer one on one, but feel free to suggest alternatives). Please make it soemthing substantive.
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Ben,
A viva isn’t really a conversation.
Geoff,
I do come here and comment (much to many of your regulars’ disgust, as far as I can tell). Whether or not we can have a conversation is mostly in your collective hands (although I realise that it’s all apparently my fault that it isn’t possible). The topic is entirely up to you. I wasn’t specifically advocating for one.
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ATTP – why not go for Geoff’s suggestion? It’d be something novel for us, which is always healthy.
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ATTP
I suggested that you could suggest a subject, and you suggest I do the same. This is Ian’s thread, so I think he should have first choice, if he’s interested.
If it was me starting, I think I’d ask you what it is you find “fundamentally flawed” about what you read here. Most of us are more or less within the pseudo-consensus as so badly defined by Doran, Cook etc. From that extremely vague position, we find dozen, maybe hundreds, of things to disagree with and to get blazing angry about in and around the climate movement.
A possible modus operandi would be for our “side” to post a question. You could reply in comments and we’d immediately edit it up to above the line, and reply. I’m not personally ready to do this for several days since I have poor internet connection here. Maybe Ian or Ben or Brad?
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Geoff,
I don’t know if I’ve actually described anything here as “fundamentally flawed”. Mostly it seems to be articles complaining about others, rather than anything specific.
What do you mean by this?
Do you mean that you largely accept the conclusions from the IPCC AR5 WGI, or that your view overlaps, or something else altogether?
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Ken — “Mostly it seems to be articles complaining about others, rather than anything specific.” —
Heav’n save us from nebulous whinges!
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Ben,
I wasn’t complaining.
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Ken –“I wasn’t complaining.”–
Heav’n save us from nebulous utterances of indeterminate intent!
Geoff gave you an opportunity to set the terms and tone of a discussion, which above, you claim is impossible because us. You *seem* to have objected to us, for something… though not a complaint, and now you’re walking away from the experiment…
It’s you, isn’t it, that can’t discuss things.
Take Geoffs challenge, or go away.
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Ban me, or stop whining!
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Ken — “I think you need to both be willing to listen to the other party and accept that you might be criticised if you choose to express views that many regard as fundamentally flawed.”
Geoff — “If it was me starting, I think I’d ask you what it is you find “fundamentally flawed” about what you read here.” —
Ken — “I don’t know if I’ve actually described anything here as “fundamentally flawed”.” —
FFS, guys, let’s just chuck this waste of time out. He can’t even commit to his own words.
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Or my challenge.
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Come on, you know you want to.
I think you left out this bit of my comment
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Ken — “Come on, you know you want to.” —
I make no secret of it – hence I banned you from my blog and blocked you on Twitter years ago, much to your whingeing. I am surprised by the patience of the others here who are saying you shouldn’t be banned.
Even when your own words are in front of you, and in stark contradiction, it still causes no self-reflection.
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It would help if you didn’t constantly misrepresent them. Are you fundamentally dishonest, or just thick?
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I have to say that this conversation is going well. Well done everyone.
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Ken — “It would help if you didn’t constantly misrepresent them” —
They were YOUR OWN WORDS:
Ken — “I think you need to both be willing to listen to the other party and accept that you might be criticised if you choose to express views that many regard as fundamentally flawed.”
Geoff — “If it was me starting, I think I’d ask you what it is you find “fundamentally flawed” about what you read here.” —
Ken — “I don’t know if I’ve actually described anything here as “fundamentally flawed”.”
Now, are you going to take Geoff up on his challenge, or are you going to go away?
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Ben,
Okay, this isn’t complicated, but I’ll explain it slowly so that you can understand.
This would seem to imply that I’ve said something to suggest that I’ve found something here that I regard as fundamentally flawed. Since I don’t think I have, I respond with
and then I ask Geoff a question so as to maybe start some kind of conversation. Simple. Got it now? So, yes, I have responded to Geoff’s comment. That you didn’t understand that, really isn’t my problem.
Now, are you going to ban me, or stop whining? It really is getting pretty tedious, and you would probably be doing me a favour if you did. On the other hand, you don’t have to participate in this conversation. Despite all your protestations, I’m largely unconvinced that you’re really capable of holding one.
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Ken — “This would seem to imply that I’ve said something to suggest that I’ve found something here that I regard as fundamentally flawed. Since I don’t think I have, I respond with” —
There’s no point quoting Geoff. Geoff was asking you what you were referring to when you said:
— “if you want to have conversations, I think you need to both be willing to listen to the other party and accept that you might be criticised if you choose to express views that many regard as fundamentally flawed.”
Which is to say that you have ‘found something here that [you] find fundamentally flawed’.
If you haven’t, then what the hell is your problem?
You’ve turned down Geoff’s offer. And you’ve turned down Brad’s challenge, too. And yet you persist in this absurd, interminable cascade of whingeing self-justification and insistence that you’re not responsible for the quality of the discussion.
I’m not in a position to ban you. This is a collective blog, and this post is Ian’s.
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Oh no, not another example of Ken denying that he wrote something.
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Ben,
No, it doesn’t. Come on. If you’re going to pretend to be some kind of intellectual, at least get this kind of stuff right.
Then stop whining. And, FWIW, if this is what people here regard as conversation, you really would be doing me a favour if you banned me.
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— “if this is what people here regard as conversation, you really would be doing me a favour if you banned me.” —
If you weren’t here, the quality of the conversation would be much higher, wouldn’t it.
That doesn’t say anything about us, Ken.
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Possibly, it couldn’t exactly get much lower.
Really? This is not obvious. Come on, just ban me and get it over with. This really is tedious.
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Ken has refused the offers of allowing him to set the subject and rules of a discussion.
He seems merely to want to behave in a way that will result in him being banned.
I propose we do this and consign his comments to the trash. I agree with him 100%: “just ban [him] and get it over with”.
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…and Then There’s Physics (29 Aug 16 at 5:20 pm):
“I don’t know if I’ve actually described anything here as ‘fundamentally flawed’.”
You (29 Aug 16 at 1:12 pm):
“…if you want to have conversations, I think you need to both be willing to listen to the other party and accept that you might be criticised if you choose to express views that many regard as fundamentally flawed.”
You:
What do you mean by this?: “Most of us are more or less within the pseudo-consensus”
As I said, the 97% consensus as defined by Doran and Zimmmerman: that the world is warming and we are partly responsible. Cook’s defnition is less clear. Anderegg’s and Oereskes’ I don’t know exactly. That corresponds pretty well with the IPCC’s joint opinion that they’re 95% sure man is causing some (or did they say most?) of current warming. If you asked me those questions in an opinion poll I’d probably say yes, maybe, why not? If in a court of law I’d be more precise and careful, of course. You must know from having frequented sceptic blogs that most sceptics would say something of the kind.
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benpile (29 Aug 16 at 6:43 pm)
I don’t think ATTP should be banned, and I’d hate to see this “conversation” disappear. It’s very significant, I think, but of what, I’m not sure.
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Cann you tell me though, Geoff, have you seen Ken, or any other Consensus Enforcer ever add any value to a discussion, rather than detract from it. Have you learned anything, in other words, other than the fact that Consensus Enforcers are arseholes, and that they are draw to the climate debate for exactly the reason arseholes are drawn to toilet seats?
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Geoff,
The IPCC’s statement was that it is extremely likely that more than 50% of the observed warming since 1950 was anthropogenic. They also added that their best estimate was similar to the observed warming for that period (i.e., the best estimate is that it is mostly/all anthropogenic). Do you agree with that, or accept it?
If this is roughly what you would regard as the kind of conversations you would like to have more of, you really should do me a favour and ban me.
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— “Do you agree with that, or accept it?”–
The are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been of Consensus Enforcement.
He’s already told you he agrees with it. As have countless people you’ve written off as ‘deniers’.
And you wonder why there is a consensus that you’re an arsehole.
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Ben,
No, he hasn’t and, no, I haven’t written anyone off as a denier.
Really? You wouldn’t be trying to enforce a consensus, would you?
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It bears repeating…
— “Do you agree with that, or accept it?”–
If only Consensus Enforcers had ever listened, they would by now have understood that the question that preoccupies them isn’t a question that defines the debate.
It was pointed out to Ken, years ago. The putative zero-level of the debate… And they still don’t know.
This is remarkable.
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Ken. — You wouldn’t be trying to enforce a consensus, —
You’re doing all the heavy lifting, Ken.
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Maybe some reflection on this comment might be worthwhile.
Ben,
As I think I have pointed out before, I’m not trying to, or have any interest in, enforcing anything. You are, of course, free to believe whatever you like.
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ATTP
So are you OK for a debate? Yes of No?
I’d amend my opening question to: “What views expressed here do you think many would regard as ‘fundamentally flawed?’”
Or you can open the debate with a question about the consensus, if you like.
Thereafter, as I said, each would reply in ther own time, giving considered opinions (not a real time spat). Yours would automatically appear as comments first, and one of us would rescue them and put them above the line. The boundaries of the discussion, as I see it, would be the differences of opinion between us. You must know what these are roughly by now. They don’t include discussion of the thermohaline circulation belt, for example.
I seriously value your opinions. As a searcher for exo-planets, you’re our best hope for finding intelligent life somewhere else.
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Ken — “I’m not trying to, or have any interest in, enforcing anything.” —
That’s obvious bullshit. Nobody from the SkS fold can claim not to be a Consensus Enforcer, the traits of which have been explained. In detail.
The question that remains about it is whether Consensus Enforcement is pathological — i.e. what level of insight Consensus Enforcers have into themselves and their behaviour.
If you don’t like being labelled a Consensus Enforcer and the traits of Consensus Enforcement being enumerated, you perhaps should resist your own folds more influential — but less grounded — attempts to probe sceptics’ minds.
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ATTP: you make the point that you haven’t claimed a lot of the stuff on this site is ‘fundamentally flawed’. You merely say many would find it so. Do you yourself find much of the content here fundamentally flawed?
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Geoff,
No, I think I’ve rather gone off it, to be quite honest. I also thought we were talking about being able to have a conversation, rather than something formal. A conversation doesn’t have to have a purpose, or some kind of goal. It is simply a conversation.
Why are you focusing on this? As I said, I don’t think I’ve suggested that I’ve found something here that is “fundamentally flawed”. I was intending that to refer to our scientific understanding, not your opinion about environmentalists. You might need to express some views on that if you really want me to comment on that.
My reason for mentioning that, was that the context in this post seems to be about having more conversations. I was simply pointing out that if you want to engage in conversations with others, you might need to avoid promoting views that are regarded as “fundamentally flawed”.
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Surely a conversation would be able to cope with fundamentally flawed opinion? One person could show why the other’s views were flawed.
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Ian,
It could possibly cope, but I was suggesting that other parties may simply not be interested if they thought that the conversation would include such ideas. Also, the idea that you can show someone that their views are fundamentally flawed is wildly optimistic.
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But why not try it out? Break the impasse.
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Ian,
I thought I had. I was, however, making a more general point. If you really think that more conversation overall would be worthwhile, then you need to make it worthwhile for others to participate.
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— ” I think I’ve rather gone off it, to be quite honest. “–
Oh, but you were never keen.
“I also thought we were talking about being able to have a conversation, rather than something formal.”
It was Ken who raises the subject of ‘rules’, of course, though does nothing to illustrate what rules have been set, much less how setting hte rules transgresses the rules.
— You keep saying things that make it appear that you’re interested in some kind of conversation, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that you really are. At best, what you seem to be suggesting is some kind of dialogue with rules that you get to define.
[…]
It’s my view that if you are serious about wanting conversations, then you don’t get to set the rules.
—
It was Consensus Enforcement passive aggression from the start, of course. Ian no more tried to define the rules than Ken observed an attempt to define the rules. It sounds plausible, but it’s hollow, confected.
Then Ken was offered the opportunity to establish the rules… And chickened out.
He can no more commit to rules than he can commit to his own words. This is the fundamental flaw.
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The torrent of Consensus Enforcement passive aggressive revision continues…
— “other parties may simply not be interested if they thought that the conversation would include such ideas” —
I’m not saying your girlfriend is fat, ugly and stupid, I’m just saying that’s how some people might perceive her.
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This seems to be the case Ben.
Attp: worthwhile in what sense? There’s the tantalising possibility you might win the argument. How else could it be made to be worthwhile?
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— ” you need to make it worthwhile for others to participate.” —
Agreed. Let’s ban Ken.
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Ian,
I’m not trying to win an argument.
Please do.
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What are you aiming for?
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— “I’m not trying to win an argument.” —
The point of Consensus Enforcement is disruption. To prevent, not enable discussion, or resolution between different perspectives. ‘There is no debate’, after all.
Witness, for E.g. Dana’s fury that I was published on the MSP blog. That’s the point of the 97% survey — to shut down debate.
Ken is involved in that enterprise, not some passer-by, who ‘merely comments’.
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Ian,
I’m not really aiming for anything. This is your post. You seemed to be suggesting that it would be good if there were more conversations. I have no problem with more conversations, but I don’t think the point would be to win some kind of argument.
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is this conducive to ‘conversations’?
— “my impression is that you aren’t really interested in conversation. The evidence for this is basically your conduct here. I may have interpreted this incorrectly, and you may – of course – disagree. Whether you like it or not, my general impression is that there is much discussion here about how to conduct conversations and complaints about the lack of any conversations taking place, but little actual evidence that anyone here is really interested, and plenty of indications that you really are not.” —
Or is it passive-aggressive rule-setting-without-setting-the-rules, arseholism?
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Well, shedding light on positions (based on a vigourous interrogation of their validity) is bound in the end to result in a ‘win’ for one or other participant. But readers would be the judge of course.
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This is difficult. On the one hand, freedom of speech says bla bla. On the other, Drag Queen Ken wants to brag with the morons that he has been banned. It is clear that Ken is either unable or unwilling to debate honestly. He has been asked often enough to explain and debate, and yet still resorts to the tactics of a teenager with bad acne. The real solution would be to examine the funding of his institution. Is he really teacher material?
Let him bloviate and try to drag discussions off the rails. We can all decide whether or not to do say. A freedom denied to everyone by Ken. Maybe Brad can ask what the IPCC null hypothesis is…..
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In avoidance of doubt, I believe that Ken is at the level of a pre-A-level student, and should be treated accordingly, spots, attitude and all
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Ian,
Then you might need to define who you expect to hold such conversations. I don’t think many scientists would regard this as a suitable way in which to determine the vaidity of various scientific ideas. If you’re talking about your policy views, then that would seem to be a different group of people who you would think should hold these conversations. Maybe you could clarify quite what it is that you would hope to establish by having these conversations?
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ATTP
”I was simply pointing out that if you want to engage in conversations with others, you might need to avoid promoting views that are regarded as ‘fundamentally flawed’.”
Well, that’s clear enough. If I want a conversation, I should avoid saying anything others might disagree with. But I still want a conversation. Do you? Or do you want to be banned so you don’t have to answer an awkward question?
Unlike Ben, I’m not willing to do you that favour.
Ben is undoubtedly right when he says: “That’s the point of the 97% survey — to shut down debate. Ken is involved in that enterprise, not some passer-by, who ‘merely comments’.”
But I’m trying to look at it from the point of view of a genuine passer by, who might see a pointless argument in which one guy gets insulted and then banned and the other three or four express satisfaction.
I’d love a debate Ken. Would you? Name your rules. Call it “conversation” “debate” what you will.
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You, Ken. That was the offer.
