Interview 980 – Tim Ball Lets the Hot Air Out of the Lima Climate Deal
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Dr. Tim Ball of drtimball.com joins us once again to discuss the latest climate talks in Lima, Peru. We examine the foundations of the IPCC and UNFCCC, their tie-in to Agenda 21 and the Club of Rome, the issue of science vs. politics, and the agenda that is driving the climate change debate.
SHOW NOTES:
People Starting To Ask About Motive For Massive IPCC Deception
The Club of Rome: “the real enemy is humanity”
List of excuses for ‘the pause’ in global warming is now up to 52
UN members agree deal at Lima climate talks
U.S. and China Reach Climate Accord After Months of Talks
Filed in: Interviews
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James
This man may be the most annoying interviewee I’ve heard you attempt to deal with. He seems to have a neurotic need to compulsively spew…well…everything: ideas, names, acronyms, organizations, etc. all pour forth at high speed in an unintelligible gumbo. I guess our job as listener is to organize this mess into sentences, paragraphs, thoughts.
I really wanted to hear what the two of you had to say; this issue troubles me because I read contradictory material from informed, sincere people and cannot resolve them.
But I instinctively dismiss someone who sounds like a snake oil salesman whose strategy is to drown his audience in a firehose of words thereby preventing them from reflecting on and weighing what he is saying.
His delivery reminded me of Buckminster Fuller but Bucky’s thoughts flowed logically and evidenced an inquiring, orderly mind. Ball came across as a crackpot.
Hey otabenga are you sure you listened to the Dr. Tim Ball interview? I found it very logical and to the point !
I suspect otabenga was a victim of Field McConnell’s introduction to “Abel Danger,” and in the moment of disorientation, clicked and commented on the wrong thread.
James,
I could not disagree with “Otabenga’s” comment MORE!
Dr. Tim Ball’s interview was fantastic and very easy to understand.
His straightforward speech is both honest and VERIFIABLE!
Thank you for interviewing him as regretfully, I had never heard of him before this. I am eager to search your archives to hear more of him.
I am eager to listen to the next interview, I hope you have time to interview him again SOON!
Concur entirely on the easy comprehensibility, intelligibility and general worth of this interview.
otabenga’s invective is completely unjustified and resorts, alas,
to a blazing red-flag ad hominem standard of trolls everywhere.
Hi James,
This is my first comment since I broke my boycott of PayPal to subscribe. And to be frank this is not at all what I would have expected to find myself commenting upon. Your recent video on the falsiability of conspiracy theories with no little irony is what convinced me to forgo my solidarity with wikileaks. The irony comes in the form of me now having to comment on a creationist climate sceptic who has lost as many libel cases as he has published scientific papers in recognised journals. Oh how I wish I had the time and knowledge to buy some bitcoins now.
Its pretty weird to be honest having been watching, listening and reading your work for some time now to find you platforming this guy. Do you know of the nature of his failed lawsuits in which he has been forced to state he is a liar? Do you know he has received payment from Exxon and others to fund his work that is never peer reviewed? Do you know he is a creationist that stated quote “Even though it is still just a theory and not a law 148 years after it was first proposed, Darwinian evolution is the only view allowed in schools. Why? Such censorship suggests fear of other ideas, a measure of indefensibility.” unquote.
Science is my first love, above politics which is like a perverse love affair. Now while I would be the first to admit that the climate debate is as ripe for political exploitation by the global hegemony as any I find it impossible to grant this Dr Ball any credibility what so ever.
Thank you for the reply. You raise very serious charges, so let me take a moment to respond. Firstly, if there are any lawsuits against Dr. Ball other than Mann v. Ball and Weaver v. Ball I don’t know of them. Both of these lawsuits were unsuccessful as far as I know:
“Weaver’s libel suit against Ball has also now been rendered dormant due to failure to prosecute because Weaver, like Mann, won’t disclose his (similarly dubious) metadata.”
http://www.principia-scientific.org/michael-mann-faces-bankruptcy-as-his-courtroom-climate-capers-collapse.html
I was unaware of Tim’s view of Darwinian evolution, but would be curious to hear more of his view before taking a single three sentence quote as some sort of indictment.
But perhaps more to the point, if we are to make progress in a discussion like this I would appreciate you pointing out anything that was said in this interview that was incorrect. That way we can correct any false statements and learn our way forward.
