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Comments 5701 to 5750:
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Eclectic at 11:36 AM on 4 June 2021A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
John S @5 ,
yes, that's a marvellous letter . . . and so utterly brazen.
For me, it's difficult to decide whether the author is a wingnut zealot, or merely a cynical paid propagandist. Or a mixture of both.
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nigelj at 08:50 AM on 4 June 2021Ambitious action on climate change could be Biden’s ‘moon shot’
Jim Hunt @2, I assume you are referring to current supply constraints on electric cars being the current global chip shortage? It doesn't seem to be stopping them advertising electric cars where I live, and I doubt they would do that if it was a "waste of money".
My comments were more an observation on the past. You post something that infers I either believe in conspiracy theories or cock ups by governments or car companies. I made no suggestion of either. I explained what I thought: Companies would prefer not to switch over to electric cars and obviously by not advertising them this furthers their cause. They create their own supply constraint but thankfully the whole strategy seems to be ending. This is neither a conspiracy or cock up, but pure financial self interest.
Perhaps you should spend more time understanding what people are getting at and less time jumping to conclusions and trying to ridicule them and put words in their mouths with trick questions. And dont come back pretending you weren't doing that.
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John S at 06:13 AM on 4 June 2021A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
I subscribe to a blog called Canadians for Affordable Energy out of curiosity as to what they are saying, but sometimes it's so bad I wish I didn't - case in point the following under the head line "IPCC Experts Say Doing Nothing Would Be Less Harmful"
Dear John,
The Net Zero by 2050 agenda is being forced upon Canadians. As I wrote to you in Part 3 of my Net Zero series, no one even knows how much Net Zero by 2050 is going to cost.
The one thing we know for sure is that Canadians will be the ones footing the bill.
But let me share with you what former U.S. President Barack Obama’s senior Department of Energy official Stephen Koonin said about pursuing Net Zero.
Koonin looked at data from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and revealed that doing nothing to address climate change would not result in the economic devastation the alarmists say it would.
According to Koonin and the IPCC, there is no emerging “climate crisis.” And any change to climate that might occur will not bring economic devastation: it will result in a very modest reduction in what will still be extraordinary economic growth.
So from extraordinary economic growth to slightly less extraordinary economic growth.
We, on the other hand, are pursuing Net Zero by 2050 with a whole bunch of policies that will kill economic growth.
How is this rational?
Read my latest blog post to find out more.
Sincerely,
Dan McTeague, P.C.
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Daniel Bailey at 05:40 AM on 4 June 2021Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain
@Joe Levesque, per NOAA's Arctic Report Card 2017, current Arctic temperature anomalies and low values of Arctic sea ice extent are unprecedented over the past 1,500 years.
Expanding upon that, it's far warmer now in Greenland than it was at any point during the Viking habitation of it. The few Vikings that survived left rather than die there (and the Inuit thrived there the entire time and still do so today).
As a matter of additional fact, it's far warmer now in Greenland than it has been in the past 10,000 years.
Back to you.
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Jim Hunt at 22:40 PM on 3 June 2021Ambitious action on climate change could be Biden’s ‘moon shot’
Hi Nigel,
Sales of electric cars worldwide are currently "supply constrained" rather than "demand constrained". In such circumstances surely advertising is a waste of money?
Do you subscribe to the "conspiracy" theory of history, or the alternative "cock-up" theory?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01615440.2017.1320616 -
Jim Hunt at 22:33 PM on 3 June 2021Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain
Joe @23,
Since the Arctic is my pet hobby horse I'll second Eclectic's request.
I assume you must know the drill? Links to authoritative sources to evidence for your claims would be nice to see, if such are available?
"Where they settled then is not habitable today due to ice levels."?
Wikipedia begs to differ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvalsey_Church
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nigelj at 18:17 PM on 3 June 2021Ambitious action on climate change could be Biden’s ‘moon shot’
The issue that has surprised me is that sales of electric cars have not seemed to grow as fast as the development wind and solar power. That's my impression but perhaps the data says otherwise.
