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chriskoz at 16:14 PM on 4 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
More detailed press release of the most interesting detail of this video: 1.5C being the "tipping point" of the large PF melt (based on the stalactites growth radioactive dating by Anton Vaks) can be found here in Oxford Uni press in Science 21 Feb 2013, DOI: 10.1126/science.1228729if you have an access.
Interesting study worth close attention. Confirms Jim Hnasen's opinion that "danegerous" level of global warming is not beyond 2 degrees: we should limit it to 1 degree to avoid the "danger".
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dana1981 at 15:55 PM on 4 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Ken @92 - our data are based entirely on measurements. Ocean heat content was measured by expendable bathythermographs before the ARGO network was built. The data are sparser in the past, particularly for the deeper ocean layers, but the data exist nonetheless.
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Philip Shehan at 15:28 PM on 4 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Tom Curtis: In your reply to my reference to Lord Monckton's use of the Australian's version of Pachuari's views, you comment on "skeptics" silence on Monckton's views.
He is indeed too rich for some "skeptics" liking, including Australian Senator Barnaby Joyce and conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen:
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the eccentric UK climate sceptic, is proving too hot for some of Australia’s most prominent climate sceptics — including Barnaby Joyce.
Joyce, who famously said that climate change sceptics were being treated like holocaust deniers and likened environmental campaigners to eco-Nazis, believes Monckton is on the fringe of the debate and unhelpful to those who question human induced climate change...
On Wednesday conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian wrote that Monckton was an extremist in his language and is hurting the cause of those who want to ask hard questions of the science.
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Stephen Leahy at 12:30 PM on 4 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
Schaefer has said that permafrost tipping pt might be only 15 years from now. That was before some new research in Feb this year showing that permafrost carbon exposed to sunlight turns into CO2 40% faster. All of which is to say: time to wound down the use of fossil fuels.
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Stephen Leahy at 12:18 PM on 4 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Nice work Andy. Public surveys show that +80% of Canadians want their environment protected EVEN if it slows economic growth or costs them money. (Environics Research pdf)
I wonder if denial is truly at heart of the matter or simply lack of awareness that Canada is fouling its own nest and profitting from what might one day be known as 'the crime of the century'?
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Eternal Consumption Engine at 11:50 AM on 4 March 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
First posting on this website. Greetings to all.
My estimate for 2013 minimum ice volume is 2221 km^3 based on the steepening trend seen in the last 6 years of the PIOMAS graph. If assymetric error margins are permitted, I will say +2500/-500 km^3 based on 2500 being roughly the amount of lumpiness in that section of the graph and -500 on an unsubstantiated hunch about the most northerly part of the ice sheet being the hardest to melt.
Based on the earlier mention that research crews are now having to 'hunt' for ice thickness of 2m and taking that as a crude average thickness, my prediction for ice extent works out to 1,110,600 km^2, or a radius of ~595 km, if it were perfectly centered on the pole (c.f. ~700km from north coast of Greenland to the pole). -
barry1487 at 11:45 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
(Sorry about the poor grammar. Hopefully it's not too difficult to amend my syntax on on the fly)
"It would have been enough to post here making the point that the Bloggies' science awards are about popularity and/or fanaticism, and eschewing the nomination without actually withdrawing. (Had SkS won and thereafter publicly reiterated this position, that would have been a stronger, as well as good-natured, stand)"
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barry1487 at 11:36 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
The principle for SkS has nothing to do with the awards criteria. Withdrawing misses the point in favour of declaring a preferred context (quality, not quantity). The woeful 'skeptic' blogs are ideological in nature and political in motivation. Pulling out is also political. It's a protest, isn't it?
It would have been enough to post here making the point that the Bloggies' science awards are popularity and/or fanaticism, and eschewing the nomination without actually withdrawing. (Had SkS won and thereafter publicly reiterated this position, which would have been a much stronger, as well as good-natured, stand) I don't think any use is served by withdrawing. It won't change anyone's mind in the denialist camp, or fence-sitters. Indeed, it will more likely reinforce the 'skeptics' and look like sour grapes to more neutral types. The defense of science by protesting a popularity contest? I don't think it's a good decision.