I do believe there is manipulation and skewing of the data gathered by both sides of the debate. Dr Ball asserts at least twice that the climate is on a cooling trend however this is patent falsehood and the truth is the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since the 1990s. Further there is basic chemistry. We have released millions of years worth of natural carbon capture in a geological heartbeat and have as a result seen the ratio of co2 in the atmosphere rise by 50% since the industrial revolution. Radiative forcing by increasing co2 is not complex dubious science… Its very simple chemistry. Several times during the podcast I was left feeling that Dr Ball does that climate sceptic thing in deliberately blurring the lines between weather and climate as though there was no difference.
I do not trust the IPCC. And I do not trust the IMF, World Bank and the movers and shakers of the US centred hegemony that sees climate change as an opportunity to extend power and raise an extra tax or three. However I do trust to some extent that most scientists are doing real science and producing real observational data on the effects that the flux in atmospheric chemistry causes on the climate. The wider implications of climate change are unfortunately ignored in all this. And citing weather as though it is climate brings nothing to the table.
So do you retract your assertion that Dr. Ball has been successfully sued for libel and “forced to state he is a liar”?
Regarding the temperature trend, are you denying the existence of the pause? There are certainly differences in opinion regarding its significance, but not its existence:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/recent-pause-in-warming
There are many, many more mainstream references to this phenomenon if you need them, including from Nature:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2138.html
(along with a good breakdown of Nature’s excuse for the pause: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.jp/2014/03/how-journal-nature-plays-fast-loose.html)
What does the phrase “10 hottest years on record” mean to you, and what temperature datasets using what statistical analyses are you basing these on? The problems with the temperature record are fairly common knowledge by now:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/28/skeptical-of-skeptics-is-steve-goddard-right/
And even if we could trust the statistical construction of a temperature record from scattered and manipulated instrumental measurements over the past 150 years, one wonders what this says about the anthropomorphic contribution to temperature change anyway.
Why do we examine global temperature figures with huge error bars for tenths of a degree differences in order to rank a century of temperature data, anyway? Surely if we are talking about truly unprecedented warming and global catastrophe we should be able to put these figures and trends in a wider perspective, shouldn’t we?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
There is only a fringe of a fringe that claim there is literally no such thing as radiative forcing. The real question is what the climate sensitivity is, and there are literally dozens of published papers that provide a significantly lower sensitivity figure than the IPCC. What is the correct figure?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.jp/2014/11/40-published-papers-find-climate.html
Why are these issues never discussed, while instead we are treated to MSM propaganda climate “debates” featuring visual representations of the repeatedly debunked 97% consensus claim as a rebuke to those who would dare question this received scientific wisdom?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg
I really liked to hear a scientist other than Greg Graffin of Bad Religion saying that consensus is not science.
I only judge the man by what I heard here, not what others will type in here without proof to “kill the messenger”. I really despise people who literally believe and want to apply books put together from ancient scrolls in real life too (creationists) and people like this cannot go on for an hour interview without mentioning the Bible and “god”. Why did it not just happen now
James,
I must retract that he “has lost” his libel cases as technically he abandoned the cases without a conclusion being reached. However he was forced to admit that his lies that he was the first Canadian climate scientist and had been a professor for 28 years, when the reality he was a geography professor for just 8 years, were fabrications. Additionally there is little doubt looking at dates that he was recruited by Exxon to compile his first paper that brought him into this debate in the first place. A paper that never even accepted for peer review. Sending me to sites that have clear bias woven through every paragraph is not going to convince me that Dr Ball is not a shady character in the employ of the oil industry and its apologists.
My understanding of the development of the climate debate is that there is hot air, obfuscation and personal agendas on both sides of the debate. However there is little doubt the climate is warming and as previously stated I do have confidence in the simple chemistry, a doubling of atmospheric co2, that states this warming is to be expected. The afore mentioned hegemony were in uniform denial of global warming only until such times as they saw an advantage in adopting it to further manipulate and control global trade and taxation. Now they fund both sides of the debate just as they fund both the war on terror and the terrorists themselves.
Meanwhile the increased energy in the climate system is having undoubtable effects in a number of regions including Greenland’s melting ice sheets and the incidence of inundation events in the Bangladesh delta. You can fairly argue that such examples are based on data sets that are short term in the ebb and flow of Earths climate history. However to imagine for one moment that mankind’s love affair with burning carbon has no effect on climate seems to me to be both naive and dangerous.
