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nigelj at 07:26 AM on 15 April 2020Coronavirus doubters follow climate denial playbook
And another parallel: Climate change sceptic: adaptation is the answer. Covid 19 sceptic, its just another seasonal flu to live with, herd immunity etc.
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nigelj at 07:22 AM on 15 April 2020Coronavirus doubters follow climate denial playbook
Some of the same people sceptical of the virus and climate change appear to be libertarians suspicious of the government. This libertarianism might be an evolutionary mechanism that protects us againt being captured and ordered around, but it conflicits with the fact that government brings considerable benefits.
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Bob Loblaw at 06:26 AM on 15 April 2020Coronavirus doubters follow climate denial playbook
Another parallel: magical thinking about technological solutions:
- Climate: "clean coal" and carbon capture, or similar "future technology" to justify more subsidies to fossil fuel interests.
- Covid-19: Hydroxychloroquine.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:44 AM on 15 April 2020Startups aim to pay farmers to bury carbon pollution in soil
By all means do not get discouraged, it looks interesting and promising.
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Esop at 02:11 AM on 15 April 2020Coronavirus doubters follow climate denial playbook
So very, very true!
It struck me immediately, as I noticed that it was the same old suspects, both local and world wide, that were ''skeptical'' of the virus.
Same tactics, same desperate search for any ''expert'' that shared their opinion. Same exact type of denial, only forwarded at 1000X the speed. On the bright side, these science deniers have lost even more credibiliy now.
Not that they had much to begin with.
However, laypeople can now hopefully see that with ''virus denial'' failing miserably and dangerously in the face of reality, they might think twice about listening to those same ''skeptics'' with regards to climate change. -
nigelj at 18:12 PM on 14 April 2020With climate and coronavirus, 'the broad shape of the story is the same'
There is possibly another parallel between climate change and covid 19, and it's related to scepticism verging on denialism. Firstly we know there are several consensus studies showing most climate scientists agree we are changing the climate, and a very small number of scientists disagree. It appears covid 19 might be similar in New Zealand with most health experts agreeing covid 19 is a big problem, and small goup of strongly dissenting voices in NZ trying to essentially minimise the covid 19 problem, and attack the lockdown response. While I havent seen a poll or anything, this picture is emerging strongly in our media.
The media article about the denialist group has mysteriously disappeared, but the following article refers directly to this dissenting group and is critical of it.
One sees some interesting features with this covid 19 scepticism that parallels the climate issue. First the covid sceptics take quite an extreme position, much like the climate denialists, so no middle ground with these guys. Secondly their group includes a motley mixture of health experts, economists, legal people and statisticians, so while not exactly fake experts the group is light on actuall health expertise. Thirdly Thornley claimed that only 10% of fatalities were caused by covid 19 while, the rest were caused by underlying conditions. This is moronic and misleading and a sort of red herring argument.
Thornley implies covid 19 is no more lethal than influenza, which is not what the weight of evidence says (granted nobody is 100 % certain). The group say that the data show covid is not a huge problem seemingly oblivious that the reason our numbers of infections have fallen is because of the lockdown that they generally criticise. This is so stupid it beggars belief.
The group as a whole claim covid 19 is no worse than influenza for most people, while neglecting to mention it is a great deal worse for about 20% of people and causes more severe complications than seasonal influenza (this appears beyond debate now). The group also promote the Swedish model, without mentioning that they have quite a high mortality rate. The group cherrypick various other examples.
These assorted tactics are all remarkably similar to climate denialism.
(That said, while I think lockdowns make sense, we have to also consider the very significant economic and social distress this causes and tread carefully and minimise their length.)
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michael sweet at 07:25 AM on 14 April 2020Startups aim to pay farmers to bury carbon pollution in soil
Red Baron,
I am sorry that your project has been delayed for the time being. It is always disappointing when you hit a bump in the road. Unfortunately, this is a typical problem for any scientific venture. Try to find others who might help you out. Press on with what you have and you may find that another door opens.
Good luck.
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RedBaron at 00:24 AM on 14 April 2020Startups aim to pay farmers to bury carbon pollution in soil
Update:
Unfortunately I got this message today in my email from Experiment dot Com
Scott,
We are making changes at Experiment today that affect your project. Experiment is going to stop launching projects for an indefinite amount of time. Starting today we will not be accepting new proposals and will not be launching any projects.
I am sorry that we are not able to support your important work at this time. If you choose another platform I am happy to port your content over to the platform of your choice, so you don't have to spend the time to do that work all over on a new platform.
If there are other ways I can be supportive of you and your project, please let me know.
Cindy
So sadly it looks like I won't be able to do it after all. 2 months of hard work down the tubes just 3 days before launch. :(
I will try to find another platform though.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:31 PM on 13 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Although duncan61's time here appears to be over, a few hints to anyone else that wishes to follow a similar path of reasoning:
- Scientific disussions don't have "two sides", so you need to look at a lot more than "both of them". Scientific discussions of complex issues (which is pretty much all of them) have a wide range of opinions, hyptheses, theories, and evidence to support them. Some are extremly strongly supported - as a former colleague used to say whenever she dropped something: "gravity still works".
- Scientific discussions are not simply a repeated statement of an opnion ("some people say X, some people say Y") - scientific discussions involve presenting and discussing evidence, its strengths and weaknesses, alternate explanations (and how they differ, and what evidence would show that difference and elminate more or more competing explanations).
- Scientific discussions provde more details than vague statements such as "some data" or "some people". Be specific, provide sources, and provide details on why a particular source seems convincing or not.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:19 PM on 13 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
prove @37:
My point, in comment 33, is more along the lines of "you should always have been carefull accepting what you get out of Google, or Youtube, or any other source on the Internet".