One thing holding back sales of electic cars may be the conspicuous lack of advertising. In our media in New Zealand there has been virtually no advertising, until perhaps the last two months we are seeing a sudden surge of advertisements. Don't know if its the same in America? It's possibly because the automobile companies have not really wanted to re-tool manufacturing plant and maintainance work and retrain staff, but it looks like they may be finally accepting the inevitable.
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Eclectic at 15:31 PM on 3 June 2021Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain
Joe @23 , best if you give much more detail about what you mean.
The Norse settlement history of Greenland is a complex multi-layered course of events. Temperature played little part (the medieval warming was only about 0.3 degreesC above the background).
Social and geo-political changes were the main determinants of the settlement's ultimate failure. All interesting. But the late stage sea-ice increase [and we don't really know if it was particularly big] would likely have been a very minor "straw" on the camel's back, compared with all the other disincentives that the Greenland Norse settlements were facing.
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Joe Levesque at 14:22 PM on 3 June 2021Arctic sea ice loss is matched by Antarctic sea ice gain
The historical Arctic sea ice reconstruction appears anomalous with the Viking settlements in Greenland In the 10th century. Where they settled then is not habitable today due to ice levels. Anybody up to explain how this can be explained?
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Jim Hunt at 07:17 AM on 3 June 2021A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
I'm sure that's the case Bob! Here's an advertisement for the most recent episode in my ongoing unsettling review of "Unsettled":
https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1399981361243561986
Note that in other news Ken Caldeira is running a poll on Twitter:
Is it OK to use the tactics of those undermining trust in climate science (ad hominem attack, saying money is the motivation, accusation of lying) to undermine those underminers, or should we hold ourselves to higher standards? -
Bob Loblaw at 03:42 AM on 3 June 2021A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
I suspect that the article that Eclectic is referring to would be this one:
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Eclectic at 00:36 AM on 3 June 2021A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
And a very recent article (dated 1st June) in ScientificAmerican by Oreskes et al, gives a fairly damning description of the context of Koonin's "magnum opus".
Among other things, the article claims that, in the Obama Administration, Koonin was chosen to join the team because Koonin was seen as a contrarian i.e. because they wished to avoid the danger of Groupthink.
So it is disingenuous for Koonin to present himself to the (bookbuying) public as an Obama-approved "leftie" who has now Seen The Light and is now ruthlessly exposing The Truth about the climate exaggeration/ hoax/ propaganda/ conspiracy/ etc.
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Evan at 22:00 PM on 2 June 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
prove we are smart @9, glad you got something out of Prof. Anderson's talks. Thanks for providing the link to one of his other talks.
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Jim Hunt at 21:02 PM on 2 June 2021A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
Part of own (extremely!) critical review of Professor Koonin's recent magnum opus also includes an extract from Mark's article:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/unsettling-koonin-critiques-continue/
And a "cranky uncle" cartoon!
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John Cook at 15:51 PM on 2 June 2021Skeptical Science needs your help!
Thanks to everyone who have signed up so far to help us improve Skeptical Science content, exciting to see the enthusiasm! Note that the window on "applications" closes on Sunday so look forward to hearing from more of you :-)
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Jim Hunt at 03:34 AM on 2 June 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Thanks for you kind words @Eclectic.
FYI my Arctic alter ego has a warped sense of humour:
https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1399780648517242888 -
prove we are smart at 21:43 PM on 1 June 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Thanks Evan for introducing me to Prof Kevin Anderson- this link to one of his youtube classes really hits home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZFvc-ZOa8&t=1191s
I also followed his advice to watch this also " Merchants Of Doubt" . The sound is a bit low and a quirky way the poster got around the copyright but if only the climate deniers could watch it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqiCLuOtXts
Moderator Response:[BL] Links activated.
The web software here does not automatically create links. You can do this when posting a comment by selecting the "insert" tab, selecting the text you want to use for the link, and clicking on the icon that looks like a chain link. Add the URL in the dialog box.The second link (to Merchants of Doubt) appears to be restricted to certain regions.
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BaerbelW at 18:45 PM on 1 June 2021The Debunking Handbook 2020: Downloads and Translations
Within the last week, the Spanish and Ukranian translations of The Debunking Handbook 2020 have been published! Since its publication in October 2020, 11(!) translations have been created.