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Back-peddling furiously, but in the politest way it is possible to effect…
— “Then you might need to define who you expect to hold such conversations. ” —
Not you. Which means almost anybody else amongst the 7 billion. we know what you have to say. We know what you think. We see it all too often. And now you’re rule-setting. Which you were against.
Go and Enforce the Consensus elsewhere. Or rise to Geoff’s/Brad’s challenge.
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Geoff,
No, that’s not what I said. I suggested that if you’re likely to promote stuff that others think is nonsense, they may not be interested.
I comment here. If you want to have a conversation, start one.
I don’t really care. If your goal is to ask awkward questions, then it’s not really a conversation. I’m not hugely interested if it’s likely to be a game of “gotcha”.
As I said. If you want to have a conversation, start one. I’m not really interested in rules.
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Ben,
Come on, either ban me, stop whining, or go away.
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Ian,
If you think the goal is to win some kind of argument, then I’m not the person for this conversation.
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Setting rules:
— “I don’t really care. If your goal is to ask awkward questions, then it’s not really a conversation. I’m not hugely interested if it’s likely to be a game of “gotcha”.” —
— “Come on, either ban me, stop whining, or go away.” —
It isn’t my decision to make. As you know. I’m happy to help you demonstrate that you contribute nothing to debate, however. I worked out that you’re a mere cipher 3 years ago.
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Fair enough. Presumably you can win the argument though? Or is there no argument to be had?
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— “If you think the goal is to win some kind of argument, ” —
We know what the goal is…
— The point of Consensus Enforcement is disruption. To prevent, not enable discussion, or resolution between different perspectives. —
On that point, you’ve done much to convince us that you believe this site to be irredeemably hostile to debate. It was pointed out that this is a reflection of your own behaviour. Either way, though, it raises the question, again, why you would remain. It’s not to have a conversation, you admit that much. It must be to prevent one breaking out, ergo.
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Ian,
Again, it depends what argument you think we might be having. I don’t think that we resolve scientific disputes by arguing (although scientists may indeed argue at times). You resolve them by collecting more information/evidence and trying to rule out various possibilities. It’s why scientists are often reluctant to debate. What would be the point? Whether they win or lose doesn’t influence our actual understanding. If you mean something other than science, then I don’t actually have very strong views, as surprising as that may seem.
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That is surprising indeed. What brings you out of the lab and onto blogs can I ask?
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Ian,
I find the topic, in particular the scientific aspects, interesting.
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ATTP
No, the goal is not to win some argument. It’s to display our differences in order to limit future misunderstanding. For example, you could explain what you mean by “views that are regarded as ‘fundamentally flawed’”, (which you have just redefined as “stuff that others think is nonsense”) and we could take it from there.
“If you want to have a conversation, start one.”
OK I will, tomorrow, since it’s a bit late here. It won’t be an interrogation, although of course we both have the right to ask questions. Do ypu want it to be about the fundamentally flawed ideas to be found here, or our relation to the consensus, or what? Just say, and I’ll put it up early tomorrow, under the heading “Conversation with AndThenThere’sPhysics”. I’ll try to reply promptly, but as I said, the internet connection is sometimes ropey here on the Mediterranean coast.
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— “It’s why scientists are often reluctant to debate.” —
This is not something I’ve noticed about scientists. I’ve been to many debates. Hundreds. And organised them.
Scientists generally like talking about their work.
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— “If you mean something other than science, then I don’t actually have very strong views, as surprising as that may seem.” —
And yet there was that paper… What was it again, Brad?
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Including the policy side? Or is it just climate science you find interesting?
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Ben,
I’ve never seen a scientific debate and I’ve seen plenty of scientists talk about their work.
Ian,
The scientific side is the one I think I understand.
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— “I’ve never seen a scientific debate and I’ve seen plenty of scientists talk about their work.” —
It seems to me that you have a very poorly-developed understanding of science. In particular, of science which is held to have significance for the rest of society. Perhaps that’s not surprising for your field.
Here’s a debate between scientists. With agreement and disagreement, variously.
You might learn something.
I’m at the back. I didn’t call anyone there an arsehole. But that’s perhaps because they each had something interesting to say.
Except Rapley, of course.
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Or maybe you had your hand up and they didn’t get to you?
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But are you interested, howsoever your level of understanding (or your estimation thereof) in the policy side?
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Thinking about this a bit more…
— “It’s why scientists are often reluctant to debate.” —
I wonder if they just think… Oh, shit, It’s Ken again. Let’s talk about something else…
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Did Ken say something interesting once? Or was he just fantasising about having a dialogue with a quiescent plank of wood?
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Scientists are seldom reluctant to debate.
Not that they’re often invited to do so (AFAICS). But when they are, they have little to lose and much to gain by taking up the gauntlet. It’s a chance to get the public thinking about science, and in a modest sense thinking scientifically, so it’s a win no matter what the scoreboard says.
The only exceptions appear to be:
1) Evolutionary biologists of the “bright” school, because they pride themselves on being undebatably correct and couldn’t care less how that kind of pomposity plays to a general audience.
2) Climate catastrophists, because they know they’d lose. They’re wrong and they know their opponents know it.
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I’m with Geoff—I see no reason to ban Raff, Ken or anyone else. And yes, I have been paying attention to Ken’s less-than-creditable performance on this thread. Nonetheless.
But I suppose it’s academic (in the proper sense of the word: irrelevant and uninteresting) which way I vote, since Ken has wisely elected not to talk to me.
If he allows himself to be drawn into a dialogue with me he knows I’m going to ask him to justify the CoC paper at some point, and he knows it was unjustifiable, and he knows he’ll only wind up owing the Scottish taxpayer a refund.
Better to just go on ignoring me.
And by better I mean cheaper.
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Well done Brad. Way to stop a conversation dead.
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If you really want to have a conversation, since the thread started with a video of Ian Woolley proposing ideas that any climate scientist would argue with but which his friend was not in a position to refute, why not discuss a few of Ian’s ideas. For an example, why not discuss whether, as he told his friend, the idea that heat is going into the oceans only arose a few years ago. That should be an easy one to start with.
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Thanks Raff.
What were Ian’s exact words? The possibility that the oceans could be useful as an alibi for missing heat did, of course, occur to scientists long ago, but they only started using it once the slowdown (I don’t want to start a ‘pause’ war) became undeniable, in my understanding. Am I wrong?
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Hello?
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@benpile (29 Aug 16 at 9:00 pm) Thanks for sharing this video. Particularly considering that the debate took place two years prior to Climategate. In my view, there were a lot of lessons that could have been learned from that 2007 video.
As Fred Pearce had noted, in early Dec. 2009, and as I have mentioned on my blog occasionally, e.g. here:
But, that aside, I can’t help wondering if our semi-resident soldiers from the lower ranks of the blight brigade had been in that 2007 audience what questions they might have asked.
View from here, so to speak, is that between 2007 and today neither the leading lights nor the lesser lights have learned a damn thing, except how to recyle ‘n smear ad infinitum … while the so-called “experts” of the UNEP/WMO/UNFCCC’s IPCC-kind continue to up their unscientific alarmist ante.
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Sorry, messed up my link to the Pearce quote. Try this one
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I notice that once Geoff Chambers made his eminently reasonable suggestion, ATTP ignored him, and still hasn’t responded. His modus operandi is to deflect threads and disrupt them. He certainly seems to have succeeded on this thread. It seems to me from his repeated requests to be banned, that his real purpose was to make himself sufficiently annoying that you would ban him. He could then put a big article up on his own echo-chamber of a site telling people how those hypocrites over here, who complain about him banning people from his own site, had banned him from theirs.
I can understand Ben’s frustration with him. In my opinion he’s the most irritating blogger on the web, and there’s plenty of competition for that title on both “sides” of the climate debate (not that there should be sides if scientists behaved like scientists). However, I think you’d make a mistake if you banned him. Freedom of speech is important, and apart from that, any disinterested person watching ATTP perform must surely be less than impressed by his antics.
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I’ve responded to Geoff on a number of occasions. The discussion here is about the ability to have conversations, which I’m happy to do. What I’m not interested in, is some kind of inquisition. If Geoff would like to start a conversation, go ahead. I’m not interested, however, in some kind of question and answer session.
Maybe don’t judge me by your standards. As I said, feel free to ban me. I don’t really care and I won’t complain or write about it elsewhere.
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We do feel free to ban you, Ken. But it’s not going to happen. Stop talking about it incessantly. Or we’ll ban you (haha).
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Anyway, my last query is dangling. Ken, are you interested in the policy side of matters climatic?
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Ian,
I’m interested in how the scientific evidence may influence it, rather than in the policy side specifically. I, however, don’t have a great deal of interest in discussing wind turbines, for example. Just to be clear, a conversation doesn’t normally involve simply asking a bunch of questions.
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ATTP,
Really?
Why not?
Got a citation for that?
What are you afraid of?
Why aren’t you conversing, huh?
Huh?
Kidding aside, are you amenable to having a conversation with me?
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Yes, perhaps talk with Brad instead. (The reason for the questions is just to establish a foothold. You can ask questions too if you’re curious. I mean, we want to find out about each other don’t we? Or are we just gonna talk about the weather?)
But Brad’s question/s is/are more pressing here. Back to him.
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I had an intro ready for a conversation thus:
It’s well known that most climate sceptics do not disagree with the basic climate consensus – that the earth is warming and that man’s activities are probably partly responsible. The physical properties of greenhouse gasses are not in question. Yet defenders of the consensus clearly find our views unreceivable, unsupportable even. Instead of disputing our ideas one by one, most ignore them, while a few intervene to dismiss them wholesale, by describing them for instance, as “fundamentally flawed”. I’d be interested to have Ken’s opinion of why this is so.
But Firefox (or WordPress?) won’t let me stay logged in long enough to set it up. I’d therefore prefer to hand the job over to Brad of Ian
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My inner Brad?
Ok, will get onto it.
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Geoff,
Depends what you mean by partly. The consensus is that it is extremely likely that more than 50% of our recent warming (since 1950) was anthropogenic, and the best evidence is that it was mostly us. In fact, non-anthropogenic influences could have had a cooling influence, so the anthropogenic influence is potentially > 100%.
What I see are people criticising views that appear scientifically incorrect. If these aren’t your views, then I don’t see why you should care.
As they’re quite entitled to do.
Probably because most don’t think it worth the effort of actually addressing what is said, one by one.
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Hilary — ” I can’t help wondering if our semi-resident soldiers from the lower ranks of the blight brigade had been in that 2007 audience what questions they might have asked.” —
I think we have a clue in that regard. I think you’re right to bring up Climategate. Because, Hulme and Hans Von Storch seem to be warning of precisely what Climategate turned out, and Kaplinsky, too, warns that the canonisation of living scientists risks undermining the value of science. None of them deniers. Which is why Hulme later says of the 97%ers…
— “It seems to me that these people are still living (or wishing to live) in the pre-2009 world of climate change discourse. Haven’t they noticed that public understanding of the climate issue has moved on?” —
Back in 2007, HvS warns Rapley that the media is not science’s ‘secretary’; it is an ‘independent institution’, that can’t and shouldn’t be instructed. Nearly a decade later, at HVS’s and Reiner Grundmann’s site, the latter points out in the light of yet more alarmist copy in the wake of July’s record temperatures,
— “I wonder how long it will take for the fans of this approach to realize how impotent a weapon this is in the fight against climate change. It could be that we will hear a version of this script every year, for many years to come. Hottest summer, hottest winter… More action needed. This is how far the physical sciences can be taken to legitimize ‘call for action’ (whatever that means). It should not be surprising that unconvinced climate scientists will point to weaknesses in the argument, and more populist campaigners will surely grab any cold month as evidence for the belief that we do not have to do anything.” —
To which our angry visitor replies,
— “Except this is so obviously stupid, that I’m amazed anyone with a basic understanding of the topic would possibly excuse it.” —
Except it’s not so obviously stupid. What is obviously stupid is failing to observe the argument offered by scientists and researchers who were pointing out the problems with the approach a decade ago, saying it will yield little goodwill, and even less action, and still yet less understanding. They were right. What is even more obviously stupid is barking ‘obviously stupid’ at academic peers, who demonstrate considerably more understanding of the complexities of the debate, and are thus at least a decade ahead of him. Even shouting ‘obviously stupid’ at the public is a proven failure; as Franny Armstrong and her crew discovered when ‘The Age of Stupid’ failed to mobilise the public behind Ed Miliband at COP meetings.
So this is bang on…
— between 2007 and today neither the leading lights nor the lesser lights have learned a damn thing, except how to recyle ‘n smear ad infinitum —
Consensus enforcers can’t even hear the words of ostensibly sympatico climate scientists and social scientists, and reject entirely the contributions the latter make preferring instead the dismal mind probing of cognitive scientists who themselves seem hell bent on reproducing every failure of positivism, never mind climate-comms, from scratch.
So yes, it’s likely that had our visitors been there they would have asked no more a sensible question than ‘are you obviously stupid’. Which would have marked them out to such a panel as unworthy of reply. Which is why Ken gets the cold shoulder at Kilmazwiebel now; he looks like such a philistine, if not a moron, to academics who were far further ahead of where he is now, a decade ago. It even looked back then that Rapley was getting the message; that his would-you-let-your-child-get-on-a-plane argument is just so much hyperbole that simply doesn’t wash any more effectively than the division of the debate into scientists and deniers. Playing fast and loose with ‘definitions’ and 97% is the best that Consensus Enforcers can muster. It works, to the extent that as rhetoric, it appeals to the choir. But it doesn’t advance the debate, and it squanders the value of science for edge in a political battle.
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— “What I see are people criticising views that appear scientifically incorrect. If these aren’t your views, then I don’t see why you should care.” —
Which views? What science?
What I see is vague references to “The Science”, but no actual reference to the substance. Hence, Consensus Enforcement presupposes a binary, polar debate between science and deniers. It breaks down, of course, when it turns out that ‘deniers’ don’t deny. Hence, Enforcers have to work so much harder to impose the binary debate over what is actually said, forcing them to meander from topic to topic, and their eventual preference for debates about character, rather than science. The ‘consensus’ enforced turns out to be a ‘consensus without an object’. The protest from Enforcers in reply is that it can’t be hollow, because it’s scientific. Which is like religious zealots claiming that they can’t do wrong because they are simply following the literal word of the Bible/whatever. Except at least religious nuts can cite chapter and verse.
The consensus, if it begins with an estimate of a’genic contribution to global warming, necessary becomes loser as it moves away from that estimate towards its consequences. Ken claims he doesn’t want to talk about wind farms. Fair enough. Neither do I. But talk about wind farms, and you will get called a denier, and the SoS for Energy and Climate Change will go on TV and wave Ken’s colleagues’ survey at the interviewer.
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Some light, I think might be shed on all this if we look at the splits within the ‘pro climate’ camp broadly.
It is torn apart by its own tensions. There’s the obvious tension we see between the consensus messaging vs post-climategate reflection debate. Then there are the establishment environmentalists, their fingers in pies, vs the street-level soap-dodging greens. The line of communication between these latter camps are the green NGOs, who fancy themselves as the counter to fossil energy companies, but whose support for green energy companies has made them defacto free PR and lobbying firms for corporate interests, leading to mistakes such as diesel, the biofuel directive, and now chopping down trees, each of which may be worse for the environment and climate change than conventional energy production. Then there is my favourite, the split between old and new environmentalism, with the Breakthroughs and Ecomodernists in a standoff with anti-nuclear counterparts from the old green movement.