Recent changes do not affect this.
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prove we are smart at 22:29 PM on 13 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Thanks M A Rodger, I feel a little better.. I wonder how well known this is? Capitalism rules..
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Eclectic at 11:15 AM on 13 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
KR , the WaPo link is to paywall. Likewise with NYT.
Free access to a biography / hagiography via WUWT or maybe ClimateDepot.
Unfortunately, the Scythe of Time cuts down both the good and the bad.
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Philippe Chantreau at 08:18 AM on 13 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Nigelj, I believe that what little data is there actually supports using it early in the disease process. Waiting to use it as a rescue measure would then not be wise, especially because of the added risk of throwing cardiac side effects on top of a possible viral myocarditis. All hypothetical, of course. This is kinda uncharted territory really.
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2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Note to those involved in climate discussions: Dr. Fred Singer passed away April 6th at the age of 95.
Singer spent much of his life engaged in climate science denial, tirelessly denigrating good science in favor of industry and idiological positions.
As Max Planck said, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
This is equally true when said opponent is motivated by something other than science.
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nigelj at 06:28 AM on 13 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Philippe Chantreau @9 says "Hydroxychloroquine is no panacea and has significant side effects"
Correct and the clinical trials related to its usefulness for covid 19 were very small and somewhat inconclusive as below:
www.vox.com/2020/4/7/21209539/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-covid-19-clinical-trial
In addition there is quite strong evidence emerging that China have severely under reported numbers of fatalities, (easily enough googled) so their cocktail of drugs including Hydroxychloroquine doesn't appear to have been terribly effective.
If it was up to me Hydroxychloroquine might be worth trying just for very high risk patients where the prognosis is very bleak.
It looks more like Chinas lock down measures that actually worked to at least stop the growth in numbers.
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Philippe Chantreau at 01:20 AM on 13 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
JW Rebel's multiple points appear extremely ill informed, and have internal contradictions.
Zoonotic origin has been firmly established.
Hydroxychloroquine is no panacea and has significant side effects, including cardiac arrest, arrythmias requiring defibrillation, profound hypoglycemia etc. It is by no means a risk free drug. Overdose is extremely toxic, often lethal. When I was growing up in Africa, it was known to be a suicide risk for troubled teens who had to take malaria prophylaxis, like everybody else. There is no conclusive evidence that HCQ/AZT actually helps outcomes.
Asian countries achieved control at the price of drastic social distancing and self quarantine measures, the very thing that JW Rebel complains about.
The fact that the survival rate of critically ill patients is low makes a strong argument for limiting contagion, less we allow something similar to the 1918 pandemic to happen.
The whole point of social distancing is to prevent overwhelming health care facilities. The alternative would be to not practice distancing and tell people to not bring their sick relative to the hospital. We're talking about people in their 50s and early 60s, here; they work, they have families and other responsibilities. How is that going to go down in the Western world where we find it normal to code, intubate and throw heroic measures at people in their 90s with multiple chronic conditions?
The fact that most working families do not have savings to withstand a crisis on the horizon of a few months speaks volumes on how unhealthy the entire socio-economic system has become. The fact that corporations that pay dividends would not be able to have a financial safety cushion is just mind boggling.
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sailrick at 01:04 AM on 13 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
J W Rebel @2.
"[1] Zoonotic origin. No direct evidence given for zoonotic origin"Yes there is.
How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus
Moderator Response:[JH] Activated url link.
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MA Rodger at 18:23 PM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
prove we are smart @37,
Your contention @32 was that "Google and Amazon are now in the oil business," (this being the title of a webpage @vox.com) and that would bring into question Google's stance on climate denialism with Google being the owners of YouTube. That webpage you link-to actually says very little but more informative are some of its links (eg here) which describe Google, Amazon and others providing services for the oil industry. That isn't quite the same as being 'in' the oil industry.
Having the oil industry as a client is a relationship many many companies have. The novel point to the the services being offered by Google etc is that it is about using high tech (eg AI) to improve the efficiency of oil extraction, indeed of oil exploration. You may argue the ethics of providing such services, as Michael Mann does in the webpage I linked above which also describes the creation of Google's Oil, Gas & Energy Division. To suggest such moves by Google would cause it to support climate denialism (or cause it not not shut down denialist YouTube content) is surely a bit of a leap.
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MA Rodger at 18:17 PM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Duncan61 @34,
You ask about "Sea level due to ice melting and warming expansion" adding "some claim it is happening and provide data, some claim there is more ice and provide data."
The increase in sea level due to melting ice and warming oceans is easy to demonstrate.
So I would suggest that the "claim there is more ice" is the point needing examination. You say these "some ... provide data." While I could find some contrarian website with articles attempting to set out such claims (eg here), these may not be what you are looking at. So could you provide a link or two containing the claims you're talking about?
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nigelj at 18:01 PM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
J W Rebel @2.
"Don't forget, a 12% save rate with people on ventilators is the highest claim I've seen; it was 5% in Wuhan."
Correct about Wuhan. About 30% in the UK and Washington State survive as below. This appears to be the best outcome, with 55% being normal for other respiratory problems. So its not as bad as you say but still pretty bad.
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RedBaron at 17:34 PM on 12 April 2020Startups aim to pay farmers to bury carbon pollution in soil
@4 doug,
As it turns out, no I had never tried them. And as it turns out moments after seeing your post I did go there and begin their process.
Turns out their peer review and verification process can be tough at times. However, for the last two months I have been hammering it out with their reviewers and did eventually get approved. The project goes live on the 16th.