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Eclectic at 01:31 AM on 1 June 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Jim Hunt @26 ,
it is a good comparison you make about SLR and the man in the street. And it appears there is zero hope that Koonin will attempt to salvage his reputation.
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Jim Hunt at 00:55 AM on 1 June 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Al @25 - Did you by any chance read my response to Prof. Koonin over at Medium? Or his response to my comment? If not here is a precis for you:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/unsettling-defence-of-the-undefensible/
Steven then rather ungraciously chose to ignore my follow up question:Regarding “the topic somewhat distant from ordinary folks’ perception”, that is largely my point. Is Arctic sea ice decline really any more distant to the average (wo)man in the street than sea level rise?
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MA Rodger at 22:33 PM on 31 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
We are now a few days after Koovin's seminar at the LLNL but I don't see a word of the grand message presented by Koonin. Presumably it is as embarassing as his silly book.
Trying to find some coverage of the seminar, I did spot Koonin's pathetic attempt at de-debunking, that is debunking the WSJ Mills' article [LINK-paywalled] that debunked his silly book. Koonin's efforts at de-debunking simply demonstrates the level of utter nonsense you can expect from an obfuscatiing denialist troll like Koonin.Just holding up the first of the nine items Koonin attempts to de-debunk shows the purile standard. This first item involves the following untruthful quote from Koonin's book which needs little comment to debunk.
"Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was eighty years ago."
Cutting through the nonsense presented by Koonin's de-debunk, the troll defends his grand assertion using Fig 1d of Frederickse et al (2020) 'The causes of sea-level rise since 1900' which shows the 30-year average rate of SLR attributed to Greenland by the study 1910-2010. Koonin tells us:-
"The “fact check” [by Mills] does not refute the statement quoted, which is about the rate of sea level rise 80 years ago."
...
"The 2019 paper by Frederikse et al. clearly shows that Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise around 1940 was about three times higher than it was in the last decades of the 20th century."
Yet, if it is about SLR and not Greenland, then the relevant evidence from Frederickse et al is shown in Fig 1c not Fig 1d. And Fig 1c shows average rate of SLR in 2010 was 33% greater than at any time "eighty years ago" and that "today" it is likely higher again. Greenland is not the sole contributor to the acceleration in SLR (thus a cherry-pick) while Koonin's use of "the last decades of the 20th century" to represnt "today" is no more than disigenuous trolling.
...
And in the intrests of correctness (the troll Koonin may have been saving his best until last), the ninth and last of his de-debunking atttempts to defend the Koonin quote:-
"...while global atmospheric CO2 levels are obviously higher now than two centuries ago, they’re not at any record planetary high — they’re at a low that has only been seen once before in the past 500 million years."
The context of this quote which compares today with "the past 500 million years" is not given. It appears Koonin bases his "only seen once before" comment on CO2 relative to today's 400ppm being lower 300 million years ago. And presmably his grand book does not provide a justification for this comparison. So, as was discussed in the debunking by an actual geoscientist, 300 million years ago the sun was much weaker, this perhaps 1.5% weaker 300 million years ago, so [0.025 x 250Wm^-2 =] 3.75Wm^-2 or the equivalent to a doubling of CO2. Koonin ignores such argument agaist him and instead concentrates on refuting the potential for future CO2 levels reaching 1000ppm.
Moderator Response:[BL] You can make your points without all the labeling. Please try to tone it down a bit.
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Evan at 07:00 AM on 31 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Thanks Jim for the link. The classroom and general layout looks familiar. Could it be that I've seen this presentation elsewhere? :-)
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Jim Hunt at 06:38 AM on 31 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Evan @6 - Once upon a time, in my professional capacity, I gatecrashed one of Kevin's seminars to a couple of lecture theatres full of climate scientists. Et moi.
