Comments on: Then and Now

By: roger

roger — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:17:03 +0000

James Hansen retiring from NASA? April Fools Joke? Don’t Think So.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/science/james-e-hansen-retiring-from-nasa-to-fight-global-warming.html?_r=0

By: toby52

toby52 — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:06:28 +0000

I recently saw a comment by Steve Mosher at WUWT (on one of my very rare visits) that said Lukewarmers accept climate sensitivity to be most like between 2 and 4C for a doubling of CO2. In taht case, the IPCC are representing mostly Lukewarmers.

IMHO, the old Lukewarmer category is gone by the board and is not mainly a category defined by emotion or politics – people like Pielke Jnr, Curry, Moster et al fall into that camp.

Lindzen is a denier not a “sceptic”, recently he has been repeating tired old myths like “in the 1970s there was global cooling hysteria”. It is sad to see a once world-class scientist demean himself.

By: toby52

toby52 — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:59:52 +0000

Great post. I thought I was the only one who felt that way.

It is hard sometimes to remind ourselves that we are not supporting a team, but that science and getting at the truth, no matter how tough or unpalatable, is the greater good.

By: roger

roger — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:30:27 +0000

James Hansen arrested at the White House:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/activists-arrested-at-white-house-protesting-keystone-pipeline/2013/02/13/8f0f1066-75fa-11e2-aa12-e6cf1d31106b_story.html

By: MikeN

MikeN — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:29:23 +0000

Nick, do you have any attempt to influence Chinese policy in there. Chinese coal consumption in 2012 is equal to the global consumption excluding China in 2000. China and India in 2030 could equal total global energy consumption in 2012.

http://3000quads.com/

By: MikeN

MikeN — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:53:20 +0000

OK, but I think the lukewarmer position has generally been taken to mean a more moderate level of warming, say 2C. See Thomas Fuller’s Lukewarmers Way. I would classify Lindzen as a skeptic. The two do overlap, as both are on the low end of IPCC estimates, but I think Lindzen and Spencer would say warming is negligible.

By: Nick Palmer

Nick Palmer — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:30:57 +0000

Lukewarmers think climate sensitivity is a lot less than the generally accepted figure, therefore they think that doubling or quadrupling of CO2 will only raise temperatures a bit =lukewarm.

Lindzen claims that his work shows sensitivity is a lot lower therefore he is a lukewarmer. Q.E.D

“Sceptics” tend to be lukewarmers anyway. Those who call themselves sceptics yet believe and spread the “ridiculous arguments”, that I suggested should be skewered, skepticalscience.com style, in full page newspaper ads, are more correctly described as pathological sceptics – or as plain and simply in denial of reality.

Of course genuine scientific sceptics do not fully acknowledge any position as the absolute all-time truth but these are not the ones who are causing all the trouble, deceit and misdirection.

By: pendantry

pendantry — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:06:14 +0000

@MikeN there’s nothing wrong with discussing things with sceptics. There’s everything wrong with trying to discuss anything with someone in denial.

By: MikeN

MikeN — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:05:45 +0000

How are you defining lukewarmer? What makes you think Lindzen is one?

Another problem I see is that if you want to go after skeptics in debate, shouldn’t you include them in the debate to expose their ridiculous arguments?

By: Nick Palmer

Nick Palmer — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:12:27 +0000

Kate. Any glance at the denialosphere shows them still in uber confident mode hammering in “the last few nails in the great AGW hoax” daily. Unfortunately too many of their ideas still resonate strongly with too many of the public who get their world view from newspaper articles, TV and radio.

Whether their arguments are scientifically valid or not is almost irrelevant in their effect in the minds of the voting public – they just need to sound plausible to spread doubt and uncertainty, and this they have done very well.

In order for the large scale changes we need to have a hope in hell of stopping the worst possibilities from fully manifesting, we need the public, the vast majority of the voting public to be fully on board and accepting of what needs to be done. This will only happen when the majority understand that what they are told they are risking, really is a serious high probability risk.

The standard way the science gets through to the public has turned out to be not effective enough against the tidal waves of sophisticated propaganda. We need another way.

Here’s a copy of a potential way to break the deadlock, that I posted to Climate Progress, that I think could do with wider exposure. We need to aggressively go after the pathological sceptics in the full glare of publicity.

click for link to comment (which I saved on my blog)

Hopefully it might raise a little more interest and comment here than it did there!