Thanks very much for directing me to them. It was frustrating at times, but in the end I feel it was a very good way to proceed. I even managed to get an endorsement by none other than Joel Salatin! While I have been in touch with him before by email and phone, this is the first direct endorsement I ever got of that caliber and he probably would not have done so without it being such a reputable site.
Thanks very much for the link. I owe you. Feel free to come by this summer for a free box of tomatoes ;)
What is the rate a new regenerative agricultural method sequesters carbon in the soil?
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prove we are smart at 16:42 PM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Bob Loblaw@33,yes choose carefully, this climate blog site S S, I use and recommend on my other forums. But what I wondered at 32 is because Google now has increasingly more involvement with the fossel fuel moguls-should the status quo change?
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/3/21030688/google-amazon-ai-oil-gas
Moderator Response:[DB] Hot-linked URL.
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Philippe Chantreau at 14:21 PM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
" Are there any virus diseases which we have been able to eradicate, barring small pox?"
I am surprised that JW Rebel is asking a question that is so easy to answer.
-Rabies, effectively eradicated among humans and even animal populations with enough coverage.
_Polio, wherever campaigns were completed as planned, effectively eradicated in the Western World.
-Mumps, same as above.
-Varicella, same again.
-Rubella, same.
Some vaccines have not been available for long enough but HPV caused cancers can potentially be eradicated. Same goes for Hepatitis A and B.
There has been some pseudo-debate on the value of vaccinating against Measles, but the reality remains that Measles can potentially be quite serious, leading to penumonia or encephalitis, or even subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, possibly decades later. There is no honest debate to be had there.
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nigelj at 14:19 PM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Rebel @2, clarification. "[1] Zoonotic origin. No direct evidence given for zoonotic origin"...."Sounds a bit like your unsubstantiated opinion."
I meant to say I recall reading there was direct evidence, and that you are making quite a few assertions without explaining yourself.
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Eclectic at 12:39 PM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Duncan @ 34 , you seem to be getting nowhere fast.
# Your problem is that you are swallowing a great bunch of bullshit and only a tiny bunch of scientific facts & analysis.
What's worse, you don't seem to be trying to recognize the difference between bullshit and fact.
If you wish to really understand the situation, then educate yourself. If you are not a keen reader ~ then use Youtube. Sure, there's a lot more rubbish than reality published on Youtube, and the Youtube organization won't give you any guidance in distinguishing what's what. So, you yourself will need to choose . . . wisely.
Duncan, the more you educate yourself, the easier it gets to recognize the bullshit propaganda. A good start is the Youtube video series by science-journalist Potholer54. His first video is titled: "Climate Change - the scientific debate" . . . and there are 50 more in the series (most are 5 - 15 minutes long).
Potholer54 is informative & entertaining (and often amusing, too !)
He doesn't cover everything . . . but he is very good at pointing out a lot of the bullshit coming from the usual (mostly American) propagandists. Potholer54 doesn't have an Aussie accent, but he's lived long enough in Australia to get very well acquainted with that good old Aussie word "bullshit". (Yeah, well, maybe the word wasn't invented in Oz, but most Aussies fancy they have a well-developed Bullshit Detector. Except you, Duncan ~ your BS Detector seems to be faulty or non-existent . . . or maybe you just choose not to use it on Climate stuff.)
Get with the strength, Duncan. Use Youtube & Potholer54. Then you can come to SkepticalScience for lots of finer details.
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nigelj at 12:28 PM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
duncan61 @34, you claim some data supports sea level rise and some data says there is more ice, so presumably no sea level rise. You give no details or examples or sources.
Sea level rise is measured by both tidal gauges and satellite and they both unequivocally show sea leve rise. Satellites are also able to monitor the mass balance of ice sheets and show Greenland is losing ice dramatically and Antarctica is losing ice slightly. Glaciers are also monitored and most are losing ice. If you just bothered to read the appropriate information under secptical myths on the left side of this page you can get some details.
Now the denialist side of the debate typically make claims that glaciers are advancing, but if you read carefully they refer to just a small subset of glaciers, or they say sea ice is increasing somewhere when this doesn't actually affect sea level rise so its not relevant. Or they say Antarctica is not losing ice or much ice, while not mentioning that plenty of other places are. Or sometimes the denialists data is just made up.
None of this is new, in fact its now almost ancient history. I have several times explained these sorts of climate things diplomatically but you dont seem to get it. I cannot make you understand if you can't or won't, and I can't teach you critical thinking skills if you cant or wont.
We have tidal gauges and satellites and historical photos and god knows what all pointing to melting ice and sea level rise and its very hard for me to believe these systems of measurement and observation would all be 100% wrong because so many differerent monitoring systems show the same thing. I equally find it hard to believe its all some conspiracy. But perhaps you are built differently.
Personally I think you are just trolling for attention, and that you will come back with a whole lot of silly data.
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nigelj at 11:50 AM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
JWRebel @2
There are far too many points and questions for me to respond to, so Ive just picked out a few that relate to things I have some knowledge of form our media.
"Nothing particularly new in this interview."
Ok maybe so, but you seem to be judging it as something meant to inform experts. It was intended more for the general public that may know virtually nothing about the issues.
"[1] Zoonotic origin. No direct evidence given for zoonotic origin"
Sounds a bit like your unsubstantiated opinion. And its an article directed at the general public not a 20 page thesis on the subject!
"[2] I have not seen anybody make a cost benefit case for social distancing. "
I have in our local media. I can't find the article but they assumed about $2 million (NZ) per human life being average earnings potential and deduced from this the government could spend $150 billion on assistance to business during a lock down, thus giving a basis to put a time frame on a lock down (all other things being equal).
