Steve McIntyre (Comment #100000)
July 25th, 2012 at 5:33 pm Edit ThisI win #100000.
Wow!
For a variety of reasons, The Blackboard displays the actual ID numbers from the comment database. Yesterday, Steve McIntyre saw he’d posted 99999 and quickly posted a follow up, thus grabbing the distinction of posting comment number 100000. Congratulations Steve!
A few people are noticing comments appear misordered if they use CA Assistant or Greasemonkey plugins. I don’t know why that might be, but I suspect that those programming that plugin never expected to see comment numbers as high as 100000. That would be a reasonable expectation at most blogs who use dynamic comment numbers starting with “1” for the first comment in each thread. My method ensures comment numbers do not change if I delete a comment but it’s not commonly used.
If you are noticing comments mis-ordered and are using a browser extension that adds features to comments, the problem might be your browser plugin. Let me know if you are having problems and we can try to figure out a work around.
Meanwhile, chat about whatever else you like. Maybe not larvae though. That’s just not nice.
Has anyone looked at Esper 2012 yet? I’ve only skimmed it but it would seem that their choice of trees would reduce the precipitation issue since the trees are all very near lakes.
bob
The effect of luke-warmers’ contributions has been to sow doubt in the public mind about the credibility of the scientific warnings and the need to respond, just as Exxon-funded think tanks have.
Worse than deniers, you lot! 🙂
Somehow that just seems so appropriate.
BarryW– That Steve got comment 100,000? I got a kick out of that!
I hope the larvae issue isn’t something personal, just general yuckiness, because being a contrarian I had to Google “climate change” and larvae.
Surprising number of species get a mention just this month in Google News. Including Monarch Butterflies, oysters, crabs, seagulls (they eat the crab larvae), beetles of all kinds, trematodes (whatever they are), fish, krill, mayfly, mosquitoes (of course)……….
Either that’s the sound of the world falling apart or a thousand Hush Puppys jumping on a band wagon. Not sure which.
For those counting comments using the hexadecimal system that 100000 = 186A0 and doesn’t look at all special.
To fix comment ordering in CA Assistant click on the Settings link in the upper right hand corner of the page and uncheck the box for “Reorganize recent comments list’. You may have to click on ‘Save Settings’ and then open the settings box to actually display the settings.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #100034) —
I couldn’t find a “Settings link,” much less uncheck a box within it. But it is within my skill set to happily click the “CA Assistant” off and on, throwing in a few rounds of dis-enabling then re-enabling the Grease Monkey add-in.
Problem solved!
I got a kick out of snagging #100,000. I comment here more often than anywhere except CA.
Lucia commented at CA before starting her blog. In a sense, it’s a spin off and I’m gratified at that. Lucia has achieved her own distinctive voice, which all of us enjoy.
Lucia, congratulations on reaching this milestone, Steve Mc.
Re schnoerkelman (Comment #100029): It’s high time the alarmists and deniers all got together and stamped out this “pragmatic” nonsense for good! The only valid approach to climate science is who can screech the loudest!
HR, I think Lucia was referring to this masterful PR piece by Michael Mann.
It seems appropriate that Steve Mc. would garner the 100k award.
Thank God bugs didn’t snag it.
schnoerkelman (Comment #100029) – that piece by Clive Hamilton is an extraordinary rant where he manages to fit in 6 “denial”-type insults, throws in accusations of homophobia, racism, and sexism, and manages to avoid a trace of scientific backing for his ravings.
Extraordinary.
Congrats to Steve on the milestone. And congrats to Lucia for writing a blog well-deserving of so many comments!
And thanks to schnoerkelman (Comment #100029) for the heads-up on that rabid pile of vitriolic drivel by Hamilton. I left a comment, probably to no avail.
schnoerkelman (Comment #100029)
July 26th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
The effect of luke-warmers’ contributions has been to sow doubt in the public mind about the credibility of the scientific warnings and the need to respond, just as Exxon-funded think tanks have.
We are familiar with the tactics, arguments, and personnel of the denial industry. Yet there is a perhaps more insidious and influential line of argument that is preventing the world from responding to the warnings of climate science.
