Monday, February 9, 2015 LandscapesAndCycles blinded by belief - The straight poop on penguins indeed ¶1/6 http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2015/02/jimsteele-blinded-poop-penguins.htmlIf anyone want's to pick on it, please doThe following post reviews the first six paragraphs of an essay written by Mr. Jim Steele: "Blinded by Beliefs:TheStraightPoopOnEmperorPenguins." The essay grossly misrepresents scientific studies and observations; while unjustly slandering honorable trustworthy scientists. My intention is to outline it's many errors as rationally as possible, while presenting links to many authoritative sources that offer independent learning opportunities to help you decide. … The essay starts out by constructing a phony, but dramatic, stage setting. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~¶1 "Two recent press releases concerning the Emperor Penguin’s fate illustrate contrasting forces that will either advance or suppress trustworthy conservation science."~ ~ ~ Think about what's been done with these words. They artfully imply that there's a struggle going on between a cadre of biased untrustworthy closed minded ('environmentalist'?) scientists and "trustworthy" scientists. It's pure innuendo with malicious intent, based on misrepresentation, misdirection and ignoring huge swaths of available information. Making judgements based on media stories is dishonest. A serious discussion demands we go to first-hand sources instead of relying on political theater. Doing so reveals a community of individuals dedicated to learning and understanding. It is alive with constructive skepticism and honest debate. With the full scope of available evidence informing the collective state of understanding. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Not sure what you’re looking for? That’s nice that someone wrote an essay on how GCC deniers operate. But so what? Since the motivation behind their denial has nothing to do with reason why would an article outlining their unreason have any effect? If anything it’d probably have the opposite effect, namely to make them dig in harder. Standard issue.
Not sure what you're looking for? That's nice that someone wrote an essay on how GCC deniers operate. But so what? Since the motivation behind their denial has nothing to do with reason why would an article outlining their unreason have any effect? If anything it'd probably have the opposite effect, namely to make them dig in harder. Standard issue.Yea, I keep hoping some intelligent students might be curious. Besides dissecting the bullshit, it is a pretty good collection of informative resources, for that rare curious person. But, you're right, it's like watching lemming marching towards the cliffs. In my travels I'm consistently shocked by how totally disconnected people are from reality. It like most people are incapable of thinking beyond Hollywood trailers and the shopping impulse, or wishing they could shop - well that and curling up within their simplest rag doll religions, and even more simplistic and destructive tribal politics, there's nothing inside those skulls, no sense of awe or wonder at the creation that surrounds them. No conception of their place on this Earth, in this place in time, even less interest in learning about this Earth. But, in the end I'm still alive and my spiritual, intellectual adventure continues, and this has been as much about my own learning process as it has been about futile attempts to enlighten anyone else. If nothing else at least I'm going through my days appreciating how precious and fleeting this time is. . . Like the song says, it's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago
As long as these things keep occurring at an increased rate, it will become apparent soon enough that denying GW and CS has no measurable impact on alleviating the problem of observable damage done to the polar ice caps.
Mother Earth weeps as Arctic Circle ice cap slides into the sea. This glacier appears to have come ungrounded, flowing out to sea at a rapid pace and draining ice from the ice cap in the process. The ice cap is now thinning by an average of 25 meters per year. The waters of the Arctic Ocean have warmed at a rapid pace relative to the rest of the world over recent years, and 2012 in particular was a year of exceptional melting and warmth in the arctic due to some extreme storms. The sudden movement in this glacier suggests that this pulse of heat has helped destabilize glaciers in the surrounding territory and it is happening at an exceptionally rapid pace.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/19/1365572/-Mother-Earth-weeps-as-Arctic-Circle-Ice-Cap-slides-into-the-Sea?detail=email I heard that out of ten thousand scientists, only a few reject man's contribution to GW and CC. Yes, and here are two of them.
Sat Feb 21, 2015 at 12:24 PM PST. BREAKING: Phony Climate Change "Science" Paid For By Corporate Cash, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/21/1365949/-BREAKING-Phony-Climate-Change-Science-Paid-For-By-Corporate-Cash and
Leading climate-denier's deep ties to fossil-fuel industry exposed (yes, Koch brothers too), http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/23/1364101/-Leading-climate-denier-s-deep-ties-to-fossil-fuel-industry-exposed-yes-Koch-brothers-too#comments
Yes Soon is about as contemptible a character as they get.
