I’ve recently been involved with other scientists and scholars in Utah trying to stop the spread of outright lies, half-truths, abuses of data, and distortions about climate change. Much of this disinformation is coming from (or through) some Republican members of the Utah Legislature, and the other Republican (and some Democratic) members have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. A few local media outlets, like Provo’s Daily Herald, have also been active participants. Climate change is not just a global or national issue–it will also be played out at the state and local levels. Therefore, I see a need for some watchdogging specific to our neck of the woods. (In addition, I’m a Republican myself, and it galls me that my own party has locally fallen for a bunch of conspiracy theories and scientifically incompetent trash. In my opinion, something has to be done to save the party from disaster in the long run.)
This blog is meant to 1) archive a record of the ongoing disinformation campaign in Utah, and 2) examine it in detail. Democracy depends on accurate information being readily available to the public, and I see people who propagate such disinformation campaigns as enemies of Democracy.
If you would like to participate on this blog as a regular contributor or guest poster, or if you would simply like to pass on information, please contact B.R. Bickmore (barry_bickmore AT byu.edu).
B.R. Bickmore, May 2, 2010
Climate Asylum 
Allow me to share:
Lord Monckton, are you a Creationist? … an open letter (1,060 words)
Lord Monckton,
I’ve been reviewing your Minnesota Free Market Institute presentation. One of many disturbing aspects of your performance are the following statements. But, first to borrow from your 466 questions to Professor Abraham: Could you, Christopher Monckton, confirm that the following quotes accurately encapsulate your recorded comments?
5:20: “… we all love the planet that the good Lord has given us. And he’s given us the stewardship of it, Genesis 1:22, very clear what our obligations are as stewards of the planet. We are to look after all that is in it, and over it and under it and swimming in the sea. We are not therefore to exercise that stewardship given to us by our creator in an irresponsible fashion. Therefore it is important that we do not waste money, effort, time, or resources on non-problems such as global warming. As I shall show you that it is.”
9:22 to 9:45: A long Latin dissertation…{I guess to impress us}
9:45: “‘Unto this was I born, for this came I into the world that I might bare witness to the truth.’ Now those words of our blessed Lord are a perfect mission statement…”
10:25: “The truth is the truth whether you or I or anyone believe it or not. And here is why the truth matters. It was all very well for jesting (Pontius) Pilate to ask that question and then not to tarry for an answer. But that question that he asked: ‘What is the truth?’ Is the question which underlies every other question, its the only question in the end that really matters…”
It seems that for someone to deliver those words as movingly as you have, the infallible Bible must be central to how you view everything. That being the case, I’m puzzled – How can you claim to be an impartial conveyor of scientific information? This portion of your talk begs a few questions. But, first some clear definitions are needed, please consider the following.
You conveyed a commitment to the one and only true word of God Bible. That being a belief in a made-in-man’s-image of “God” sitting on a throne, looking down and judging all. Now, I have nothing against this faith-based image of God within the hearts of people and their families and churches. There is much tradition, comfort and strength there.
But, taking this personal need fulfillment to some absolute “I know the One Truth!, because of My God” level, mangles the honest pursuit of science where all must keep an inquisitive skeptical mind. We have a real world biosphere that your ancient Bible is oblivious to – why shackle your exposure to new information and learning with two thousand year old tribal dogma? Which is exactly what you do! Talk about a dishonest “Appeal to Authority.” This is but one reason I claim your presentation was political showmanship and not science, and even worse, not education.
Beyond that, another unavoidable implication of glorifying your personal “blessed Lord” is that you believe your Lord on his Throne executed that six day rush of creation, six thousand years ago… the entire cosmos, poof, just like that. Are you, Lord Monckton, a Creationist?
I ask because honest science has unhitched itself from that made-in-man’s-image God. Today we appreciate the true God of time and creation is well beyond the understanding of us Earth bound sinners, filled, as we are, with our own self absorbed natures, our self serving greed and follies, and tragedies, leavened with a touch of love now and then. This does not mean the religions are wrong… it simply means there is so much more that no religion has, or can, encompass. God is in your heart – but, beyond your understanding.
Lord Monckton, if you are a Creationist – how is it you can use graphs going back hundreds of thousands of years? This is central because understanding our climate demands an appreciation for Earth’s processes on very long time scales. It has no room for a six thousand year ago creation, nor the notion that God is just chomping at the bit to call it quits with his personal Armageddon. There’s room for that within ones heart, if that is what you want or need. But, not without, in the real physical biosphere, nor within the science struggling to understand it.
The science is extracted from the real living Earth… which is, after all, where we come from and what sustains and nurtures us. Lord Monckton, your right-wing, Republican glorified, contempt for understanding that real living Earth, is contemptuous in itself.
As for your grand allusions to the Christian ethic: Why does that allow you to handle your “adversaries” with such venomous scorn, bordering on hatred? How is it you find it so easy to broad-stroke many thousands of serious scientists as frauds – as the whole of your presentation clearly implies? Why are you so dismissive of learning about Earth’s Biosphere – as your bitter attacks on Earth observation funding proves? Do you actually believe there is nothing outside of your bubble for you to learn from?
You finished off your slide program with another pompous Latin quote: “OMNIS SPIRITVS LAVDET DOMINVM,(All breath praise to the Lord) emblazoned above crossed USA & Canadian flags, with your seal superimposed upon the bottom portion of the flags. Incidentally, another grosser example of you’re symbolizing some notion of “dominion” over the USA, came in slide #2. How dare you!? I’ll never understand how those salt of the earth Minnesota Republicans so loved you.
But, back to the matter at hand. Understanding what is going on within our biosphere and its climate. Lord Monckton, I will agree, lefties and Democrats have made plenty of mistakes, fine. But, even Republicans must notice their own track record of pushing very bad, very long term, very hideously destructive, very costly mistakes themselves. Don’t you?