They don’t learn much from each other. One reason for this I have suggested is that environmentalism — in its broadest sense — has never developed a culture of debate in the way that other political movements have. This is because Environmentalism has been, for more than half a century, a political experiment (more here), in forming a technocracy above democracy.
As our semi-resident Consensus Enforcer has already demonstrated, he has almost zero understanding of what debate is, much less informal conversation. The design of the political experiment seems to have been fully absorbed into the worldview of its Enforcers: how could there possibly be a debate to have, when only the processes of institutional science can make any sense of the Problem and What Is To Be Done. Debate is for ideologies, whereas science is outside all that petty stuff. Whereas 'greens' variously disagree about choice of technique, and most effective strategy, and the ethics of scarcity-vs-abundance, their mistake was to fail to identify themselves as political, and to allow debate.
On the one hand, this produces incoherent and inflexible accounts of the world that simply do not conform. But a more immediate problem emerges on the other. Whereas adherents of left and right traditions in the past would have entered politics through informal and formal debate and conversation, and developed their understanding of the world through encounters with other perspectives, the environmentalist develops only a crude understanding of political reality: interests and motivations, goodies and baddies. Consensus Enforcers are essentially victims of the post-political or post-democratic era. The point being that, for all their faults, political traditions made people. The angry climate orthodoxist simply does not understand — he 'fails to see', or 'can't see how' — that another perspective is possible, much less legitimate. His character is very much the product of his era.
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Anything anyone want to add further? Raff or Ken, for example? I’ll be closing comments on this thread around midnight tonight, possibly slightly later.
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I asked:
“Kidding aside, are you amenable to having a conversation with me?”
ATTP said:
” ”
So that’d be a no, Ken?
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Brad said, “What were Ian’s exact words? “
He said,
“An argument emerged… a couple of years ago, three or four years ago … that it seems, now, that the oceans are heating….”
Ian was talking to a neophyte who would quite probably have no idea that ocean heat content has been measured for decades to centuries and that everyone expect most of the excess heat (caused by increased GHG) to be absorbed by the oceans. So he tells him that only now do we find that the oceans are warming. His friend doesn’t realize he is being fed total bullshit (among the rest of Ian’s Gallop). Is that what having a conversation, or ‘engaging’, is about?
As to not discussing the pause, why not. Ian makes the usual use of the top of the last big El Nino to claim a pause. Bullshit again, but the friend has no idea of it. What sort of conversation is that?
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Raff is the one feeding “total bullshit”. Ocean heat content hasn’t been measured “for decades to centuries”. To measure it you need to measure the ocean temperature, very accurately, all over the world and at all depths. Obviously, this wasn’t being done centuries ago or even decades ago. The ocean heat graphs that were being promoted a few years back, to try to get around the problem of “the pause” (which comically has been now written out of history) are a fine example of feeding bullshit to the gullible.
More recently, poor Vern and millions like him are being misled by the bullshit of Peter Wadhams promoted unquestioningly by the Guardian and, today, the BBC.
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Raff, neither my friend nor I have any hard science qualification. I was appraising him of sceptical talking points I’ve come across that need an airing and wider discussion beyond the level of blog. We’re talking about what I would like to see more of on Channel 4 News, Newsnight, Horizon – as a lay person, trying to further my understanding and recover my trust in the broadcasting and scientific institutions. We could go through several hundred pages – again – of details about climate sensitivity and so on and on, but I’d rather not we (as in bloggers in general) do it again, here in the blogosphere, I want to see science open itself at an institutional level.
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Where is the Horizon programme on Steve McIntyre? Whatever side you happen to be on, this would be interesting. It has all kinds of dimensions to it as a science story. But no, we get more enforcement with Helen Czerski and Iain Stewart (although it was nice to see open-minded Tamsin Edwards included one time).
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Having read ATTP’s reply to what would have been my conversation opener if we’d had one I realise how right Ben was (though I don’t want ATTP banned).
Apparently the consensus I’m willing to agree with and which ATTP’s co-author Cook has been measuring is not the right consensus. I need to swear fealty to the IPCC’s headline opinion, which has never been the subject of any Cook style consensus test.
And consensus enforcers only criticise things that are scientifically wrong, so if we don’t believe anything wrong, we’ve nothing to worry about. So which of our ideas are scientifically wrong? Dunno, says ATTP, they’re not worth discussing.
Thank Gaia we never had that conversation. Ben’s analysis of climate enforcement in his comments above is excellent, and his one word summary is pretty good too.
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You are correct,of course, Paul Matthews, that it is temperatures that have been measured for a long time, not heat content. All the same, Ian gives his friend the impression that only in the last 3-4 years have we measured heat content, whereas HADSST goes back longer and was probably not the first. More to the point, everyone involved in climate science has known for a very long time that the vast majority of excess heat goes into the oceans.
Ian, you are in no way just presenting the different arguments when you pass judgement (“bollocks”) on your concocted version of the Pause and ocean heat. You don’t point out that it is bollocks to start your Pause in1998 – that is part of your own pitch. If you really want to learn, study some of the excellent resources available. Science of Doom is a good starting point. All you need is out there, without any, “science open[ing] itself at an institutional level”, whatever that means.
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I agree Geoff – it’s really the last word on this discussion, hence the decision to close comments in 8 hours or so. If someone manages in that time to raise some valuable objections to Ben’s last few comments it’ll be worth keeping comments open.
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Raff,
Oh no. Not again.
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Geoff, you say, So which of our ideas are scientifically wrong?
Just look at Ian’s sceptic talking points just mentioned above. You surely see that they are wrong…
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Ian clearly doesn’t, but that is evident in his video.
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That’s right, Raff. I don’t know much at all about the validity of say, Nic Lewis’s research, but I can tell when apple carts have been upset. I’m at least able to read that; I can read reactions. In the last 15 years there have been a few toppled apple carts. I’ve seen them go over, without necessarily knowing their tipping points to five decimal places. I’d like these acknowledged and responded to by, for example, a documentary presented by Sir Paul Nurse on the subject of McIntyre & McKittrick. Or *something* acknowledging the last 15 years of back and forth.
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I’m off to do some recycling. Back in a tic.
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Ian:
That’s fighting talk. How we need that.
Geoff:
Consensus enforcement I think you mean. But agreed the analysis is very helpful.
Which one word was it?
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I can tell when apple carts have been upset. I’m at least able to read that;
How? When you don’t even know that the arguments you presented to your friend were false?
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I use magic, Raff. Catch up. I put on a special hat, stamp the ground 5 times, play an angry round of golf… and then I just know. It’s weird.
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RAFF:
Geoff … Just look at Ian’s sceptic talking points just mentioned above. You surely see that they are wrong…
Insufficiently precise for a scientific article or a court of law, but fine for a conversation, which is what Ian was having, and what we were offering. The reason for the different level of precision required is about trust. In science or a law court you trust no-one, so precision has to be absolute. In conversation you rely on the natural affinity between two human beings who are not looking to destroy each other.
So when, for example I say to ATTP “I’m OK with the consensus…” I do not expect him to come back with a new, tighter version that I won’t be ok with, just so he can trip me up. When Ian says to his friend, “we haven’t been measuring ocean heat content very long” he’s saying something important, whether “not very long” is measured in years or a few decades.
Either you and ATTP really don’t understand this simple difference of discourse, or you’re pretending not to understand for your own obscure motives. Either way, you’re putting yourselves beyond the pale of normal human interaction. It doesn’t do your cause any good.
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Ian,
I’ll just go back to what I said at the beginning. It seems that you really aren’t interested in a conversation. It appears – as I said – that you’re interested in some kind of dialogue in which you get to set the parameters. I’ve responded to a number of your comments and a number of Geoff’s and yet that doesn’t appear good enough. Maybe I should have said something different, but that would be odd given all the complaints about supposed consensus enforcers. Maybe I should have responded more, but then I do really have other things to do. Maybe I should have been more obsequious and more balatantly polite, but that would seem odd given the normal tone here.
So, maybe you should consider that if you really do feel excluded, it’s not because you’re actually being excluded, but because you just don’t know how to participate.
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Geoff,
I wasn’t trying to trip you up. I was simply telling you what it actually is. If you disagree with that, then you’re not really OK with the consensus.
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Any thoughts on Ben’s last three comments Ken? They are the new meat of this thread.
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Ian,
I haven’t read them in any detail, but if they’re any less ridiculous than Ben’s normal comments, I’d be extremely surprised. As far as I’m concerned, complaining about consensus enforcers is just a sign that people don’t have confidence in their own views, are unable to actually present them in some convincing manner, and – hence – blame others for their inability to do so.
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Ian,
didn’t you know?
The “hey, he’s not a scientist so what’s the big deal?” excuse only applies when Al Gore lies to a generation of schoolchildren by using Mike’s trick to hide the lag, conjuring fictional (and conveniently nameless) “Pacific nations” that have now gone the way of Atlantis, and perpetrating seven other falsehoods so fundamental, even a judge was able to identify them without the benefit of a team of Hollywood science consultants.
He’s not a scientist, so why be pedantic? Give that man an Oscar. Give that man a Nobel. Could anything be more important than equipping our children with the delusions they need to face the future as responsible citizens of Gaia? The children, as I’ve always said, are the youth of tomorrow.
But when you do it…. when you mangle some detail of Teh Science in an unscripted, friendly conversation between consenting, critically-thinking adults who can both look it up on Wikipedia if it matters so goddamned much to them, what’s your excuse?
What excuse could there possibly be?
So you’re a layperson. And you think that mitigates your crimes?
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So, Ken, just to remove all doubt and make it official, so to speak:
you’re NOT willing to start a conversation with me—have I got that right?
Cheers.
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— “…if they’re any less ridiculous than Ben’s normal comments, I’d be extremely surprised. As far as I’m concerned, complaining about consensus enforcers is just a sign that people don’t have confidence in their own views…” —
Well that’s just weird, rather than even insulting, obvious trolling, or just ironically lacking self-awareness, which of course, it also manages to do. A non-sequitur dressed as a considered judgement.
Behind which, of course, we have to wonder, what does Ken really know about the ideas behind the criticisms of Consensus Enforcement? There’s the obvious problem: Consensus Enforcers don’t even understand their own arguments, nor even their less excited coreligionists’, let alone their counterparts’. And then, there’s the problem that any discussion with sceptics that Enforcers do enter, they disrupt absolutely, precluding the possibility of getting to what sceptics actually think, the point being to identify sceptics — and even lukewarmers — as ‘deniers’. Consensus Enforcers aren’t readers. Indeed, the entire point of Enforcing is to defer to the consensus, rather than to form a critical understanding of it.
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ATTP, you once said that climate change is demonstrably a threat to mankind’s survival as a species. When questioned, you said that it’s a threat that we can probably counter, so isn’t really a threat.
A short while later, you said that there is a threat but it’s to our existence as a technologically advanced species, not as a species tout court, but that this threat isn’t too much of a threat either (because it can probably be countered) so you didn’t really want to talk about it.
That was in 2014:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/some-thoughts-or-not/
What are your current views on climate change as an existential threat and your current definitions of ‘threat’ and of ‘existential threat’?
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Ian, I suppose there is no point in asking which applecarts have been overturned.
Geoff, in a way you are right; any nonsense is good enough for a conversation. Ian can bullshit his friend and since his friend knows no better they can have a cheerful chat. But if you want people who do know better to ‘engage’ you need to do better than spout BS. The question I have is whether you recognise the BS in Ian’s video for what it is. I doubt it from your and Ian’s responses.
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There might be a point. How will you know if you never ask?
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go on then, Ian, I’m asking. Which applecarts have been overturned.
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Give me 15-20. I’m just getting on the tube.
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I mean the overground. Not far now. Hampstead heath next stop.
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West Hampstead – my stop for a week – coming up.
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ice free Arctic….no more snow….dying polar bears…splicing erratic, unsystematic measurements of ocean temps onto the 5 year ARGO buoy data and claiming the result was meaningful…anything to do with tree rings without mentioning divergence….anything to do with lake varves without mentioning changes in land use….strange ad hoc adjustments used on historic temperature records (eg TOBS and the bucket adjestment) – the concept is fine but how accurate are these adjustments….are the Maldives under water yet?…is Bangladesh decreasing in area?…the pause/hiatus/the non-existent pause according to Lew….the Serengeti strategy whereby predators pick on the strongest prey…..the verification of Mann98 by means of curves of totally different shapes…the way that PAGES2K keep changing the orientation of their proxies….
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Raff-oh! You still there?
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Text me on 07931***294 – it’s the best way to get my attention now. Otherwise I keep have to refreshing the page.
Edit – who just called me from Uxbridge on 01895 73***0?
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I realise that’s a bit reckless giving my number out, but I’ve had a few London-holiday drinks. And now I’ve put OMD on. So only a flashing phone will immediately grab my attention. I’m ready to spill the beans on the runaway apples.
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Little Bobby Dylan… let’s talk about Dylan
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Okay. Chop. To the tune of Tom Waits.
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Lager solipsism last night resulted in Man In A Barrel’s response to Raff’s question not having the proper airing it deserves (sorry MIAB). So Raff – what MIAB said.
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Raff,
thanks for articulating the root of your anger with Ian and the rest of us. There’s no need to deny being angry—I won’t believe your denial, and I don’t expect one. There’s nothing wrong with anger. It’s in the panoply of human emotions for a reason.
You mention “BS” a lot.
Does this mean you think Ian was lying to his friend?
– If so, your judgement of character is unbelievably poor. For your sake, I hope this impairment is temporary and climate-specific.
– If not, your reaction looks disproportionate to the point of bizarre. If there’s something else you’re upset about, some tacit premise I’m missing, feel free to be explicit about it so that I can make sense of your anger.
But either way, as I said, I’m grateful to you for making yourself clear. That’s the only way we’re ever going to make progress. Respect.
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*Those* are your overturned applecarts, Ian Wooley? Really? Wow!
Lying, Brad Keyes? That would require Ian to know that what he was saying was false. Since he equates someone’s ice-free arctic prediction turning out wrong with with upsetting an applecart, I have to assume he has a low level of knowledge or understanding of climate science and therefore doesn’t know any better. That benighted state is really rather sad to observe in someone so wrapped up in the climate ‘debate’ that he goes to the length of authoring articles and recording videos on the subject.
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It’s a sad world, Raff, I don’t deny it. We’re all a bit sad, aren’t we? Or rather, we’re all worried. If there’s something that unites us it’s worry. You have worries about environmental spoilage, we have worries about people missing a trick through their worry about environmental spoilage. We’re all worried. Let’s acknowledge that, and perhaps calm ourselves down with the knowledge. Apologies for being a bit Welsh this afternoon.
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So you’d have us believe, Raff, that you write more in sorrow than in anger?
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EDIT: I (Brad Keyes) inadvertently pasted the following commentary on Raff’s comment over the original. Apologies to Raff. On the plus side, almost all of Raff’s comment is quoted intact so I hope I haven’t done violence to his meaning. Raff, please feel free to re-post your comment if you have a copy of it somewhere. —BK
_________________________________
RAFF, you say:
‘Irritated’ then. Please forget I called you ‘angry.’
But sadness? I don’t buy that as your driving force. Sadness is not capable of motivating prolix participation in a debate.
I do say the same about you.
But I don’t get sad about it. I don’t even find myself puzzled by it. You and Ian quite obviously focus on different aspects of the debate (and there are more than enough to occupy a lifetime’s study). What is sad is that you can’t comprehend someone’s failure to obsess over the same aspects that preoccupy you.
You’re right: to “the climate science community” a catalog of falsified predictions is easy to ignore. They barely even register. Water off a duck’s back.