"What will be the costs in human life years of the global depression we are now headed into? "
We don't know that we are heading into a global depression. The data suggests a deep recession at this stage. But I take your point, an economic recession or depression can cost lives, and obviously reduce quality of life.
My own view is that the scenario in Italy is very scary, and some level of border controls and social isolation seems very justified in my country at least (New Zealand), especially as we had a lot of tourism, but I'm not immune to the considerable economic problems lock downs bring, and their social and health implications. That is also very scary. For that reason I think lock downs have to be of limited duration, enough to buy time to strengthen health care systems, deveop a vaccine, and flatten the curve. Just so you know where I'm coming from.
"How many lives have we actually saved? "Don't forget, a 12% save rate with people on ventilators is the highest claim I've seen; it was 5% in Wuhan. If we take a one year survivor horizon, it will be even slimmer. Most of the people that didn't go to ICU would survive without hospital care (oxygen can be administered at home), so it isn't at all clear what the lives saved margin really is. "
Where have you seen your claims about ventilators? Administering oxygen at home has various logistical complications and the patient is certainly going to be infecting the whole family. But I don't really know I'm not a health care expert.
"[3] China adopted HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin +Remdesavir in their standard treatment guidelines after published clinical studies on Feb19. So did S. Korea, which had far lower mortality numbers. Yes, there are a lot more angles to this, but we seem incapable of learning from the Chinese. "
Who is we? New Zealand has copied China's lock down policy and social distancing and shortly after this rates of growth in infections started to slow and I doubt its a coincidence. Nothing much else explains it. We also used track and trace from very early on like Asian countries. Our infection rates and fatality rates are quite low comparitively speaking (easily googled).
"Do we actually know if the oral-fecal route is not important?"
This is a rather technical question for this climate website.
" Do we know whether health care itself is not a primary vector? "
I recall reading that hospitals are a major source of spread and its important to keep covid 19 patients in their own isolated wards and keep health care professionals divided into groups, and that some places are doing this.
No doubt there are things we dont know. Im not sure what you real point is. Its a new virus, the experts are dealing with it as best they can.
I have read several experts saying aerosols are a minor factor and why, and none saying they are a major factor.
"China immediately started building/dedicating facilities b/c hospitals were transmission nodes, and a third of the health care workers in Wuhan were out of commission. Interview does not mention any of this."
No it didn't. Maybe they should have, but no interview printed in the media is going to cover everything.
"[4] Vaccines. This is happy talk. Is there a vaccine for HIV or SARS? No. "
But my understanding is the Sars vaccine was cancelled because SARS fizzled out.
"Are there any virus diseases which we have been able to eradicate, barring small pox? "
Why are you asking me this? Vaccines keep measels and seasonal flu at very low levels (depending on public uptake). Dont make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Are there any vaccines against Corona viruses human or veterinarian which give more than an ephemeral protection? Do people have long-lasting antibodies to protect them against colds (Corona viruses)? No."
I read an article that although getting a corunavirus related cold does not give immunity, people who get reinfected dont have any symptoms or symptoms are at very low level as below, so its possible it may be the same with covid 19:
https://play.stuff.co.nz/details/_6145112480001
"[5] Did we do a good job protecting our health care and the most vulnerable? No. "
Again who is we? New Zealand required elderly (over 70) and vulnerable to self isolate early in the growth curve. Personally I think that is the key to the whole issue.
"Having schools shut does not significantly impact ICU demand. The entire spike in ICU demand would have to come from the risk groups. But we have shut down the economy without taking appropriate steps to quarantine the most important vector (the vulnerable), which represent virtually the entire pool (>98%) of ICU demand. 40% of deaths have come from nursing homes, globally! Not counting all those who die at home (too frail to go to ICU). These places/people should have been locked down in February, with zero people entering or exiting. Pay the staff triple overtime for staying on premise (way cheaper than Tr$6 to save all the banks and hedge funds)."
Sounds like you mean America? Young people are carriers and often asymptomatic, so surely that ultimately means it spreads at school and from there to older people? That said, I admit closing schools is a big thing and can't last indefinitely for obvious reasons.
Like I said we in NZ have isolated the elderly in home isolation early in the growth curve. However it leaves the rest home problem, although they have stopped allowing visitors from a couple of weeks ago. Most of our fatalities have been from a rest home cluster. I agree pay rest home (nursing home) staff triple the pay to stay on the premises.
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duncan61 at 10:46 AM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
I am sure I am on topic here and would like to share my opinion.At this point in time the AGW debate is occupying a lot of my thoughts and I am still on the fence.I watch a lot of youtube on both sides of the debate and at this point I believe that there is some merit in the CO2 warming effect however it is being blown out of proportion to reality as most of the predicted events are not happening.I will live for another 20 years and if nothing is happening still where do we go.
.Sea level due to ice melting and warming expansion
some claim it is happening and provide data
some claim there is more ice and provide data
The sea level is the biggest deal to me all the other claims of ocean acid bushfires drought etc??
I visit a lot of forums and this one is unique in the only one I feel I have been offended when a comment was posted that anyone who does not believe we are all doomed wholeheartedly is an idiot.
If this forum is for believers only I will not weigh in again.Regards Duncan
Moderator Response:[DB] Fake cries of ad hominem and egregious strawman claims snipped.
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michael sweet at 10:19 AM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
JWRebel,
Please provide references for all your claims. The zoonotic orgin has been demonstrated by DNA analysis. Likewise the rest of your claims are not what has been widely reported in newspapers (I read the Guardian, BBC, Politico, CNN, LA Times and NY Times.).