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Steve Metzler at 10:47 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
'Best anti-science blog' does have a certain ring to it. Isn't it just so... quaint that the typical Watts sycophant thinks they're doing 'real science', and that all the actual climate scientists are corrupt losers who can't even manage to walk and chew gum at the same time? Dunning-Kruger writ large, with a generous helping of right wing authoritarianism on the side (cyber bullies is what they actually are).
What I like best is that a lot of their armchair theories contradict each other, but they rarely call each other out. As long as it goes against established scientific findings regarding AGW, it's OK by Anthony. He's becoming more strident by the week, and it's long past the point of descending into farce/jumping the shark. -
EliRabett at 10:26 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
So John, you are a Marxist
Groucho type.
Moderator Response: [DB] Extraneous empty lines snipped. -
Tom Curtis at 10:00 AM on 4 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
brent @12, whether an obscure American journalist or the most renown English preacher was the author of the quote is easilly checked. The facts are, although the quote is often attributed to Twain, no such attribution also cites a source. In contrast, it is to be found in black and white in a book published by Spurgeon in 1858 (page 74). Spurgion writes:
'It is well said in the old proverb, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on."'
As I presume Spurgeon was not lying, it follows that neither Twain nor Spurgeon were the author of the quote, though apparently Spurgeon was the first to put it in print.
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brent at 09:28 AM on 4 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Alces @ 5 and John @ 5. I'll leave it to readers to consider whether the pithy quotation is more likely to have been coined by an obscure English Baptist preacher or his almost exact contemporary, one of the best humorists of all times. But the reason I was interested in the attribution is that it's given as Mark Twain when the quote is used as the heading to chapter 12 of a tome entitled, 'The Hockey Stick And The Climate Wars'. The copy I have in front of me claims the author of this is a certain Michael E Mann.
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Ken in Oz at 09:10 AM on 4 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Wide use of surface air temperatures as the primary measure and indicator of global warming is an ongoing communications problem. The excessive focus - it seems to me, even by climate scientists - on a measure that has high levels of internal variability allows and encourages the false perception that anthropogenic global warming is an intermittent phenomena. When the strong desire to find cause to disbelieve science on climate - without the genuine skeptic's desire to be well informed or truthful or fair-minded - the idea that the world is not currently warming gains traction. Measures of heat content such as the graph used clearly show that warming has not slowed or paused and looks like a better representation of the ongoing fundamental change to our climate system - yet it is surface air temperatures, not overall heat content or top of atmosphere changes that get the attention.
But - how much is the Nuccitelli graph based on direct measurements? Even if the data record for ocean heat content doesn't go back as far as air temperaures accurate data about recent changes to ocean and overall heat content should help to put to rest the "pause in warming" misunderstandings.
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AndyS at 08:27 AM on 4 March 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #9
Another typo seeral => several
Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed; thanks! -
tmac57 at 08:23 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Tom Curtis- Thanks for the info, I was under the mistaken impression that The Weblog voting allowed an individual to vote once per day for the open period of voting,which could allow for a zealous group to bombard the poll way beyond the relative popularity of their choice. Maybe I was confusing their poll with another blogs poll,or maybe they changed their methods at some point. Thanks again.
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Bob Loblaw at 08:06 AM on 4 March 201316 years - Update and Frequently Asked Questions
...and mdenison shows us what a true skeptic does. Performs his own analysis, fInds an interesting, potential conflict between his results and someone elses, asks questions, gets answers, checks his work, and then comes back and openly admits that he was on the wrong track.
Kudos for having he courage to ask, and the courage to admit a mistake.
For others, the ongoing discussion at Tamino's is here.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:58 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Magma:
I didn't intend by my wording to imply that I didn't believe you as to the source of the quote. Exactly who said it wasn't relevent to my criticism of the statement, so I just didn't bother trying to verify it.
If I were writing a scientific paper, the correct way to reference the quote would be something like "the founder of the bloggies posted ...(as quoted by Magma, in comment X)". I don't have direct knowledge of the quote myself, so I didn't want to say "the founder said..." without qualification - so I chose the wording I used to indicate that my knowledge was based on your statement, rather than me seeing the post myself.