I see that not only are you not interested in providing citations for anything you state (including your continued citationless accusations about Dr. Ball), but you actually seem boastful about your unwillingness to look at sources of data that contradict what you say. For someone who professes interest in falsifiability (particularly ironic considering we are talking about unfalsifiable
global warmingclimate change“global weirding”) it doesn’t seem like there is much room for falsification in your citation-free assertions.You also continue to state that you have “confidence” that a doubling of CO2 makes “this warming” (you mean the 18 year pause?) “excpected” without addressing the issue of climate sensitivity as I raised in my previous post. Do you expect others to have the same “confidence” without looking into niggly little details like how much temperature change we are likely to expect from a doubling of CO2?
“Meanwhile the increased energy in the climate system is having undoubtable effects in a number of regions including Greenland’s melting ice sheets and the incidence of inundation events in the Bangladesh delta. You can fairly argue that such examples are based on data sets that are short term in the ebb and flow of Earths climate history.”
Short term in a geologic sense? Otherwise, your statement that; “..such examples are based on data sets that are short term in the ebb and flow of Earths climate history.” simply isn’t so. Here’s links to a chart and the underlying data in txt of Greenland ice core CO2 measures over the past 10k years:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/easterbrook_fig5.png
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
Clearly, the pattern of extreme shifts in mean global temps and CO2 predate industrial man’s contributions of atmospheric gasses. Science is unequivocal about that very glaring fact.
What’s also glaring is our infantile scientific understanding of solar dynamics relationship to both Earth’s climate history and what we’re experiencing as it fluctuates. You’re clearly misstating the case and your retraction’s inadequate to salvage your credibility.
Citations are always a good idea if you intend making a believable case. Note James’ example.
Interesting you mention evolution, since one can argue the theory of evolution is not falsifiable.
The Fifth Assessment Report 2014 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is available, released in November 2014, the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) reports having been released in September 2013 and April 2014.
The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) consists of three Working Groups (WG);
WG I: The Physical Science Basis
WG II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
WG III: Mitigation of Climate Change
The last report is by WG2 and is titled “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability” part A is 1150 pages, Part B 696 Pages (Nov 2014).
It has taken me awhile to get my head around this much (of just the IPCC reports), after looking at the reports the above makes sense and makes more sense of them (the wiki page was used for most info above). The later reports and working groups 2 & 3 deal with the climate change affects and potential future affects.
WG1 The Physical Science Basis and its Technical Summary & Technical Summary Supplementary Material is referred to in a lot of the other reports I have (briefly) looked at. That Physical Science Basis report appears to have been released in 2013.
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
Perhaps a place to start Working Group 1, links to WG2 and WG3 from there, if interested in looking at the work of the IPPC.
Cheers
Simon
Greetings all. James, I notice you came immediately to the aid of an interviewee here. It would be nice if you granted Field O’Connell the same courtesy – especially as the accusations made against him seem to cross the line into personal attacks. Which contravention of the rules was made in this discussion, too, imo – and not by candideschmyles.
It would be very sad to see this website degenerate into the With Us Or Against Us paradigm. No one has a monopoly on the truth.
And why is it necessary to become hostile when discussing climate change? The reality of the greenhouse effect, which underlies the theory, is undeniable (or there would be no life on Earth). Likewise, the corruption of many scientists is undeniable (read “The Trouble With String Theory”, e.g.). Why should concerned individuals turn against one another in choosing sides (something candideschmyles avoids, by the way)? Whether AGW were real or fantasy, it would be exploited by the elites, so the fact that they are exploiting it is devoid of bearing in the debate.
James,
I do apologise for the lack of citations. This is due to the limitations placed on me by using a tablet phone that I have not got the hang of yet, by time and by me thinking there being no real need to cite that which is the mainstream consensus.
I had encountered Dr Ball prior to this podcast and I have seen nothing and heard nothing during it or this conversation that comes close to persuading me he is a reliable source. Given his dubious and controversial history I believe that to be an entirely rational standpoint.
My own opinion is that the hegemony wants nothing less than the melting of all ice sheets to free up a landmass the size of three Australias for exploitation and that the science of how to do that is perfectly understood and implemented. I also personally have no real concerns about this happening as long as mitigating measures are taken to help those in coastal regions that will be affected by the rising sea levels. The climate debate, as I have stated is not really about this long term plan. The symptoms of climate change are usurped for other agendas entirely.
I live out of a hotel in the Scottish highlands during the week so you will only get citations from me at weekends when I can access my PC and am able to do the searching required to provide them.
