Discussion > Global warming Nazis
Well I also support freedom of choice regarding what method to deploy in opposing bad things. But I also support free exchange of opinions regarding which methods might actually work better. The problem with unleashing highly emotive memes such as 'global warming Nazis', is that they are soon no longer under one's control, no longer one's own means to the end, so to speak, but the narrative equivalent of a forest fire that can quickly incite a whole range of untintended consequences in both supporters and opponents.
This, of course, is exactly what has happened within CAGW, and is exactly why millions of folks who have no idea about any of the pertinent facts on climate, are roused to genuinely passionate and sometimes hateful crushing of sceptics, issuing from their mouths terms like 'anti-science' and 'denier' and 'flat-earther' and 'evil fossil fuel supporter' and a host more, without any conception of the false assumptions upon which these terms are all founded. These are all terms that serve *instead* of thought, as would be the case for replies in kind. We don't need more fires. And even disregarding all of that, it is vain to presume that in a head to head war of meaningless emotive expletives, the tiny minority player would win; it just wouldn't work anyhow.
It is justified to be angry when slandered, when put upon, but that doesn't mean throwing mud back at a giant could possibly work. It is not a case of being meek; overwhelming circumstance dictates that sceptics must be smart, not trigger happy. Counter-narratives may be useful, but they have to be much more positive.
Andy West
> I asked journalist Mehdi Hasan yesterday for some
justification of his calling Owen Paterson a denier, given
Paterson's acknowledgement that carbon dioxide is a
greenhouse gas.
Is that a serious question? Do you really think it takes just an acknowledgement that CO2 is a greenhouse gas for anything said thereafter to be non-denial?
> Global warming Nazis
Somehow I hope this catches on. It shows the level of stupidity of anyone using it. I mean calling someone who denies things a denier is sort of built into the language. But calling someone a Nazi when they clearly have no tendency to strut around in black uniforms shouting Heil Hitler and when on other days you would probably call him a Marxist or a communist just shows that skeptic use of language is rather different from normal use; if you want to appear even more like utter fruitcakes, go ahead, make my year.
Chandra
Chandra's bluster was called by the SkepticalScience.com team itself, quite directly, with their collection of Nazified self portraits:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/06/skeptcial-science-takes-creepy-to-a-whole-new-level/
One wonders though exactly what he claims is being denied, and on what side of the debate too. I note that alarmists universally deny themselves the factual reality that the likes of the Marcott 2013 media sensation of a hockey stick contained no hockey stick whatsoever (outside of noise) in the input proxy data:
http://s6.postimg.org/jb6qe15rl/Marcott_2013_Eye_Candy.jpg
NikFromNYC
Forget about it. If people want to use words that categorise you with a "holocaust" denier to make their point, let them. It shows the paucity of their arguments. But not of course their opinion of themselves.
At some point 40 years or so from now everybody will be wondering what this was all about.
Chandra, if you should think I ever want to talk to a racist like you again forget it. I'm surprised your comments about the British peoples' stupidity haven't had you banned, but there you go, we're used to being abused so we take it. So, if you have any manners, which I doubt, do not communicate with me again,. If your nom de plume was Gazza and you'd made the same comments about the Indian race you'd have been quite rightly banned sine die,(another phrase for you to look up in Wikipedia), and quite rightly.
geronimo
Communists, Nazis, whatever, the plan was the same. Think up a way society should operate, get enough supporters and brutalise everyone else into following the rules. The consensus supporters aren't there but they dream of making us do as we're told. Dream on warmists, you don't have the muscle or the support.
They're not global warming Nazis they're just unimaginative bullies who are rapidly losing their gang. Climate Change Posse or Climate Change Boyz.
Being 'in denial' seems to me to be an older expression than 'denier' and I wonder who would be judged most in denial should CAGW be real? Those who denied there was a serious problem or those who said there was a problem but didn't do anything substantial about it. Personally I'd rather refer to warmists as AGW Hypocrites. If only half of them did what they expect the rest of us to do, we'd see the effect in CO2.