Sorry for the confusion.
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Tom Curtis at 07:50 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
tmac57 @49, the Bloggies already have a mechanism to avoid multiple voting by a single person. From their site, there mechanism for doing so is to restrict voting to one vote per email account, which is easy to game. Never-the-less, finding a more effective method would be difficult.
The problem with the Bloggies science award is that best is not the same as most popular. WUWT is more popular than Skeptical Science because it tells a lot of people exactly what they want to hear, while Skeptical Science requires that you think (an ever unpopular activity). That means Skeptical Science has far better content than WUWT in terms of scientific accuracy, so it is a better science blog. That can be seen in the fact that it has recieved an award judged by scientists, and is used as source material in several university level courses. Yet on any strictly popularity based contest, WUWT will beat Skeptical Science.
What is worse, however, is that there are general science or technical blogs that are far more popular than WUWT that still do not win because, as it turns out, their readers are not motivated enough, or their writers do not respect the bloggies enough to ask them to, vote for that blog on the bloggies. The Bloggies uses an unscientific polling method to determine the winner of each category, and unsurprisingly, as a result gets nonsense results for its "Best Science" category (and probably in other categories as well).
As the owner seems uninterested in correcting the problem, he has confined his award to irrelevance.
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mdenison at 07:48 AM on 4 March 201316 years - Update and Frequently Asked Questions
Re my comment #26. Tamino replied and as a result of what he wrote I realized I had made an error. In fact both methods give very similar results. I think I misled myself whe my results backed up what I though I had read about the T Smethods. My apolgies.
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AndyS at 06:30 AM on 4 March 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #9
"The article about the Bloogies award"
Typo there, though Bloogies would be a good band name
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helenavargas at 06:24 AM on 4 March 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
[N.B. A new arrival to this blog, driven by hoards of denialists and trolls pretty much everywhere. Retired physics prof, mostly lurker, rarely comment.]
Delighted to see the recursion infinite loop on CT/denialism explored quantitatively! Still in my own infinite loop with internal debate on (A) DNFTT vs. (B) responsible engagement with scientifically honest critiques. My own discriminator between the two just isn't able to keep pace with the rapidly propagating rage.
Greatly appreciate the calm, rational insights from most regular commenters. Also grateful for the moderators!
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Magma at 05:50 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
DSL @50 and Bob Loblaw @54, there is a link to the Guardian article quoting the founder of the Bloggies in the first paragraph of the lead post.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:22 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All gives a quote (s)he attributes to Truzzi that says:
"Evidence in science is always a matter of degree and is seldom if ever absolutely conclusive. Some proponents of anomaly claims, like some critics, seen unwilling to consider evidence in probabilistic terms, clinging to any slim loose end as though the critic must disprove all evidence ever put forward for a particular claim."
...and then immediately follows it with a sentence that says
"If we allow ourselves to diminish doubts,by black balling, name calling and unwilling to consider that science is unsettled,"
...in which "unsettled" is used as an absolute, without regard to the probablistic nature of "unsettled". Apparently, in Climate4All's view of science, the failure to provide absolute conclusions means things are "unsettled". This is a spectacularly useless definition of "unsettled", and is part of the "Merchants of Doubt" playbook that tries to pretend that little is known about [climate] science. Noone that has seriously read the IPCC reports or the climate science literature can pretend that real scientists ignore the uncertainty in the science. The claims of certainty and unwillingness for self-criticism and true skepticism are far more common on the "it's not happening, and we're not causing it anyway" side.
AFAIK, physicists haven't come up with a Unified Theory yet, and an explanation of what causes gravity, but I sure as heck advise against jumping off a tall building without a parachute as a means of demonstrating that the science of gravity is "unsettled".
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Bob Loblaw at 05:01 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Magma attributes this to the founder of the Bloggies:
"But it seems that science blogs would rather complain about the results than try to submit nominations themselves"
To me, this is analagous to putting up a bird feeder to attract pretty birds, having nothing but squirrels show up to eat the feed, and then saying it's the the fault of the birds. I suppose it's an easy out when one doesn't want to make any effort to design a bird feeder that is more attractive to birds and doesn't let the squirrels in.