See below for the court depositions in the libel case Tim Ball vs Dan Johnson and The Calgary Herald.
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Calgary%20Herald%20Statement%20of%20Defence.pdf
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/TBall%20statement%20of%20claim.pdf
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Johnson%20statement%20of%20defence.pdf
After reading these I cannot see any logical alternative but to conclude that Ball did deliberately try to mislead readers on his qualification to write the relevant article. This alone, in my opinion, renders everything else he says as worthless.
His position as the mouthpiece of Friends of Science also puts him firmly in the employ of the petrochemical industry. A brief perusal of the notes on their wiki page clearly demonstrates that the leadership of that organisation all work in or actually own businesses in the oil and gas sector. Quite how much they receive from the industry they keep secret.
Further you do not have to read much of Ball’s writing to come across his open support for the capitalist agenda. His appearances with Hannity, Beck and other Fox News stalwarts says enough about him to confirm he has a very precise agenda. And give veracity to the fact that he has made statements in support of the creationist world view either because he believes that or dishonestly plays to that demographic.
It is the easiest thing in the world to be a climate change skeptic. The nature of the science itself is full of caveats, large error margins and no end of input variables that climate scientists are first to admit are largely unknown. To cast doubt on doubt takes no skill. Most climate scientists I would presume, from my knowledge of the debate, that uncertainty is the only certainty. However the stakes are potentially so high that caution is required and especially when it comes to the continued release of co2. No one doubted these same scientists when they forced industry to clean up their act and put a stop to the acid rain that devastated large tracts of European forest. The clean up and the recovery of these forests stands as testament to scientists getting it right. 97% of climate scientists do agree that man is causing an increase in global mean temperature. Of the remaining 3% almost all have been connected to the extractive industries. Regardless of the politicking surrounding the IPCC and the confusing agendas on both sides of the debate this 97% figure carries its own weight.
To conclude I joined this site because I admire your work and the depth and quality of information you provide. I am not here to troll or be contrarian. But Dr Ball is not credible by any leap of the imagination. It is not a single point of doubt cast on him but a stream and if you disagree on that we will just have to agree to differ. Regardless I will continue to absorb your work.
candideschmyles,
You say that scientists view climate largely as unknown and full of large error margins. Then you say 97% of climate scientists are confident that man is causing global warming. Which is it?
If 97% of scientists think man is causing global warming, how can it be “the easiest thing in the world” to be a skeptic?
You cite the “97%” figure without addressing James’ debunking of it during the interview or providing any support for it whatsoever.
You make two arguments from authority:
1. Since 97% of scientists believe something, it must be true. (At one time, 97% of scientists believed the Sun rotated around the Earth.)
2. Since scientists have come up with successful theories in the past (acid rain), all future theories put forth by scientists must be true.
These are very strange arguments and I’m wondering why you would engage in this methodology if you agree with the premise of falsifiability.
You argue that since Dr. Ball made an incorrect claim, the rest of his claims should be discounted. Yet you admit you made an incorrect claim about Dr. Ball’s libel cases, which you retracted. Should the rest of your claims be discounted?
Why do you use value-laden adjectives such as “undoubtable”, “naive”, and “dangerous” in your discussion of climate science? Does using these terms lend itself to constructing and evaluating falsifiable (scientific) statements?
I look forward to your response.
Let`s drop all this BS about law suits and other nonsense. I have a ranch in west Texas and a house in Florida with waterfront footage along the Gulf coast. Should I plant bananas at the ranch and water proof my home in Florida or as Dr. Ball says don`t worry about it?
After the last 18 years of “no effect” from the chicken little’s forecast from the IPCC I tending to believe in the facts from Dr. Ball.
If you think they(the few countries who have the tech) want to heat up the atmosphere, then look at geoengineering and HAARP (which even the official version of what it is for is heating up certain parts of the atmosphere in “limited areas”. Pfft, the military and their friends are always 20-30 years ahead in what we really know in science. They could be heating it up artificially in many ways.
Also, volcanos have been very active in the last 10 years and especially this year, look up the article on arstechnica of 50 active volcanoes, that’s gonna be spreading C02, a lot. But somehow the hidden data (which is only partially hidden since Climategate) shows they do not even take into account the effects of volcanos on CO2 levels.
