Eli was reading Stoat, when he came across this comment from one T. Allen
Now, besides lack of content, there are some exceedingly odd constructions in there, which naturally raises the astroturf flag. The bunnies at Rabett Labs rolled out the Googler for: alarmist paradigm climate, and came up with the excellent Bob Carter at the Daily Telegraph.Its a big mistake we are making talking to alarmists as if they have evidence of their own. We get caught out in various dead end arguments and it creates the false impression that there are some good points on both sides of the debate.
Whereas in reality whats going on is the refusal of the alarmists to show up with evidence for their paradigm. A paradigm which is already falsified.
This refusal to put forward evidence is a good tactical move considering the pack-instinct and common purpose of the alarmists. Because if they never put forward any evidence the relatively easy process of overturning this evidence cannot proceed.
Carter, of course, is a geologist, a rock head if you will, who sees no difference between six million years and six years. Geologists tend to ignore exponents evidently:
The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis.Looking at the change per year (or the rate of warming) for 3 million years (btw, those were great weather stations then, not like the kind that Ross and Roger are going on about, so we can trust them to the dot), let's make that 6 C to be generous, that is about 0.00001 C/year.
Our current global warming is about 0.015 C/year. What is a few orders of magnitude, the sign is correct? However this is not the only place where Bobby does not understand rates.
Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.In this case a rate is inappropriate. CO2 forcing depends on the absolute amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, roughly as log [CO2] (the logarithm of the forcing). Starting from [CO2]=[CO2]o + d[C02] we get that the difference in the forcing is d[CO2]/[CO2] where [CO2]o is the concentration at the start and d[CO2] is the difference between the start and the finish. The change in the forcing depends on the ratio of the change to the concentration in the base period. Rates of change per unit time (d[CO2]/dt) can be very large if you start from a low level, but this has little to do with the effect which depends on the amount of change relative to the pre-existing concentration.
Of course, there is the bottom (and we are trolling here for bottom feeders) line
First, most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored, frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's subjects are expected to listen.which T. Allen has swallowed. BTW, notice the neat attempt to claim that NASA and NOAA are suppressing Landsea and Christy and Spencer. It's as if George Deutsch never existed and Thomas Knutson was being pushed forward daily by NOAA. As Warren Washington said
Warren Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, said that Bush appointees are suppressing information about climate change, restricting journalists' access to federal scientists and rewriting agency news releases to stress global warming uncertainties.
"The news media is not getting the full story, especially from government scientists," Washington told about 160 people attending the first day of "Climate Change and the Future of the American West," a three-day conference sponsored by the University of Colorado's Natural Resources Law Center.
.....Washington said in an interview that the climate cover-up is occurring at several federal agencies, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Forest Service. NOAA operates several Boulder laboratories that conduct climate and weather research.Rick Piltz at Climate Science Watch has the detailsWashington's comments echoed statements made by NASA climate researcher James Hansen in a Jan. 29 article in The New York Times. Hansen said the Bush administration tried to stop him from speaking out after he called for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
......Washington insisted that government officials are "trying to confuse the public" about climate change and the scientific consensus that global warming is a real problem.
BBC Panorama: Has the Bush administration covered up the findings of global warming scientists? 6/07/06 - with remarks from NOAA's Thomas Knutson and Jerry MahlmanClaiming that otheres are doing to you what you are doing to others is an old denialist trick. Do not accept delivery.
NOAA censors speech by science experts on endangered salmon 6/04/06
Rep. David Wu requests GAO investigation of science manipulation and censorship 5/9/06 - including NOAA
House Science Committee Chair Calls for Reform of NOAA Public Affairs Policy 4/12/06
Washington Post reports "Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House" 4-9-06
Senators call for National Academy auditing of government reports on climate change 3-29-06 Directed toward actions of Dr. James Mahoney, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
Providence Journal: "NOAA hiding truth about hurricanes, scientists say" 3-29-06.
Former NOAA Lab Director: "Climate scientists within NOAA have been prevented from speaking freely" 3-10-06
Senate committee lets Adm. Lautenbacher off the hook on NOAA media restrictions 2-24-06 (Eli wrote on this one earlier)
Sen. Mikulski's letter requesting GAO report on openness in federal science communication 2-21-06 (specifically mentions NOAA)
Jim Hansen: NOAA "by fiat" put out "biased information" on hurricanes 2-16-06
The NOAA Media Policy: Political pre-approval for public communication by scientists 2-14-06
This is excellent advice for us. All of us. Once a denialist claim has been made and answered no further discussion. they will never run out of paid propaganda points to spam, especially since they simply repeat them no matter what you say.
ReplyDeleteIt's very inefficient - denialists get much more slack than sincere people asking sincere questions get asking programming questions. Say, this was asked - search for it.
Some one has to come right out and say that there is a radical right war on science now, the denialist commenters are, by and large, not truth seekers but trolls, and if they aren't, they won't mind searching.
So I think that's a great post - when a person or group spends all their time projecting, if you read between the lines, what you are getting is a good look inside their minds.
It sounds like projection to me, and a variant of the Dano argument where he sez something like:
ReplyDeletewhere is the evidence, papers, models, hypothesis, article, conversation, scribble on a napkin that CO2 won't raise temps?
The denialists and noise machine have just turned it around to their side, is all. False premise and easily countered - as easy as swatting at flies.
Best,
D
Oh, and to Marion's excellent point, that's an excellent way to go. Treating their comments as worthy of discussion is a huge waste of time, and no one should fall into the trap of their (by now getting old) tactic of 'shutting off discussion' or 'destroying legitimate argument' or some such cr*p.
ReplyDeleteBest,
D
Claiming that otheres are doing to you what you are doing to others is an old denialist trick. Do not accept delivery.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, it is one of the oldest propaganda tricks (in any context) in the book. I blogged about this in the context of TGGWS a few months ago - if I could drop a cheeky plug:
http://inthegreen.typepad.com/blog/2007/04/propaganda_para.html