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BillEverett at 03:39 AM on 4 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Ray@9, I am not forgetting population expansion
I hope the third-world people have the desire to raise their standard of living, but I don't know to what extent it is true
To see the world I would like to see in 2050, it would be absolutely necessary to raise their standard of living, but this needs to be done by leapfrogging the old model of technological progress and providing distributed clean energy sources on a massive scale. There exist analyses indicating that this is technologically and economically feasible.
We have been able to adequately feed the entire world population for at least the last twenty years but have not done so: political will and/or skill has been lacking. Perhaps (maybe most likely) the 2050 I envision also will not happen because of lack of political will and skill.
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Eclectikus at 03:18 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Hi Paul D. Do you mean more authoritive that Richard Feynman? That is a hard task ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science#Economics
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Paul D at 03:06 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Cheers Eclectikus I have been wanting to find an authoritive figure to reference regarding economics being pseudo-science.
Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed link. -
Eclectikus at 02:54 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Well, I can agree with a good part of your discourse (DSL #47). But I read often people like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Sr. and is difficult to me accept that they are "denialist" or that their blogs are pseudoscience. I can accept they are wrong just in the same way that you can find mistakes here in Skeptical Science, but cross that line seems to me at least an exaggerated position.
Yeah, I am aware that Climatology can be everything but "soft", my impresion is that some of the essential mechanisms have been well explained, and there is a good consensus in some directions. But everyone knows there is many other issues that remain unexplained, and the scientific dispute is perfectly legitimate. SkS (and many others at several levels) spreads the offitial position coming from IPCC, and others (also in an heterogeneal mixture) broadcasts other views... Can anything be more healthy? Mi answer to this question is that "no way".
Said this, coming back to the Bloggies, I think that SkS should not have resigned, they/you have nothing to loose, and at least one thing to win: place a pro-IPCC blog between "the best" Science Blogs. People arriving to that list could compare, and ultimately change their vote for successive years. Now they will see only one side of the discussion, and this is always a bad thing. IMHO.
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DSL at 02:34 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Magma, can the lazy get a live link for that quote?
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tmac57 at 02:33 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Since part of the problem,as pointed out by several commenters,is that the voting is more a sign of zealousness,as opposed to popularity,maybe the Weblog Awards could get around that by restricting the voting to only one vote per person.Not a cure,but that would prevent 'ballot stuffing' so to speak.
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Magma at 02:21 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Some 'awards' are not worth the effort. As The Guardian quotes the Bloggies founder:
But it seems that science blogs would rather complain about the results than try to submit nominations themselves, so I'm not very motivated. No point in eliminating sceptic blogs from the category when there's not much down the list to replace it with.
Why play in a rigged game when the prize is worth so little?
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DSL at 01:55 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Not necessarily different, no. As with the widespread "if by whiskey" arguments using "catastrophic," the term "alarmism" can mean many things to many people. To me, the current rate of drop in ocean pH is alarming, because acidification events damage sealife, disrupt ecology, and threaten the food supply, and the current rate of drop is likely unprecedented (Honisch et al. 2012). It wouldn't be so alarming if I knew that the world was preparing to do something about it. Instead, the world is being successfully influenced by fake skeptic blogs that claim it's no big deal.
If you look carefully (actually a brief glance will do) at the history of CA, WUWT, Jo Nova, et al., you'll see that advancement of the science is not at all a concern. These sites attack climate science. They do not work with scientists to advance the science, and they never have. The rhetoric on these sites screams, "climate science is a hoax! Doubt! Doubt! Doubt!" I would not characterize them as "pseudoscience." I understand what Feynman is saying re sociology and psychology. They are necessarily "soft" because humans are extraordinarily complex, and we have to read ourselves from within our current historical moment, the bias toward which is quite difficult to overcome. Feynman doesn't account for the more recent advances in cognitive science and the converging sciences of psychology and biochemistry.
Climate science is, in general, not "soft" in that way. The physical processes involved are studied in the usual scientific way, and that study is thoroughly grounded in physics, chemistry, and biology. Climate modeling has a "soft" aspect simply because the human response is involved. The variable with the greatest range of movement in all climate modeling regimes is the human response.