TinyCO2
geronimo, Chandra accused me of racism when in fact I was pointing out how he'd let his spelling slip show on more than one occasion. Funny how warmists keep dropping themselves in it with US versus UK spellings :-)
TinyCO2
Geronimo, old friend, you just confirm that your Enlish language skills match those of our compatriots. Or did the English suddenly become a race?
Chandra
I'm against using names for people that they wouldn't not themselves be happy with. I can't see it achieves anything whatever and there are good reasons not to do so.
Chandra, unless geronimo really is an old friend of yours, it's perhaps best not to address him as such. It does not come across well.
"if you want to appear even more like utter fruitcakes, go ahead, make my year".
And if your intention in posting here is to win people to your point of view, sentiments like that are probably not the best way of doing so.
"Your lack of proficiency in English doesn't surprise me much. Most of your fellow countrymen and women also have trouble with their own language."
*Most?* I'd have said that a reasonable majority of English people manage to get by in using their language without any real difficulty.
Although if you're talking about BBC presenters and spokespersons, I'd probably have to concede you perhaps have a point. But then I'd have to ask whether they had the advantages of your upbringing and education.
And, as I just said, if your intention in posting here is to win people to your point of view, comments such as that are probably not the best way of doing so.
Martin A
> unless geronimo really is an old friend of yours, it's
perhaps best not to address him as such. It does not come
across well.
Martin, you are very sensitive. Do you object to people calling me Chunder too? You haven't said so before, but I guess you have been equally upset about that. Strange that you didn't mention it.
> And if your intention in posting here is to win people to
your point of view, sentiments like that are probably not
the best way of doing so.
Well you are right in that no further comment is really necessary on "global warming Nazis". Anyone in their right mind hearing that will think the speaker has a few screws loose. Whereas anyone hearing "climate science denier" knows exactly what it means and would make no mental connnection with Nazis or the Holocaust, unless invited to by a denier feigning upset.
> I'd have said that a reasonable majority of English people
manage to get by in using their language without any real
difficulty.
Yes, that it true as long as you ignore their inability to conjugate simple verbs.
Chandra
Whereas anyone hearing "climate science denier" knows exactly what it means and would make no mental connnection with Nazis [...]
Chandra, I made the mental connection. You are a Greenshirted Neo-Nazi.
clipe
Chandra, sometimes it’s as informative to see which comments you don’t respond to as those you do. Let’s see if you answer this one.
Insults are the lowest level of debate and when you resort to it, it suggests you have little else to work with. Roy Spencer is using it to highlight the abuse he has already been subjected to. He sees no other way to try and stop the name calling so he’s returning the ball. Consensus supporters shouldn’t need the tactics it currently uses if it had really strong evidence behind it. When opponents are really weak you hardly ever hear them mentioned, let alone derided. When did you ever read of someone making fun of a Flat Earther? However they’re regularly mentioned in conjunction with sceptics. Why? The two issues are poles apart (pun intended). One is easily demonstrated and doesn’t matter a damn and the other is climate change. Take ‘denier’, it used to be firmly connected to those who denied the Holocaust but even in the short time it’s been aimed at sceptics it has overtaken the former meaning by at least 2:1. Search on Google and twice as many references come up. You guys are so scared of us you've made us out to be something more unpleasant than those who deny torture and genocide. Get a grip!
Why do you hang out here? Your comments rarely elevate above bitching? When presented with the opportunity to persuade Masstra2014 you chose instead to be a git. If you had better material to work with you could slay us with a few choice links but you can’t because they don’t exist. Frankly I’d be embarrassed if I was on your side. All those billions of dollars available, countless institutions involved and the best source of coherent answers to complicated questions you’ve got is SkS. The web site of a cartoonist whose claim to academic fame is the outrageous pieces of toilet paper he helped Lewandowski produce. One of your star performers is currently demonstrating his inability to stick to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth by fibbing in his own complaint about his good name being smeared. Another actually turned to crime to try and attack scaptics. Your side continuously has to resort to using innuendo and suggestion. For example this little gem came out in December
http://drexel.edu/now/news-media/releases/archive/2013/December/Climate-Change/
Oooh so convincing… NOT. Are you proud that some of your side thought it worth an academic paper to find out that big companies fund right wing think tanks to a relatively small value and that those groups might or might not fund something about climate change? The author finally resorts to saying that most of the funding is untraceable, which is code for ‘frankly I found out nothing but I’m too biased to believe that it isn’t happening.’