I discovered that I still had my surfcam in my backpack, so here is the abstract:
https://youtu.be/LEm42vKl4Ro
There's a link to the whole thing in the YouTube description. -
Evan at 00:35 AM on 31 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
prove we are smart @4 You ask good, probing questions and I don't want to pretend to offer simple answers. A researcher who has influenced me a lot is Prof. Kevin Anderson in the UK. I highly recommend watching some of his video lectures, because I think he is one of the few people giving an honest assessment of the problem and what solutions need to look like. For one, we won't build a bunch of wind and solar farms and solve the problem. It is deeper than that, and Prof. Anderson does a great job of dealing with this difficult subject. He is more of an engineer than a scientist, and I think he comes at the problem with the common-sense approach of engineers. To find his talks, try the following Google search:
youtube Kevin Anderson climate
He gives a lot of talks with different titles and similar content. One that I think is particularly informative is the following.
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Jim Hunt at 23:39 PM on 30 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Thanks Timo,
"This observation raises the question why people get so emotional about the topic...Often you find yourself shouted down or repeatedly interrupted in the middle of a sentence, because the topic makes people boil. You will hear falsehoods, misconceptions, and lies that are circulated by politics, media, and lobbies."
Been there, done that. And while doing that I discovered in a public house in Exeter several years ago that political neuroscientists have a theory:
https://youtu.be/M2nZy6JoI1w
Accurate political predictions can be achieved through modelling brain function. This produces a new view of human nature, with biology subservient to the demands of human politics and its shifting coalitions, making our brains hardwired not to be hardwired.
See also: http://GreatWhiteCon.info/polneuro -
prove we are smart at 22:22 PM on 30 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
About the only time I feel positive about people understanding the dire straits we are facing (even before the terrible tipping points soon to come)-is reading here on this blogsite the consensus of fixes and ways forward to address this building doom. Alas, upon resuming my regular day to day life ( I'm a farmer) it seems our systems are all failing us, not just GW and since unbiased common sense isn't coming from our leaders... will it come at all.
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John Mason at 20:45 PM on 30 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Great post. I can share those identifications - been there, done that, on many occasions.
These obstacles were what got me into writing books like The Making of Ynyslas - to see if coming at climate change from a less conventional angle might bear fruit. Fitting a narrative of change to a place created by that change makes it hard to argue against the fact that the change has occurred. -
Bob Loblaw at 11:33 AM on 30 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
Of course, the other key point of the analogy is to show that temporary downturns in the temperature record do not mean that the basic long-term upward trend is no longer there.
Just as Evan has created a fitted curve by adding a linear trend and a sine wave together, you can think of the observed temperature observations in the opposite direction. The observations are a complex curve, and you can subtract a sine wave from it reveal a much straighter line that makes the trend easier to see.
This "start with the full signal, subtract known oscillations" is the technique used in the paper by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011), which was blogged about over at Tamino's. They did not use just a simple sine curve - they used statistical methods to remove short term variations due to El Nino and volcanic activity, leaving a clear warming signal in the underlying trend. More sophisticated - with stronger physical reality - than just a sine curve, but the same "add the parts up, subtract them out" principle is at work.
Figures from Tamino's blog post:
To beat Fourier's drum just a little bit more, it's the same Fourier that created Fourier's Law of heat conduction. Quite a talented fellow.
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Evan at 07:42 AM on 30 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
Thanks for the comments Bob and for the explanation of Fourier series and how fitting can be used to ignore physics. For those not familiar with Fourier series, this is the same Fourier who, in the 1820's started the field of climate science. Fourier was not only well known for his mathematical developments, but he was also well known for his advancement of the science of radiation heat transfer, which led to his discovery of the greenhouse effect.
Bob's comments are right on the money in explaining how complex functions can be used to hide/ignore the physics. Because these analogies are designed to teach climate science to a wide audience, one of the challenges in communicating is to demonstrate how simple, easily grasped concepts explain much of what we observe. There are certainly climate scientists who have done a much better job of matching the observed warming trend with complex models that include more physics, but the point here, of course, was to show how observed trends can qualitatively be explained by the combination of a simple perturbation superimposed on a general trend.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:59 AM on 30 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
Good post, Evan.
