Government looked on as a vast public utility, and its ever encroaching.
Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by Beth Cooper
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by john
Florrie and Scott, Ray answered at RC only a few comments below you,
Hank Roberts says:
3 Mar 2012 at 11:45 AM
> Florrie says: 3 Mar 2012 at 1:09 AM
> Current theory says there will steady increase
Not quite correct; ups and downs are expected
> in average global temperatures over the longer term (30+ years).
> In the short term though (10+ years) there has been a levelling
Nope, wrong in several ways, see below
> off. What is the maximum number of years of
> no increase
Same mistake there, ‘no increase’ is wrong
> that still does not challenge the theory or prompt a rethink ?
You’ve missed a basic concept about how statistics is used to look at something that varies and say whether there’s a slow change over time, or just variation around some constant amount. (Where did you get those ideas?)
The link below is to a blog written at high school math level.
That linked page explains how your question can be answered — the answer depends on which data set you want to evaluate.
It’s basic ‘Statistics 101′ arithmetic. He gives examples of how to decide:
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/01/results-on-deciding-trends.html
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by Captain Kangaroo
Dear Beth
I have put aside my peaceful pursuits of arts, letters and natural philosophy and taken up a martial calling. It is a necessity – the times and the climate wars demand it.
In another time and place there were tea and oranges that came all the way from china.
‘Beth takes your hand now
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our, our lady of the harbor
She shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Beth holds the mirror’
The battle requires new tactics and it seems that the times are the making a cowboy.
Best regards
Robert I Ellison
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Comment on What can we learn from climate models? Part II by Edim
That evidence is very weak. Such accuracy is physically implausible. On the other hand, we have thousands of direct measurements, which are discarded by the consensus. Not very scientific.
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by GaryM
“For instance, given Mass v. EPA it is difficult to argue that the EPA Administrator was wrong to conclude that the emission of greenhouse gases cause or contribute to air pollution that could be reasonably anticipated to threaten health or welfare. Yet this is one of the claims the industry groups have to make if they are to succeed.”
This is simply wrong. It is rare for a litigant to convince a court to overturn the factual findings of a regulator, and that is not what the plaintiffs are doing in the litigation against the EPA. What they are challenging is HOW the EPA reached its conclusions on endangerment. The argument is that the EPA did not follow its own rules requiring it to do the work itself, instead relying completely on the conclusion of a non-scientific body, the IPCC.
By basing its conclusions on the IPCC’s “assessment” of climate science, the EPA effectively delegated part of its rule making function to a non- US, non-governmental, non-scientific body. That is grounds for reversing the rules. This appellate case is mostly irrelevant, the final legal decision will be made by the Supreme Court. Can the four progressives on the court, plus the often progressive Justice Kennedy, ignore the requirements of EPA’s own rules? Why of course they can.
The final real decision will be made at the ballot box this November. What the EPA takes away, the Congress can give back. But only if Republicans don’t screw it up, which they could very well do. Heck, they’re about to nominate the one candidate who can’t make any argument against the socialization of medicine in Obama care, which was the main reason they gained so much in 2010. So the court case looks more important than ever now.
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by capt. dallas 0.8 +/-0.2
A physicist, the demagoguery thing is getting a bit played. You specifically brought up vague references to statistical studies that you imply have some significance. In one, you listed a hazard ratio of 0.69 which would indicate that there is a significant 31% increase in risk. If the initial risk is 0.4% then the 31% increased risk would bring the total risk to 0.524% There is still 99.476% risk by other causes. You grab on to something that appears significant yet is trivial when all risk is compared thinking you have hit on some dire possibility requiring precautionary action. If you are one pound over weight, there is greater risk. If you use strenuous exercise to reduce weight, there is even greater risk. You need to place things in perspective as I mentioned, herbal tea consumption does have a statistically significant risk involved based on your standards.
This is the same linear no threshold model standard used by the risk analysis impaired to over regulate nuclear, food preservatives and if Ralph Nadar has his way, Ajax cleanser (because it contains… silica!).
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by A physicist
Readers of Trish Roberts-Miller’s essay <a href="http://www.drw.utexas.edu/roberts-miller/handouts/demagoguery" rel="nofollow"><i>Characteristics of Demagoguery</i></a> will recognize in the preceding exchange a quibbling legalistic defense by (what TRM's essay calls) members of the <i>Climate etc.</i> “Ingroup” of polarizing hate-speech directed against “the Outgroup” … in the <i>persona</i> of Louise.
<b>Summary</b> The quibbling defense of hate-speech is a diagnostic trait of demagoguery that, as the scientific evidence of climate-change becomes stronger, is becoming deplorably more prevalent on skeptical forums.
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by David in Cal
I wish there were some way for the courts to take magnitude into effect. Even if one believes the warmists’ doomsday models, the actions contemplated by the EPA will have too small an impact to make an appreciable difference in the earth’s temperature.
Of course, a sensible, public-spirited administrative agency would take magnitude into effect. They wouldn’t propose enormously costly regulations that have virtually no benefit.
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Comment on Carbon cycle questions by Brian H
Couldn’t remember which thread this discussion was on, so I’d posted this elsewhere on Feb 6:
Last August there was considerable discussion about Salby’s upcoming paper, on posts such as http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/05/the-emily-litella-moment-for-climate-science-and-co2/ , and recently someone was speculating it was withdrawn. I emailed him, and just received a reply:
Dear Brian,
Apologies for the belated reply; we’re on summer break here.