Which says more about “the climate science community” than about Ian. None of it good.
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— “….any more than insignificant resonance in the climate science community or the wider world.
And yet here is RAFF. More’s the pity. Sharing the melancholia, presumably.
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Full of answers as usual, Raff. No more to be said. I think that Willard dislikes the argument from incredulity more than he dislikes any other form of argument against the world of the climate God’s. Maybe you should consult the Willard clippings service.
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I didn’t say sadness was a driving force, but rather, I think I mentioned that I find talking with ‘sceptics’ to be entertaining. No more.
As for whether climate science should agonize (or be concerned, worried, consider it an upset applecart, choose your response) over the fact that one of its number (or was it? I don’t know) said summers would be ice free by some arbitrary date and it turned out not to be, tell me why. How widespread was that belief (in ice free summers); do you think there was a ‘consensus’ about it?
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what about polar bears, raff?
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are the Maldives under water yet?
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when the predictions come true, we gain trust in the people who make the predictions, even though they might not be quite as prestigious as cliimate gods
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MiaB, you seem to revel in trivia. Just because WUWT or some other similar blog makes a noise about something, doesn’t make it meaningful or significant.
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Raff, 12:10:
“How widespread was that belief (in ice free summers); do you think there was a ‘consensus’ about it?”
Raff, 1:49:
“MiaB, you seem to revel in trivia.”
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ATTP,
What is it about me that you’re afraid of? Not only do you refuse to converse with me, you refuse even to tell me that you refuse to converse with me!
How about I promise not to bring up the fake study you participated in at your employer’s (and the Scottish taxpayer’s) expense?
Still scared?
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“As for whether climate science should agonize (or be concerned, worried, consider it an upset applecart, choose your response) over the fact that one of its number (or was it? I don’t know) said summers would be ice free by some arbitrary date and it turned out not to be, tell me why”
As I have said before, I am amazed at Raff’s inability to understand anything at all, despite the amount of time that he wastes here. I will spell it out, with apologies to everyone else for insulting their intelligence. Members of the public see Guardian articles or listen to Radio 4 and hear a climate scientist saying the Arctic ice will be all gone by 2015. 2015 comes and goes and the ice is still there. Members of public reasonably enough conclude that climate science is a pile of exaggerated alarmist shite. That’s why climate scientists like Hawkins, Schmidt, Betts care.
The recruiters for climate scepticism aren’t the Koch brothers or GWPF. They are fools like Wadhams and Vidal.
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I don’t see your point, Brad Keyes (4:48am). As for why ATTP avoids you, I imagine it has to do with the amount of Conversational Chaff you and Ben Pile throw off (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ConversationalChaff). That does it for me – I no longer read the reams of Pileisms.
A valid point, Paul Matthews, such failed ‘predictions’ must affect general public acceptance of climate science. But the general public knows little about CS, whereas you and all here obsess about it. You know that Wadhams is unrepresentative of opinion as a whole (of the ‘consensus’, one might say) and are in a position to filter public pronouncements. Yet the failure of summer ice to disappear is apparently an “upset applecart”, not noise to be ignored, seemingly a contradition that supposed ability to filter that comes with deeper knowledge. So what gives? Do you not actually know more than the public? Or do you fail to filter for some other reason?
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The fact that you don’t read Ben’s comments (as was obvious before you revealed the fact) is one of the sources of frustration with you and others commenting here. We would like the more difficult and serious points to be addressed, rather than what tends to happen (going over old ground, in a loop).
On the point about obsession: if we weren’t so obsessed, this site wouldn’t exist. What would you do then? You’d have to find another site obsessed about CS. And tell them off for being obsessed. And if they took the hint and gave up with their obsession, you’d have to do the same again. Over and over. And over. Like some… obsessed person.
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Ian,
Have you, and others here, considered avoiding going over old ground, in a loop?
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Ian don’t you think it is a serious point that you and others here consider what others would reject as noise to be overturned applecarts. You seem to have a deep lack of an ability to filter what is important from what is not.
As for obsessions, I’m as obsessed as you, I admit it. Although perhaps obsession is not the optimal word to describe our interest.
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I think we have. A few of us would like to see more sociological interest the area, and write with that in mind. It seems to us (if I can speak for the others) there’s a hole which could be filled with more thought about the cultural phenomenon (of anxiety about the environment).
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Ian,
You’re, of course, welcome to do that. However, it certainly seems that a great deal of what is presented here is essentially going over old ground.
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Raff, just in reply to attp, I tried to explain what I thought was newish ground we are trying to cover here. Or at least not old ground. I think this applies to your point about noise and perspective. It is so much noise and a loss of perspective and as a sociological phenomenon it’s that aspect that’s the most interesting.
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When one has lost one’s way, it helps to guide them back to the start. Although surely, if you did so in a loop, you would probably miss ground well trodden.
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One other area that is interesting is that, stream of announcements by influential or famous people about how we only have a limited amount of time to save the planet (Aug 2008 in the Guardian 100 months, March 2009 Prince Charles 100 months, but in July 2015 this moved to 35 years, Jeffrey Sachs 6 months in June 2015, Jan 2006 Al Gore made it 10 years, Oct 2009 Gordon Brown made it 50 days).
It is a phenomenon that people such as Paul Ehrlich and these illumuati can be so totally wrong, in some cases many times, and yet no one ever calls them out. Ehrlich, in fact seems to grow in repute the more wrong he gets. What is happening?
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— “However, it certainly seems that a great deal of what is presented here is essentially going over old ground.
Yes, because you’re here.
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Ian,
Maybe you can explain more what you mean by this. A common thread here seems to be the utter hatred of Stephan Lewandowsky and a lot of his work would seem to be a form of sociology. How do you plan to comment on anxiety about the environment without your vitiriolic criticism (attack?) of Stephan Lewandowsky seeming somewhat ironic?
Ben,
— A common thread here seems to be the utter hatred of Stephan Lewandowsky and a lot of his work would seem to be a form of sociology —
Psychology is not sociology. Psychologists ‘doing sociology’ make the mistakes that sociology made. This has been covered at length in conversations you have been party to, and commented on. So as for going over old ground… Go away.
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Ben,
I’ve really no idea what this even means.
Not that I can remember. The question was genuine one. How can someone here be suggesting that they are interested in a topic like “anxiety about the environment” when the site is almost devoted to complaining about someone who studies science denial.
Come on, ban me or stop whining.
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I’ve really no idea what this even means.
and you don’t know what psychology or sociology mean, either. Obviously.
— Not that I can remember. —
Indeed. Nor that you can see, nor understand. Your shortcomings are many, aren’t they.
— How can someone here be suggesting that they are interested in a topic like “anxiety about the environment” when the site is almost devoted to complaining about someone who studies science denial.—
A psychologist might be able to help you overcome your cognitive shortcomings, or perhaps just explain their possible causes to you (again and again and again and again). Also, you could speak to them about your weirdly obsessive, aggressive and compulsive behavior.
A sociologist wouldn’t be able to help you in that regard. He might be able to say that there are a few of you out there though.
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Ben,
No, this clearly does not follow. Bizarre.
I’m sure I have plenty, but that doesn’t necessary follow from the fact that I have no memory of being involved in the discussions you claim I’ve been involved in. Of course, you do have a habit of simply making stuff up, so that’s no surprise.
My view is that your desire to discuss environmental anxiety would seem rather hypocritical given your dislike of what Stephan Lewandowsky presents. I’m confident though, that you have an argument as to why it isn’t. I’m also pretty confident that that argument won’t make much sense and will involve lots of smears and slurs.
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I’m not the slightest bit interested in sociology, so if you want to be rid of me, discuss that.
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>> — and you don’t know what psychology or sociology mean, either. Obviously.
— No, this clearly does not follow. Bizarre.
It clearly follows from this:
— “A common thread here seems to be the utter hatred of [psychologist] Stephan Lewandowsky and a lot of his work would seem to be a form of sociology” —
— “I’m confident though, that you have an argument as to why it isn’t. I’m also pretty confident that that argument won’t make much sense and will involve lots of smears and slurs.“–
You can find out for yourself.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/13716#.V8htx_krKJA
As I said. Old ground. Knock yourself out, as they say
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— “I’m not the slightest bit interested in sociology, so if you want to be rid of me, discuss that.”
As evidenced by your conspicuous non-absence under the recent post here, which was introduced thus,
This article is part of an occasional series exploring the possibility (or rather the necessity) of a sociological analysis of climate catastrophism.
https://cliscep.com/2016/07/20/weak-minds-think-alike/
You don’t even know your own mind.
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Ken, this site isn’t devoted to Lewandowsky. But we’re very interested in him. I just wonder what kind of belligerent mindset it takes to transfer blogging-style flame warriorship into published research. I wouldn’t have anywhere near the gall to do what he did – name actual individuals as psychologically aberrant to make a point. It is as Brad describes it: punitive psychology. And far from reasonable sociology.
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Ian, you need to take ownership of the totally abhorrent views expressed on this thread
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It is years since I dabbled in sociology, does the “social construction” school still have any kudos?
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You are right, Ben Pile, thanks! I never thought of environmentalism as being sociology, but a quick look at the Wiki page tells me much more than I want to know about that connection.
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Oof. That’s opaque, Raff. Seductive. Intriguing. What could you be hinting at? Which wiki page could it be? These are all teasing, tantalising questions. I see they’re repeating Bullseye on Challenge, though.
Choices, choices.
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Hang on. Are you saying you looked up ‘sociology’ on Wikipedia? Is that… I mean sociology? On wikipedia?
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Joking aside – what on actual earth are you doing here? If you have to look up sociology on Wikipedia? Please tell me you didn’t need to do that. Because if you did, time has been frittered away offensively.
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RAFF,
“I don’t see your point, Brad Keyes (4:48am).”
Let me be clearer then. All your talk of Wadhams’ “representativeness,” “consensus” etc. is just so much irrelevantia.
If Wadhams’ predictions are derived from the CAGW hypothesis, and they fail to come true, as they have, then that’s a problem for the hypothesis. A big problem.
It doesn’t matter one fucking iota HOW MANY OTHER SCIENTISTS make, or don’t make, the same prediction.
The sooner you shut up about bullshit like “consensus” the sooner you’ll stop sounding scientifically-illiterate.
If, on the other hand, Wadhams’ predictions are NOT derived from any particular hypothesis, then he’s acting as a rogue scientist who should never have been heard from, written about or given the slightest oxygen.
Again, this would be true of any scientist doing the same thing, NO MATTER HOW MANY OF THEM WERE DOING IT.
In science, your hypothesis is hostage to the success or failure of your predictions.
Those are the rules.
Don’t like them? Fine. Find a different career.
Making a false prediction and then refusing to admit your hypothesis is in trouble is like losing a bet and refusing to pay up.
Scientists aren’t supposed to get away with that shit. And generally, they don’t. Science is fairly well-policed. I won’t say it’s as crime-free as a casino, what with modern surveillance camera technology, but it’s certainly not the Wild West.
There’s one exception, of course—one pathological, lawless science in which unaccountability isn’t an aberration, it’s the norm.
OIC. Only In Climate™.
It’s the Mos Eisley of the scientific world.
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Ian — “If you have to look up sociology on Wikipedia? Please tell me you didn’t need to do that. Because if you did, time has been frittered away offensively.” —
That is surely it though. RAFF says he’d rather not talk about sociology, but it appears that he had plenty to say when sociology was explicitly flagged up as the topic, at the top, in emphasis. And Ken doesn’t even know the difference between sociology and psychology. To say that our Consensus Enforcers are dim would be a truism; it’s a necessary condition of being a Consensus Enforcer, since it means deference to the ‘Consensus’ — i.e. its authority without regard for its substance, much less a critical understanding of either that substance, or counterpositions.
There is no hope, no possibility and no intention of a productive discussion with Consensus Enforcers.
The reason being that neither Enforcer felt the need either to read the OP, nor to understand the modality of its argument; a sociological (or any other social science’s) perspective which doesn’t begin with the premise of the Enforcer’s consensus must ergo be wrong, no matter that truth of that position can be bracketed for the purposes of our discussion — and indeed it is, there being no denial here — and yet still yield insight. As pointed out elsewhere, the climate debate descends to science.
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Yes, it’s hard to have a discussion about something if the subject of that discussion can’t be detected by the one side. Or is wilfully unseen by that side – as in commentary isn’t even read. What’s the point?
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Ian,
Maybe you’re finally getting it.
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Maybe.
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There is no “CAGW hypothesis”, Brad Keyes. That is a fiction invented or repeated by people like you and Ian who would rather trust their own preconceptions or falsenesses promulgated by oddjob blogs than lookup something in a reference source.
The AGW hypothesis, simply stated, is that increased greenhouse gasses from anthropogenic sources will lead to warmer conditions. It is a hypothesis that people of the ‘sceptical’ bent often like to pretend to accept and yet like you don’t understand enough to follow. There is nothing in it the AGW hypothesis allows anyone to ‘derive’ that the Arctic will be ice free by 2016 because there are unknowns such as the amount of warming to be expected and the rate of change. The “ice-free hypothesis”, to coin a term for it, is separate and has clearly been disproved, but that rather obviously has no bearing on the AGW hypothesis. To think that this represents an overturned applecart is to misunderstand the applecart.
That whoucl be simple to understand for a graduate of any hard subject (science, engineering, medicine) though I can see why those who give a sh*t whether environmentalism is classified as a sub-category of sociology might have trouble with it.
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Raff,
I thought we’d moved past accusing each other, by name, of being phonies? So I’ll ignore the more unpleasant elements of your comment.
‘There is no “CAGW hypothesis”, Brad Keyes.’
Yeah, I noticed. Officially there is no such hypothesis.
We’re just supposed to believe in it, without ever seeing it put to a scientific test.
If ‘your’ guys were proper scientists, there WOULD be an official “CAGW hypothesis,” and they’d immerse it in the acid of truth and see what happens.
But they’re not, so there isn’t, and they won’t. Ever.
“The AGW hypothesis, simply stated,…”
Yawn.
Haven’t I already stipulated I have no problem with that hypothesis, to the extent that it’s sort-of been scientifically tested?
Oh, I’m sorry, let me use your terminology: haven’t I already pretended to accept it, like the dishonest, bad actor I am?
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Raff,
“The “ice-free hypothesis”, to coin a term for it, is separate and has clearly been disproved, ”
The fact that you have to “coin a term for it” doesn’t bode well for the scientificness of the supposed scientists you suppose are testing it, does it? Shouldn’t there already be a term for it, or at least a definition somewhere in print?
In any case, there is no such hypothesis because it’s a prediction, not a hypothesis. It’s a consequence of believing the natural world works in a certain way. If the natural world worked in the way the scientist in question thought, then, as a consequence of that, the “basic central part of the Arctic” would have been ice-free by whatever date he or she had calculated.
The “way the natural world works” is the hypothesis. The bit about the basic central part of the Arctic being ice-free is the prediction, derived (“computed”) from the hypothesis.
And when the basic central part of the Arctic refuses to melt on schedule, that’s supposed to make the scientists in question abandon their hypothesis, go back to the drawing board and come up with a different one.* Not just come up with a new prediction—that’s what cult leaders do When Prophecies Fail—but a new hypothesis.
Make sense? Am I explaining this clearly?
*That’s how it works in non-pathological sciences. I don’t expect alarmist (“mainstream,” “establishment” etc.) climate scientists to obey these rules, however.
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Raff,
“That whoucl be simple to understand for a graduate of any hard subject (science, engineering, medicine) though I can see why those who give a sh*t whether environmentalism is classified as a sub-category of sociology might have trouble with it.”