“Luke-warmists†may be defined as those who appear to accept the body of climate science but interpret it in a way that is least threatening: emphasising uncertainties, playing down dangers, and advocating a slow and cautious response.
They are politically conservative and anxious about the threat to the social structure posed by the implications of climate science. Their “pragmatic†approach is therefore alluring to political leaders looking for a justification for policy minimalism.
Worse than deniers, you lot!
================================
Not how I see it – worse than believers.
Because – both sides subscribe to the same fake fisics and so warmists are perpetuating the myth that this is based on real science basics.
Moreover, the big gun warmists like Monckton behave with the same appalling manners as they launch ad homs against those saying there is no Greenhouse Effect, and with the same pathetic excuses when asked to show proof that such a thing as the Greenhouse Effect exists – refusing to fetch any actual empirical physics to show it exists.
The Greenhouse Effect is fake fisics. That’s the bottom line.
If any here claim it isn’t – show and tell.
Since this is a topic where (most) anything can be discussed, I thought I’d share something that happened today. I had a comment deleted over at Skeptical Science. That isn’t surprising. What is surprising is the reason given for the deletion:
This part of their comments policy is sensible, and I have no problem with it. However, I’m hard pressed to imagine how this comment constitutes an “extended discussion”:
Apparently six sentences from a single commenter qualifies as an “extended discussion”!
Re: Brandon Shollenberger (Jul 27 06:19),
What I find most amusing is this part within the post he points to.
That matches fairly well with what you said, don’t ya think? That isn’t plotting things next to one another, that’s “patching” the data.
@Duke C. (Comment #100040)
Meh.
Heh. I did the same thing at Curry’s. And as far as luke warmers go, I am in no sense politically conservative. Way to pigeonhole team!
schnoerkelman,
The commentary you linked to includes:
“To agree with environmental critics that our social and economic system—its power structure, its inherent goals, the forms of behaviour it endorses—could so damage the Earth that our future, and that of the system itself, is now in peril would require them to discard their essential faith in the benevolence of the status quo.”
.
If you doubt the demands for immediate “action” on climate are based on left wing political philosophy (and a host of radical political goals intimately linked to that philosophy), you only need read the rants of folks like Clive Hamilton: a continuous volcano of political garbage offered as rational analysis.
I like this
Appear to accept? Anyway, this isn’t quite right. Lukewarmers accept the body of climate science but climate sensitivity will fall in the lower range of what has been projected. This isn’t “emphasizing uncertainties”– or at least it’s not emphasizing them any more than people who want to say that because things are uncertain we must behave as if warming will fall in the high range. Also it’s not “‘playing’ down the dangers”. It’s merely saying we think the most likely outcome is that warming will fall in the lower end. Of course that would mean the outcome would be less band than if we were “hell fire and brimstone warmers” who think the warming will fall in the upper range. But unless one says they ” ‘play up and exaggerate’ the dangers it’s ridiculous to say that we are ” ‘playing them down’. I think we merely have a difference of opinion on the probability distribution function describing the likelihood of different outcomes.
Also: some lukewarmers are for responding. But many of use want fairly heavy promtion of nuclear energy. But this view has little to do with being a lukewarmer. It’s just being pragmatic and wanting to promote methods that are certain to provide the energy we need.
Schnoerkelman:
It definitely matches what I said better than anything dana1981 said. However, what Phil Jones did is notably different (and worse) than what Michael Mann did, so it’s not the same as what I described. Of course, none of that will apparently matter if comments like this one by Tom Curtis are accepted by the Skeptical Science community which says (in part):
In other words, Mann says so, so it is true. And people who say otherwise should be mocked and insulted even as their evidence gets ignored.
SteveF,
I hesitate to wade into political discussions on this blog…although Lucia did say we could talk about anything except larvae! I get the feeling that I would disagree with a lot of folks here about lots of political topics – but I don’t think any reasonable person would generally accuse me of being radically left-wing. But I do want to note that with the linkage of environmentalism and left wing political philosophy, there is something of a chicken-egg issue here. That is, different people or groups come at it from either side of the linkage.