The idea that a complex variation (in this case, temperature versus time) is the sum of components of predictable simple variations is fundamental to science and statistical analysis. A very useful technique.
In this case, you have used a linear trend versus time, summed with a sinusoidal variation over time, and it is clear from figure 3 that this simple variation of two types can closely match observations.
There are still squiggles left, and these could be "matched" by adding more cycles. You don't want to go to far without some physical reasons to expect cycles at different intervals, though.
Although it is purely curve-fitting, you can do a sine that repeats once in the time period, then add a sine that repeats twice in the time period, then a sine that repeats three times, then four, then five, etc. Keep adding cycles, and you can match a very complex set of observations.
Sound odd? No, it's called a Fourier series, and by comparing the amplitude of all those cycles you can use it to identify the important frequencies/periods of repeating patterns in your data.
Overuse it, and you can always say "it's cycles". Read How Curve-fitting can ignore physics. A common thread in the Anything But CO2 crowd is to fit cycles and claim you don't need CO2 to explain recent global temperature trends. (Spoiler alert: they are wrong.)
Where else do we see this? Ptolemy's geocentric model of planetary motion used cycles this way. But it wasn't based in physics, just math. A better model - simpler, and more in tune with our knowledge of the physics - is the Heliocentric model.
Cyckes are a very useful tool for exploring data, and helping us see what is there. Physics is an even more useful tool for explaining data, helping us understand why it is there. A good scientist uses it all.
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Evan at 22:02 PM on 29 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Nice article Timo.
My personal opinion is that very few people will change their ways just by reading this or any other article on SkS or other high-quality news sources. However, reading these articles gets people equipped with the information they need so that when they encounter the types of painful transitions in their lives that do motivate change, that they are then equipped to change in the correct direction.
Talking about climate change is essential to prepare people for change, even if the change itself is delayed.
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nigelj at 10:02 AM on 29 May 2021Talking about climate change: Necessary, yet so uncomfortable
Well said. I think a significant part of the scepticism and emotion about the climate issue is just some peoples natural fear and dislike of change, whether its new science, or economic or social changes. Especially if they are making good money from business as usual. The climate issue is pretty big and complex so that amplifies the fear. Unfortunately its spilled over into political tribalism. Changing all this is hard work, but we just have to keep trying. It might help to show them the wider benefits of climate mitigation policies.
And sooner or later fossil fuels will run out so we can't put off change forever even without the climate issue. Now might be as good a time as any.
And human beings are slow to do much about climate mitigation because we are mentally constructed to respond most strongly to immediate threats, not more distant threats like climate change. This is basic psychology. The work around might be to show people the fact that things like renewable energy and electric cars etc have some immediate and wide benefits.
If people are convinced something else is causing climate change like the sun or cosmic rays or geothermal activity they will remain being sceptics, so you must prioritise rebutting those arguments. You can rebut everything else, and miss this issue, you won't achieve anything.
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Evan at 07:14 AM on 29 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
Wow! The power of collaboration. :-)
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:11 AM on 29 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
Evan. The revised wording is better than my suggestion.
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Evan at 04:21 AM on 29 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
OPOF, thanks for your suggestion. I modified the text according to your suggestion, not word for word what you suggested, but in that spirit.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:49 AM on 29 May 2021SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw: Part II
Evan and jg,
Excellent brief and clear supplement to the See-Saw Part 1.
My only recommendation is a minor one. Try to improve the wording of the explanation of the production of Figure 2. My suggestion is:
"If we super-impose, or add together, the teeter-totter and elevator motions the combined result will vary up and down from the elevator line as the elevator continues to go up over time producing the motion shown in Fig. 2."
I am not brilliant regarding commas so my suggestion with few commas may not be the best presentation.
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Jim Hunt at 18:41 PM on 28 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
P.S. I just glanced at a calendar!
r/his upcoming/yesterday's/! -
Jim Hunt at 18:35 PM on 28 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Eclectic @20:
It seems Boslough has a historical "soft spot" for Koonin:
"I’ve known the author of 'Unsettled' since I took his quantum mechanics course as a Ph.D. student at Caltech in the 1970s. He’s smart and I like him, so I’m inclined to give his book a chance.But smart scientists aren’t always right, and nice guys are still prone to biases – especially if they listen to the wrong people."