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Eclectikus at 01:16 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Okay, thank you DSL #45. Yes basically I had the computer models in mind. Anyway I'm talking about Climate alarmism as pseudoscience, not about Climate Change, and Climatology as a whole. Please, note these are very different things, isn't it?.
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DSL at 01:05 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Ecletikus, you say: "they are no susceptiuble of falsability, and fail to fulfill the Scientific Method." Precisely what are you talking about? The fundamental theory has been tested in lab, inferred from satellite (MODIS), and directly measured from surface (e.g. Puckrin et al. 2004). Are you on just about modeling? If so, say so. Blanket coverage usually gets a body into trouble. If it iss about modeling, perhaps you could list your specific complaints on the appropriate thread.
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DSL at 01:00 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All: "For Gods sake people, engage one another."
I thought you said you weren't interested in discussing the science. -
Eclectikus at 01:00 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Hi all!Just a note about pseudoscience. The term itself is a modern term who started on XX century. The pejorative connotation is still more modern, coming from probably when it was linked with homeopathy, astrology and so on...For example, Feynman includes Social Science and Economy on pseudosciences (but without the pejorative tone): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtMX_0jDsrwI am almost sure that Feynman would do the same with Climate Alarmism today (again without the pejorative tone), because in many senses, suffers of identical failures than Economy, Sociology... they are no susceptiuble of falsability, and fail to fulfill the Scientific Method.To say that blogs as WUWT, and many other in the same wave are pseudoscience crap, says nothing about these blogs and a lot about the people claiming that. IMHO you better should ask yourself why people read skeptics blogs more than others, and where are the differences.Best Regards. -
Tom Curtis at 00:36 AM on 4 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Ray @9, so what? Australia can afford its $23 AU per tonne carbon price applied to the largest poluters only. California, presumably, can afford its $13 AU per tonne carbon price applied to a wider range of entities. The fact that the two carbon prices apply to different ranges of entities means a simple comparison of price does not tell you the relative costs of the schemes, but that is beside the point.
The key point is that both Australia and California, by implimenting a carbon price, will find their economies adapting to a low carbon economy. That means both will be well placed economically when global agreements on carbon pricing are eventually implemented, at which time their carbon prices will be brought into line with each other, either by design or by trading between different carbon markets.
In contrast, nations and states with no carbon price will either come into a global carbon pricing system with high emissions because they have not already started adapting; and hence at high cost - or worse, based on the fear of that possibility will hold up the implementation of a global scheme to the disadvantage of us all.
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Ray at 00:14 AM on 4 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Bill Everett@8 You're forgetting the expansion in the human population plus the desire of those in third world countries to attain the living standards of the first world will alsmost certainly lead to higher CO2 production. And Tom Curtiis@7 you state iron ore can be turned to steel using arc furnaces or charcoal. But is this actually happening? And as for the Clifornian Cap and trde the auction in February was $US13. 62 (about $A13 for each 2013 allowance and $US10.71 (about $A10.00 ?for each 2016 allowance. Neither is close to the $A23.00 price set by Australia.
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shoyemore at 23:10 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All
Words like pseudoscience or anti-science were never used about Copernicus, Gallileo or Newton becasue the term "scientist" was not even coined until the 19th century.
"Skepticism" is the Apple-pie of denialism. Who could possibly be against "scepticism"? But I think true scepticism is the recognition of the provisional nature of scientific knowledge, and that it will change is response to observations. What do you say to someone who refuses to assimilate and understand evidence, who continually shifts the goalposts and who regurgitates arguments already refuted?
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BillEverett at 23:01 PM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Tom Curtis@5, I won't debate what might or might not happen by 2050 regarding the legal status of non-permitted emissions nor whether criminal penalties ahould be added to civil penalties, etc. It's off-topic. I won't discuss the details of possible 2050 visions here unless those details are directly relevant to assessing whether the existence of a widely shared vision of the future, now only 37 years away, might be useful in reducing implicatory denial. The question I raised is what to do about implicatory denial, i.e., the large middle (in many cases, the majority) of people distributed from active denialists to climate researchers and activists. The middle believes the science, believes AGW is a serious problem, believes something should be done about, BUT continues BAU and doesn't demand appropriate action from government and business. My question is why are they in the implicatory denial state and what might suffice to make some of their behaviors conform to their beliefs.
