Friday
Apr182014
by 
Josh
Josh Goodbye to all that - Josh 272
Apr 18, 2014 Josh ;)
Click for a larger image
As many know I have a bit of a 'glass half full' opinion on the state of climate science and with the recent IPCC offerings along with activist mutterings of 'we are all heading for a cliff' type alarmism and calls for Climate Scientist strike action, I imagined this view of where we/they are at.
Happy Easter!
Reader Comments (33)
I think you've got it Josh. I had thought that someone might be holding a "Cliff's Notes, Climatology" Could be that this publication is unknown in the UK.
Great cartoon, Josh. But I have to ask: what's with the "Welsh Rhino"?
[J: ref to George Monbiot's wish to 'wild' Wales. With Rhinos. ]
...
I think the people you are trying to vilify with this comic - climate change activists and frankly the great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter - would have a taste in graphic comedy that is vastly superior to this kind of childish misrepresentation.
Very good
Could do with a member of the public with a placard saying "please strike!"
We all would be better if those sycophants went on strike!
I'd just finished writing this:
and saw this superb cartoon. It must be glass-half-full time at last. Have a few on me for Easter, BHers.
Let them go on strike. I'd be pleased not to hear from them for 10 or 20 years.
@ Paul Woland
Nah, that's not 'vilify' old son ... that's called "laughing at 'em".
Having read and watched their activist antics over the years (in the main, vast swathes of old bollocks maquerading as 'science') that's about all that's left for any intelligent observer.
Vilify? The poor darlings need rescue.
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Bravo Josh, a superb cartoon with some welcome optimism for the holiday period.
Alternative choices of words/wedges seem possible, e.g. 'opportunism' between 'climate' and 'science'.
I'm not sure there ever has been such a thing as climate change science, so maybe the wedge could be labelled 'change'. Or maybe 'narcissism'.
Paul Woland (2:49 PM): as you evidently consider yourself rather above the intellect of the majority of us on this site, could you please provide us with a full, explicit definition of “climate”, and how “climate change” might be identified and scientifically verified. You may also provide us with an example of what could be considered falsification of the theory of global warming, thus giving the word “theory” some form of scientific credibility in this argument, as nothing to date seems to be acceptable as evidence of falsification, despite much being in direct contradiction of the claims of so many of the “educated and informed” in this matter (e.g. Julia Slingo’s assertion in November 2013 that the oncoming winter was going to be unusually mild and dry, to then claim that the flooding of January was a sign of “climate change”). A theory need not be proved, and will usually stand until disproved; however, if it cannot be disproved, can it truly be considered valid as a theory? Even Einstein admitted that all that was required to prove him wrong was one fact... Then, perhaps you consider that those "who are educated and informed in the matter" are, and consider themselves to be, superior to Einstein, and that NOTHING could exist that would prove them wrong.
Oh – and great cartoon, Josh, as usual!
I didn't realise they were contemplating strike action. Mass resignations would be much better.
An ideal outcome from fracking?
Thankfully there's none happening around Rutland at the moment, otherwise we'd never hear the last of it.
O/T but Feedback on Radio 4 tonight (April 18th) has an interesting piece about balance on the Today Programme (from 8.25) and considers Lawson vs an unnamed 'climate expert and scientist'! A random member of the public is 'shocked', naturally.
Josh -
Thanks for the response. I knew there had to be something behind it.
I recall that Richard Betts once drew a distinction between climate scientists and climate change scientists. I don't know whether that taxonomy is accepted widely or not (nor even if Dr Betts still holds such a view), but it seems that a disproportionate share of alarmism emanates from the climate change scientist group, as Dr Betts defined it. As well as from non-scientist elements as you illustrate. [All of which is not to imply that the climate scientist group is free of alarmism.]
Excellent, just excellent!
Radical Rodent:
I would respectfully suggest that you substitute hypothesis for theory. Wikipedia (for once) explains the difference as I've always understood it quite well"
Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used synonymously, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. A scientific hypothesis is a proposed explanation of a phenomenon which still has to be rigorously tested. In contrast, a scientific theory has undergone extensive testing and is generally accepted to be the accurate explanation behind an observation.