Why your eye for an eye until the whole world is blind attitude? Why can’t we all try to start learning about our climate in a serious manner rather than hiding behind politically motivated, corporate driven entertainment? Why can’t you, and your Republican backers, open your minds to real world information? The scientists are not the bad guys! Why not shut up and sit down to listen, think and learn for a while?
Peter Miesler
Durango, Colorado
http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com
also see:
Who is Lord Monckton at
http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-is-lord-christopher-monckton.html
By: citizenschallenge on August 12, 2010
at 6:52 pm
Hi Peter,
I don’t know why you posted this comment on the “About This Blog” page. In any case, Monckton is a Roman Catholic, which means he is free to believe God created life through evolutionary processes. So while Catholics are supposed to be “Creationists” in the sense that they believe God was ultimately behind it all, they are not necessarily “Young Earth Creationists” who think the Earth is only a few thousand years old.
By: Barry Bickmore on August 13, 2010
at 10:14 pm
Mr. Bickmore, being both a Latter Day Saint and having a PhD in an earth science closely allied to the study of climate, should be utterly and abjectly ashamed of himself for falling face first into the greatest, ideologically weighted, Lysenkoistic fraud ever perpetrated on humanity in the name of “science” in our or anyone’s else s lifetime.
AGW is now long dead as a hypothesis (it never had the empirical or observational strength to become a legitimate theory) and remains now only as it began, as an ideology in the service of a broader ideological movement.
The sheer ease of its refutation stands in marked contrast to its sheer staying power among true believers such as Mr. Bickmore.
Sad.
By: Loran Blood on December 26, 2010
at 3:51 pm
Yes, it’s so easy to refute that Loran doesn’t bother doing it.
By: Barry Bickmore on December 26, 2010
at 5:27 pm
Barry,
I’ve been reading through your Church Of Monckton and the Rap Sheet again and was surprised to find my above essay. Oh boy, sometimes I try a bit too hard. I owe you an apology for posting that ~ heck in hind sight I’m disappointed in the thing and really should rewrite it… but alas.
I do have a recent essay I’m feeling pretty good about:
The Denial Machine Keep Cranking (with forty-five embedded links to supporting information.)
I’ll spare you the full text, but please look at it here:
http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2011/01/denial-machine-what-long-strange-trip.html.
Best wishes and keep up the great work,
Peter M
By: Peter on February 12, 2011
at 1:12 pm
Oh should you look at the essay please click “discredited political performer” in the sixth paragraph. 😉
“. . . Why use a ~discredited political performer~, and propagandist, one Lord Viscount Monckton of Benchley, as a climate science adviser and expert witness?”
By: Peter on February 12, 2011
at 1:17 pm
I’m a global warming skeptic. Part of the reason is the poor state of our journalistic outlets and due to the nature of this new science. Back in 78 I was told by a professor at Miami University that climatologists were now looking at global warming instead of the dreaded ice age that was to about to descend upon us. He said this was being brought about by a build in the Co2 content, and I believe, motivated by the newly acquired temperature readings of Venus, which were much higher than anticipated. They took measurements of the Co2 ( I don’t remember how anymore–I think it was from polar ice, if that makes sense) prior to the industrial revolution and post industrial revolution. To their surprise the Co2 content had not changed. Theories flashed that the ocean was absorbing more Co2 or just more plant life. No one knew.
So I feel like I’ve been jerked around by a bunch of over educated under knowledged individuals who can’t really say they’re not really sure about what is going on. I know you think you have a handle on this but until you can give some hard scientific explanantions you’re going to be hard pressed to convince me and many other skeptics.
Sun: NASA—I know, I know, they’re a right wing nut house but about 15 years ago they reported all of the planets in our solar system had seen a warming. Dismiss it if you wish but it was on the news and if you were going to deal with you should have dealt with it then.
Phil Jones from the CRC after being caught with his e mails down said three things in an interview with the BBC: 1) It was probably warmer in Medieval era 2) It has cooled for the last 10 years 3) There is no consensus among climatologists about global warming or man’s contribution to it.
The new CRC boss in a follow up interview said that, of course global warming is true and any reasonable person would see that. ( A not so clever manipulation of using reasonable). But what he then said really said volumes to me. He said, “even if there weren’t global warming we need to get people to think about their communities where they live and quit identifying themselves with what they own or where they live. My question is who is the ” we” who have to get people thinking about how they personally identify with others, themselves, and the world we live in? I agree with this premise but don’t like being manipulated by the obfuscation of facts, manipulation of data, and outright lies.
By: Tim on August 2, 2011
at 11:40 am
>> I’m a global warming skeptic.
>> due to the nature of this new science
Fair point, but I hope this doesn’t mean you will stop paying attention to this science.
>> Part of the reason is the poor state of our journalistic outlets
Yes, note the Phil Jones interview comment below.
>> Back in 78 I was told by a professor at Miami University that climatologists were now looking at global warming instead of the dreaded ice age
Computers and satellites were not all the rage back then. We have warm/cold cycles. It’s understandable to start off on wrong paths. I’m sure you know this.
>> To their surprise the Co2 content had not changed. Theories flashed that the ocean was absorbing more Co2 or just more plant life. No one knew.
So a single early attempt appears to have produced data not expected. And this proves what?
I am so glad you make your decisions early in a science and after 1 data point. Whew!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere Take a look at the values on that graph at the top for the last 50 years or so. They keep rising steadily and are now approaching 400 ppm
“The most direct method for measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations for periods before direct sampling is to measure bubbles of air (fluid or gas inclusions) trapped in the Antarctic or Greenland ice caps. The most widely accepted of such studies come from a variety of Antarctic cores and indicate that atmospheric CO2 levels were about 260–280 ppmv immediately before industrial emissions began and did not vary much from this level during the preceding 10,000 years (10 ka)”
“Relevant to this dispute is the observation that Greenland ice cores often report higher and more variable CO2 values than similar measurements in Antarctica. However, the groups responsible for such measurements (e.g. H. J Smith et al.[21]) believe the variations in Greenland cores result from in situ decomposition of calcium carbonate dust found in the ice. When dust levels in Greenland cores are low, as they nearly always are in Antarctic cores, the researchers report good agreement between Antarctic and Greenland CO2 measurements.”