If you seriously care about AGW, and I very much doubt it, you need to stop whinging here and go sort your own side out. Create a resource that you can be proud of and that takes the place of petty insults and sly innuendo.
TinyCO2
Bill Nye debated evolution with a creationist a little while ago. They were both asked what would convert them to their opponent's view. The creationist said that nothing would change his view. Bill Nye said "Evidence".
That defines the difference for me.
A sceptic draws a different conclusion from the evidence than I do. If the evidence changes, they might change too.
A denier believes in their world view, regardless of any evidence.
I was earlier asked to name which of you are sceptics and which are deniers. Not having a window into men's souls I can't be definitive. I do tend to personally classify those who debate with me about the evidence as sceptics and those who insult me as deniers.
A tendency to promote their own nonstandard physics is also a good indication of denial of reality.
Entropic man
And do you think that there are deniers on your side of the debate too Entropic man?
TinyCO2
TinyCO2
Oh yes. There are extreme catastrophists predicting our immediate extinction, way beyond anything the evidence would suggest. Runaway greenhouse effect, anyone?
http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/runaway-greenhouse-effect
Entropic man
Entropic: A tendency to promote their own nonstandard physics is also a good indication of denial of reality.
That would be entirely true. However, if a hypothesis, using standard physics, were proven wrong by observations, would that not show a misinterpretation of those? And if that hypothesis were to continue merely by popular acclaim, where would the denial of reality lie? The GW hypothesis currently lies on the verge (at best) of falsification by observation. Are you stating that it is impossible, because you understand it to use only standard physics, for it to be falsified? If not, you would of course, be a denier by your own definition as you have excluded the possibility of your being a sceptic.
ssat
EM - A tale I remember was a leading biologist being asked what would evidence would convince him that the theory of eveolution was false. His reply: "Fossil rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian".
Sometimes, I confess, I am rude to you. You consider - as is your right - my rudeness as insulting, so I guess that puts me on your 'denier' list.
However, I honestly believe I am open to being convinced by evidence. It was my inability to locate evidence that originally made me start to think there was something fishy about the global warming thing which, previously, I had assumed was all solid physics.
I think I'd probably be convinced by the sort of evidence that BH commenter rhoda has asked for Where's my best evidence? (although I'd still be asking why it took thirty years to produce it).
I certainly agree that having an unconventional view of the physics of the twentieth century raises doubts about a person's views. The Dragonslayers explain their mistaken views in simple terms so that it can immediately seen to be nonsense. What they have to say can safely be ignored. You cannot debunk global warming pseudo-science with gobbledegook science
[With MDGNN, I'll reserve judgment. Unlike the Dragons, I can't make out what he's on about. I think it's conceivable he has an alternate view that leads to the same results as normal theory - a bit like using Lagrangian principles to analyse the motion of a body, rather than Newton's laws. Having known a couple of people who had difficulty communicating their ideas but who had very profound insights, I won't write off MDGNN until we know what he's actually saying. But I think we may have a long wait.]
Martin A
Chandra -
"Yes, that it true as long as you ignore their inability to conjugate simple verbs."
Please give us an example of a simple verb that most English people have difficulty in conjugating.
Martin A
Seat
I have in mind the folk who write to a physics department proving that relativity is wrong or that they have designed a perpetual motion machine. Its hard to tell without seeing details of his ideas, but Mydogsgotnonose might fit that category.
To be fair, most brand new physics starts with someone looking at what should be predictable results and saying " That's odd". Unfortunately the vast majority of those turn out to be technical errors of one sort or another. Remember polywater?