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JWRebel at 08:43 AM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
@Nigelj Couldn't disagree more. Nothing particularly new in this interview.
[1] Zoonotic origin. No direct evidence given for zoonotic origin. There are a host of obstacles to the zoonotic claim. Not mentioning these and not offering direct evidence means it's not scientific. Any scientific approach should not fail to mention strengths and weaknesses of competing hypotheses. That's the trouble with most slanted information/propaganda — failure to take into account contrary evidence and hypotheses, which are almost always present.
[2] I have not seen anybody make a cost benefit case for social distancing. What will be the costs in human life years of the global depression we are now headed into? How many millions of families in the informal economy are already having to tell their children there is no food? How many people will have no health care access at all in the future? How many lives have we actually saved? Don't forget, a 12% save rate with people on ventilators is the highest claim I've seen; it was 5% in Wuhan. If we take a one year survivor horizon, it will be even slimmer. Most of the people that didn't go to ICU would survive without hospital care (oxygen can be administered at home), so it isn't at all clear what the lives saved margin really is. There is plenty of evidence that the R₀ (reproduction rates) rolled over before NPI's (non-pharmaceutical interventions) could have had an impact.
[3] China adopted HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin +Remdesavir in their standard treatment guidelines after published clinical studies on Feb19. So did S. Korea, which had far lower mortality numbers. Yes, there are a lot more angles to this, but we seem incapable of learning from the Chinese. Do we actually know if the oral-fecal route is not important? Do we know whether health care itself is not a primary vector? Do we know how minor the aerosol vector is? The Chinese and Koreans (index patient 31, super spreader) warned about asymptomatic carriers in January (later studies show 79% of infections caused by asymptomatic carriers), but many Western countries denied it. Singapore warned about the extreme transmissability via various routes. China immediately started building/dedicating facilities b/c hospitals were transmission nodes, and a third of the health care workers in Wuhan were out of commission. Interview does not mention any of this.
[4] Vaccines. This is happy talk. Is there a vaccine for HIV or SARS? No. Vaccine formulations for SARS led to ADE in cats (antigen dependant enhancement, making subsequent infection progress more catastrophically instead of less). Are there any virus diseases which we have been able to eradicate, barring small pox? Are there any vaccines against Corona viruses human or veterinarian which give more than an ephemeral protection? Do people have long-lasting antibodies to protect them against colds (Corona viruses)? No. Does everybody show strong antigen protection after recovery from Covid? No, au contraire.
[5] Did we do a good job protecting our health care and the most vulnerable? No. Having schools shut does not significantly impact ICU demand. The entire spike in ICU demand would have to come from the risk groups. But we have shut down the economy without taking appropriate steps to quarantine the most important vector (the vulnerable), which represent virtually the entire pool (>98%) of ICU demand. 40% of deaths have come from nursing homes, globally! Not counting all those who die at home (too frail to go to ICU). These places/people should have been locked down in February, with zero people entering or exiting. Pay the staff triple overtime for staying on premise (way cheaper than Tr$6 to save all the banks and hedge funds).
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nigelj at 07:07 AM on 12 April 20202020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Thank's for the covid 19 article. It is very detailed and one of the best I've read on the issue. However this company reckons they could have a vaccine on the market by September.
One reason Germany has a reasonably low mortality rate could be because it has a high number of hospital beds and also ventilators per 1000 people. In comparison Italy has the opposite. America is somewhere in the middle. I did some googling on this and didn't keep a record of the data and sources on ventilators, but you can find numbers of hospital beds per 1000 people here.
It appears there is a philosophy in some countries of minimising numbers of hospital beds to save costs and treat as many people at home as possible. I recall this from our media some years ago. Unfortunately this has problems when you get huge surges of patients with natural disasters and pandemics.
That said, numbers of beds would be one factor of many. It appears that even ventilators arent saving some people.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:09 AM on 12 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Prove (may I call you "Prove"?:
To paraphrase something first seen in a comment over at Real Climate: the difference between Google and your local library is that one of the two is trying to make you smarter, while the other is trying to sell you $#!^. Choose carefully.
For all the amaziing information available on the Internet, you have to remember that much of it is wrong. Critical thinking is more of a need than ever before.
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prove we are smart at 19:33 PM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Sorry to butt in, but since Youtube is Google, after just watching this, should I be more concerned about bias on the internet? " Google and Amazon are now in the oil business"
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/3/21030688/google-amazon-ai-oil-gas
Moderator Response:[DB] Hyperlinked URL.
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prove we are smart at 18:41 PM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
I guess here is where i should mention this, beware this morally deficient blog site. See what Wiki says-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs
It appeared as a popup on Youtube-I get angry now when I read these falsehoods, how many believe this stuff? Except for a different countries name added at end of the title, there seemed many more..
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nigelj at 15:39 PM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Eclectic @28 &29, yes I thought you were talking aloud to anyone and everyone, not just me and the regulars. I do this myself at times.
And the New Zealand climate science coalition has been outsourced, after shooting themselves in their own feet. You can get the history on both on their wikipedia entry, and in more detail below. And this bit of history is an absolute gem:
theconversation.com/an-insiders-story-of-the-global-attack-on-climate-science-21972
www.stuff.co.nz/national/7634556/Climate-sceptics-fail-in-Niwa-case
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Eclectic at 13:38 PM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Nigelj , an addendum :- Yes, the climatescience.org.nz does have that fingerprint ~ a professional slickness. Now I am wondering if the scrubbing of all comments sections [rather unusual for a propaganda website] is a sign that they don't wish to deal with presumably-local people.