I’ve started writing about him (going through a couple YouTube videos) a couple times, but the man’s too disgusting and over the top
I wind up in too much of a rage going over what he says, the way he says it and his perfection of the sleazy innuendo,
slander and lies that roll off his tongue with such ease. Not to mention his self-serving greed.
so I’ve dropped those projects. At least Steele I can relate to, Soon seems soulless.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of others to examine
~ ~ ~
And the latest distractions
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Denial games at ScienceofDoom
Saturday, February 23/24, 2015
Denying denial at Science of Doom #1 Florifulgurator’s comments
“Denying denial at Science of Doom #1b Flori’s comments” condensed
“Denying denial at Science of Doom #1c Flori’s comments” just the links
Regarding Willie Soon
Willie Soon saga Posted on February 25, 2015 by ...and Then There's Physics https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/willie-soon-saga/I was tempted to ignore the whole Willie Soon saga, but since everyone else is writing about it, I thought I would post something. Personally, I think academic freedom is extremely important. If someone can get funded to do research and can get their work published, good on them; that’s how it’s meant to work. There may be issues with peer review that could addressed and maybe we should be looking at how some journals operate, but none of that changes that people should be free to research whatever they want to (well, within the bounds of ethics). If, however, he didn’t disclose his funders and/or didn’t disclose possible conflicts of interest, that is a serious issue and should be addressed. I have a feeling, however, that this may reflect as badly on the Smithsonian as it does on Willie Soon himself. One reason I don’t care greatly about this whole saga is that it’s fairly clear that Willie Soon’s research is mostly rubbish. I wrote about the recent Monckton, Soon, Legates and Briggs paper. Realclimate has a post pointing out the fallacy in some of his research. There’s the whole Soon and Baliunas controversy. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with some people publishing rubbish. Willie Soon is almost certainly not alone in doing so. … ...Academic freedom means that you have the freedom to do whatever research you want. It doesn’t mean that you get to do so and avoid criticism when it’s nonsense. I also see no reason why anyone who wants to be credible would be comfortable with Willie Soon’s research having the prominence it does, irrespective of their own views on global warming…. {read the full article and learn}
The Soon fallacy gavin @ 24 February 2015 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/02/the-soon-fallacy/However, a valid question is whether the science that arose from these funds is any good? It’s certainly conceivable that Soon’s work was too radical for standard federal research programs and that these energy companies were really taking a chance on blue-sky high risk research that might have the potential to shake things up. In such a case, someone might be tempted to overlook the ethical lapses and conflicts of interest for the sake of scientific advancement (though far too many similar post-hoc justifications have been used to excuse horrific unethical practices for this to be remotely defendable). Unfortunately, the evidence from the emails and the work itself completely undermines that argument because the work and the motivation behind it are based on a scientific fallacy. Putting aside ..., most of Soon’s work has been related to finding correlations of a very specific solar reconstruction (see figure below) to some observational time-series. There are very real criticisms that can be made of the solar forcing time-series he uses, and of course, of the cherry picking of specific time-series without mentioning that correlations to others (such as the global mean) are very low, but even accepting all that, there is a much more fundamental problem. {read the full article and learn}
I find it ironic that the climate deniers keep telling us to follow the money, and when we do so we find their favorite pet climatologist taking bribes to spread lies.
We shouldn’t forget the Washington Posts interesting piece
Things just got very hot for climate deniers’ favorite scientist By Terrence McCoy February 23 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/23/the-favorite-scientist-of-climate-change-deniers-is-under-fire-for-taking-oil-money/Wei-Hock Soon is always in hot demand. Among climate change skeptics, few commodities are rarer. Soon isn’t just a scientist. He’s a scientist who doubts climate change is man-made. Soon doesn’t work for just any university — he works for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. If you doubt man-made climate change, Soon isn’t just your man. He’s your high priest. The Heartland Institute, a bastion of climate-change suspicion, has given him the “Courage in Defense of Science Award." He has addressed the Kansas state legislature to rebut the overwhelming scientific consensus about man-made climate change. And he’s become something of a personal hero to conservative Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe (R), who maintains that climate change is a hoax. Soon is his evidence. “These are scientists that cannot be challenged," Inhofe intoned last month. ... His troubles began more than a decade ago, when as a young Harvard researcher he earned sweeping repudiation from the scientific community for announcing in a small research journal that “the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium." Then, years later, reports showed large energy companies had underwritten some of Soon’s research.
But on the right, something very different was happening. Every battle, every controversy, every scandal did less to tarnish Soon than to burnish his growing legend. And today, Soon represents something beyond himself and research. He has become a galvanizing warrior taking on what many climate change doubters call the liberal establishment elite. He today straddles the fault line in a long-raging cultural war between “climate deniers" and “warmists."It's like the Republican/libertarian mentality has been reduced to Lord of the Flies tribalism. Us against them, and Us will never, never, never change, because we are certain as god. :down:
It's like the Republican/libertarian mentality has been reduced to Lord of the Flies tribalism. Us against them, and Us will never, never, never change, because we are certain as god. :down:Yup. Fortunately, Greg Laden has an excellent rebuttal to Soon's self-serving take on the issue: Cry for me, Willie Soon] I have bookmarked this essay and anticipate referring to it often in the coming months. What I find ironic is the deniers have been accusing climatologists of being in it for the money for years, and have repeatedly said, "Follow the money." Well, the money trail led straight to their pet contrarian scientist, and now they're backpedaling. At least we will have Willie Soon to throw in their faces in the future when they try that BS mantra. Edit: Fixed a typo which CC preserved below for posterity.