Chatting about whatever else I like…
Steven Goddard often posts about adjustments made by NCDC or USHCN to the temperature record, producing a manufactured warming bias. Such as here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/nothing-which-a-little-data-tampering-cant-fix/
What are the arguments refuting or supporting Goddard’s contentions? Serious question.
Re: SteveF (Jul 27 08:07),
That whole thing is a real work of art. I couldn’t resist posting it last night and angered the gods of too rapid posting but I had a good laugh before bed 🙂
What we need is a cartoon with Lucia sowing the seeds of doubt in her garden.
Re: Brandon Shollenberger (Jul 27 08:23),
This, I find, is the most disturbing aspect of all of the “debate”. It doesn’t seem to be sufficient to provide the math or code that demonstrate a problem to end discussion. Instead we have an endless stream of “he said, she said” and “trust them, they’re RCS (Real_Climate_Scientists)”.
Whatever happened to Nullius in verba?
Schnoerkelman, to be fair, he did say that was true “unless substantial evidence to the contrary exists.” Of course, getting him to admit such evidence exists would probably be impossible even though it obviously does exist.
BillC,
“….with the linkage of environmentalism and left wing political philosophy, there is something of a chicken-egg issue here. That is, different people or groups come at it from either side of the linkage.”
Well, sure. It is sometimes a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Both groups appear to want changes in the entire social and economic structure of civilization, even though they may be at bottom primarily motivated by different things. I want to emphasize “maybe”, because my experience is that the BillC’s of the world are the exception, not the rule. That is, “very green” and “very left” seem strongly correlated. Perhaps a more instructive differentiation would be a scale of inclination towards “public” versus “individual” control of what individuals can/cannot do, where “green” and “left” are in pretty much the same direction.
Re: AMac (Jul 26 20:49),
If you scroll all the way to the top of the page where you can see the banner, you should see in yellow in the upper right corner:
CA-Assist [Lucia] 0.0.9 (Build 41)
Settings Log
Click on settings. For me that usually brings up an empty window with Save Help and Check for Updates buttons on the bottom. Close it and open it again and you should see Enable Logging and Reorganize Recent Comments list check boxes. Remove the check from the Reorganize… box.
YMMV
Lucia,
“some lukewarmers are for responding. But many of use want fairly heavy promtion of nuclear energy. But this view has little to do with being a lukewarmer. It’s just being pragmatic and wanting to promote methods that are certain to provide the energy we need.”
.
Yes, and I think it is no coincidence that most of those who want to force restrictions on fossil fuel use are also strongly opposed to nuclear power. It seems to me that for most, the real demand is for rich people to greatly reduce energy use, or in other words, become more poor. The disagreement has never really been about science. Perhaps since shortly after Malthus, almost certainly since the Club of Rome started publishing their screeds, and without doubt since the first celebration of “Earth Day” in 1970, it has been a disagreement about values, morality, personal liberty, and the proper role of government. The specific science enlisted in the effort to institute social control over individual economic decisions has changed over time, as convenient, but whatever type of science has been enlisted, it has always been nothing more than politics masquerading as science.
Sorry for dwelling on this topic, but I just saw the most incredible comment I’ve ever seen on a blog before. Tom Curtis said:
I was rendered mostly speechless, saying only:
Wow Brandon… Reading that site is painful. I’ve rarely seen logic be so viciously tortured.
Oh and, congrats to Steve, and to Lucia! 100,000 is one long way to come.
SteveF,
Not to beat a dead horse, but I think there are more like me than you realize. Maybe not among active climate blog participants. But anyway I thought Tamsin’s Sceptical Compass post back in February was interesting. I’m definitely a lukewarmer on that one. At the time I took the Political Compass test she linked to (not having taken it before) and came out -3.8, -4.9 which is about “halfway” economic left/social libertarian (the opposites are economic right/social authoritarian though obviously any combination of 2 is possible). Anyway I just took it again and came up with -3.5, -4.8 which I suppose is statistically indistinguishable – though since all the answers are “strongly disagree/disagree/agree/strongly agree” I found myself answering “disagree” a lot based on how the questions are worded. (General lack of adverbial qualifiers e.g. “always”, “sometimes”). Anyway the one difference I note from then to now is I no longer consider Isaac Held’s blog obtuse as I stated in my comment at Tamsin’s.