Ray@6, I have a good idea of the distribution of wealth and life styles around the globe and can envision a quite different world in 2050, for example, a world in which almost nobody cooks with wood or animal dung.
In Calhoun's 1968 lecture at the AAAS meeting in Dallas, Texas, a simple model was presented involving five historical revolutions and two future revolutions. The historical revolutions were identified as the traditional-sapient revolution (about 33710 BC), the living-agricultural revolution (about 8157 BC), the authoritarian-religious revolution (about 519 BC), the holistic-artistic revolution (about 1391 AD), and the scientific-exploitive revolution (about 1868 AD). The future revolutions were identified as the communication-electronic revolution (about 1988 AD) and the compassionate-systems revolution (about 2018 AD). It seems to me that Calhoun was reasonably accurate regarding the communication-electronic revolution, a "new perspective of life as an information exchange network and ... the development of theories and electronic technologies for the transfer and condensing of information as the means for enhanced coping," which is particularly surprising to me given the simplicity of his model. If his prediction regarding the compassionate-systems revolution is just as accurate, which I hope it is, then the world will be very different two decades from now.
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Tom Curtis at 22:26 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All @36:
"I think the thing I most disagree with is the aggravated use of negative discriptives to label others."
Climate4All on his blog:
"Men of science that support ‘climate change’ use unethical and deceitful rhetoric in order to maintain the control and flow of money to support the biggest scam in the history of Western Civilization."
The phrase "stunning hypocrissy" comes to mind. Clearly he does not want to practise what he preaches, but rather simply objects to accurate descriptions being applied to AGW deniers.
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Tristan at 22:21 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
A climate change contrarian would call a properly skeptical blog 'warmist'. It was a joke.
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CBDunkerson at 21:56 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
The 'bloggies' are fine for awards on social topics. They would probably even be fine for factual topics if there weren't large anti-fact communities. However, since that isn't the case I'd agree that boycotting makes sense.
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Tom Curtis at 21:54 PM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Ray @6, it would help if you were better informed. Specifically, diesel and petrol are not exempted from the carbon tax. Rather, the tax is charged against them by withholding of fuel tax credits equal to the value of the carbon tax. As fuel tax credits are only available to business as a means of defraying the cost of the fuel excise, this means only business the carbon tax on petrol and diesel, just as (by design) only business pays the carbon tax directly at all.
You are equally misinformed about iron ore, which can be turned to steel with low or zero CO2 emissions either by using arc furnaces and/or by using charcoal as the reducing agent. Consequently there is no need to limit the export of iron ore per se.
While it would be desirable to limit coal production, this is best done by the purchasing countries imposing their own carbon tax at sufficiently high rates, whereupon Australian coal will become uneconomic as a fuel source. Reducing coal production by this method minimizes economic disruption both in Australia and for our trade partners. In that context, it is noteworthy that the major purchaser of Australian coal, China, is introducing a carbon tax. However, I certainly am against expansion of Australia's coal industry and consider moves to do so by Campbell Neuman (Queensland's Premier) foolhardy beyond belief. That is both because of the long term threat of global warming, and because if CO2 emissions are not curtailed soon Queensland's Great Barrier Reef will soon (withing forty years) be destroyed. In that event, Neuman by expanding coal exports when he should have been preparing for their reduction will justly be titled the Premier that destroyed Queensland's greatest natural treasure.
The EU's carbon price is low because of two design flaws, the allowing of stock piling of carbon credits; and the legislated allocation of carbon credits that did not respond to the fall in economic activity generated by the global financial crisis in 2008. These are desing flaws that can be avoided by learning from experience, as for example, by California.
Following your approach of finding in each little obstacle an absolute barrier to furthe progress, we would have abandoned democracy long ago because Hitler was democratically elected. We, however, do not need to be so foolish. The task before us is managable provided we act now and not hide from the facts because we might find an appropriate response inconvenient.