It's like the Republican/libertarian mentality has been reduced to Lord of the Flies tribalism. Us against them, and Us will never, never, never change, because we are certain as god. :down:Yup. Fortunately, Greg Laden has an excellent rebuttal to Soon's self-serving take on the issue: Cry for me, Willie Soon] I have bookmarked this essay and anticipate referring to it often in the coming months. What I find ironic is the deniers have been accusing climatologists of being in it for the money for years, and have repeatedly said, "Follow the money." Well, the money trail led straight to their pet contrarian scientist, and now they're backpedaling. At least we will have Willie Soon to through in their faces in the future when they try that BS mantra.Oh yea, that's a good read. Thanks for sharing I hadn't see it.
Monday, February 9, 2015 LandscapesAndCycles blinded by belief - The straight poop on penguins indeed ¶1/6 http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2015/02/jimsteele-blinded-poop-penguins.htmlJimSteele is the name of the guy I was telling you about in the other thread. Coincidence? Probably not.
Another excellent take on the Wille Soon affair:
Doubling down on doubt] by Peter Dykstra.
Another excellent take on the Wille Soon affair: Doubling down on doubt] by Peter Dykstra.dangit Darron, now look what you made me do:
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2015/03/willie-soon-traitor-humanity.html Thursday, March 5, 2015;-P And then there's Mr. Steele, we have a bit of history, as they say (http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2015/02/index-landscapesandcycles-mr-jim-steele.html)Willie Soon as Traitor to Humanity Been trying to sidestep the Dr. Willie Soon kerfuffle since I'm already drowning in projects. Besides, I started doing reviews on his words a couple times, last time even completing my transcription phase of a talk, but by then I was so upset, the guy is such a ruthless dirty player, that I put the project away because I didn't need to deal with the upset and depression. My feelings haven't changed, but since this Soon certainly belongs in my rogue's gallery of Traitors to Humanity (that would be our younger generations.) I've taken the time to do a lot of cutting and pasting from a handful of recent articles, plus a list of SkepticalScience.com's collection of posts that relate to Soon's faux science going back to 2011. I like to think of it as my Willie Soon Information Kiosk. Doubling down on doubt. by Peter Dykstra | March 5, 2015 | The Daily Climate Cry for me, Willie Soon by Greg Laden on March 3, 2015 | scienceblogs.com Willie Soon saga AndThenThere'sPhysics.wordpress.com The Soon fallacy Gavin Schmidt | February 24 2015 | RealClimate.org Things just got very hot for climate deniers’ favorite scientist By Terrence McCoy | February 23, 2015 | Washington Post The SkepticalScience.com collection of articles looking at Soon's science.
Jim Steele watt's up with your venomous self-indignation? Saturday, February 7, 2015 Dear Jim Steele, With time to reflect, I'm confused by your display of moral outrage in that January 7th WUWT broadside? Come on, lighten up, you should recognized the Shakespearian overtones and appreciate we were made for each other. Besides, it was you who jumped into my lil climate change sparing camp over at SkepticForum back last spring.... you were the big shot daring anyone to dispute your nonsense. Did you really think I was going to allow your Republican/libertarian "hey no worries, it's all a hoax" challenge to go unanswered? Then in your IEEE 'climate science horror' series and LandscapesAndCycle you're the one that told folks to check original sources. Well, I have and I've received responses including many full texts of published studies from: Dr. Ainley, Dr. Breckner, Dr. Fretwell, Dr. Guillaume, Dr. Jenouvrier, Dr. Kaiser, Dr. Kato, Dr. La Rue, Dr. Tate, with a couple still in the pipeline. {And that's just for my most recent project reviewing your 7/1/14 "Blinded by Beliefs, Penguin Poop" article. Due to be posted any day now.} Be happy! Here we are, "Citizenschallenge" vs. "LandscapesAndCycles" You the defending champ of "NoWorries - it's a hoax" vs. Me the advocate for "Learning about our Global Heat Distribution Engine" ...:coolsmirk:
In the past 10 years we have been discussing GW at length in all the media from both scientists and deniers.
Now that it is here and is wreaking havoc with our weather patterns, the deniers are curiously silent.
Fortunately the scientist are on the job to keep us up to date on what is really happening.
This may be cause for reflection about the urgency of the problem.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/mystery-of-greenlands-disappearing-lakes-solved/ar-BBkEkMg
In the past 10 years we have been discussing GW at length in all the media from both scientists and deniers. Now that it is here and is wreaking havoc with our weather patterns, the deniers are curiously silent. Fortunately the scientist are on the job to keep us up to date on what is really happening. This may be cause for reflection about the urgency of the problem. http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/mystery-of-greenlands-disappearing-lakes-solved/ar-BBkEkMgBoy that would be nice to believe, but from watching WUWT and Morano it seems like they are just getting crazier and more disconnected. It would be nice to think they are down to a tiny minority audience, but then I look at what Republican politicians are saying and they seem yet more nuts, and yes further disconnected from reality all the time.