I’m afraid my fun at Skeptical Science must end now. That response of mine vanished without any trace or indication as to why. Fortunately, I did retain a copy of it (and I took a screenshot after it got posted), so anyone can look at it and see if they feel it deserved to be deleted:
I think a comment like that simply vanishing is a sign Skeptical Science won’t let me discuss the matter anymore.
Well, Clive Hamilton moderates, so for posterity I’ll re-post my comment here:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 27, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I think you should research your pieces a bit more. You’ve managed to seriously mischaracterize Lukewarmers and misrepresent what they have written to a quite dramatic extent.
What we actually believe is not monolithic–as Lukewarmers don’t have a manifesto or a charter, there are differences that should be noted. But when you write “accept the body of climate science but interpret it in a way that is least threatening: emphasising uncertainties, playing down dangers, and advocating a slow and cautious response†you have done one of two things: Either failed to read what we actually write or chosen to ignore it to score political points. Because that quote is inaccurate of any Lukewarmer I’m familiar with.
However, one thread running through the writing of most Lukewarmers is that although we have no problem with the science informing the debate on climate change, we tend to agree with the many scientists who describe the state of knowledge about climate sensitivity and a few other relevant factors as far less developed than the physics that informed our understanding about the greenhouse effect and the role of anthropogenic contributions to it.
Characterizing us as politically conservative is laughably false to fact. I’m a progressive U.S. Democrat living in Nancy Pelosi’s district and I support both her and Barack Obama enthusiastically. Lomborg is a gay liberal professor from Denmark. Are you kidding? Calling him a conservative would give Rush Limbaugh a heart attack. The background of those involved in The Breakthrough Institute is similarly liberal, environmentally conscious and their writings address and dismiss conservative ideology and policy throughout their work.
You need to read someone besides Joe Romm or you will seriously embarrass yourself.
So what happened to my post?
There is no Greenhouse Effect – so whether you’re a lukewarmer or a rampant catastrophist makes no difference, you’re both using the same fake fisics – to the detriment of real science and the well-being of all.
The sleight of hand chieved by taking out the Water Cycle – without water the Earth would be around 67°C, think deserts. The Sun heats the Earth, the water cycle cools it bringing it down to 15°C (and Carbon Dioxide fully part of the Water Cycle).
There is no “Greenhouse Effect†– the “Greenhouse Effect” is the claim that “the Earth would be -18°C without greenhouse gases and that it’s the greenhouse gases which warm the Earth 33°C to 15°C.
For a start the -18°C is for the Earth without any atmosphere at all, that is, without any nitrogen or oxygen too.
There are no “greenhouse gases warming the Earth 33°C†from that -18°C figure, which is further falsely presented by AGW as being the Earth with an atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen. It’s a blatant fib.
The rest of the AGW fictional fisics is created to promote that fib, by tweaking real world physics terms and processes and swapping properties and so on. All designed to deliberately confuse, to keep the scam going as long as possible.
thomaswfuller2 (Comment #100073) —
As a (self-appointed) Lukewarmer, I will plead guilty to the charge of “advocating a slow and cautious response” to the threat of AGW.
First, because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If this evidence is scientific in nature, the supporting science would have to be performed competently according to broadly-accepted scientific standards. As far as the paleoclimate reconstructions that inform the battle-cry of “it’s unprecedentedly worse than it has ever been!”, it is clear to me that such is not the case.
Neither is it clear to me that the evidence of the instrumental temperature record provides compelling support for the idea that the response to [CO2] doubling is on the higher side of the range of estimates presented in the IPCC AR4 (though I’m less familiar with that story).
Second, most proposed actions to fight AGW seem to fall in the category of “don’t just stand there, do something!” If that something is costly and disruptive, I think there should be a fairly good handle on what it is likely to accomplish, and who it is designed to benefit.
Conservation and expansion of nuclear power are the two programs that could have significant benefits to my (hoped-for someday) grandchildren’s peers, at manageable though non-negligible costs. Most Lukewarmers support them, I suspect.