It is quite possibly that the mechanism of the greenhouse effect could be falsified. All theories are provisional. Whether that is probable is another matter. Such a falsification would need to account for the magnitude of interglacial/glacial temperature differences, the OLR spectrum, the current imbalance between insulation and OLR, increasing ocean heat content etc. The CO2 greenhouse effect also occupies a definate place in the overall pattern.
What is ongoing is tuning of the theory as more and better data on energy flows in the system comes in. The ongoing estimates of climate sensitivity are an example.
You seem quite confident that it is about to be falsified. If you are basing this on the pause, I suggest that you look beyond the air temperature data into the energy budget data. The amount of energy being trapped by the greenhouse effect did not stop increasing after 1998, it is continuing to increase in other reaervoirs than the troposphere. The budget still balances, but the flow pattern has changed slightly.
Am I sceptical? Yes. Provide me with sufficient evidence and I change my mind. Currently IMHO the weight of evidence favours cAGW. If you wish to change my mind you will need to provide a greater weight of evidence to tip the balance.
Entropic man
Martin A
Best evidence for cAGW? For me three liines of evidence convinced me. They are not individual pieces of evidence, but patterns built up from them.
First the c. Look at the Outward Longwave Spectrum. You see an overall curve which matches the black body radiation expected at the temperature of the upper troposphere, which is where the radiation comes from.
Superimposed on the black body spectrum are dips in intensity corresponding to absorption by the main greenhouse gases methane, Water and CO2.. The area enclosed by these dips is a measure of the amount of energy retained.
Look up from the surface and you can measure the downwelling radiation. This mirrors the dips in OLR as peaks and the energy matches. The biggest energy contributor is the 15 micrometre spike of CO2.
The atmospheric observations match the laboratory measurements of gas spectra from Tyndall up to HITRAN. There is an imbalance between the outgoing energy and insolation.The accounts include all the energy metrics, but do not balance. :-)
Second, the A. The natural range for CO2 during recurrent ice age is 200-280ppm. Law Dome gives a rise above that from 1880, with a confirming rise from the postWW2 Hawaiian data. From overall fossil fuel consumption data you can match the change against industrial CO2 production and see that about half the CO2 produced stays in the atmosphere, the rest going into carbon sinks such as the ocean. The performance of the sinks can be observed eg through reduced ocean pH.
This time the accounts balance.
Thirdly GW. The global temperature record shows 130 years of warming, with an R=0.82 correlation to the change in CO2. The volume of land ice has been decreasing and Arctic sea ice decreasing in extent and volume. Sea level has been rising at a rate which matches thermal expansion + land ice melt. Ocean heat content is rising. Turn all these into energy values and you find that the amount of energy in the system increases at the rate expected from the imbalance between OLR and insolatin mentioned above.
Once again the accounts balance.
Put all three together and they fit as a consistent and coherent pattern. I still see some devils in the detail, such as the mismatch between the lower climate sensitivities estimated from modern data and the larger values from paleo data. Reconciling increasing Antarctic sea ice extent with increasing Antarctic temperatures is also gwnerating interesting debate. There is a lot of detail to fill in, but overall I see nothing which falsifies the overall pattern.
Entropic man
Entropic man - my problem with these calculations is that I'm not sure how accurate the measurements are or what issues that might create. Do they measure all the atmospheric surface, all the time, or just a bit at a time and average the rest? Are we sure that measurements aren't adjusted to match the value they expected and will never actally read true? When it comes to paleo calculations, can we trust people who have demonstrated an ability to accept 'near enough' and claim it's accurate to silly decimal places or make stupid errors and then refuse to admit them?
These people need external auditing before they can be trusted.
TinyCO2
The test of science is contact with reality. I tend to take scientific data at face value. Mismatches show up quickly when the next man tries to use duff data and it doesn't fit.
I know you are a scientist yourself. I hope your own field is not as prone to the sort of intellectual dishonesty you see in others.
Entropic man
EM - thanks for that. Something to think about (or re-think - I looked into it some time ago but it's mostly evaporated in the meantime).