Whoa Nelly. ¡Calme-toi!
As a graduate of both “hard” and (what you seem to consider) “easy” subjects, I have an interest in all questions—but I’ve not personally dipped my toes into the sociology/environmentalism p*ssfight yet so take your p*ssiness out on someone else, thanks.
And by the way, that thing you think “would be easy enough” for me “to understand”… guess what? You misunderstood it.
Hence my two comments above explaining it. Free of charge. Voluntarily. Happily, because I suspect you’re a nice person underneath all the Climateball bluster, and it gives me pleasure to help nice people understand important things. (ATTP, by contrast, claims to get paid to explain this stuff—and has evidently done a p*ss-poor job.)
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An interesting display of brute ignorance:
— “…I can see why those who give a sh*t whether environmentalism is classified as a sub-category of sociology might have trouble with it.” —
First, there’s the missed point that it was Ken who couldn’t tell the difference between sociology and psychology. Second, there’s the point that even at Ken’s site, and in spite of the broad scepticism of the softer and social sciences that occasionally gets deployed (as rhetoric, rather than thoroughgoing critique) by the warmer side of the climate debate, Kuhn is being cited favourably by at least one mainstreamer. Third, RAFF didn’t notice the subject of a thread was a sociological perspective on the climate debate when he posted unmpteen times to it.
For RAFF’s benefit then, a sociological approach doesn’t imply that the thing in question is a ‘sub-category’ of sociology. Kuhn, for instance, and others try to understand the sociology of science — a mode of investigation that somestimes pisses off scientists, but which nonetheless correctly identifies that science has a social context.
Similar approaches would have observed attempts to bring the scientific method to bear over the public sphere and into policy prematurely, throughout modern history. Our favourite examples, of course, are the population and resource-environmentalism of the 1960s and ’70s, whose ‘scientific’ prognostications did not materialise. Having seemingly overestimated the apparently hard sciences’ ability to make sense of the world, and underestimated the capacities of society, the last quarter of the C20th unfolded precisely opposite to the way that had been seemingly foretold. It turns out that their science wasn’t quite as scientific as they believed; it was a lot more ‘political’, and included many assumptions about the material world and society than anybody dared to point out. Do we need to point out other seemingly ‘scientific’ political errors?
Observing it doesn’t make science a ‘sub-category of sociology’. It does, however, help to explain why so many misapprehend environmentalism’s claims — and rank alarmism — as material fact. Climate Camp protesters at Heathrow turned the pages of one non-peer reviewed, non-scientific paper into gloves, and announced that they were “… armed, only with peer-reviewed science”. (The report they were wearing was an analysis by the Tyndall Centre, commissioned by FoE and the Cooperative Bank on the possiblities of a low/zero carbon UK). Obama, almost a decade later, misconceives the ‘overwhelming judgment of science’ as precisely the opposite of what the IPCC finds in reports.
It’s not enough merely to say ‘well that’s wrong’. And not enough climate scientists did say ‘that’s wrong’. And too many of them cheered. Pointing out that either camp get it wrong causes the observer to be identified as a ‘denier’. Science has nothing to say about such bullshit. Nor even the bullshit that plainly motivates RAFF and Ken. They are comfortable in their ignorance. They enjoy their ideological blinkers. “It’s science”, they say. But they haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about, because unless you can tell what categorically isn’t science, you can have no idea what science is.
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Bingo, Brad Keyes:
Shouldn’t there already be a term for it, or at least a definition somewhere in print?
There would be if it had been rigourously ‘derived’ and anybody took it seriously. You keep saying the originator ‘derived’ (calculated, computed) the prediction from the AGW hypothesis, and claim to understand that better than I do, so tell me how to calculate a precise single result for a chaotic system and a hypothesis that says sensitivity could be anywhere between 1.5 and 4 degrees per CO2 doubling? From a model perhaps? One of those that ‘sceptics’ say don’t work? It would be ironic if you thought that the AGW hypothesis had been dented by results from a model you think can’t work. Nobody cares about or even remembers the prediction, except ‘sceptics’ who presumably don’t understand all this.
The ice-free prediction probably came from no more than some basic graph fitting, projecting the point at which ice approached zero by continuing the curve of prior ice decline into the future. Anyone who has read something about statistics will know that the end points of a curve-fit are highly unreliable and that it is foolish to read much into extrapolation. If you are a scientist, you presumably know that.
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When Raff, Ken, or any other person advocating the ‘consensus’ on climate change whilst insisting that we should urgently be reducing CO2 emissions scientifically justifies the IPCC AR5 attribution statement with both theory and accompanying empirical evidence, then science will not only be done, but will be seen to be done.
Perhaps we should open up a thread for this one purpose; to convince us ‘sceptics’ beyond reasonable doubt that the IPCC got it right on climate change attribution since 1950. ‘Climate consensus enforcers’ can then cast off their cloak of ignominy to become instead ‘the Knights Templar of True Science’ and we can all admire their shiny suits of armour and coats of arms declaring their unstinting allegiance to the Scientific Method.
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Raff,
this is how I know you didn’t understand what I wrote:
“You keep saying the originator ‘derived’ (calculated, computed) the prediction from the AGW hypothesis”
What the what?
I’ve never once said that. Why would I? I’m not here to debate the AGW hypothesis. How many times do I have to explain to you that I have no problem accepting the reality of AGW as a phenomenon?
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PS:
Raff, don’t even be playing the “if you were a scientist” game with me. Have some dignity. You’re several hours too late. The game is over. You lost. You lost when you called a prediction a “hypothesis.”
But did I gloat? Did I make fun of you? No. I sacrificed many, many minutes of my time tailoring an explanation of your mistake to you, personally, in the context of this conversation, so as to optimize the odds that you’d learn why you were wrong, how to use the right language, and why it mattered.
A simple “thank you” will do.
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Brad Keyes says:
03 Sep 16 at 1:49 am
The “way the natural world works” is the hypothesis. The bit about the basic central part of the Arctic being ice-free is the prediction, derived (“computed”) from the hypothesis.
And when the basic central part of the Arctic refuses to melt on schedule, that’s supposed to make the scientists in question abandon their hypothesis, go back to the drawing board and come up with a different one.* Not just come up with a new prediction—that’s what cult leaders do When Prophecies Fail—but a new hypothesis.
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Sorry Raff,
I take that back. You used the present indicative, not the past subjunctive: “if you ARE a scientist…”
I should’ve read more closely before replying.
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Raff, you still don’t seem to understand that I wasn’t referring to the the AGW hypothesis. (What on earth makes you think I was?)
I honestly don’t know what hypothesis underwrote Wadhams’ prediction—my point, in fact, was that there probably was no underlying hypothesis, because he was probably just being pseudoscientific like the pseudoscientist he probably is—but it certainly was not the AGW hypothesis, was it, given that AGW does not entail ice-free Arctics, does it?
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Ben,
good point:
““It’s science”, they say. But they haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about, because unless you can tell what categorically isn’t science, you can have no idea what science is.”
I won’t wear out the Internet by linking yet again to the precise moment when Ken let it slip for all to see that he literally doesn’t have the first fucking clue how one might go about telling science from religion.
While Raff has never, AFAIK, exhibited ignorance on that planet-collapsing scale, he does have certain lacunae in his mental model of science vs pseudo-. But we’re working (relatively amicably) on those areas of confusion on this very page. So there are grounds for optimism.
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No, Brad Keyes, the prediction was not derived from the AGW hypothesis. Its failure is therefore not a reflection on AGW and doesn’t represent an upset applecart. Ditto the rest of Ian’s list, probably. Glad we can agree that Ian really can’t tell upset applecarts from noise.
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I can Raff. Ner Ner Ner na Ner Ner.
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And so the thread descends into noise.
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Raff:
“Glad we can agree that Ian really can’t tell upset applecarts from noise.”
No, Raff. No. What we can agree on (or could agree on, if you understood it) is that most “skeptics” aren’t even trying to problematize the AGW hypothesoid. Why would we? We accept it. We believe. Credemus. Hallelujah. Lordy fucking lord.
Don’t you get it? AGW is NOT the point of contention in the climate “debate,” Raff. By conceding its reality, I concede nothing. I don’t agree—and barring the miraculous discovery of some scientific evidence, I will never agree—to lift a goddamn finger to “fight climate change.” I don’t agree to divert one red goddamn cent from Alzheimer’s research or oncogenetics or primary hospitals to fund your bizarre Children’s Crusade against the atmosphere.
Would you like me to go over this one more time?
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So when did you become spokesman for most ‘skeptics’, Brad Keyes? You are clearly not spokesman for Ian Woolley or MiaB who think things unrelated (as we’ve established) to the AGW hypothesis upset the applecart of the AGW hypothesis.
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‘So when did you become spokesman for most ‘skeptics’, Brad Keyes?’
I’m nobody’s spokesmodel, Raff Raffstafferson.
I just appear to have more of an idea than you do when it comes to what most of my online cislaterals think on the AGW question.
Sincere, non-rhetorical question time:
When, if ever, did Ian say the applecart of the AGW hypothesis had been upset by the unrelated events in question? I haven’t had time to read this thread in full, so I may have missed it. Your help tracking down a quote would be appreciated.
PS you can stop using my surname when you address me.
PPS massive props to you for articulating your thought process without pretense. If more of us dropped the masks (or regulation climateball maxillofacial protective gear) the “debate” would improve considerably. Respect.
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Brad to RAFF, — “How many times do I have to explain to you that I have no problem accepting the reality of AGW as a phenomenon? —”
and
— “Don’t you get it? AGW is NOT the point of contention in the climate “debate,” Raff.” —
RAFF replies,
— “So when did you become spokesman for most ‘skeptics’, Brad Keyes?” —
The main problem for RAFF is that if Brad is not able to be ‘spokesman for most ‘skeptics’, then RAFF is not free to say there is anything particular to scepticism.
But RAFF presupposes his understanding of scepticism, as is the tendency of Consensus Enforcers — the answer to Brad’s question is that it doesn’t matter how many times you tell a Consensus Enforcer that the debate doesn’t divide as he presupposes it, because his intention is not to defend that understanding of the debate, but to Enforce it.
As the wider debate shows, you don’t have to doubt anthropocentric climate change or its consequences to end up being placed on the Axis of Denial by Consensus Enforcers. Hence that is where lukewarmers and the likes of Pielke and Lomborg get put by our very own resident Enforcers.
Were there to be a ‘spokesman for most skeptics’, his view would be as encompassing as the IPCC’s. Here are two facts which Consensus Enforcers cannot grasp without having some kind of meltdown.
i. It is possible to form a ‘pro-climate’ perspective completely independently of ‘science’, and without understanding a single scientific claim.
ii. It is possible to be a ‘climate sceptic’, but agree completely with the IPCC’s estimate of anthropogenic contribution to late C20th global warming.
Science has got nothing to do with the polarised view of the climate debate.
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Ben, that’s a tour de force…
…notwithstanding the fact that if I thought your comments were entirely fair to RAFF, I probably wouldn’t waste time reaching across to him/her as I’m trying to do.
It’s a thinker. I’m still trying to think if I agree with you or not. Which is a compliment.
But the last line could be clearer. The polarised view of? Don’t we all view it as polarised? I do! Is it polarised of me to view it as polarised?
Would this work instead as a closing para:
“Science is not the axis along which we polarise in the climate debate. Science has nothing to do with it.”
?
Or simply, “…with the polarised views in…”?
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Or
“Science is not the plane of cleavage in the climate debate. Science doesn’t even have anything to do with it—it’s orthogonal to the phenomenon.”
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Search for apple on this page, Brad Keyes. You’ll find it at: Ian Woolley, 30 Aug 16 at 4:09 pm. I add surnames after having been criticized by John Shade for being too friendly with first names only. After getting used to it, I quite like the style anyway.
I don’t really accept at face value your assertion that AGW is not a point of contention for you. I certainly don’t believe it for many others. Not that you are lying about it, just that I’ve experienced so many word games played by ‘sceptics’ that I expect “accepting AGW” to be reduced to a hollow semantic core once any discussion of detail takes place.
Your points i and ii, Ben Pile, are obvious to anyone – which can be said without danger of meltdown. Tell me something I don’t know.
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Brad, yes, “Science is NOT the plane of cleavage in the climate debate” is better than “Science is not the axis along which we polarise in the climate debate.” .
It’s what Consensus Enforcers want of course; because they’re preoccupied with the Gateway Belief Model of ‘communication’, which holds i) that the public’s obedience can be elicited by persuading them that a ‘consensus exists’ (no matter the substance of that consensus) and that thus, ii) counterpositions in the climate debate are simply about undermining that consensus.
In other words, the symmetry of the strategies is unwittingly revealed as presupposed in the stuff the likes of Oreskes produces on ‘manufacturing doubt’. This renders something as benign as asking for clarification, or attempting to clarify the substance of the consensus, a deliberate, strategic undermining of the consensus on the Enforcers’ view. The Enforcer believes that all he needs to do to expose the bad faith is apply the right amount of pressure or persistence. Thus, the low signal-to-noise ratio of Consensus Enforcement. Environmentalists and their organisations are obsessed with strategy (rather than coherence of argument) at the best of times, and Consensus Enforcement is the epitome of that preoccupation.
This is why I believe debate with Consensus Enforcers can make no progress. Debate with others of a green bent is possible, though it means cutting through the febrile atmosphere Enforcers create in any space that it looks like unauthorised opinion might be getting an airing in.
All sort of debates have always raised passions, of course. And it’s always been the case that open fora have allowed in the hollowest of heads with the biggest of gobs to shout down nuanced perspectives. But what’s surprising about the phenomenon of Consensus Enforcement is that it doesn’t increase in quality as one moves up the web, from the CiF drone to the likes of Lew or Bob Ward. What Universities churn out is no better than internet conflagration.
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Contradiction alert!
RAFF: — “I don’t really accept[…] that AGW is not a point of contention for [sceptics].” —
RAFF: — “Your points i and ii, Ben Pile, are obvious to anyone – which can be said without danger of meltdown. Tell me something I don’t know.“–
If it’s obvious, why would you try to say in the very same flippin’ comment that Brad’s words cannot be taken at face value — i.e. that something else would be exposed by ‘any discussion of detail’?
Clearly you are having some kind of meltdown. How else to explain such an incoherent claim than an emotional break with reality?
— “I’ve experienced so many word games played by ‘sceptics’ that I expect “accepting AGW” to be reduced to a hollow semantic core once any discussion of detail takes place.“–
If you’re not playing ‘word games’, then the term has no meaning. It seems to me that your impression of sceptics is formed because ultimately you’ve been confronted with so many sceptics pointing out the fragility of your own word salad, but have imagined them, not yourself, to be the constant in your experience.
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In the same way, Ben Pile, that ‘sceptic’ can say, “I agree completely with the IPCC’s estimate of anthropogenic contribution to late C20th global warming” and for example, “there has been no warming since 1998”. It is a semantic agreement with AGW or the IPCC estimates made purely (it seems to me) as wordplay, and hollow in other respects. You are a master of such things, so I don’t need to tell you.
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RAFF — “It is a semantic agreement with AGW or the IPCC estimates made purely (it seems to me) as wordplay, and hollow in other respects.”
Which is exactly the problem pointed out by us, and others about, amongst other things, the 97% survey, which I describe as a ‘consensus without an object’, at best reducing the debate to a ‘battle of received wisdoms’ (described here). The point being that Consensus Enforcement, consensus messaging, and the Gateway Belief Model actively preclude debates about substance.