I got an answer as to why my comment was moderated. It’s mind-boggling:
I am completely dumfounded by this response. Can anyone find anything in my comment which could possibly fit Daniel Bailey’s description? I mean, the only comment I made about moderation on the site is I said perhaps moderators should use more precise wording. How is that even remotely close to a complaint about moderation? And what “inflammatory insinuations” could I have possibly made?
I don’t get it at all.
Brandon, you insinuated they should live up to their own standards. This is apparently not pleasing to them (no surprise, we’ve seen that many times in the past). It’s really that simple.
WOW- WUWT publishing suspended- “Somethings happened.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/27/wuwt-publishing-suspended-major-announcement-coming/#more-68235
Tom Fuller,
Hummm… kind of surprising that your comment has not passed moderation with Clive Hamilton. 🙂
.
But one serious comment. I think it inaccurate to group “conservatives” with Rush Limbaugh, who is an extreme social conservative (or a right wing nutcase, if you prefer). Many ‘conservatives’ are a lot more ‘liberal’ on many social issues than you might imagine, and might be more accurately described as libertarian than social conservative, with the primary overlap between those two groups being in economics, tax rates and the like. People who have less faith in large government and high taxes are forced (sometimes uncomfortably) into the same tent as rather extreme social conservatives, just a you are likely forced into the same tent with people who hold some rather extreme views you do not share.
Ged, Daniel Bailey just said:
That’s apparently the extent of my inflammatory insinuations. An entire comment got deleted because I made the horrible, horrible comment:
Duke C. (Comment #100079),
Another tranche of emails, this time from Mike Mann? (Maybe)
Anthony is selling WUWT to a conservative think tank? (Probably not!)
An important paper showing that all temperature increases for the past 50 years have been falsified? (Nah..)
Anthony does not too often get involved in hyperbole, so it should be interesting.
I think Lucia should throw up a new betting post for the weekend! Instead of coming up with numbers we can come up with guesses as to what it might be!
SteveF,
I think people are not keeping in mind the range of events WUWT normally posts on. Gliek being outed as the one who released Heartland documents was a huge event, yet didn’t suspend posting or warrant any special leading up to.
Climategate 1 and 2 both did not cause posting to be suspended, but Anthony just dropped them as soon as he was sure of the validity. In fact, Anthony was traveling when Climategate 1 happened. This time, whatever it is, he can’t travel during it, and it’s of too time sensitive of nature for him to feel like he can postpone it.
A paper that falsified all global warming would be contested, and so would just be a normal news item, as we have previously seen with papers (like the one he recently stickied about homoginization effects on the temperature record supposedly being the source of the majority of the warming in the records). That was a huge paper event, and yet nothing special but a sticky for it.
A new bunch of e-mails from a completely new source is maaaybe possible, but that wouldn’t necessarily be unprecedented, as we’ve already had a climategate (and Anthony hates the word unprecedented, rarely using it). And again, climategate didn’t get any special treatment leading up to it like this. Let alone a straight up call out to the media.
“Global” and “unprecedented”… I can’t guess what it is other than aliens from space landing in his back yard. Whatever it is, it better not be anticlimactic or he will potentially damage his reputation significantly; and I’m sure he knows this. A lot to keep in mind if we are to speculate.
Myrrh
Below the submit button it says
First comments by a particular name/email combination are always moderated. That’s what happened. Your future comments will only be moderated if they violate some other “rule” or Akismet doesn’t like them and so on.
I don’t want to slap together a script for that. I set up a post to foster speculation on the issue! So, gossip on the new post. Just don’t libel anyone. 🙂
I admit to having no idea.
Just remember to be “controversial” 😀
Thanks Lucia, seems I jumped the gun..
Re WUWT – unprecedented, so not Climategate 3? Global and controversial – the IPCC has been dismantled?
Brandon #100050 et seq.-
Moderation issues aside, my assessment of what is written at SkS is generally “not necessarily wrong”. They can be relied upon to reflexively endorse anything which supports the “consensus” view, regardless of how poorly evidenced. Part of said position is a reluctance or inability to admit to error or uncertainty. At best, you get mumbling about “inconsequential”.