“Ultimately, most of the CO2 emitted by human activities will dissolve in the ocean,[26] however the rate at which the ocean will take it up in the future is less certain.”
This may mean little if you don’t trust the current models, but let me just quote it:
“To avoid a global warming of 2.1°C, it is estimated that a concentration of less than 450 ppm needs to be maintained if other gasses were to return to pre-industrial levels.”
>> but until you can give some hard scientific explanantions you’re going to be hard pressed to convince me and many other skeptics.
OK, what explanations are you looking at? It seems you stopped rather short with this CO2 thing, so it’s hard to know what evidence you have looked at.
>> about 15 years ago they reported all of the planets in our solar system had seen a warming. Dismiss it if you wish but it was on the news and if you were going to deal with you should have dealt with it then.
The last part makes no sense. The history of science shows that it takes decades many times to achieve consensus and develop theories. Just look at quantum mechanics. Surely, you believe QM today, right? But how long did it take to refine the theories and to recognize there was a problem and reconcile apparently contradictory evidence? Even Einstein may have taken a few shots there on the wrong side of history.
So I hope you aren’t saying that if the full and correct theory or a rebuttal doesn’t appear instantly then it’s not worth paying attention. This isn’t a business contract with a time limit. This is about discovery of the truth based on pieces of evidence that may appear very mysterious in isolation or which may have been damaged in any particular instance…and which accumulate over time.
As for the report, perhaps you can be more specific.
I did google and got something that might be on the topic you were talking about, but as a rebuttal titled “Global warming on other planets in the solar system”. http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system.htm
This does a good job of refuting any claims of global warming across planets of the solar system because of the sun (not to mention that solar energy has been flat or dropping slightly during the observed time period), especially because some of the original works did not take various things into account (a person who hypothesizes something tries to make a contribution of an idea but doesn’t claim to be an expert in everything) and the data is based on so little. Again, a data point does not a theory disprove, and if we “don’t know” global climate on Earth, why would you believe we do on planets where we have orders of magnitude less in data?
In a related page http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm :
“The global warming argument was strongly influenced by a paper written by a team led by NASA scientist Lori Fenton …Unfortunately, Fenton’s conclusions were undermined by the failure to distinguish between climate (trends) and weather (single events). Taking two end points – pictures from 1977 and 1999 – did not reveal any kind of trend, merely the weather on two specific Martian days.”
Do not judge by just a data point (one author’s report based on two pictures of the planet). Do not ignore further analysis. Do not confuse correlation (eg, maybe a few planets might happen to be warming.. perhaps because of position around the Sun) with causality.
>> Phil Jones
Here is the interview http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm . It is interesting to compare it to what other news places have said. I read various articles which misrepresented what Jones had said.
>> 1) It was probably warmer in Medieval era
Said no such thing.
“Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today (based on an equivalent coverage over the NH and SH) then … On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm that today, then current warmth would be unprecedented.”
Further, look at this picture from Wikipedia for Northern hemisphere average temperatures over the past centuries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png . You will see a fairly rapid rise from the 19th century to the present and that the MWP, which naturally has data that is less trustworthy than for the 20th century, is lower than what we got in the last few decades.
What is important is that (a) the newer more trustworthy data (or calculations) show a very fast rise and (b) we are likely at record temperatures.
>> 2) It has cooled for the last 10 years
What he actually said:
Question: “Do you agree that from January 2002 to the present there has been statistically significant global cooling?”
Answer: “No. This period is even shorter than 1995-2009. The trend this time is negative (-0.12C per decade), but this trend is not statistically significant.”
Have you ever seen modulated waves with noise? Have you ever seen cycles within cycles?
Looking back at the picture above, it’s easy to guess that we are due for a pull back of a wave nature way before we finish off this century. It’s remarkable we have risen so much in less than 200 years and particularly the last few decades.. despite the expected periodic pullbacks. If we judge solely by curves of past centuries, we likely are overdue for a yearly pullback and even for a longer decades or centuries trend pullback. Despite this, the “pullback” is statistically insignificant and is inside a slightly longer period of “pullup”.
Come on! Not even really good baseball batters bat .333 every single day, week, and month. Deviations from average are guaranteed. How many days in the improving years of a rising star player does he (or she) bat below his monthly average?
>> 3) There is no consensus among climatologists about global warming or man’s contribution to it.
Again, not true. Find quotes from that interview to support your claim. I don’t think you will be able to. Perhaps you meant that the WMP period is uncertain.
But the question of global warming is largely believed and largely verified by data.
And the question of man’s involvement is based on many sets of data (including the CO2 rises mentioned above) and is believed by him and by almost all experts.
Question: “If you agree that there were similar periods of warming since 1850 to the current period, and that the MWP is under debate, what factors convince you that recent warming has been largely man-made?”
Answer: “The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by solar and volcanic forcing – see my answer to your question D.”
Question: “I – Would it be reasonable looking at the same scientific evidence to take the view that recent warming is not predominantly manmade?”
Answer: “No – see again my answer to D.”
>> [Someone] said, “even if there weren’t global warming we need to get people to think about their communities where they live and quit identifying themselves with what they own or where they live. ”
I googled and think you mean Peter Liss, but I was unable to find any quote at all like that. I also don’t see what it has to do with global warming consensus by world specialists.