In other words, it is the hollowness of your argument that you encounter when you encounter sceptics.
— “that ‘sceptic’ can say, “I agree completely with the IPCC’s estimate of anthropogenic contribution to late C20th global warming” and for example, “there has been no warming since 1998”.” —
Even mainstream, consensus-driven, IPCC lead-authoring Met Office scientists agreed that there has (or had) been very little warming in the period you describe, and that it required an explanation which was not yet clear, thus was controversial. The IPCC, too, paid it more attention, and included discussion of it in AR5. But it was a Consensus Enforcing psychologist and a historian of science who said that climate science had been infected by denier ‘memes’ that had been absorbed through debate, and that the hiatus wasn’t real.
The sceptic, meanwhile, has said nothing controversial that the climate scientist hasn’t said. It is the Consensus Enforcer who is at odds with consensus climate science.
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Raff,
I’ve conscientiously given you the benefit of the doubt at every turn (setting aside some lapses into ra-ra Climateball overenthusiasm, which were unbecoming of me),
BUT.
If you’re not going to believe I believe what I say I believe, there is literally no point talking to you.
I cannot possibly assuage your suspicions about my subconscious, and I have no interest in trying.
All I can tell you is what I think.
If you’re intent on extending me the presumption of either bad faith or false consciousness, then it’s you who are being an intractable douchecanoe, not me.
In fact the refusal to accept an interlocutor’s good faith is pretty much the epitome of bad faith.
Ben was right: I’m wasting my time. By which I mean, you’re wasting my time.
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Raff sent me on a quixotic quest for a quote by Ian to the effect that applecart of the AGW hypothesis have been upset by the failure of predictions not derivable from the AGW hypothesis.
For the record, Ian wrote no such words.
Quelle surprise.
And just in case Raff is reading this (despite, apparently, not believing in my capacity and/or willingness to speak my own fucking mind):
My understanding is that Ian was talking about the applecart of alarmism (or one of alarmism’s plural applecarts). And since we all know AGW isn’t alarming an Sich, it would follow that he was talking about a discrete, other, separate, different applecart.
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Completionism forces me to address one last point raised by the late RAFF, my former correspondent:
“I add surnames after having been criticized by John Shade for being too friendly with first names only.”
Well that’s weird. Maybe it’s a generational thing. The socially competent policy, of course, would be to address people how they want to be addressed, not how someone else wants to be addressed. And I told you how to address me. Ignore the hint and you look socially incompetent.
It’s no biggie either way. As long as you don’t call me *just* by my surname, as if you’re my fucking Year 7 Latin teacher, it’s all good.
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You thought there was a ‘point’ to this conversation, Brad Keyes? You’ve been around long enough to know better.
Acceptance of AGW means accepting that increasing GHG concentrations mean inceasing energy accumulation – and increased temperature, somewhere. And it normally means accepting that sensitivity lies somewhere in the IPCC range 1.5-4.5C. Maybe you do, but my experience of ‘sceptics’ saying that is that they don’t, really, only rhetorically. Ben Pile’s continuing preoccupation with the ‘pause’ shows that he doesn’t really accept AGW, whatever he might claim (I don’t know if he claims to accept it, but you claim he probably does).
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As for what applecarts have been overturned, Ian Woolley has had no problem with my characterisation of his applecart being AGW over several days in which he has also commented. He may well now sign up to your crafty invention, but that just confirms my prior impression of it never being sensible to accept the words of a ‘sceptic’ at face value. For a real sceptic it is of course different, but therin lies the reason for the quotation marks.
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— “Ben Pile’s continuing preoccupation with the ‘pause’ shows that he doesn’t really accept AGW…” —
First time I think I’ve mentioned it on this thread. Or this site. And it was made in response to RAFF’s hypothetical sceptic, it being only a psychologist’s and science historian’s claim that the pause is a sceptic ‘meme’. So RAFF’s remark is a bit of a concoction.
If RAFF’s claim is that merely mentioning the pause is sufficient to signify denial of climate change, we can say with some confidence that the phenomenon of Consensus Enforcement has been completely understood.
After all, it’s not as if RAFF made any attempt to get to the substance of the controversy of the pause. It’s his own bad faith or false consciousness that’s on show here.
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I mentioned apple carts. Miab gave to my mind a reasonable list of controversies and challenges over the last 15 years. I pointed to this. This is beyond dull now (from Raff).
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RAFF agrees that the Consensus Enforcer’s a priori precedes the substance of the debate.
— “He may well now sign up to your crafty invention, but that just confirms my prior impression of it never being sensible to accept the words of a ‘sceptic’ at face value.” —
I don’t believe RAFF has ever debated a sceptic (or a ‘sceptic’) in good faith. And yet he has had opportunities to demonstrate that he has.
RAFF cannot overcome his presupposition of sceptics’ bad faith. And so he guarantees that any debate he enters, in which it is his intention to expose that bad faith, he poisons that debate.
Consensus Enforcers are obsessed with character. It’s easier to drag discussions down to that level, rather than to discuss the issues of substance at hand. This is because the Consensus Enforcer is convinced that he is right before he’s even entered a debate. Debates are about them. It’s rank narcissism. Or ‘trolling’, if you prefer.
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Also, Raff, I do have a problem with you saying the cart is AGW. I never suggested it was. I wouldn’t presume either way on the subject.
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So you thought a non-ice-free Arctic was significant enough to be an upset applecart but didn’t know what it meant? So some oddjob blog said it was a big deal and you uncritically acepted that. Some ‘sceptic’!
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Raff,
“So you thought a non-ice-free Arctic was significant enough to be an upset applecart but didn’t know what it meant?”
newsflash: NOBODY knows what exactly it “meant” (other than yet another alarmist being forced to do what such people do When Prophecies Fail).
Need I remind you (and everyone else) how you, ridiculously, thought it constituted a falsification of something you called “the ice-free hypothesis”?
The reason we’re all having trouble saying what it meant—some *ahem* more trouble than others—is that these alarmist prognosticators ceased playing by the rules of science decades ago.
In a real science, the prediction would explicitly be derived from, and underwritten by, an unambiguous hypothesis. Once the prediction was upset, the hypothesis would have been torn up. Because it belongs in the dustbin.
Did that happen, Raff?
Go on, surprise me: show me that climate science is not quite as pathological as I give it credit for.
Did that happen?
Did Wadhams abandon his hypothesis? (In layman’s terms, “applecart”?)
If so, be a dear and remind us what hypothesis (applecart) it was.
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Yes, you’re losing grip on your terms, Raff. What are you saying? Please accuse me of something baldly. After answering Brad, preferably.
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Impeccable timing:
Cart and Horse – Cause and Effect – Industrial Revolution and Climate Change
I’m reminded of how I once defined climate epistemology (to paraphrase from memory):
“a late-C20th certainty-production system in which the cart of knowledge precedes the horse of evidence”
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At last we know what kind of fruit was in the cart.
Thanks Raff, for that and… er… well, thanks for that.
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Of course we know what it meant, Brad Keyes, namely that the extreme end of the many estimates of when the Arctic might be ice-free (which range up to the end of the 21st C) was wrong. Nobody cares except for a few oddballs who, like you, see it as an indictment of climate science – whose basic tenet they apparently still accept.
Accuse you of something, Ian Woolley? Well, if you like: you don’t seem to know what you meant by what you wrote.
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And what is that? That which I don’t know (about what I wrote)? Be specific.
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Exactly which applecart you think was upset.
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Raff,
“the extreme end of the many estimates of when the Arctic might be ice-free… was wrong”
So one of the many predictions…. was wrong.
So one of the predictions was wrong.
So one prediction was wrong.
So a prediction was wrong.
Er, yes, Raff. I know. WE’VE ESTABLISHED THAT.
(The fact that there are many other predictions, made by other scientists, and they haven’t yet been proven wrong, is completely irrelevant to the scientific mind—but I wouldn’t expect you to understand why at this point. Baby steps.)
What you’re still trying (so, so conspicuously) to avoid telling us is this:
What hypothesis possessed Wadhams to make his wrong prediction, Raff?
That’s the question that pops into the scientific mind automatically, unbidden, by sheer force of habit, at this point in the story.
The only question.
Answer it.
If you can.
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Ian,
don’t answer him/her. Bite your tongue.
He/she still owes us an answer.
First things first.
Raff,
stop trying to make this OUR problem. It’s not. The problem belongs exclusively to the joke of a science for which you’re an apologist.
In a real science, if a prediction had failed, everybody in this thread would know by now EXACTLY what the upset applecart (hypothesis) was.
Climate science is… how can I put this?… not a real science.
As I hope you’re beginning to figure out.
Painfully, painfully slowly.
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This discussion is more theological than scientific… or logical. The reason is that Raff enters into the debate convinced, not of the righteousness of his cause (he knows that there is much he cannot defend) but the depravity of his opponents.
It is central to each of the arguments he makes that skeptics (and I assume Lukewarmers such as myself) have nefarious motives. When we argue the science he thinks it is a cover. When we argue the politics he thinks we are advancing a separate agenda. When we argue sociology he thinks we are trying to confuse the issues.
In each of these he is fairly obviously mistaken, although there are individuals and individual comments he can refer to as support. But he cannot engage on the principal matters because at the end of the day he does not consider us to be honest opponents.
Pretty convenient, that.
AGW is utterly non-controversial to most of us. The pause is not only observed (e.g., James Hansen) but is a repeat of two previous similar pauses in the 20th Century. It doesn’t prove AGW wrong. But it doesn’t prove exaggerated claims of high atmospheric sensitivity right.
Lewandowsky is a charlatan who brings discredit on to all science, not just climate science. Peter Wadham is a useful tool for alarmists who are smart enough not to make outlandish claims themselves, but are happy to point the credulous to incredible claims. We have seen the same in the past, when political activists were happy to point to Paul Ehrlich even as his claims were disintegrating before their eyes.
AGW is true. Atmospheric sensitivity is being investigated. Until it is ascertained, or at least the range is tightened from it’s present too wide a stance, discussion of impacts and useful policies is constrained by a lack of evidence.
I personally support a wide range of actions to insure us from potential consequences–but as many of them can be considered ‘pre-adaptation’ rather than militant mitigation, my views are beyond the Pale.
Finally, trying to deny the existence of a Catastrophic meme in climate science as well as climate activism is asking us all to blind ourselves to what is published in academic literature. From Michael Mann to James Hansen, catastrophism is a blunt instrument that is never out of their clenched fists. It is too easy to find literal and symbolic uses of catastrophism for any sane person to believe that it is not a, if not the, principal argument put before the public and policy makers.
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“This discussion is more theological than scientific…”
Well, if that’s what it took to lure you out of your lurking-place, Tom, it was worth it. That’s a comment for the ages. For the space capsules.
There’s naked philosophizing going on at the tail end (as it were) of the other thread, so if you could spare a minute to enlighten those benighted wights too…
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There’s nothing wrong with discussing this from a theological perspective–as long as it’s clear that that’s what we’re doing.
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don’t answer him/her. Bite your tongue.
Yes, Ian Woolley, obey your master. Not only is he the unelected “sceptics'” spokesman, but also the cliscep.com overlord. Beware!
I don’t owe you anything, Brad Keyes. If you think Wadhams work is important, you should have investigated its bckground. We’ve already established that his prediction is not a direct result of AGW theory. There’s another presentation here that gives a possible 2016 date among others for you to get all steamed up over. https://soa.arcus.org/files/sessions/1-1-advances-understanding-arctic-system-components/pdf/1-1-7-maslowski-wieslaw.pdf Knock yourself out.
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Raff, you make me infinitely sad. Most of us have been witnesses to this conversation for a decade or more. You just.. make me sad.
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I see what Brad means about the full name use being irritating.
Raff Baker, if only you knew the true story. Our weekly staff meetings are now no more than exercises in sadism, I’ve actually soiled my
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(Shit, that was Brad again, telling me to stop again. But I think you get the gist Raff Baker. It’s brutal here.)
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Tom:
Just wanted to see that paragraph again. Bravo.
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Richard: second-best comment of the thread. Thanks
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Well,I hope this doesn’t fall short of my previous efforts, but if you took all of ATTP’s and Raff’s comments and eliminate all efforts to deny their opponents standing to participate in the discussion… what would be left?
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You are mistaken, Thomas W Fuller the second. I don’t see nefarious intent in ‘skeptics’ and more tha I do in those of differing political views. Although it is true that Ben Pile is probably the spawn of the devil, Ian Woolley, with whom I started the conversation (it was his video) seems like a nice chap with a good sense of humour. I think he is simply misled by the sources of information he uses. I do think that many use dishonest arguments, but for what reason I don’t really know.
But he cannot engage on the principal matters because at the end of the day he does not consider us to be honest opponents.
There’s that ‘engagement’ again. What exactly are the principal matters that I, or ATTP for that matter, cannot ‘engage’ with. Nobody else seems to know, despite using that word.
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Consensus Enforcers are obsessed with character and cognitive faculties. These preoccupations help him deviate any conversation.
Having pointed this much out, Consensus Enforcers should be able to work out what is meant by ‘principle matters’ through a process of elimination or deduction — if the black and white text here isn’t sufficient.
Or they could simply refer to the text of posts above the line, and work out for themselves what is ‘on topic’.
Right. Now, that’s settled, I better get back to stamping on kittens.
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Strange that Raff can only refer to failed predictions. This must be one of the signs that climate science is robust.
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Raff, I’m sure you’re capable of engaging on many different aspects of the conversation and you doubtless do so in venues not peopled by untermenschen such as myself.
I’m just saying that here you do not. Here you want to incorrectly correct Ian on what he says to his friends.
You may respond that you’re talking about ocean heat content, which would surely please Roger Pielke Sr. But sadly, you’re not. You’re just insulting Ian. Except when you’re insulting Brad Keyes.
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I don’t think I have insulted Ian. If I have, show me where and I will apologize. But please tell me what are the principal matters that I cannot ‘engage’ with, as you said I could not. This is a common complaint – that we don’t ‘engage’ but nobody seems to know what it means.
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en·gage
inˈɡāj,enˈɡāj/
verb
1.
occupy, attract, or involve (someone’s interest or attention).
“he plowed on, trying to outline his plans and engage Sutton’s attention”
synonyms: capture, catch, arrest, grab, snag, draw, attract, gain, win, hold, grip, captivate, engross, absorb, occupy
“tasks that engage children’s interest”
2.
participate or become involved in.
“organizations engage in a variety of activities”
synonyms: participate in, take part in, join in, become involved in, go in for, partake in/of, share in, play a part/role in
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It might be easier to say what engaging isn’t.
BRAD KEYES:
Anders, are you amenable to a conversation with me?
…
Anders, there’s been a lot of talk about a “conversation.” How about we go first, you and me?
…
Anders, are you afraid of conversing with me for some reason?
…
Anders, what if I promise not to bring up that fake research you participated in? How’ bout that “conversation” you said you’d be willing to have?
Earth to Ken?
AND THEN THERES PHYSICS:
Crickets
Crickets
Tumbleweeds
Crickets
Cricket-infested tumbleweeds
[Awkward pause]
Crickets
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What, you think we don’t attract your attention, or participate in, take part in, join in, become involved in, go in for, partake in/of, share in, play a part/role in your debates?
What on earth do you mean when you say we don’t engage when we quite clearly do, according to your helpfully added definition?
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“What, you think we don’t attract your attention, or participate in, take part in, join in, become involved in, go in for, partake in/of, share in, play a part/role in your debates? ”
Isn’t that what I just said, Raff?