Myrhh,
I suggest you go to scienceofdoom.com and start from the beginning. This is not the blog for n00bs wanting their hands held.
DeWitt Payne
I have given a concise explanation of why the “Greenhouse Effect” is fake fisics – do try to get your head around it.
It is a deliberate sleight of hand. Do you understand what I mean by that? Like a magician’s distraction techniques, the ‘science’ arguments go round in circles because there’s no joined up logic in the explanation for the “Greenhouse Effect”, it’s an illusion.
Mikey Mann is going to get a guest post and full control of comment moderation. 🙂
Re: Myrrh (Jul 27 11:28),
Myrrh, the term “greenhouse effect” is jargon, not descriptive. It is a hangover from a 19th C misunderstanding that has become fossilized. Whether you describe the process, with or without water, you are still talking about the effect the atmospheric processes have on moderating the earth’s climate away from what it would be without either an atmosphere or oceans. The idea that the atmosphere DID act like a greenhouse was falsified by experiment about a century ago. So in effect, without intending to, you are making a straw-man argument.
The real debate is whether the physical (not computer) model is sufficiently complex to adequately capture climate behaviour. Alternatively, just to suggest one possible case, what is presently called climate is merely weather writ large. If so, it may be inherently chaotic and unamenable to any long term forecast.
As you point out, without a water cycle, the simple atmospheric model can’t cope with with solar input. But even the computer models used by the IPCC recognize and count on this. The warming they forecast is not the direct result of CO2, but the transfer of energy captured by CO2 to water vapor.
Nonsense Duster – you’re obfuscating to distract from the real argument here, that the Greenhouse Effect is an illusion, created to promote AGW.
This fake fisics Greenhouse Effect is what is taught all through the education system as being real basic science – that the Earth would be 33°C colder (-18°C) without greenhouse gases.
Water is the main greenhouse gas – in the real world which hasn’t excised the Water Cycle water brings down the temperature 52°C from the 67°C it would be without it.
There is no Greenhouse Effect because there is no “greenhouse gases warming the Earth 33°C to 15°C from -18°C it would be without them”.
This is the meme created to promote AGW – it doesn’t exist in the real world.
All the rest of the science taught to this meme is therefore nonsense because based on this Greenhouse Effect illusion, this fiction.
It can’t be anything but nonsense. Like arguing about the buttons and trim on a non existant suit..
HaroldW:
It’s worth pointing out nobody on the Skeptical Science “team” said a word disagreeing with my criticism of their description of “Mike’s Nature trick.” They allowed Tom Curtis to dispute my remarks with comments that flagrantly violate the site’s rules, but nobody actually associated with SkS challenged me. Two interpretations come to mind.
1) The people behind SkS are laundering their defense through Tom Curtis. If challenged as to why they didn’t address my criticism, they can point to his “rebuttal.” The explanation for their hypocritical moderation decisions is they “need” Tom Curtis to post his nonsense for plausible deniability.
2) The people behind SkS are aware of my criticisms, do not support what Tom Curtis has said, and they simply are remaining silent. They are intentionally allowing inaccuracies in several of their posts, knowing it will mislead their readers. The explanation for their hypocritical moderation decisions is simple and extreme bias.
Other interpretations may exist, but I don’t think any will be more favorable than those two, and I certainly don’t think any could show intellectual honesty. This doesn’t prove SkS is wrong about everything, or even much of what, they post, but it does severely damage their credibility.
That sort of thing wouldn’t bother me much if it came from a different source, but given the site’s stated purpose, it’s unacceptable. How many people are directed to Skeptical Science to learn about global warming? How many truly believe it’s a trustworthy source?
If global warming is as serious a concern as many people make it out to be, why is it being explained/defended/dominated by people who behave like SkS/RC/Mann/etc? If I were convinced global warming was a serious problem, the first thing I’d do is tell them to shut up because all they’re doing is hurting the cause.