Drawing a long bow perhaps ~ but could this mean that the website has been outsourced to international management (Heartland, for example) ??
Once you remove local input/interaction, it would take very little effort & expense for an international player to just paste in some samples of their standard propaganda material.
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Eclectic at 13:02 PM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Nigelj , please pardon me if I have given you the impression my comments (above) were a sort of "lecture" introducing novel information to naive students. I know that you and all regular commenters here at SkS are very much aware of the common propaganda tricks used by Denialists. Rather, I was aiming to compose my thoughts into semi-formal order.
Yes, the GWPF ["sounds important"] is a sort of Heartland propaganda organization, but more of a one-man-band deriving from a wealthy Englishman (but of course gathering up a team of less-wealthy cronies ~ and some freelance denialist journos plus some "faded scientists" receiving stipend payments). When its prime funder Lord Lawson (age 88) dies, who will provide all the financing of GWPF ? Will it then fall apart gradually? In comparison, Heartland is somewhat more secure, as it has a multi-decade history of hustling from multiple American sources.
# More on your denialist climatescience.org.nz [also "sounds important & sciencey"] : I am sorry to hear that the website no longer has Comments columns. Was hoping to experience the flavor of Kiwi Denialists ~ and whether they brought a "regional" tang of madness to the standard international smorgasbord.
BTW , I did read one further article ~ the one by 80-year-old Professor Happer (co-written with his son). A very lengthy article, a huge cauldron of soup, swimming with formulae and graphs plus many irrelevancies ["plant food" . . . despotic world socialism threat, etc . . . the usual suspects . . . almost the full Gish Gallop]. SkS regulars would immediately see all the holes & errors & false logic. But a naive reader might well think : Wow this is all very impressive, here's a famous scientist who obviously knows his stuff, all this science & mathematics, and he's really intensely skeptical about all that Global Warming palaver.
Happer's "tour de force" commentary will re-confirm and re-convince the dyed-in-the-wool Denialists in New Zealand ~ but as they are the only ones likely to frequent the climatescience.org.nz website . . . then probably little harm is done to the general population.
# Nigelj , I don't intend to read the public comments attached to NZ newspapers etc. Worldwide, IMO, such publications attract vast numbers of bots & paid trolls, who flood the comments sections. No, I reckon the real essence of Denialist insane thinking is best found on Denialist websites : where they believe they are talking to "their own".
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nigelj at 07:47 AM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Eclectic @24, yes I also noticed the tricks the denialists use with the big bold headlines and the paper that sounds like a research paper, but is just an article on a website and so on. Its so much trickery its hard not to conclude its utterly premeditated and deliberate. It has the fingerprint of a Public Relations agency all over it as well, with their spin.
Some quick cursory reading about the low sunspot numbers during the little ice age shows temperatures only dropped 0.5 degree c and over a long period, to this sort of event won't change modern AGW global warming significantly, if a low sunspot period was to happen. But the denialists will never mention that of course because they only tell people what they want them to hear.
Even the name of the "global warming policy foundation" think tank is ironic because they seem to have no policy, except to do nothing about climate change if you count that as policy. But the name makes them sound non partisan and important and neutral, which of course they are not. Its like the Heartland Foundation has this warm harmless sounding title when they are really a nest of snakes promting a hard right economic agenda and climate denial, and talking more out of their posterior than their heart.
The NZ climate science coalition doesn't allow posting of comments, last time I visited a few months ago.
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michael sweet at 05:26 AM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
l Adapted,
I tried to post on WUWT a few times but it was immediately clear that no-one there cared what the peer reviewed literature said. I was surprised when someone posted that I was a regular poster at SkS (of course that was true but I didn't think they read here).
I taught upper level High School chemistry students for 15 years (I retired two years ago). When I started around 2005, every class had at least three rabid deniers in it. By 2015 there were virtually no rabid deniers (students often do not like to argue with a teacher so some deniers might have been present and chose not to engage). There were still a few students who would question the science but not many, and they did not accuse scientists of lying. The number of students who were concerned increased strongly.
I would have the students write a report on the NSIDC yearly summary. Many expressed surprise at how much temperature had changed. Occasionally I would have a student twice and they would express surprise the second time they wrote their summary.
I think a lot of the deniers on Youtube are paid. Unfortunately, since they post so much it influences some people.
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Mal Adapted at 03:04 AM on 11 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Eclectic @20, thanks for your observations of WUWT. Like nigelj, I made a couple of visits way back when, and have avoided it ever since. Most of my non-blog engagement with deniers is in comments to climate-related articles at NYTimes.com. Lately, to be sure, there's been little enough climate-related content or comment on nytimes.com, with the overwhelming focus on the pandemic.
For whatever reason, in the last few years I've noticed fewer of the stubborn, cocky denialists that plagued NYT comment threads earlier this century, and perhaps fewer random drivebys. Editorially, too, the Gray Lady has abandoned false balance. Aside from climate-realist blogs, I'm innocent of social media however, so presumably much public climate-science denial passes me by. And there's no doubt that skilled professional disinformers are still flooding the public sphere, if not the NYT, with pernicious nonsense paid for by fossil-fuel capitalists.
Sigh. Under the Governor's stay-home order in my vote-by-mail state, I await this year's presidential election with mixed hope and apprehension. I wish good health to you all.
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Eclectic at 23:51 PM on 10 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Thanks Nigelj , yes I do read Realclimate from time to time (and note your presence there too ).