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chriskoz at 20:57 PM on 3 March 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #9
"Australian climate outlook remains bleak" not because Tony Abbot is destined to become new PM but because people still see Climate Change as a partisan issue here. And within the leading parties themselves, there is no sign of bipartisan approach as in the scase of U.S. security establishment repoted in the last article.
That's IMO a better measure of progress towards climate change mitigation rather than the fact that AUS has CTax introduced while US has not. When the major political force (Libs) can get away with the claims that the whole effort is "the hoax based on the lie" and score favourable polls based on that, something must be wrong with the mindset of that electorate. Why can Tony Abbott ride his career on such pure and silly denial about climate change issue? Because we as large public have not grown up to tackle the issue yet. Have we shown that we've grown up, Tony would change his mind about it very quickly.
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jyyh at 20:36 PM on 3 March 20132013 SkS News Bulletin #2: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline
I've been waiting The Onion to comment on this, but so far nothing.
"State department OKs a useless and ineffective pipeline", or something like that.
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chriskoz at 19:15 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
I don't read all of those "bloggies" competeing for some abstract "award" so I'm not even qualified to comment here. All I read is useful articles and comments that can enhance my knowledge about the world. with respect to climate science, SkS and RC, and ocasionally other sites referred therein, are such sites.
I appreciate the quality of moderation making such sites as SkS & RC so clean of rubish that internet is otherwise full of. Thanks guys for your good work! BTW, a post by Tristan at 14:37 PM on 3 March, 2013 falls into the category of nonsense sloganeering that should be deleted. Thanks!
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Ray at 18:00 PM on 3 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Bill Everett you seem unaware that the majority of humans don't dwell in the G20 countries. All of the items on which you comment are well beyond the financial abilities of many of the countries in the so called third world. Unfortunately the denizens and the governments of these countries have food, shelter, treatment of endemic disease, increasing population longevity, reducing deaths in childbirth, as far higher priorities than lmiting their CO2 emissions. And Tom Curtis if you really, really want Australia to cut CO2 emissions, agitate for the abolition of coal and iron ore exports by Australian companies. As you must know even though on a per capita basis Australia is a high CO2 emitter, the small population means we don't contribute much to global CO2 levels from our own use of fossil fuels. Interestingly, I wonder why the government excluded petrol and diesel oil fron the CO2 tax. Perhaps that omission should be remedied. And why, do you think, is the European ETS now trading at around $6 per tonne rather than $23 per tonne?
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NewYorkJ at 17:33 PM on 3 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All, in your response to DSL in 27,
"If we were to judge this post as an assumption of the overall content..."
At first I thought this was an indication of generaly naiveity about wuwt, but in your latest comment
"I was a big WUWT reader..."
Now it's more likely an exercise in obtusity. DSL'e examples are pretty representative of the kind of material wuwt has (as you should be well aware of) - the regular and blatant misrepresentations it engages in. There are fundamental differences between this type of site and that of wuwt. This site is careful to represent the peer-reviewed science accurately, to take a good faith look at the evidence. It's not perfect, and occasional mistakes are made, but what wuwt does is nothing more than political propaganda. That is not a pre-determined conclusion, as you are implying here. It's a conclusion formed from plenty of observations, and these observations are very well-documented here.
I'm more sympathetic to your argument on labels. After using "warmista" and "alarmist" on your blog, maybe you have had a change of heart. I don't care what labels people use, as long as someone doesn't cry foul about it then proceed to cast similar labels.
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Tom Curtis at 17:21 PM on 3 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Phil Shehan, not at all off topic, IMO. It also shows that when Monckton told a mob in Sydney,
"So to the bogus scientists who have produced the bogus science that invented this bogus scare I say, we are coming after you, we are going to prosecute you and we are going to lock you up!"
it was not just hyperbole. Monckton by his actions, and Nova by here approval, show that given the ability, the denier movement will resort to any legal expedient to ensure nobody hears the truth about climate change.
It may be considered unfair to tarnish all deniers with this brush, but until Watts, the Pielke's, Lindzen etc renounce Monckton and his totalitarian methods and flamboyent disregard for truth, they must be considered to approve of them. He who remains silent, consents.
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