By: Jose_X on September 14, 2011
at 1:10 am
So here we are folks right in the den of the resident self appointed Mormon theologian-climatologist from BYU e.g.:
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=12&num=1&id=332
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bickmore02.html
who is busy as a little bee calculating how much juicy Apostasy he can squeeze out of those pesky sceptical scientists to balance on the pin of his head:
However, when the rubber on the tires of the mighty CAGW bandwagon (which poor BB so desperately wants to reconcile/integrate with the teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young etc., etc.,) meets the highway of reality…..
alas, the famed oil slick in the shape of Jesus (of which the latte day saint Carl Hiassen wrote in his frothy missive to the righteous ‘Lucky You’), awaits:
Click to access mmh_asl2010.pdf
Click to access grl.fu.2011.pdf
By: Steve Short on September 12, 2011
at 5:58 am
Classy, Steve. It might sometimes be legitimate to point out ways in which someone’s religion could be biasing their conclusions about climate change, or some other scientific subject. But to avoid the appearance of being a raging bigot, one would normally point out how such a bias might come about. Since Mormons seem overwhelmingly to be climate change deniers, I’m not seeing it. Perhaps you can point it out to me, because I get the impression that you probably know more about Mormonism than I do. I can just feel waves of religious erudition pulsing outward from your post.
And thanks for the links showing that climate models are not perfect predictors of all aspects of climate change. I’m shocked. However, it would shock me even more if you would explain why there’s so much paleoclimate evidence indicating that climate sensitivity is likely to be somewhere around 3 °C for 2xCO2. Could it be that the models don’t do as well at shuffling energy around within the Earth system, but do ok at mimicking the net energy in and out of the system as a whole? I know, I know… modelers around the world would all be astonished at this result.
By: Barry Bickmore on September 13, 2011
at 12:13 am
Hi, thanks for this blog. Extremist views get under my nerves too. When they mention ice cores, and all their historic data it really it is really ridiculous. Most of the time I have researched their data comes from authors rather than a glaciologist. All their figures do is dilute the truth with word-salad.
By: Authority Man on September 16, 2011
at 8:02 am
Barry,
Although I am not in the country anymore, I am glad to be updated of the issues taking place back home. Thanks for the great information.
Cheers,
Chris Spencer
By: Christopher Spencer on September 19, 2011
at 2:16 pm
Dear Professor Bickmore,
Like you, I could describe myself as a geologist turned environmentalist. I am also naturally sympathetic to the conservative (as opposed to progressive) mindset. Therefore, I am absolutely in awe of your clear and incisive presentation How to avoid the truth about climate change, and would now like to re-publish it on my Blog. Would this be acceptable to you.
Yours hopefully,
Martin Lack.
By: Martin Lack on February 8, 2012
at 3:40 am
Hi Dr. Bickmore,
I just wanted to say that it’s wonderful to see someone from within the Republican Party talking sense on this issue. I’ve only discovered one simplistic argument that has ever worked for me (which seem to be the only kind that most climate change deniers are able to grasp):
If you had chest pain, numbing in your right arm, shortness of breath, dizziness, etc., and went to a doctor for a diagnosis before the days that science had perfected heart disease diagnoses, what would you do if the doctor said something along these lines:
“Although we can’t say definitively, your symptoms are in line with heart disease. I can’t prove this beyond doubt, but I’m reasonably sure this is the case. For this reason, I believe you should quit smoking and start exercising and eating a healthier diet than you have reported eating. Otherwise, I believe, although I cannot prove or say with absolute certainty, that you will most likely suffer a heart attack in the near future.”
Would they quit smoking and start exercising and eating healthier? I’m guessing the vast majority of them would. Because it’s their hearts we’re talking about, and they only have one. No second chances if you disregard the doctors recommendations, then go on to have a heart attack. So, for the love of god, why would ANYONE take chances with our planet, which is the only one we have, and which isn’t just keeping one person alive, but is keeping EVERYONE alive? In life or death situations, one generally doesn’t wait for absolutely 100% certainty of proof behind what one’s doctor says before taking preventative measures; it would be foolhardy to do such a thing. So why do we treat our planet any differently?
Thanks for your great work here and everywhere else you apply your knowledge.
Tom Rowland
By: Tom Rowland on June 24, 2012
at 8:55 am
For over 4 decades I have been involved with a tree ring Laboratory extracting ancient swamp Kauri the oldest timber to be naturally preserved in the world –through dendrochronology and dating it has been established this so called man made global warming which was suppose to have started in 1981 has happened 12 times before in the last 152,000 years
By: Noel Hilliam on April 14, 2013
at 2:20 am
This conversation appears to be a couple of years old, but I’ve got a few minutes to kill. A couple of problems with CO2 and its atmospheric trends;
1. While the trend for CO2 may currently be up (and this has happened many times over the past 1/2 million years and more, long before man started burning fossil fuels), temperatures predicted by now (including the 10 or 20 feet rise in sea levels) have not followed suit.
2. Water vapor is a substantially more effective green house gas than CO2 ever will be. And there’s much more water vapor in the atmosphere than CO2. (Surprisingly, water vapor is often left off the list when global warming ideologues report the quantities of green house gases in air. It would be a good opportunity for calls for all humans to save the planet by reducing their water vapor emissions.)
Now I don’t know if climatologists are familiar with Psychrometrics, the thermodynamic properties of gas-vapor mixtures, but the potential for air to absorb and hold water vapor is directly proportional to its temperature. Not the other way around.
That is, the warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. Air at a certain temperature can only hold so much moisture. At 100% relative humidity it’s at the dew point. If the temperature drops below dew point, moisture will condense. But air is at 100% relative humidity a fraction of the time. Most of the time it could absorb and hold more moisture if a water source was available to allow it. This is why in the winter time, the air seems (and is) much dryer in heated spaces. When the air temperature drops, it eventually falls below the dew point and the moisture is squeezed out. When it’s heated back up to comfortable levels in occupied spaces, with no water source available, the relative humidity can trend toward zero. Nostrils dry out. Some people get nose bleeds. The answer, humidifiers. That is, spraying moisture into the air stream as it come out of the furnace.