Now I am reporting back after reading the first article listed on Page One of climatescience.org.nz
# It is a fine example of one style of Denialist propaganda.
The article is titled, in very large blue letters in upper case :- [ * Moderators please excuse my use of upper case for this exact quote] :-
" DROP IN NUMBER OF SUNSPOTS SIGNALS IMMINENCE OF A COOLER WORLD "
~ this is followed by a single paragraph in small font, commencing:
" An important new paper by Dr David Whitehouse for the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that 2019 was mostly without sunspots. ... [and finishing:] This paper discusses some of these issues." With LINK to the GWPF important new paper .
Note the typical Denialist technique:
(A) The huge headline indicating Imminence of a Cooler World ( i.e. that the mainstream scientists are wrong about ongoing global warming)
(B) An entirely unrigorous newspaper-supplement-like report (by Dr Whitehouse) is implied to be a respectable scientific paper. It is no such thing.
# The editor of this website knows that many of his Denialist clientele will not bother to read past the headline, and they will proceed elsewhere holding the comforting knowledge that the planet is about to enter a cooling phase.
And that those who do actually read the single paragraph, also will proceed elsewhere, holding that same "Cooling" impression.
(C) Those who do follow the link, are met with a multi-page essay headed by beautiful huge photos & artistic illustrations of close-up views of the sun (all looking a bit National Geographic sciencey). Followed by 8 pages (plus sciencey reference list) of Whitehouse's text ~ discursively discussing cherry-picked famine in 17th Century France; horrible child mortality in Europe during the Little Ice Age; dire comments from a sermon by a contemporary English preacher . . . and various other irrelevancies including historical aspects of sunspot observations.
In the end, Whitehouse has given no quantification of the implied Grand Solar Minimum which is "imminently" about to strike us. Indeed, regarding future climate, he hasn't really said anything at all. His "important new paper" is lurid but vacuous commentary.
As such, it all comes as no surprise to regular readers of SkS.
Nigelj , I fear that the rest of the NZ website's headlines probably have a similar modus operandi. Is that correct? (And does that website have comments columns?)
I am very much reminded of that propagandist, the marvellous Lord Monckton who boasted that 400 scientific papers demonstrated the worldwide nature and much-higher-than-today warmth of the Medieval Warm Period. When science-journalist Peter Hadfield (Potholer54) challenged him for the list, Monckton blandly supplied the references [actually a list by Dr Idso]. Hadfield said that he carefully studied the first 6 papers on the list, and found none of them supported Monckton's MWP claims. So no point reading further down the list. (Monckton is well known for his bold mendacities/errors.)
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michael sweet at 22:28 PM on 10 April 2020Deep emissions cuts this decade could prevent ‘abrupt ecological collapse’
The results of this study suggest that fast action will help a lot compared to BAU. That is good news.
Last August I was able to log a few SCUBA dives on the North side of Cuba and at Cozumel. These are reputed to be among the best dive locations in the world. In both locations over 90% of the coral was dead. In Cozumel they closed the main wall to diving in hopes it would recover. The surrounding areas were very dead. There was also little fish life considering that Cozumel banned all fishing decades ago.
It was recently reported in the Smithsonian Magazine that the Great Barrier Reef is facing its most widespread bleaching event ever, the third in 5 years.
Perhaps coral reefs are the first to go and other locations will not be as bad. I noticed that North Cuba and Cozumel are in the few areas hit hard in the RCP 2.6 graph in the OP.
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nigelj at 16:54 PM on 10 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Eclectic @22, for gems of imaginative denialist madness try the crank case and bore hole at realclimate.org. Or even their main pages comments section, for example comments by Victor and Ken Maynard.
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Eclectic at 14:17 PM on 10 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Nigelj , thanks for the link (climatescience.org.nz ~ a marvellous example of unintended irony in title, as is often the case for science-denier websites).
Although we don't live in Venice, this 2020 is a sort of Year of the Cholera . . . so I shall certainly take time to look through some of that website, for entertainment.
A quick glance at its First Page listed articles does appear depressingly banal for denialism. I see that the very-emeritus Professor Happer gets a mention. And kind of disappointing there's no prominent mention of Feynman or Galileo (those names are usually a nice marker for the presence of scientific-pretentiousness in denialism sites).
Here's hoping there are some unusual gems of madness to be found there. Sadly, all too many such science-denier sites are filled with nothing but ordinary "cut glass" madness . . . so, rather boring for the gem fossicker.
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nigelj at 13:17 PM on 10 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Eclectic @20, well I'm stuck at home in covid 19 lock down of severe proportions, so I have a bit of time to read long screeds and respond. You say denialists dont use their intelligence I say its deliberate stupidity, perhaps these are different sides of the same coin. And thanks for your screed its definitely of interest.
I've only visted WUWT about 5 times, and it was an awful experience so that was enough. I do still like to see both sides of the climate issue, but I tend do do it on our local denialist website that I linked above.
Several posts in the comments section of WUWT comments section were similar, in that were very technical and definitely from people with a good science education, and quite correct looking at the start, although not terribly germane, then you got to the last paragraph which was usually the "punch line" and it invariably had a huge blunder that a secondary school student should be able to see, and it null and voided all their previous points. Its mystifying how someone can be so technically well versed and then make such a huge obvious blunder. Perhaps this is them doing your "suppressing seeing the bleeding obvious", and just why they do this is not clear but its certainly a notable phenomenon.
The denialists so often have extreme political views that one suspects this is the underlying reason they "just dont see" plus perhaps some people are psychologically hard wired not to see. Political tribalism and ideologies can become fervent and extreme and could switch off part of the brains logical centre without the person even knowing. As a result they spout rubbish absolutely convinced they are right.
My politics is a bit tepid and centrist so probably doesn't strongly influence my evaluation of science in that way, at a guess. But those on the right seem "just not to see" with alarming frequency.