Brandon,
I must admit to being a little surprised by your take on this; I have seen no evidence that the folks at sks are interested in open debate on substantive issues. They operate nothing more that a ‘weak sister’ imitation of RealCimate; all the bad characteristics with no sbstantive content. If you want to be abused via moderation, then comment at RealClimate. SKS is just a waste of time.
SteveF, what surprises you about it? I don’t think I’ve said or done anything to suggest my view of Skeptical Science is any better than yours. It might not be as bad as yours, but I certainly have never had any faith in SkS.
Brandon,
My take is: why would anyone bother to comment at a blog which is heavily moderated to exclude, ahem, ‘difficult’ comments? Some blogs are willing to engage on substance, some are not. SkS most certainly is not. SKS is just a waste of time; thin gruel for the foolish and weak of mind.
SteveF, there are plenty of reasons why posting on a blog like Skeptical Science might be useful. Perhaps the simplest is ammunition. If you never post to a site like that, you have little in the way to show people to convince them your view of the site is correct.
Now, if someone questions me when I say Skeptical Science uses hypocritical moderation and avoids discussing legitimate criticisms, I can point to this as an example anyone can judge for themselves. That’s useful.
And there are many other potential benefits. For example, SkS isn’t a single entity. While my comments may not have any effect on some people on the site, they may well have an effect on others. Readers, and even moderators, may be influenced by my comments even if they don’t say anything.
Honestly though, the biggest reason I post on sites even when I have low expectations is I believe in giving people chances. It costs me little to make a few comments on a blog, and I may reach some people. To put it simply, I believe open and honest communication is the best option.
But then, I am young. Maybe I’m naive too.
Brandon Shollenberger (Comment #100220) —
One issue is that it’s a big internet. That means that the very skewed moderation practices of blogs like SkS won’t be apparent to most of their potential audience. Of course, the self-selecting core of SkS readers approves of this posture. (After all, the consensus position is right, and you are wrong.)
Regulars at The Blackboard are now aware of your experience — except that most were already familiar with SkS’ ethics, and either disdain them, or applaud them. Few minds to be changed here.
There’s a continuing trickle of inquisitive readers new to the area of AGW. When they experience the groupthink practiced by real-climate-scientists and their weak sisters, it influences these readers’ views of such blogs’ credibility. (I should know.) Usually enlightenment arrives firsthand, and is then followed by the recognition that these patterns are drearily common.
As things stand, your retelling of The
Emperor’sCourtier’s New Clothes won’t warn people away from this faux-reliable source, but might help confirm some folks after they’ve been similarly handled. Assuming they can cajole Google into leading them to your account.Brandon,
“Perhaps the simplest is ammunition. If you never post to a site like that, you have little in the way to show people to convince them your view of the site is correct.”
I grant that may be useful, at least with a handful of people. I think most who are inclined to believe the main stream based drivel at SKS are not likely to be convinced by any ‘proof’ you offer of SKS’s obvious weaknesses; in climate science, political persuasion strongly influences people’s interpretation of information.
Re: Myrrh (Jul 27 17:48),
Go away troll. No food here.
Amac, I don’t expect many people to stumble across my account by chance. I think open-minded readers who come across my posts on Skeptical Science will get whatever they’ll get from my comments there. I don’t imagine they’ll go and use Google-fu to see if I discussed the incidents elsewhere.
On the other hand, I meet plenty of people who have never spent much time on climate topics but would be interested in learning more. Often times, people like that will want resources for information/education. If I warn such a person a site is untrustworthy, how convinced will they be if I can’t point to any examples? How much better will it be for them if I can point to a specific example and tell them it is representative of a deeper problem?
In almost all matters, the largest group of people are those without a strong opinion. The members of that group will likely never be vocal proponents for either side of an issue, but in the long run, they are the ones who will shape what happens. Fortunately, that group happens to be the group most likely to be open-minded. If they’re given the chance to make a reasonable decision, they usually will. My hope is efforts like mine can help give them that chance.
And on a less noble note, I like being able to prove my conclusions. I take a little pleasure in being able to say, “See? I was right.”
DeWitt Payne (Comment #100231)
July 28th, 2012 at 8:43 am
Re: Myrrh (Jul 27 17:48),
Go away troll. No food here.