AGW, I believe, fails the "rigorously tested" and "accurate explanation" criteria.
Paul Woland
"the great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter"
Who are? I take it you haven't read our host's 'The Hockey Stick Illusion', which even you may find educational...
Woland (young Woland I suspect): When you posted your superior remark at WUWT, a commenter referred you to the 10:10 video. I hereby do the same.
Actually, I have never associated Alarmists with wit, but perhaps you could prove me in error by providing some examples.
HaroldW: Thank you for the reminder of that excellent Betts thread in November 2011. But I'm disappointed you didn't know about the Welsh Rhino. Neither did I! One of the great reliefs when that overhang goes down into darkness will I hope be a vastly reduced need to know about such offshoots of the climate madness. Some of the remaining science will be genuinely interesting. One of the many strengths of the cartoon is that this aspect of Josh's hopefulness comes across so well.
David Chappell (8:46 PM): thank you; that is a good point. Perhaps I was using the term “theory” to pander to the vanities, and most AGWistas seem to be convinced that the idea has been rigorously tested, and is the ONLY explanation.
As an aside, here’s an interesting site: http://hyzercreek.com/hillofshizzle.htm
HaroldW:
Like you I hadn't heard of George Monbiot's wish for welsh rhinos, and I am, and I guess you too, now wondering why George wanted a thick skinned, short sighted, belligerent animal joining him in his home there.
I've heard of welsh dragons so perhaps George has got it wrong.
On the left we have skeptic science based on evidence, testing and the scientific method and on the right we have political [climate] science based on buddy review and "consensus".
Actually Graeme I think your statement "a thick skinned, short sighted, belligerent animal " is an apt description for George Monbiot himself, he should feel quite comfortable stomping around the Welsh countryside with one by his side.
...but does he have a bodger on his bonce?
HaroldW:
In that case George would Swann around the countryside, or would he Flander?
Josh - as soon as intellectual snobs like Paul Woland (clearly one of the "great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter") start whinging, you know you're backing a winner.
"That wedge looks like a conspiracy to me."
Lew
Paul Woland - if Josh upsets your delicate intellectual sensitivities, why not try a montage of Australian television news clips and old B&W Hollywood horror movies
It's funny, can't say it's accurate, but it's funny.
@paul woland
'I think the people you are trying to vilify with this comic - climate change activists and frankly the great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter - would have a taste in graphic comedy that is vastly superior to this kind of childish misrepresentation.'
Ohh get her!
Maybe you're right. But us proles in the cheap seats without your ever-so refained taste enjoy the knockabout unpeer-reviewed stuff, Your Worship.
JFI Where can we see some of the intelligensia's superior graphic comedy so we can see what intellectual delights I'm missing? Is there a cartoonist in the ranks of 'the educated and informed'? (rhetorical)
"great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter"
Well Mr. Woland if you yourself were "educated and informed in the matter" you would be aware that climate science scepticism and climate science belief are separated only by belief in the output of computer models.
There are over 120 computer models used by the IPCC and just two them come near to modelling the actual observed real world temperature. None of them forecast the current hiatus. Yet the people who programmed the computers are " educated and informed in the matter". How educated? and how informed? I have to ask.
Moreover these same computers are used to model the future state of the climate, which, and here your conman detector should switch on, only forecast doom and gloom, no good will come from it at all. Which frankly beggars belief.
Not only that the "great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter" have already told us that it is impossible to forecast the future state of the climate in IPCC TAR WGI 14.2.2.2, where they state, categorically, that the climate is a coupled non-linear chaotic system whose future state cannot be forecast.
To summarise we have two sides to this debate:
1. "The great majority of people who are educated and informed in the matter" who have said they cannot model the future state of the climate, who nontheless use models of the future state of the climate to predict disaster and mayhem;
2. Uneducated oicks who refuse to believe you can foretell the future with models, or birds entrails. And instead want scientific output to be based on experimentation and observation in the physical world, not models.
Great cartoon Josh.
Who are the four white coated lab guys at the left meant to be?
[J: 4 white coated lab guys ;-) ]