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David B. Benson at 13:10 PM on 10 April 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
The site is moderated.
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David B. Benson at 12:55 PM on 10 April 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
And another error: the BNC Discussion Forum is moderated. Post facto, same as here.
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Eclectic at 12:32 PM on 10 April 2020YouTube's Climate Denial Problem
Since the SkS scene is a bit quiet at the moment (a covid-19 effect?) , I take the liberty of doing some more waffling about the notorious WUWT website. So my apologies for this long post.
WUWT claims to be the world's "most viewed site" for global warming and climate change ~ and I have seen no evidence disproving WUWT 's possession of the crown for most popular Climate Denial echo-chamber website status.
As mentioned above, WUWT has a rapid churn of headlines to keep its fans interested & clicking-on frequently. Proprietor Anthony Watts claims WUWT receives no subsidy from the fossil fuel industries ~ I don't know if this was so in its early days, but it could well be so nowadays. (There are of course many ways in which secret sponsors can covertly channel funds indirectly to WUWT or associated entities . . . but that's not immediately relevant to the site's anti-science activities.) Judging by the large range of of on-line advertising at the WUWT site, it seems there is no shortage of dollar income ~ and it also suggests that the on-line advertising agencies have examined & confirmed a high rate of traffic going to the website.
Nigelj and OPOF ~ my earlier wording that many of the regular WUWT commenters "are thick as two short planks" . . . was a colloquialism, and was not meaning that Denialists are of lower IQ than the general population. AFAIK, there is no evidence that Denialists have an average IQ lower than logical thinkers have. Yes, most of the WUWT commenters are "pretty average" [another colloquialism!]. But as always ~ it is not whether you are intelligent but whether you actually use the intelligence you have.
And there are indeed [a few] highly intelligent commenters at WUWT. My favorite is Willis Eschenbach. Very intelligent, and he has a sense of humor I like . . . but despite his analytical skills, he nevertheless has a "Dark Side" twist in his psyche ~ such that he always fails in the end to reach the destination of logical synthesis of the full context of the climate issue. I reckon he has a combination of Motivated Reasoning and Doublethink. Like so many (all?) Denialists, he somehow manages ultimately to suppress seeing the Bleeding Obvious.
# There are certain neurological conditions [often, from stroke] where the brain fails to identify the human face, or other objects. Climate Denialists achieve that status, sometimes wilfully perhaps . . . but eventually it becomes an automatic mental habit to "not see" what their emotions don't want to see.
Nigelj , as I mentioned earlier, it surely must be that the WUWT Moderators allow Nick Stokes as a token example of their "non-discrimination" policy. But there is yet another example ~ Steven Mosher. Mosher does not come from the strong scientific background of Stokes . . . but over the years he has gained his stripes as a scientist (in a de-facto manner). IIRC, Mosher was at first rather climate-skeptical, and joined the original BEST project in a sort of literary capacity. And when the BEST project eventually confirmed the mainstream climate science data, he accordingly "converted" to become a mainstreamer.
As a convert from "skepticism" , Mosher is loathed and hated by the bulk of WUWT commenters. Mosher's style is usually not to go into details on how the OP or fellow commenters have messed up or been stupid . . . but he more often issues a one-liner to point out an error, or he merely says [in effect] : "Sigh. You've gotten it wrong again." Unsurprisingly, this enrages many of the Denialists.
Stokes is hated too, and is hated also because he is unfailingly correct , and the Denialists can find no chinks in his scientific armor ~ not that the Denialists at WUWT would ever change their viewpoint merely because someone publicly proves them wrong !
In the past, WUWT had a system where registered commenters could vote a Like or a Dislike to any post in the Comments column. Run-of-the -mill Deniaist comments sometimes garnered one or two or a handful of Likes. But I always found it amusing to see how every comment by Stokes or Mosher was immediately garnering 20 - 50 Dislikes ! (In a way, it's pity this Like/Dislike barometer got scrubbed.)
# Over my years of observation, there have not really been any other "anti-Denialists" to stay the course in the hostile environment at the WUWT comments columns. Some appear for a little while, then disappear ~ mostly by being censored I think (but doubtless, a few have become tired & disgusted). Yet I also detect a few who (after banning) resurrect themselves under a new pseudonym. However, in recent months WUWT has introduced a new stricter regime of registration to make resurrection far more difficult. ( It also raises your risk of being doxxed.)
And no, I myself don't post at WUWT. The denizens there are largely rabid political ultra-extremists, quite uncharitable to humanity as a whole. There are also some (apolitical or non-partisan) scientific crackpots. But all are hard-core deniers of climate science, and they show zero inclination to become sane.
# If you examine the bulk of WUWT posted articles, you see a strong undercurrent of petulant and childish propaganda slant. Clearly WUWT is essentially aiming at the Lowest Common Denominator of everyday Denialists. (Some Denialist websites exist, which are slightly more high-brow e.g. Judith Curry's and Roy Spencer's .) But for rampant psychopathology, my "vote" goes to WUWT.
My apologies once again for the long post. I hope readers have found elements informative and/or entertaining.
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David B. Benson at 10:28 AM on 10 April 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
It is time to move beyond the linear no-threshold theory ...
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David B. Benson at 10:25 AM on 10 April 2020Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?
The BEIR VII Executive Summary is the only part with the serious statistical error which is used to support LNT. The body of the report states that there is no evidence of the effects of low-level ionizing radiation.
I will attempt to send one of the supporting links from my prior, but 29 entry, not 100+, link to BNC Discussion Forum. It will, I hope, be in the following message.
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