Again the amount of moisture in the air is directly proportional to temperature, not the other way around. Air temperature does not rise because there’s more moisture in it. And if in fact at current and even higher levels, CO2 doesn’t have as much to do with the green house effect as climatologists think, then the same temperature dependency could apply to CO2. Air’s capacity to hold CO2 could be directly proportional to it’s temperature.This would explain why the CO2 levels being up would not create a proportional rise in atmospheric temperature. The relative CO2 is far below the CO2 dewpoint.
And let’s not forget in warmer temperatures, there’s more organic (carbon) matter growing, being consumed, burning from natural fires, decaying,… spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And thankfully so, because plants need that carbon dioxide to grow. And we need the oxygen the plants give back in return to survive.
Since 68% of the land mass is north of the equator, then the northern hemisphere would naturally have much more atmospheric CO2. And because the north pole is nothing but floating ice, any melting of it would not raise the sea levels an inch. Yes I do know about Greenland Antarctica, b
ut sea levels have not risen as Al Gore predicted 10 or 20 years ago.
I do know one thing, it takes as much, if not more, energy to produce ethanol from corn than you get out of it. And it produces as much, if not more, CO2 as burning natural gas does. It also increases the cost of food throughout the food chain, damages vehicle parts, etc. It was supposed to help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.There are no perpetual motion machines. Using more energy to produce a fuel than you get out of the fuel produced is nonsense. This is one miserably failed policy. And to this day not one, especially from the climatologist/energy efficiency sect is saying “hey let’s stop doing that, it doesn’t make sense and it makes us look like idiots”. There’s too many tax payer funded pork grants and of course donations to political campaigns available to get those guys to speak up.
What we don’t need are knee jerk expensive unnecessary lifestyle changing reactions to what appears to be just another new wave (much like instructing school kids to get under their desks during a nuclear attack drill, as if getting under the desk if a nuclear war head landed would provide any protection) crony capitalist fad without making sure we’re not being force fed non-science from the likes of extremist wackos like Al Gore.
And the jury is still out cause there isn’t anywhere near 97% consensus bama claims there is. I’ve talked to professors who teach atmospheric thermodynamics and they say, it may be “changing”, not necessarily “warming”, but it’s not due to man. So I’m sot sure there’s a lot we could do either way. And if the alternative is expanding glaciers into north America, it may not be in our best interest.
By: Dr Evil (@docktorevil) on June 1, 2014
at 5:30 pm
Btw, I failed to mention that there are many other variables the “climatologists” fail to acknowledge as contributors to the earth’s climate. It’s as if they would have laypersons (and worse the kids) believe man and CO2 are the sole drivers of the climate and temperatures on earth. These include the obvious; the earth’s orbit, tilt, and perturbations of same, solar flares, cloud cover,… and the not so obvious, la nina’s, el nino’s, changes, cyclical or not, in oceanic currents…. One thing is for sure, there is little man can do to change the earth’s orbit.
And it may be moot anyway, compared to the predicted hurricanes we were supposed to have in 2013, hurricane season was relatively tame. And the 2013/14 winter in NA was one of the coldest on record. Yes one data point doesn’t make a trend, but it doesn’t mean it’s due to man made global warming either.
By: Dr Evil (@docktorevil) on June 1, 2014
at 7:02 pm
In fact, climatologists do NOT fail to acknowledge all that sort of thing. They take it all into account when the time scale is appropriate. So once again, you open your mouth and ignorant nonsense comes out.
By: Barry Bickmore on June 1, 2014
at 9:06 pm
Wow, Dock. You ought to read an introductory textbook on climatology. Because climatologists, astoundingly, actually do know about all of your points–at least the ones that weren’t absurd on their face.
1. They know about water vapor(!!!) and its greenhouse gas properties. In fact, they know that essentially any gas with more than 2 atoms in a molecule will be a greenhouse gas.
2. But they also know that everyone turning on their sprinklers won’t cause the globe to heat up, because water vapor has a residence time in the atmosphere that is only a few days, on average, before it condenses out.
3. Amazingly, they also know that, because water vapor will condense out quickly, the only way it can substantially cause a sustained temperature rise is if something else causes the temperature to rise, which will allow more water vapor to be held in the atmosphere (Yay for Psychrometrics!), and cause an even greater rise. It’s called “The Water Vapor Feedback” in the textbooks. Look it up.
4. I know all these revelations might be too much for you, but it turns out that CO2 has quite a long residence time in the atmosphere, so while the concentration might vary quite a bit locally–around cities and such–it has time to blow all around and become a “globally well mixed gas”. So your point about it building up in the Northern Hemisphere is just so much ignorant nonsense.
In fact, almost everything you say is ignorant nonsense. So if you will go ahead and look up all that stuff I just said in an introductory textbook, we can go ahead and talk some more about the rest of your evidence-free assertions.
By: Barry Bickmore on June 1, 2014
at 9:04 pm
Wow! Bick, you seem to be just a wee bit defensive. Obviously I’ve struck a nerve.
No doubt it has to do with my point 1. The one you completely disregarded so you could make 4 tangential borderline nonsensical rants on my point 2 in what appears to be some kind of attempt to provide an argument, I can only guess, to attempt to prove me wrong by essentially attempting to agree with what I said, although it’s clear now you and, I assume, all climatologists don’t have a good grasp of environmental thermodynamics. (Perhaps I can recommend a good starter book for you guys.)
That’s quite a tactic. I’ll correct you on your 4 tangential comments in a minute. For now let’s get back to the true crux of the matter, the CO2 temperature correlation of my point 1.
How about giving me 4 (sensible) points (this time) on why with CO2 flying off the chart, as shown here-
we’re not about to burst into flames? And don’t provide some ridiculous excuse like there’s a time lag. There’s been plenty of time for the lag. And don’t tell me the lag is a 1000 years. We’ve been burning fossil fuels for about 100 years. If there’s a 1000 year lag, then we wouldn’t see the first signs of the temperature rises the last few decades you and your climatologist cult claim are the sole result of man made CO2 for another 900 years at best.