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Trolls love to talk about themselves. And environmentalism is a cascade of whingeing self-justification.
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Come on Thomas W Fuller 2nd, put away your dictionary and tell me what on earth you mean when you say we don’t engage.
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Talk about a topic without diverging into questions of character, standing and motive. When someone responds to you, respond back to them, staying on topic.
It’s not easy and it’s not only climate activists that fail to achieve this. But they (you) number among the worst offenders.
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So cut and paste from a dictionary is on-topic but asking for what you really mean isn’t? Yeah, sure!
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Mind you, the Moshmeister seems to think (though I hate to presume to read his mind on the basis of his mere words) that my vainly begging and begging and begging and begging ATTP for the “conversation” he swore he’d be willing to have was embarrassing…
…for me.
So who knows with these things?
Life, to quote Woody Allen, is like anything else really.
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Well it is embarrassing really that you and your fellow ‘skeptics’ waste no occasion to attack/ridicule/dismiss ATTP, his blog and his readers and yet you are desparate to the point of begging that he take some notice of you and have a ‘conversation’. You want him and others to ‘engage’ with you but you don’t know what that really means. Its more than embarrassing, it is hilarious
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Is it time to draw a line under this nonversation, and ask RAFF to move on?
I can imagine that, for an Nth time, his ‘contributions’ could again be produced, and yet just result in yet more special pleading. “Oh, I was just saying/merely commenting…’, per Ken’s catchphrase. Raff has made it plain, to the point of saying that his intention is to waste our time.
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What RAFF wants us to do now, is search through the entire 300+ comments, to find the offending articles, and then for him to make his excuses. This has already been done, of course.
Who doesn’t have anything better to do with their lives, such that they wouldn’t mind doing it again?
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Poor, simple Raff Baker.
You might want to read the abovegoing comments before regaling us with your folk-psychologizing.
Hint:
It takes more than ATTP’s panicked reneging on his offer of a conversation to embarrass me.
But you’d know that if you’d… well, y’know.
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Raff, if they don’t close the comments, would you like to try and have a… (sorry) conversation? Perhaps on ocean heat content, perhaps something that has caught your attention since the start of this thread–let’s give it a try.
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Sure, Thomas W Fuller 2nd, go for it. Let’s talk about one of the subjects on which I previously failed to ‘engage’. You choose.
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Let’s go with OHC, then, as it is an area where I have a lot to learn. My takeaways from blog discussions (and some conversations with Roger Pielke Sr.) are:
1. It is probably the safest metric to use to measure warming
2. It was not adopted early because measurement techniques were not adequate
3. It is almost (but perhaps not quite) ready for prime time
4. Roughly speaking we can say that the heat content of the oceans is rising
5. Usually this rise is published as an insane quantity of joules, rather than something that can be understood by laypersons
6. If converted to a sane metric, the rising would be extremely slight, perhaps within the bounds of measurement error
7. Now that we are using the right measurement tool, in 30 years we’ll be able to have a much better quality of conversation about temperatures
Please feel free to correct any errors in the above and provide your take on it.
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I’ll reply tomorrow when I’m on a computer. Longish answers are a pain to write on a phone, and your post deserves one. I’m on UTC-5, BTW.
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So, I have some real computer time this evening after all…
1. I don’t really know what ‘safest’ means here, but as 90%+ of warming goes into the seas it might be the best place to see overall warming if we can instrument it well. We live on the surface though so we are more interested in surface warming, for whcih we also have reasonable indices.
2. Sounds plausible.
3. Don’t know what that means. It is what it is.
4. Seems pretty clear.
5. Who cares?
6. Converting units makes no difference to anything. Call 10^22Joules a ‘Fuller’ and according to NOAA graphs OHC for the top 700m has risen 10-15 Fullers in 25 years. https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index1.html
The graphs show approximate error margins and the rise is, from these graphs, not easily confused with measurement error.
7. Looks good now.
I know no more and probably less about OHC than you, but a good first point of reference seems to be NOAA. You are no doubt correct that in 30 years we will know even more about OHC.
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Okay. Thanks.
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— “I’m on UTC-5, BTW.” —
So far away. I hope you didn’t fly!
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Okay. Thanks.
Some conversation!. Did I fail to ‘engage’?
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Different time zones, that’s all. Good morning from the Pacific Northwest, home of dhogaza and many other earthly delights.
I wonder why changes in heat are reported in the way they are. When media stories talk about ice melt, they use Gigatonnes when they’re trying to do a good job, Manhattans when they’re not.
If I remember correctly, a joule is a unit of energy roughly equivalent to a mosquito jumping off my nose. I don’t see it used elsewhere in the climate conversation and I wonder if it’s the most appropriate measurement for ocean heat content. Although I wouldn’t object if they used Fullers, it would suffer from the same defect of joules–lack of a ready comparable reference point.
Can you think of an alternate that the lay community would more easily recognize and understand?
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There probably isn’t a suitable alternative. According to Wiki, a Joule is “The energy required to lift a medium-size tomato (100 g) 1 meter vertically from the surface of the Earth”. Some of the population will understand kilowatt hours and apparently 1 kilowatt hour = 3.6×10^6 J (or 3.6 MJ)
So 10^22J is 2.7×10^15 kilowatt hours or 2.7 million terawatt hours or a very big electricity bill. It is equal to 27 times total world energy consumption (104,000 TWh) unless I screwed the numbers. So if OHC increased 10 Fullers over a quarter of a century, maybe it could be reported that the oceans absorbed 270 times total world energy consumption.
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That 104,000 TWh is annual consumption…
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Actually, the reason I scoff at ice metrics ‘Manhattans, e.g.,) is that they seemed designed to conceal rather than reveal, although I shouldn’t assign motives. They are never given as a percentage of the total, whether we are talking about Gt or something else. Talking about 160 Gt ice mass loss in Greenland or Antarctica sounds ominous until you learn that it amounts to far less than one percent of the total, or even one percent of normal summer ice loss.
Joules may be an appropriate metric, but it needs to be anchored to something. What is the carrying capacity of the ocean in Joules? How many joules per cubic meter of water does that amount to?
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Reading this I realise I want a medium-size tomato. Not sure I’ve got the energy.
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Wiki gives the volume of the oceans as “(1.37 × 10 to the 9th km3). I think the technical term is ‘a lot of water.’ I also read “1350 x 10^15 cubic meters of water.” It’s on the Internet and hence must be true.
Again, it would seem that that is not too many tomato-liftings per cubic meter.
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The reason joules are chosen to represent change in ocean temperature is because they give us astronomical numbers, which belie the putative change in temperature, which is in the order of thousands of degree C. I.e. the claimed change of temperature is *well* beyond the accuracy of most thermometers (which are, after all, merely proxy readings of ‘temperature’ in any case), much less groups of calibrated thermometers, much less uncalibrated thermometers of different types at different times, used to represent vast areas of sea being sampled… and so on.
In other words, the rise in ocean temperatures has not been observed.
RAFF is right, though, that it ultimately doesn’t matter how the temperature ‘rise’ is expressed if we can pick through the PR fug. The question that remains is, should we be shocked and anxious about an OHC increase of ’10 Fullers over quarter of a century’ — which might imply an increase of less than 0.001C. If RAFF is worried about the seas warming up by 0.001C, he can claim that the units in which the change is expressed is immaterial.
I might shrug. You’d have to very carefully explain why it would be alarming, and why we should be reorganising our entire economies around that anxiety. Expressing the same in terms of Manhattans, or total world energy use, nuclear bombs or kittens (a metric John Cook et al stole from me)
Thomas’s point that any sensible metric ‘needs to be anchored to something’ is a good one. But the tendency of environmentalism is to degrade a sense of perspective, such that comparisons can be made and understood. There’s a presupposition that change, or that deviation from some imagined norm is bad, though very little evidence that change is not the norm, and that norms are instructive.
For example, if temperature rises of the order 0.001 degree C cause you to wet the bed, it’s not because your bed was warmer than it would have been/should be that your bed is now wet — except for that short moment of warm wetness. Bed-wetting might be a bigger problem than a very slightly warmer bed.
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Ben, except that you will then get some eco-nut swcientist saying that a rise of 0.001C causes a species of coral to die…which means that we are on the verge of disaster and all CO2 emissions must stop forthwith.
Heat content is a difficult concept for me to get my head around. I can understand temperature. But a joule is a quatity of energy required to raise the temperature of a specific substance by some quantity of temperature – the 2 variables being linked by the specific heat capacity of the medium involved. So just quoting heat content in joules means little.
In other words, the scientists have measured temperature changes, And, using the formula that heat = mass*specific heat capacity*temperature change, they have produced a satisfyingly large number of joules of energy. They did not measure energy. they measured temperature.
Converting to joules, however, allows you to convert back to watts – 1 Watt being energy expended at 1 Joule per second. Then to watts/metre^2.. So you could sum up the incoming watts/m^2 and calculate how long it took…or something
Anyway, it is all immaterial until someone shows how heat can flow into the very cold oceans
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Tom, everyone,
I hope Ian doesn’t close this thread any time soon, and I doubt he will.
Am enjoying the
ClimConversationball too much. Though after all the buildup about can-we-can’t-we, actually having the conversation was bound to feel a little anticlimactic, as Mr Baker noticed.Which is regrettable. I may be anticlimatic but I’m strongly pro-climax.
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MIB,
“…some eco-nut swcientist…”
I think that’s a typo. You meant sjwcientist, right?
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Tom,
how many Hiroshimas does it take to melt one Manhattan? Those of us who care about defending pseudoscience, the pseudoscientific method and the hard-working pseudoscientists who toil to add to human pseudoknowledge (for next to no remuneration) demand to know! 🙂
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thomaswfuller2 says: 08 Sep 16 at 4:03 pm
“Joules may be an appropriate metric, but it needs to be anchored to something. What is the carrying capacity of the ocean in Joules? How many joules per cubic meter of water does that amount to?”
That can be lots of Joules per cubic meter of water when freezing or melting! Lots of tables to look up values on the internet. Nothing on the internet about what that might mean!!! Let me try:
A Joule (storage of power) is a Watt (power) integrated (stored) over a time of one second. A completely inverse, or conjugate of that POV; is work also in the same confusing ‘Joule’ but now is ‘FORCE’ times “distance”. Now for the unwashed that are being scammed by the academics, just what the hell is ‘force’. The academics try to do that in terms of acceleration of mass (Mv^2/s^2). Well force is a ‘push’ or a ‘pull’ as a measure of ‘power’ (not to be mentioned outside of academia).
For us peons Power is the average ‘pull’ a standard horse can do while tied to a large tree while doing actually nothing. This value of ‘pull’ is 746 Watts, mostly being evaporated horse sweat as that horse is doing no ‘work’, just pulling ‘power’.
That same horse plowing a field does 746 Joules of ‘work’ each and every second, less some entropy, as the horse is still sweating Such ‘plowing’ is never storing power as Joules, it instead is converting power into ‘work’, actually, ‘Action’, a plowed field, in units of Joule-seconds, after many many seconds.
If you think this is hard to understand, please tie local and government funded academics to the pole and light the fire.
OTOH If you want me to try to decipher this scam, I remain willing to assist you in enjoying whatever kind of beer YOU THINK IS BEST!
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Will,
sehr droll, wie immer. But please note this is not the thread to discuss BEST.
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I agree, Tom, without a reference the large numbers are meaningless to the lay person. I doubt very much that there is some sort of conspiracy to hide the real state of affairs behind these numbers – Joules is just what NOAA scientists use, Gt is what ice researchers use and they don’t appreciate that the rest of us need an anchor. So create an anchor – you will probably find the resulting percentage change is very small if you use a big enough reference – like the mass change relative to the whole of the Greenland ice sheet melting or the energy change relative to the total energy in the oceans. If you use a more appropriate reference, like the mass change needed to affect human societies through rising sea levels or the energy change reltive to the energy change in the top few hundred meters of ocean needed to affect ocean life, you would get a different perspective.
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Brad Keyes says: 09 Sep 16 at 1:18 am
“Will, sehr droll, wie immer. But please note this is not the thread to discuss BEST.”
Brad,
Thread is “CONVERSATION”! (between ‘lay’ persons) Best done in local pub amongst ‘locals’ well flavored via ‘dronk’! Some few lovelies can certainly convert ‘conversation’ into ‘creationism’!
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Raff, can you point me to those calculations? I know how much ice melt is required to raise sea levels by one millimeter. (A lot.) I’m unaware of calculations showing the effect on shallow water ecosystems (salt water–fresh water ecosystems have been studied more thoroughly).
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If you use commonly accepted figures for ocean volume and the SHC of seawater, 22 x 10^22
Joules of OHC ‘anomaly’ corresponds to an average temperature increase of about 0.04 C. That’s
the reason why we have charts in Joules.
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What sort of calculation are you expecting to see, Thomas?
BTW, since nobody has pointed it out, the following two statements are kind of contradictory. Which one are you going to believe?
Man In A Barrel:
“Anyway, it is all immaterial until someone shows how heat can flow into the very cold oceans”
Jona:
“If you use commonly accepted figures for ocean volume and the SHC of seawater, 22 x 10^22
Joules of OHC ‘anomaly’ corresponds to an average temperature increase of about 0.04 C. That’s
the reason why we have charts in Joules.”
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— “, the following two statements are kind of contradictory.—
‘Kind of’ meaning ‘not’.
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I expect MiaB’s was more specifically a reference to the purported mechanism
for how heat flows from the atmosphere (and by heat I’m speculating that we’re
referring to Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’). I don’t believe that so-called DWLWIR
can directly heat oceans which are free to evaporatively cool. There may be
some argument that there is a net ‘flux’ of IR thus increased DWLWIR reduces
that flux and thus slows the radiative cooling of the oceans. I don’t have the
physics chops to reasonably evaluate that argument.
My point was really to highlight how small a temperature change we’re talking
about in order to produce such large OHC anomaly values. One might
reasonably question the uncertainties around such small differences given
the accuracy, precision and coverage of ocean temperature data.
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Jon:
One would be mad not to question it you mean.
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Thanks JONA, that is what I meant. Strange that Raff didn’t understand it, given that he is the expert and we are the fools. Then again, maybe his pay depends on him pretending not to understand it. Perhaps it is in the Enforcers’ Handbook – never concede any point to a denier.
Oh…I can feel a bit of conspiracist ideation coming on…nurse, nurse, Paul Nurse….
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Raff, do you think we should be concerned about the storage of 10>22 joules in 1350 x 10^15 cubic meters of water? I would rather focus attention on rising temperatures in lake water, myself, as they are shallower and the inhabitants, both plant and animal, have a harder time getting out of the way of warm water.
But really–is an increase in ocean temperatures over 25 years of between 0.001C and 0.04C (as given here by commenters–feel free to throw your own figures in, Raff) something that should concern us?
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Raff, I don’t know your background so maybe this is something you are already familiar with, but ocean temperatures near the surface are incredibly variable. The same patch of ocean with the same weather conditions can vary by 4 or 5 degrees C for no obvious reason at all. Fish and birds know this and adjust their navigation to find congenial temperatures–I don’t see how AGW effects on even near-surface temperatures can have a real effect.
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Maybe I misunderstood Man In A Barrel. I took his comment about “someone shows how heat can flow into the very cold oceans” to refer to heat flowing from warm oceans into the cold ones. If you think heat cannot actually reach the very cold oceans, it is obviously meaningless to divide the increase in OHC by the total ocean volume to get an ‘average’ temperature rise. If on the other hand you are saying that excess heat doesn’t actually get into the oceans at all because of something you misunderstood about down-welling IR, then you are reading the wrong websites.