The amount of energy being trapped by the greenhouse effect did not stop increasing after 1998.......There is an imbalance between the outgoing energy and insolation.
There is no question, that is really one of the cornerstones of AGW theory. In a line or two, would you please say where does that information come from? (ie that the imbalance exists and its value).
So far as I can see, it does not come from direct measurments of incoming/outgoing. In a reference I quoted to you not long ago, Hansen and co stated that the difference between measured incoming and measured outgoing was too big to be plausible. Estimates of the difference come solely from calculations based on numerous assumptions and approximations so far as I can tell.
If I made calculation that implied a particular physical result and the result did not materialise, I'd check my working and my assumptions and approximations, rather than assume that the expected result had happened but was invisible.
I've suggested before that the fact that the sums don't add up might just possibly because the assumptions and approximations give a misleading estimate of the difference between incoming and outgoing. I can't see that that cannot be ruled out. It's a simpler explanation than that the missing heat is somehow magicing itself to somewhere where it can't be detected.
And the alleged imbalance is pretty small (in percent terms) relative to the total incoming. Can the approximations be relied on to a fraction of a percent?
On the CO2 thing, I'd agree with some of what you say. But the dynamics of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere seems to me to be poorly understood (hence the long-term CO2 level). The IPCC cites the Bern model to which I have several serious objections, including that its impulse response, stated in all seriousness by the IPCC, is physically unrealisable by the form of 'box model' they assume.
As I said, I'm not sure that MDGNN is necessarily claiming anything like perpetual motion. It may be as simple as his believing that back radiation does not warm things - which always seems pretty obvious to me (and to anyone who works out how the energy flows as a system reaches thermal equilibrium from a cold (0K) start).
Martin A
I know you are a scientist yourself. I hope your own field is not as prone to the sort of intellectual dishonesty you see in others.
Feb 23, 2014 at 6:17 PM Entropic
Well replying on Tiny's behalf: No I think I have never come across dishonesty - or simple bad behaviour - in any field I have worked in. That's why we find climate science so shocking.
(the occasional nutter yes. but bad behaviour no.)
Martin A
Entropic: Such a falsification would need to account for the magnitude of interglacial/glacial temperature differences, the OLR spectrum, the current imbalance between insulation[sic] and OLR, increasing ocean heat content etc.
Those are where climate science looks for support of its hypothesis. To elevate that to a theory, as you do, is based solely on an insular popularity and not verification. The elephant in the lab is not 'the pause' but the detection by measurement of no trend in TOA net energy flows while carbon dioxide increases. Early daffodils just happen.
"The CO2 greenhouse effect also occupies a definate place in the overall pattern."
I agree entirely but whether it is detectable amongst natural variation remains to be seen. Currently, it appears not to be suggesting a different effect divorced from TOA imbalance may exist.
ssat
The Bish's post yesterday on Roy Spencer's reaction to those continuing to call people like him "deniers" ended with one other important matter much closer to home which I believe has been completely ignored in the 129 comments so far:
It's not the only problem with the thread, because almost all the comments miss what I consider by far the most important points about Spencer' statement and the apparently very different reaction from Richard Lindzen to the same issue on the BBC World Service's One Planet Archive on 3rd October 2010 (h/t Pharos).
But let's start this remix of the discussion with something short I fully agreed with, from Shub:
This doesn't say it all, by any means, but it draws a line for me beyond which it's totally stupid to go.
So, to the point, I agree with every word Spencer wrote:
And I agree with every word I've ever heard Lindzen speak on the same subject. How can that be? It has everything to do with freedom - freedom for each person of good heart to use whatever means they find useful and acceptable to fight against something truly horrific - or repulsive, as Roy puts it.
I'd like to consider the cowardly reaction of Mehdi Hasan to Andrew's questions as we do this. Cowardly Nazis? Of course. They always are when someone has the courage to confront them. Which Spencer, Lindzen and Montford are all doing, in their different ways. I wholeheartedly support them.