And if it were a 1000 year lag, who the heck are you guys to say we should put as our number 1 priority, when there’s all kinds of immediate things that need addressing, something that’s not gong to happen for another 900 years? Are you nuts? We’re going to run out of fossil fuels in a couple hundred years. We have bigger things to worry about than temperatures 1000 years from now.
But it doesn’t stop there, Harry. If you look at the chart, there were times when the temperatures started to fall long before the CO2 levels started to descend. And they weren’t just blips, but drastic drops in temperature followed by drastic drops in CO2 (which fits my CO2 is a function of temperature, not the other way around hypothesis) like around 125K years ago. Why would the temperatures drop so drastically if CO2 levels were so elevated and temperatures are driven by CO2?
And who was generating all of that CO2 100K, 200K, 300K & 400K years ago to make the temperatures rise? Homo erectus? Is that how he succumbed to extinction? He ignored the homo-climatologists back then and drove his fossil fueled cars irresponsibly and then eventually drowned because the sea levels covered all of the land mass and he didn’t listen to god and build an ark? Is that what you mormons, I mean climatologists believe? Or is it because CO2 levels naturally rise when temperatures rise, not the other way around?
On you points on my point 2.
1. If they know about it, why are they all so intellectually dishonest in the reporting of green house gases to the masses? Because it would put CO2 in it’s proper perspective and they wouldn’t scare the public and clueless presidents like your party leader Obama (yes it’s clear you’re a RINO) and have him run 8% deficits to waste tax payer dollars on things like govt subsidized; inefficient solar panels in the northeastern part of the US, electric cars (that just move the carbon from the street to the power plant), grants so pseudo scientists can sponge off the tax payer dole making up data about “man made global warming”, no wait it’s not really warming like they said, so it’s now called “man made climate change”, corn based ethanol,… and other sky is falling alchemy.
2. Sounds like you’re trying to say that the normal condition for air is a relative humidity approaching 0%. That’s just complete nonsense. In Florida the rh in the summer is in the upper top half of the scale. In Arizona, it’s in the lower bottom half. It doesn’t “condense out” unless the air drops below the dewpoint.
3. Oh I’ve heard of your “feedback loop”. What you’re saying is, although water vapor is the main green house gas in air, and although it eventually “condenses out in a few days” as you stated in 2 above, spiking it with CO2 can cause it to amplify it’s green house gas power and cause temperatures to spiral out of control. THAT’s also pure nonsense. To believe that is to believe in perpetual motion machines. Since you guys don’t appear to get much real science or critical thinking above perhaps physical science, the first law of thermodynamics, the conservation of energy, says you can’t get more energy out of a system than is put in it. (Look it up.) By your “feed back loop caused spiraling temperatures” we could theoretically build a large passive solar panel, fill it with water vapor, add some CO2, let the sun shine on it and we’d have an infinite energy source to solve all of our energy problems. I wouldn’t think “educators” are that stupid, but I guess if you’ll believe in the Book of Mormon, you’ll believe in anything.
4. This might be quite a revelation for you, but NASA does have global images showing the distribution of water vapor and CO2. And it ain’t “well mixed”. The concentrations over the northern hemisphere are much higher than the southern like I said. So if you’re taking you CO2 data from Antarctica and temperatures are supposed to be higher, then the concentrations over NA should cause it to spontaneously combust into flames. But I’m sure your mormon climatologist cult has some good explanation why it hasn’t like,… climatology works in mysterious ways.
I’m sure this won’t make it through your blog page “moderation”, but all 4 of your points indicate you just don’t have a good grasp of the science. And your comment on my “Btw” post is just completely false. I never hear a single climatologist say, “there’s a lot of things that influence earth’s temperature, like the orbit, tilt, perturbations,… but CO2 does contribute a small amount as well.” That would be honest. What they essentially say is “the earth’s temperatures are rising, the poles are going to melt, we’re going to be under water,… and it’s all due to man using fossil fuels and if we don’t panic and waste a bunch of money now, we’re all gonna burst into flames.”
Your whole CO2 based man made climate change cult (really? man is responsible for climate CHANGE? It never changed until man started driving cars?) is nothing but fear mongering the press and the public to scam welfare out of the government to support guys who weren’t smart enough to be real scientists.
Well I take that back. You do have Bill Nye the Science Guy on your side. Have you made it to the level of having your own half man half mouse assistant?
By: Dr Evil (@docktorevil) on June 2, 2014
at 10:47 pm
FACT: The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index, produced by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, warming to 1941, cooling to 1964, warming to 1998 and cooling through 2011. The warming rate from 1964 to 1998 was the same as the previous warming from 1911 to 1941. Satellites, weather balloons and ground stations all show cooling since 2001. The mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8 C over the 20th century is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas (“heat islands”), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas (“land use effects”). Two science teams have shown that correcting the surface temperature record for the effects of urban development would reduce the reported warming trend over land from 1980 by half.
– SOURCE: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=3#sthash.FDXKGSe0.dpuf
The climate models have duped many, even very good scientists, by employing tricks regarding the locating of surface temperature stations and “adjusting” historical data to create a warming trend. Here are Hansen’s adjustments for his most recent hockey stick projections for temperatures on Earth: http://www.climate4you.com/Text/20080517%20GLB_Ts+dSST.txt
AS you can see, the earliest years temperatures have been adjusted downward DRAMATICALLY. They are adjusted upward after 1980. Voila! Global warming. The arctic is not now ice free as the warmists had predicted.l Snow is not a thing of the past, as the warmist predicted (CRU in 2000). The Earth is not a greenhouse, at least not in the way that the warmists told us back in the 1990s. Looking forward to you joining the ranks of the skeptics! Regards, JCW
By: Jack Clifton Walters on December 15, 2014
at 11:52 pm
If you had actually read the literature on this, you might have realized that the temperatures before 1980-ish aren’t “adjusted downward”. They are temperature “anomalies,” meaning the difference between the temperature and some long-term average. In this case, the file you linked says it is the 1951-1980 average they were comparing to. Please consider getting your information from credible sources, rather than from conspiracy nuts.