I agree that there's "no excuse", and Koonin's "motivations" are unknowable. Getting back to his "actions", and in particular his upcoming "seminar" at LLNL.
What do you suppose Ben Santer asked the powers that be at LLNL for in the way of "ample opportunity for actual climate scientists to set the record straight", and why was his request (presumably) refused? -
Eclectic at 09:33 AM on 28 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Nigelj , I am in much agreement with you. MA Rodger earlier pointed out the long back-story of Koonin's employment in the oil industry.
People can change . . . but sometimes they don't . . . and it is easy to see the possibility that Koonin's previous sphere of employment would give him a bias towards retrospective justification of his earlier activities.
There is no need to posit any recent financial influencing of Koonin. The past connection may well be enough, psychologically, to have him self-censor his intellect.
Nigelj, I am sure you can think of many cases where prominent individuals have been "turned" by means of big amounts of money. But psychologists' experiments show that one can often achieve large influence through surprisingly small payments. It seems the smallness of the reward causes the recipients to over-compensate by becoming even stronger in their advocacy role. Example: the very small stipend that was paid by Peabody to Lindzen.
But we needn't get too bogged down in all these sorts of analyses. The real problem is the actions of the deniers, rather than their motivations (which are difficult to change).
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nigelj at 08:01 AM on 28 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Eclectic @20, Koonins motivations are a bit of a mystery to me as well. However he was chief science officer at BP (an oil company). Although he was hired to develop a renewables programme he was paid by the oil company and very much part of it. Seems possible his basic allegiances might be to the oil industry and its goals.
I couldn't find anything on his political views or world views or psychological state of mind (the later which you wouldn't expect to find). But like you say hes an intelligent guy yet he goes on promoting things that are just obviously nonsense. He must know at least some of these things are nonsense. So hes not your typical sceptic with a few lingering doubts. Those people come around eventually. He a hard core denialist and theres something going on in his head driving this. Trouble is it could be many things.
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Eclectic at 06:51 AM on 28 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Yes, thank you Jim Hunt @19 .
Author Boslough's phrase: "Koonin's trust of those [poor] advisers and lack of rigorous independent verification" can be seen as a sort of semi-apology for Koonin.
But that doesn't really wash ~ for there is even less excuse for a very intelligent guy like Koonin to fall into the usual Denialist incompetence of intellect (in matters of climate).
Figuratively speaking, something is rotten in the state of Denmark ~ and presumably that something is a powerful lot of motivated reasoning going on in the mind of Koonin. And for me, it is quite unclear what is the underlying emotion driving Koonin. Whatever it is, it only partly overlaps with the emotional driving force to be found in the usual average denier. (But the end result is the same.)
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John Hartz at 05:01 AM on 28 May 2021It's El Niño
Recommended supplemental reading:
As the 2020–21 La Niña has come to an end, leaving us with neutral conditions in the tropical Pacific, we now wonder if we have seen the last of La Niña for a while or if we will see another dip into La Niña conditions by next fall. In the world of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), double-dipping is not a party foul—it’s actually quite common for La Niña to occur in consecutive winters (not El Niño, though). If you’re wondering why, then this is the blog post for you!
Double-dipping: Why does La Niña often occur in consecutive winters? by Nat Johnson, ENSO Blog, NOAA's Climate.gov, May 27, 2021
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michael sweet at 23:44 PM on 27 May 20212021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #21
Yesterday (May 25) two new board members were elected to the board of Exxon. These new board members have climate concerns!!!! Who would have thought 5 years ago that climate activists would be on the ExxonMobil board!
Hopefully industry will start to work on climate solutions instead of denial. There is hope for the future.
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Jim Hunt at 21:04 PM on 27 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Eclectic @17:
I selected a different quotation from Mark Boslough as my favourite in a recent review article:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/unsettling-koonin-critiques-continue/
Most of the technical mistakes and misrepresentations in “Unsettled” may simply be attributable to Koonin’s trust of those advisors and lack of rigorous independent verification.