The technical paper underpinning my presentation to the Sydney Institute has certainly not been withdrawn. The cycle of scientific publication is slow, typically about a year. For a subject as political as this one, it can be very slow.
The fiasco surrounding Spencer and Braswell (2011), a thinly-veiled exercise in coercion, didn’t help. But, with patience, we will eventually get there.Upon formal release, a notice will be sent to the numerous interested parties.
In the meantime, a couple of matters of possible interest:(1) About half of the material in the Sydney Institute presentation is developed in Physics of the Atmosphere & Climate, a peer-reviewed volume that is now out.
Although developed for a technical audience, elements should be comprehensible to the non-specialist.
Highlighted in the attached is material of relevance.(2) In the coming weeks, a video of the presentation will be made available through the Sydney Institute – inclusive of full graphics. Stay tuned.
Murry Salby
Below is the email I had sent:
Dr. Salby;Like many, I was very interested in the preview of your pending publication.
Recently, someone speculated it has been withdrawn, and never published.
Can you say where and when (and if) it will appear?Brian Hall
He’s in Sydney, Australia, hence the “summer break” problem!
He attached a full PDF of Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate. Very impressive stuff!
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by GaryM
“Contraception,” “women’s reproductive health,” and “family planning”
Such wonderful euphemisms for abortion. We have to kill more third world babies in the womb so they won’t use fossil fuels and mess up our imaginarily fragile climate. Oh, and we’re more than willing to open more Planned Parenthood abortion clinics in the developed world (80 percent of which we locate in “minority” neighborhoods) to show we aren’t the racist eugenicists our hero Margaret Sanger was.
The “population problem,” like the DDT problem, ozone problem and CO2 problem before it, are all just trojan horses for progressive assertion of power over the economy.
Notice the eagerness with which the peak oil hysterics embrace the barbarism of “population control,” just as their CAGW fellow travelers did before them.
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by A physicist
Peter317 says: I’m sorry about what I said earlier on.
Peter317, your regrets are sincerely appreciated. If only all skeptical forums would refrain from:• ingroup/outgroup thinking,
• a rhetoric of hate,
• scapegoating,
• motivism, and
• rejection of reciprocity… then everyone’s longed-for, happy, and fruitful marriage of strong science with rational skepticism would be at-hand, eh?
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![:D]()
![:lol:]()
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by Beth Cooper
Judith Curry @ 4/12 919am.
‘Historically demagoguery is a precursor to the ending of democracy.’
Thank you for your wise observation and for the open forum you offer for the many diverse views, arguments, papers presented here on Climate Etc.
(Sometimes there is a lot of ‘etc.’)
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Comment on Carbon cycle questions by Edim
Thank you Brian.
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by cwon14
What about “as it exists” don’t you understand David?
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by Bad Andrew
“Suggesting a strong connection between family planning and the environment often risks an explosion in the highly charged political landscape of climate talks”
Exactly GaryM. It’s just more of “which propaganda slogans are we going to use to try and get what we want.”
Any actual science departed this scene long ago.
Andrew
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Comment on Week in review 3/2/12 by capt. dallas 0.8 +/-0.2
Bob, have you noticed how the CAGW crowd have starting complaining that the satellite data must be wrong?
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by Jeff
The idea of population engineering is anathema. The result of the one baby policy in China has resulted everything from dramatic abortion rates, to episodes of infanticide (due in part to a cultural preference for male children), to creating an entire generation with an artificial imbalance of gender as well as many other highly problematic (to say the least) social issues. We have not yet encountered the social/political results of that last bit. I doubt it will end well.
Above it was mentioned that improved economics is the solution to population explosions. To my current knowledge, that is correct. There was a fairly comprehensive study of this phenomenon in the nation of Columbia, originating I believe in the late 1960′s. It’s been so long I don’t remember details but essentially, once the population realizes that their children are mostly surviving to adulthood, that the value of children as agricultural workers can be replaced more cheaply/efficiently by equipment and that on balance in a developed economy that children cost rather than produce economic value, birth rates drop quickly and precipitously.
Anecdotally, my great grandfather (Ebeneezer – I’m not kidding) marrying in rural Kansas in the late 1800′s fathered 14 children (aka, farm hands). His oldest (my grandfather), fathered 9. The following generation coming after the end of the Great Depression, WWII and the rise of the middle class, averaged between 2 and 3. The number is (give or take as I’ve lost touch with a good number of cousins) is now 1.9.
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by Jim S
I’ve noticed more and more “enviro/population” stories in the MSM lately. These seem a bit premature. One would think that the population control push would come AFTER cap and trade is set in place.
Because cap and trade cannot work, and will not result in a cooling of the earth, it would then be necessary to manufacturer a new enemy (population) to explain it’s failure.
That population control is being openly flouted now reeks of desperation. I think they see that their time is running out, and they are trying to get everything on the table ASAP.
At least now they are being honest.
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Comment on Carbon cycle questions by Edim
The natural environment being a net carbon sink doesn’t mean that the atmospheric CO2 growth isn’t caused by warming climatic factors. Au contraire!
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Comment on Climate policy discussion thread by Robert
For the unique blend of climate denial, ignorance about women’s health, confusing contraception with abortion, and paranoid ravings about “power over the economy” I dub this the comment of the day: http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2012/03/idiot-comment-of-day.html.
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