By: Barry Bickmore on January 31, 2015
at 6:24 pm
The conversion rate of Catholic to Mormon is pretty close to zero, even less going the other way. It is about the same as the conversion rate from AGW believer to non-believer or vice-versa. Belief comes first and shapes all subsequent knowledge acquisition.
It is fun to argue so long as everyone knows it is largely futile and exists as a tool to sharpen one’s mind and rhetoric.
I will second the motion made above that there’s too much “linkage” between socialism and warmism; AGW is being used to redistribute wealth from the makers to everyone else, with very little actual change to emissions. It’s sorta like Catholic indulgences — pay for a carbon certificate and your carbon sins are absolved.
By: Michael 2 on January 22, 2015
at 12:22 am
Please post this, I used dragon naturally speaking it create a bunch of uh-ohs.
I used to be a full blown skeptic, however recently one could place me into the lukewarmest category. The earth is heating a little but it’s statistically insignificant and nothing man does or does not do will affect this.
I found several sources that are empirically based that show the earth only heated .8°C since 1850. This is right in line with what the records show the average heating per century is.
Just posting this in several places; my posts have either been edited to say what I didn’t say by the moderator, put in moderator will approve mode and never approved, or just outright deleted. Last but not least comments that criticize what I say are immediately allowed to be posted while my comments are put in a queue and don’t appear anywhere from 24 to 72 hours after I post or they never appear. This is censorship pure and simple and when you have censorship you have groups trying to cover up the lack of their scientific validity.
What this tells me, as a scientist, is that most of the assertions made by climate alarmists do not stand up under the light of day.
Let’s take the assertion that man’s contribution to CO2 in the biosphere is something terrible and must be stopped at all costs.
Man contributes as of the most recent figures 39 Gt of CO2 for all man-made activities. The total amount of CO2 turnover in the biosphere (meaning the whole earth from all causes) is 795 Gt. Simple division shows man is responsible for less than 4% of the CO2 that turns over in the biosphere. And let’s not quibble here CO2 whether man-made or made by the biosphere is exactly the same chemically – one cannot distinguish between the two.
Statistically speaking when you attempt to create a causal or correlational relationship the variation of the independent variable IE CO2 must be assigned a value commensurate to its impact upon the dependend variable IE climate change. So on the face of it 4% (manmade CO2) cannot be responsible for 100% of the variation in climate change.
I have posted this question in numerous forums and supposedly scientific purviews and have yet to receive an answer other than ridicule, derision, or outright deletion of my comment.
Second another way to test a science is to see if it’s predictions hold in any way with reality. I’m an old geezer and was around in the 1970s when the jig was global cooling. Climatologists swore that we were in a major cooling. And that glaciers would cover Kansas City by 1995. The prescription to fix this was to create habitat for a certain percentage of the society under the Rocky Mountains and to leave the rest that wouldn’t fit in habitat to fend for themselves. And the government being in control of everything was the central tenet proglomated by this group.
Today we see much the same thing; climate alarmists are screaming catastrophe will happen 50 years out. When one understands the principles of statistical forecasting this is nothing short of ludicrous. When the variation in the temperature all over for the world is such as it is one cannot average down to one figure and determine that in 50 years it will be X amount of degrees hotter. It violates all statistical forecasting principles to attempt to do so unless one assigns an extremely low certainty to this happening. In other words statistically there is no way to tease out the contribution man makes because of the noise in variation in the system overwhelms the small amount of variation that man creates.
Now why are the climate alarmists suddenly pointing predictions 50 years out? Well in my estimation it’s because so many predictions have failed recently that they have to get your eye off the ball and you something else to convince the rubes that climate catastrophe will happen and one must give up control to an all seeing government worldwide control apparatus.
Let’s talk about a few of these predictions that failed some of the most famous were asserted by Al Gore in his Nobel prize-winning an inconvenient truth. All of his assertions were based on climate science and as such were invalidated. First by 2010 there would be no snow, however we’re seeing one of the coldest winters we’ve seen in more than 50 years. Just in Detroit there’s been record snowfall already and is not even into February really well.
Further predictions by 2009 or so CO2 would be killing crops and there would be a mass die off of humanity due to lack of food. This is a simple Malthusian prediction that is shown to be wrong time and time again. Not only are we growing more food than we ever have before it looks like that trend will continue as we learn how to become more efficient across time. In other words more bellies are full today as a percentage of the population then there ever has been before in history and that trend would seem to be continuing.
Then we get into the Arctic circles, they were supposed to disappear by 2005 leaving massive amounts of water in the ocean causing ocean rise which would be deadly on the coast. Again this failed the happen and according to satellite measurement we have incredible growth of ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic Circle. Empirical measure beats models every time.
Then due to the Arctic circles melting and all the glaciers melting there would be catastrophic rise of the oceans that Obama promised to stop. However empirical measure yet again stymies that prediction. Since the last Ice Age there has been an average of 7 to 8 inches of sea level rise around the world every century – and our century is not different. However climate alarmists pointed at the ocean bulge we know is due to the El Niño activity and attribute it to climate change when this is a very natural phenomena where water piles up in one place it gets deeper ever so often in a cyclical manner. That is not climate change
There is a whole list of about 30 to 50 assertions (predictions) that have not come true and when questioned upon them climate scientist have no answer.
It’s very easy to substantiate what I say go look at Al Gore and you can see on youtube what he glowingly asserted. Go look at Hansen and see what he said about population, see anybody from the government that has testified to the Senate about climate change and it’s always in terms of catastrophe we have to do something right now and everybody just doesn’t understand.