"Those advisors" being John Christy, Judith Curry, and Richard Lindzen.
Plus an informative infographic from his suggested source:: -
ubrew12 at 16:14 PM on 27 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
If you jump off a 10-story building, for 9 stories you can claim gravity is 'unsettled': where is the evidence for this invisible force? The problem, for climate science is it takes decades for the planet to respond to our climate forcer, during which the Koonin's can harvest their doubt. It may be useful to confront them with doubts of our own: what if they are wrong? An errant wind turbine can be disassembled, an errant excess of carbon dioxide... absent the much-hyped technologies of Science Fiction, something we could be paying for over many hundreds of years.
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Eclectic at 09:15 AM on 27 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
John Hartz @16 :
Thank you for the recommendation of the Mark Boslough article at Yale Climate Connections. It is a fairly short article, and well worth reading.
On the peripheral (and strawman) meme "The science is settled" ~ Boslough says the President Clinton quote was actually: "The science is clear and compelling: We humans are changing the global climate."
Also noteworthy is Boslough's final paragraph :-
'If a pilot isn't sure about having enough fuel to get you to your destination, if an astronomer isn't sure that an incoming asteroid will miss the Earth, if your doctor isn't sure if you have a terminal disease, if you are not sure you turned the stove off: In each of these cases, the uncertainty is unsettling. Why does Koonin think that unsettled questions in climate science are any kind of comfort when the consequences of doing nothing can be catastrophic? "Unsettled" should leave serious scientists feeling unsettled.'
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John Hartz at 05:09 AM on 27 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Also See:
A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’
‘Tilting at strawmen.’ Or ‘red flag.’ There are no finer shorthand descriptions of a controversial new book on climate science.
by Mark Boslough, Yale Cilimate Connections, May 25, 2021
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Stephen Leahy at 01:36 AM on 27 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Interviewed Koonin in 2009 - kind of trollish in person as I recall.
Here's what he said:
"The magnitude of this problem is not widely appreciated (in the US)," says Steven Koonin, Undersecretary for Science at the US Department of Energy.
"Once carbon dioxide is up in the atmosphere, it is effectively up there forever," Koonin, a physicist and former chief scientist for BP Oil told IPS in Columbus. US per capita emissions are 20 tonnes of carbon per year while the global average is 4 tonnes but in order to stabilize the climate that average must reach 2 tonnes he said.
"Energy touches everything" he says and that makes change both complicated and difficult. Energy systems are integrated, low-carbon fuels would have to work in all vehicles for example. And, in the US where much of the energy system works well, there is little incentive to make changes.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2009/09/climate-change-time-running-out-on-vows-to-act-scientists-warn/
Looking back, Joe Romm had some good comments at the end.
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Jim Hunt at 00:39 AM on 27 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Al @4 et al.
I am of course biased, but I like to think that Prof. Koonin "gets a bit of a kicking" here too:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/tag/steve-koonin/
Here's an extract from episode 6 of my ongoing review of "Unsettled":
Steven then rather ungraciously chose to ignore my follow up question:"Regarding 'the topic somewhat distant from ordinary folks’ perception', that is largely my point. Is Arctic sea ice decline really any more distant to the average (wo)man in the street than sea level rise?"
Etc. etc. For 8 days and counting…
Since Steve is evidently unable and/or unwilling to respond to my enquiry perhaps somebody else might be willing to do so?Meanwhile here’s news of a brand new paper documenting the evidently inexorable decline of the sea ice cover across the Arctic Ocean:
https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/month-in-review-arctic-science-edition/#Ricker
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MA Rodger at 21:38 PM on 26 May 2021Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Hameiri @12,
The enquiring mind should indeed be tinged with a level of skepticism, but only when that skepticism is matched by the ability to understand the subject. And using such a view of the use of skepticism as an excuse to spout nonsense is entirely wrong, or am I being too skeptical for you by saying that?
As for the twit Koonin who makes such a poor fist of criticsing AGW sceince, we will see tomorrow (27th May) whether he has at last found something worth saying or whether he is simply spouting the same old nonsense he has already presented.
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