The rise in ocean temperatures is not uniform, Thomas W Fuller 2nd, so creating an average across the total volume is not meaningful.
“I don’t see how AGW effects on even near-surface temperatures can have a real effect.”
Argument from incredulity? You can look at the sea surface temperature indices (HADSST for one) and read https://www.iucn.org/news/explaining-ocean-warming-causes-scale-effects-and-consequences to understand the issue. Lake warming is doubtless also a worry but your discussion was of OHC.
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Raff, thanks for providing the link to that report. It will take some time to read. For now, though, may I assume that you agree with the Key Warming Facts provided in the Executive Summary of the report?
“• Sea surface temperature, ocean heat content, sealevel
rise, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, CO2
emissions and atmospheric concentrations are
increasing at an accelerating rate with significant
consequences for humanity and the marine
species and ecosystems of the ocean.
• There is likely to be an increase in mean global
ocean temperature of 1-4o
C by 2100. The greatest
ocean warming overall is occurring in the Southern
Hemisphere and is contributing to the subsurface
melting of Antarctic ice shelves. Since the 1990s
the atmosphere in the polar regions has been
warming at about twice the average rate of global
warming.
• There is likely to be Arctic warming and ice loss,
and possibly the essential removal, in some years,
of the summer Arctic sea ice within the next few
decades. In the Antarctic the extent of the sea ice
has been growing at a rate of ~1.3% per decade,
although there is strong inter-annual variability.
• Over the last 20 years there has been an intensification
and distinct change in the El Niño events, with a shift
of the mean location of sea surface temperature
anomalies towards the central Pacific.
• Currently 2.5 Gt of frozen methane hydrate are
stored in the sea floor at water depths of 200 –
2000 m. Increasing water temperature could
release this source of carbon into the ocean and
ultimately into the atmosphere.
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Just noting some things in the report that will doubtless stimulate conversation, I see “Only 11% of the area and 1% of the volume have depths shallower than 1000m and only ~7% of the area is covered by continental shelves with depths less than 200m.” (P.21)
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“…may I assume that you agree…”
Without expert knowledge, on what basis could I (or anyone here) disagree with it?
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I’m not convinced expert knowledge is required to assess all of it. For example, I totally agree with this section on page 23. I will bet a small amount of money that most skeptics would, too:
“The Earth has absorbed more radiant energy from the
sun than it is reflecting back into space at the top of the
atmosphere (TOA) and as a result heat has accumulated
in Earth systems since at least 1970 (Rhein et al., 2013;
Trenberth et al., 2014; von Schuckmann et al., 2016).
More energy (heat) is retained at present than is returned
to space to create what is termed an Earth Energy
Imbalance (EEI). By scientific consensus the primary
cause of the excess energy input, is rapidly increasing
anthropogenic greenhouse gases (IPCC, 2013a). It is
becoming increasingly apparent that the ocean has a
major role as the main (93%) reservoir for the additional
heat produced and accumulated by global warming,
with ~3-4% for melting snow and ice and only ~1%
for the atmosphere (Figure 1.4). The scale of the ocean
buffer is enormous and only a small reduction in uptake
or increased flux from the ocean to the atmosphere
would have a huge impact on global air temperature,
never mind the impact that the warming of the ocean is
having on marine ecosystems.”
But the previous section I called out does not seem as clear to me.
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For example, I question how appropriate the final bullet point from the Executive Summary is:
“Currently 2.5 Gt of frozen methane hydrate are
stored in the sea floor at water depths of 200 –
2000 m. Increasing water temperature could
release this source of carbon into the ocean and
ultimately into the atmosphere.”
It seems out of place to talk about something that may happen if water temperature increases without quantifying what level of temperature rise is required to allow such an unfortunate occurrence and especially without speaking about current and projected rates of rise. But perhaps when I get deeper into the document it will all be explained.
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I also note that on page 25 the report claims that “The additional heat absorbed and warming of the Earth
(Figure 1.6b) has led to:
1. rising global surface temperature (combined land
and sea surface) that reached new records in
2014, 2015 and 2016”
…which is true, but it also claims that it has led to “droughts and floods.”
At least the droughts claim is not true. Droughts have declined globally over the past century.
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I am heartened to find this caveat, also on P25:
“A sufficiently accurate calculation of the EEI has only
been possible in recent years and there are still issues
of bias, measurement coverage and accuracy that
need to be addressed to refine this crucial calculation
needed to assess the future direction and intensity of
global warming (von Schuckmann et al., 2016).”
And I promise I won’t use it as a Get Out of Jail Free card.
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I don’t “totally agree” with it, I have no way to. I don’t know whether it is 93% going into the oceans or 92% or 95%. I certainly cannot reject it, but the most I can do is accept it. Agreeing would need me to know a huge amount about it, which I don’t. I don’t think you do either, so how do you manage total agreement?
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On page 28 I would edit the following statement by James Hansen.. ““Carbon dioxide is the control knob that regulates global
temperature” with the Southern Ocean, and to a smaller
extent the North Atlantic, playing a dominant role as
major sinks for CO2
(Hansen et al., 2016a). ” …to read something like “Carbon dioxide is a significant and perhaps the main contributor to regulating global temperature.”
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Hi Raff, I don’t know about you, but I have read quite a lot of climate literature since 2006. I remember some of it. I have seen plain English explanations for much of what I initially had difficulty understanding. As a (then) journalist, I had the opportunity to speak with scientists like Stephen Schneider, Roger Pielke (Sr. and Jr.), John Christy, Andrew Dessler and quite a few others.
I don’t claim to be a scientist by any stretch of the imagination. But I understand what is written there and it does no violence to things I have heard or read from both the ‘consensus’ and those opposed.
I wouldn’t write that passage–even my ego has limits. But I am comfortable agreeing with it.
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Respect, Tom, for extracting some real signal from the murky depths of this thread 🙂
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> The rise in ocean temperatures is not uniform, Thomas W Fuller 2nd, so
> creating an average across the total volume is not meaningful.
Given the context, this statement is a little absurd. The OHC anomaly
graphs are not regional. Why are you quibbling when that is re-interpreted
to a more meaningful temperature anomaly scale?
Given the data, coverage and nature of the medium being sampled, I’d
think the first thing that needs to be established is whether there is any
statistical significance to *any* measured trends. This is also applies to
radiative flux measurements i.e. those taken by Ceres et al. We then
combine these data into stochastic models which then introduces more
structural uncertainty.
My biggest problem with climate science is not the hypothesis but the failure
to acknowledge precision, accuracy and uncertainty and the loose application
of statistical methods.
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What matters, Jona, is whether near-surface temperature changes are enough to alter marine life distributions and behaviours. There seems to be evidence that they are – see the report I linked to earlier. Diluting the observed changes by dividing the temperature change of the surface waters by the volume of the bulk ocean to get an ‘average’ may comfort you but it doesn’t stop the changes, it only blinds you.
Climate science papers are ful of uncertainty, error bars, caveats. The greatest certainty I observe usually comes from critics of the science. It is notable that Thomas W Fuller the 2nd, a sceptic, agrees totally with something he cannot possible verify whereas I, a ‘warmist’, merely accept it.
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FWIW, the upper 50-100m of the ocean is well-mixed, which means that it equilibrates with the atmosphere over the period of a few years. So, the upper 50-100m of the ocean has probably warmed by just under 1K since the mid-1800s and by around 0.5K since 1950. The upper 2000m has had an increase in energy of around 3 x 10^{23} J which, if I’ve done my calc right, is equivalent to a temperature increase of about 0.1K. However, about half of this is in the upper 300m, and about two-thirds is in the upper 700m. This means that the upper 700m has warmed by around 0.2K and the upper 300m has warmed by about 0.3K.
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My point is that the data is lacking in accuracy, precision and is too sparse both temporally and
spatially to be able to be used with such confidence. Look up what a ‘convenience sample’ is. Just
because it’s ‘the best we have’ doesn’t excuse lack of rigour when applying statistical methods.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.
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I do have an Oceanography degree ATTP but thanks for the tips anyway.
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Jon,
They weren’t tips.
This is – I think – wrong
I tried to explain it here. What’s relevant is whether or not we have enough measurements to determine a change, not whether or not the actual value can be accurately estimated.
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>What matters, Jona, is whether near-surface temperature changes are enough to alter
>marine life distributions and behaviours.
Also, if this is ‘what matters’ then what is the point of presenting the OHC ‘anomaly’ in
the first place?
I actually think OHC is the only sane way of measuring planetary energy accumulation
but I think we need much better data than we currently have given, as we’ve
demonstrated, how much energy is required to affect the only proxy we have for OHC
(temperature).
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> This is – I think – wrong
I think it’s right. Taking a convenience sample of a heterogeneous, open system and then
applying that to a stochastic model has significant structural uncertainty.
Your attempts to explain this look like yet another abuse (it seems to be endemic in climate
science) of the Law of Large Numbers.
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What we have is what we have, Jona. It is doubtless imperfect and I expect everybody knows that. But rising ocean heat content is, as I understand it, exactly what is expected as a result of rising CO2 concentration. Do you disagree?
If the surface waters warm, is the effect of that warming on sea life reduced at all because the deep oceans haven’t warmed?
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Raff, you seem to have everything in very black and white terms. Ocean heat is only one of the things that is conjectured to increase because of CO2 levels. It might be important. It might not be. However, with the data we have at present we cannot even be very certain that ocean heat content is increasing and, if it is, whether it is due to CO2 levels.
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If we could accurately measure energy flux at the TOA, we wouldn’t need to rely upon 3400 or so Argo floats unevenly distributed across the world’s oceans to give us a (highly uncertain) estimate of the change in total ocean heat content. But we cannot accurately measure TOA heat flux and the proxy we are therefore forced to use to measure a supposed energy imbalance, though it is an improvement on TOA flux, is not enough of an improvement for scientists to say with a high degree of certainty that energy is accumulating in the system, and at what rate. Too bad. The (C)AGW hypothesis is not testable via the instrumentation currently at our disposal.
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“However, with the data we have at present we cannot even be very certain that ocean heat content is increasing and, if it is, whether it is due to CO2 levels.”
“… the proxy we are therefore forced to use to measure a supposed energy imbalance, … , is not enough of an improvement for scientists to say with a high degree of certainty that energy is accumulating in the system, and at what rate.”
So you don’t belong to those “sceptics” who accept the greenhouse effect or AGW, Man In A Barrel, Jaime Jessop.
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Raff, do you believe acknowledging the difficulty of measuring OHC and TOA is tantamount to rejecting the greenhouse effect or AGW?
I do not. I believe we do the best figuring we can with the figures we’ve got and acknowledge uncertainty. When large numbers in the ‘activist’ community tend to gloss over these uncertainties, I don’t find it at all surprising that skeptics try to serve as a check and/or balance.
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Raff does get some strange ideas in his head at times. Puts 2 and 2 together and gets 7 or 8.
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Jaime,
He’s also prone to personalizing things.
This one time, he put 2 and 2 together and got tu quoque.
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You’re right there. I would ‘like’ that comment Brad but WP won’t let me! This is a weird thread. I have to keep logging in to comment.
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Now he’s gone from 2 + 2 to “Brad’s a crypto-anti-Semitic dog-whistler so it’s a good thing I can hear frequencies outside the normal human range or he might’ve gotten away with it” on the other thread.
He truly is the gift that keeps on giving… the gift of laughter.
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“do you believe acknowledging the difficulty of measuring OHC and TOA is tantamount to rejecting the greenhouse effect or AGW?”
No of course not. Everyone acknowledges the difficulty of measuring OHC and TOA. But people who work with the data, like NOAA, say OHC is increasing. So we have theory and measurement pointing the same way. Why would anyone who doesn’t work with the data and doesn’t understand the work conclude the opposite? AGW/GHE tell us we get an energy imbalance if we increase CO2 so if you accept that and reject increasing OHC, where does the accumulated energy go?
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Raff, I can’t speak for the other two you referred to, but again I see no conflict at all in accepting that OHC is increasing and questioning the accuracy of their findings, their estimate of extent or calculations of impact. I kinda thought that was how science was supposed to work.
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I see no conflict either, Thomas W Fuller, 2nd, always bearing in mind that those who work on OHC and the effect of changes in OHC on oceans know far more about it than you or I and therefore should get the benefit of the doubt. But Jaime and the Man seem to reject the very idea that OHC is increasing.
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Well, they can speak for themselves, I’m sure, although I didn’t get that impression.
I’m still trying to find explanations of the ‘effects of changes in OHC.’ If it is confined to shallow waters, if most of the fauna living there are mobile, I don’t see a major effect for them. As for the flora and shellfish,, if temperatures rise, yes there will be an effect. How much? How do we distinguish the effects from temperature rise from out other impacts on littoral environments? We now know most of the damage to coral reefs actually comes from starfish and dynamite–they recover from bleaching fairly quickly.
Temperatures rising? Obviously. Impacts yes, but how much, how soon, how long-lasting?
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I think it was in 1967 that the British government decided to devalue the pound because the data for the balance of trade suggested there was a problem. Ten years later, the data was revised and there wasn’t a problem. So the government had taken the wrong action based on wrong data, lost the confidence of the public and were voted out at the next election. That does not imply that I do not believe in the balance of trade. Why risk taking the wrong action based on very uncertain data? It must be because there is a thrill in destroying Western civilisation. Why not join ISIS, Raff?
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MIB,
“Why not join ISIS, Raff?”
That’s not the worst idea—I’m sure Raff would be a great asset, and be very happy there.
The problem, though, is that there seems to be… well, an ugly element in certain factions of the ISIS leadership.
For instance, unanswered questions linger about possible racist/religionist sentiments held, in the past, by prominent members. One ISIS lieutenant is yet to explain what he meant by referring to a Jewish student union as, quote-unquote, “those people” in a 1981 college newspaper editorial. (For the record, the editorial was not bylined, and the lieutenant maintains he had no responsibility for approving the offensive language.)
There’s also a widespread perception that Jewish officials in Isis face a “glass ceiling” that limits their promotion. Time and time again, rejected applicants for membership have told me, “I was made to feel I had to be twice as qualified as the [Gentile] candidate to get the position.” Accusations are not proof, obviously, but the uncannily consistent pattern to such complaints must surely give some pause.
In short, if Raff were to make the ethical choice to “vote with his feet” and apply elsewhere, to Boko Haram or some such, I would not respect him one iota less than I already do.
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Hey Brad, pretty sure ISIL senior management and much of the rank and file are Semitic (and anti-Semitic at the same time, which explains… something or nothing). Depends on if they’re Akkadian, Phoenician or Canaanites, I think. Which makes the remarks of those rejected applicants nothing more than whining. Of course, who knows how far whining and dining your Semitic bosses can take you…
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Oh, ha ha Tom, you win. Happy? 🙂
You know very well what I meant. Stop playing Semitics.
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🙂
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Raff Baker the 1st,
“But Jaime and the Man seem to reject the very idea that OHC is increasing.”
You do this all the time. You add between the lines, you read stuff into comments that you think ought to be there on account of the fact that we are “sceptics” and are therefore motivated to disprove AGW.
For the record, I reject the very idea that we can measure total OHC with sufficient accuracy to enable scientists to say that energy is accumulating in the system and at what rate. If you accept this statement at face value, it necessarily implies that I do NOT reject the possibility that total OHC may be increasing, because I’ve already stated that the available instrumentation is not up to the task of measuring it. We simply don’t know for sure, basically because of the large uncertainty in measuring changes in OHC at depth (down to 2000m).
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