Then we get into the hockey stick temperature debate. When you look at the data and see how it’s tortured to create that hockey stick temperature graph it puts the lie to the whole edifice of climate change theory. There was a medieval warm period that was edited out and I see many arguments on this page that say that doesn’t matter it should of been edited out whatsoever. However the point at which the stick starts rising is created by excess weight given to one data point of tree rings that there is an ongoing debate about whether that’s really a basis upon which to nail down temperature.
Then we get into the measurement error of all of this. Statistical validity is driven by two things; one a large enough representative data population and, two, a true random sample drawn from that representative population. When one starts asserting that ocean acidification is occurring due to CO2 its yet again laughable.
Fluid physics dictate that a warmer fluid will gas out any gases it has absorbed when it was cool. So you can’t have warming oceans and at the same time massive amounts of CO2 going in the ocean. It violates basic science principles. But yet again when I post this there’s no attacks on the science it devolves into personal attacks and appeals to authority.
The climate alarmists assert all these things so they can control the carbon that man makes which will ultimately control about .00002% of the gases in the atmosphere. This will not control anything to do with the climate.
Last but not least is the fallacy of the forgone conclusion or statistically speaking –confirmation bias. Simply meaning that no matter what happens the cause is attributed to global warming, climate change, global cooling, etc. to the exclusion of explanations that are alternatively better. Here Occam’s razor has not only been thrown in the trash it’s been shattered in the name of an ideology.
The postmodern idea that one can create reality by thinking hard enough and arguing hard enough despite the facts is so endemic in climate change arguments that to one educated in such it is just simply laughable.
Then we get into appeals to authority. Most people that wish to argue with me when I put science up with the full cites to peer reviewed papers and data sets. Then they revert to the argument of 97% of the climate scientists and they say the climate change exist and is man-made. Yet they have no hard science to back their assertions. The data upon which most climate models are based has been polluted because NASA and NOAA have both been caught deleting real temps out of the data sets and replacing temps with ones generated by the models – therefore creating the very catastrophic predictions desired.
All that I assert is been proven so many times yet not paid attention to that I’m sick of the whole mess. It seems there is no reasonable middle ground– one is either a climate alarmist or a denier and the facts get lost in the shuffle.
Creating massive wealth transfer from the wealthy nations to the poor nations and creating a bureaucracy to rate their part off the top will do nothing to stem climate change. Climate changes with us or without this, just the same it’s been since the earth came into being.
By: Dan Easterling on February 7, 2015
at 7:21 pm
Dan and others.. no serious discussion of this subject attributes 100% of climate change to human activity. If for no other reason, the fact that you need to resort to BS like that let alone the ridiculous 1970’s global cooling riff is itself sufficient to drop you directly into the crackpot bucket. As for understanding the time component in climate analysis one of the clearest examples I’ve seen can be found in an explanation provided here: http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2015/02/should-we-see-sea-level-rise-to-be.html although that might be a bit much for you to follow its got math and stuff.
By: David Holub on June 2, 2015
at 8:37 pm
David Holub says “although that might be a bit much for you to follow its got math and stuff.”
Thank you for the warning to not go there. Blogs are an authority only with regard to the blog owner. If I wanted to know about David Appell, I’d go to his blog. When I want to understand climate, the best place to start is look out the window and spend some time outdoors.
Your advice would be more persuasive if your writing was better than “got math and stuff”.
By: Michael 2 on June 8, 2015
at 5:13 pm
Ah, the supremely confident, supremely narcissistic Michael 2 drives by. He’s a guy who obtains all his knowledge by omphaloskepsis. He’s got no use for that sciencey stuff, he just looks out the window. He may be wrong, but at least he’s sure!
His advice would be more persuasive if he ever listened to any advice himself, but that ain’t gonna happen 8^D!
By: Mal Adapted on August 16, 2015
at 7:09 pm
Considering that the owner of this blog is a scientist, I expected that the focus here would be on science, and I hoped I might learn something. However, the focus is clearly on partisanship, sneering, and name-calling. Also, I thought that Mormons valued civility and humility – maybe I’m mistaken, since both are notably absent from this blog owner’s style.
So this blog seems to be just an ongoing exercise in narcissism, like so many other blogs. A real disappointment.
I won’t be back, so a reply is not necessary.
By: Michael Palmer on August 12, 2015
at 9:06 am
Mal Adapted praises another reader, saying “the supremely confident, supremely narcissistic Michael 2 drives by.”
And a good thing, too! By the way, do you also post as Wow?
“He’s got no use for that sciencey stuff, he just looks out the window.”
Indeed. If I want to know the weather, right now and right here, I look out the window.
“He may be wrong, but at least he’s sure!”
Yes to both. I wish everyone understood this possibility.
By: Michael 2 on August 17, 2015
at 11:42 am
Indeed. When he turned to my grammar and wouldn’t even touch the discussion of thermal momentum of the system it was clear that there is really nothing here but puffery. Waste of time entirely.
By: David Holub on August 17, 2015
at 11:52 am
Started reading UM and it’s more sensible science and proves true in every aspect. He uses scientific journals and discoveries by peers of the science fields proving every point. Fantastic and shows clarity of multiple science fields. I’m a science major, father in law a geologist, this is genious stuff …amazed me. Truly God and science can add and do align. This isn’t s religious book. But it was inspirational.
By: KEVIN Barney on June 10, 2018
at 1:02 am
“trying to stop the spread ”
So you are committed to squashing all intelligent discussion that the “scientific” community doesn’t like. Don’t you realize that public outrage against such censorship is on the rise? Or that the “scientific” community has, in effect, become the illegal unconstitutional State Religion forbidden in the First Amendment? Yes, STATE RELIGION, displaying all the behaviors of past domineering religions, philosophies, and ideologies, up to and including persecution and excommunication.
Under which rock have you been hiding if you don’t recognize what has been going on for over a century?
By: Joseph Morrow on July 23, 2019
at 9:43 am