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I’m assuming there are some scientists here.
The Greenhouse Effect illusion is as I said, the basis of the con, added on to this is the rest of the fake fisics to support the illusion.
Sticking for the moment with the missing Water Cycle, the AGWScienceFiction world has it that carbon dioxide can accumulate in the atmosphere for hundreds even thousands of years. In the real world carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle – all pure clean rain is carbonic acid. Every time it rains or snows carbon dioxide is cleared from the atmosphere. In this it shares the same time frame as water, the residence time of water in the atmosphere is around 8-10 days.
Also, carbon dioxide is heavier than air and is thus not able to rise into the air under its own volition. In the real world gases heavier than air will naturally sink and gases lighter than air will rise. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere therefore will always sink displacing air so unable to accumulate in the atmosphere even where there is no water for it to join as in the Water Cycle and in such as fog and dew. The AGWSF meme that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere is fake fisics created to support the illusion of the Greenhouse Effect.
I sense that my position as most ignorant commenter here may be in peril.
P.S. Just to make it clearer. Carbon dioxide has been changed in AGWScienceFiction, it is not the real gas which properties of weight and attraction are well known in traditional physics. Real and ideal are specific terms in the physics of gases.
In AGWSF carbon dioxide has no attraction, therefore does not join to water vapour to form rain – even if they had the Water Cycle..
In AGWSF carbon dioxide has no weight – therefore does not defy gravity by ‘accumulating in the atmosphere’. Hence their claims that it “can’t separate out”.
AGWSF has excised all the properties of real gases for carbon dioxide, has turned it into the imaginary “ideal” gas, and so, as it has done likewise with oxygen and nitrogen, the AGWSF atmosphere is also missing gravity. Hence the AGW descriptions of the atmosphere as “empty space with gas molecules zipping through it at great speeds bouncing off each other in elastic collisions”. This description is taken from ideal gas (pre van der Waals).
The AGW science fiction atmosphere is composed of imaginary ideal gas which is why it has no convection (so all the arguments about radiation in empty space). Convection in the real world is the primary means of heat transfer in the atmosphere, because, the real world atmosphere is a fluid, gases and liquids are fluids. Our real world atmosphere is a heavy ocean of gas above us, weighing a ton on our shoulders (14lb/sq in).
Real gases cannot zip through this at great speeds as if the empty space of the AGWSF atmosphere – otherwise we would have no sound.
I do hope you can hear this..
Here’s a typical page from AGW fiction fisics without any understanding of the real world Water Cycle which includes carbon dioxide as all pure clean rain is carbonic acid, and, perpetuating the fake fisics of carbon dioxide as ideal gas without properties, not subject to real world gravity: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2008/02/common-climate-misconceptions-the-water-vapor-feedback-2/
j ferguson (Comment #100241)
#100251 tl;dr but you lost. Not even close.
With only 1 day to go in the published AQUA CH5 figures, the cumulative temp. for July is now running lower than both 2006 and 2007, which produced UAH anomalies of 0.15c and 0.19c respectively.
While in theory this July’s anomaly should be slightly lower than 0.15c, since the anomaly has been running higher than might be expected recently, I think that a figure around 0.25c is more likely this month.
Hmm, the actual July figure is even higher than I thought, at 0.28c.
@Ray,
It’s definitely trickier to translate from CH5 than expected. I wish we had some sort of way to convert between channels…
Hm. Still missing one day of data, I retrodicted 0.295 this morning using Aqua data. I stopped paying attention to the whole history and just estimated the “baseline” using the 2011 full temps and the 2011 published anomaly. I continue to think that Aqua is running closer to the published anomalies NOW than it was in the past, so not much point at looking at absolute temp comparisons beyond 12 months or so ago.
BillC,
The absence of 1 day’s AQUA CH5 figure didn’t make much difference.
I agree that the further back you look, the less reliable is the estimate. I used to use the last 11 years and that came up with 0.21c while the last 5 years produced 0.23c. On the other hand, using only 2011, the result was 0.26c.
Ged,
I don’t think the inclusion of other channels improves things. The last time I tried to include those, it only made things worse.