I’m a chemistry technician, and 99% of the times I use CO2, it’s in tanks where it is used as a COOLANT. I’m aware that more complicated physical chemistry is at play when thinking of the effects deep in the atmosphere but seriously, where do you even live? I’m not afraid to say northern Canada and it’s been ridiculously cold the last 2 years during the winter, it’s more like when I was a kid suddenly, when yes, I noticed a localized but still 48th to 50th parrallel climate all my life and i’m much more concerned about the health and survival of humanity from air/water/soil pollution, some of it added on purpose (neurotoxic pesticides) and nuclear disasters like in Japan, where like James said, when they will try to remove the rods, it will be an extremely slow process because if they have the rods touch each other while taking one out, you might as well evacuate most of the eastern northern hemisphere…I don’t know if all the Chinese fit in Indonesia and Australia, but even if they did….I rather not think about THAT because there is nothing I can do about this. As for my own evil carbon footprint, I use public transportation as much as I can, but it is so inefficient in my northern canadian town, much different than when I was in Montreal, which made me wonder why some people bothered having cars when there.
Anyway, like I said I’m a chemistry tech, not an engineer, I have some knowledge to bring to the table but what I’ve learned and put to use when using CO2 tanks is that it is a coolant, needed in many chemical reactions (I work for a not-so-evil generic medication company, you know, the kind that makes only tried and true medication for very cheap without the artificial inflation of new medication that big pharma (those who try and create new medication, some that does indeed cure and not only manage symptoms, something i’ve emailed James before in the past) who invent a new medication that is practically the same as an already existing bunch of medication of the same family. They basically only invent medication to replace the ones whos patents are expiring soon, so they tweak a little the molecule and tada you got something new, that could very well be a very bad medication, or something that brings nothing new to the table but with the load of publicity and drug reps meeting doctors or just sending them documentation (doctors take very few pharmacology classes, it’s ridiculous) that this one new med is awesome and makes all the others irrelevant. Well that’s another lie worth discussing some other time.
Just in case anyone cares, there is a huge difference between condensing CO2 in order to use it as a coolant, and emitting it into the atmosphere (where, as I stated above, the process by which it absorbs radiation reflected from the earth’s surface and converts it to thermal energy is well understood). To repeat, life on earth would be impossible if this “greenhouse effect” were not real. I learned about it, and about the likelihood that humans were causing the planet to warm, in the early 80’s – so it wasn’t Al Gore with his nuclear energy ties, or the carbon-tax scam, that initiated the theory.
While I agree that there is great room for doubt in the climate debate, I am amazed that otherwise prudent people will ignore the precautionary principle in this case. Most opponents of AGW seem driven more by religious fervour than by a desire to do what is best for the planet, and (thus) for humankind.
Do I need to post my credentials? PhD – Chemistry, UC-Berkeley.
Got it Boss! (no really, engineers are my bosses). I did not dispute how it reacts high in the atmosphere boss if you re-read what I said. I said that I’m often using it as a coolant. And I’d like for CO2 producing factories to have mandatory CO2 collecting techniques so as to re-use it constantly, instead of producing chemical waste.
BUT – before anyone sneers and says, “Obviously one of THEM!” let it be known that my conscience prevented me from ever taking a job within the scientific community, academic or otherwise.
You have really rich parents if they afforded you getting a PhD in Chemistry (any specialization?) and you don’t even work in the field. There is nothing wrong with working in the chemistry field and I’m just a lowly technician who wears the hazmats and yellow hats while PhD’s sit around in comfortable offices with 2000 dollars chairs.
Apollo Slater,
Thank you for your criticisms. I will do my best to address them.
I see no incongruity in my statements. The multitude of unknowns and variables I refer to are real and stem mostly from the size of the data sets we have to work with and the complexity of climate itself. This is what makes specific predictions or forecasts so tentative.
I care little for petty nitpicking on the percentage of scientists who think climate change is real and is largely anthropogenic in cause. If you or anybody else thinks that the overwhelming majority are of any other opinion then we can have a very circular argument and I see no point in that.
That the 97% believe global weirding is induced by mans activities despite the uncertainties is not in any way shape or form contradictory. The reason they believe this is because simple experiment and basic mathematics tell us you cannot increase atmospheric co2 without warming occurring. Rising temperature puts more energy into the system so you have increased water evaporation and the release of methane that had been effectively locked away at cooler temperatures. So in effect by modest increase in co2 you have inevitable knock on effects that each contribute further to temperature rises. The uncertainties arise from how fast this will happen, how much natural absorbtion will mitigate the speed and a raft of other effects I do not have the time to go into but are easy enough to find if you so wish.
The 97% understand the very simple chemistry outlined above. They are also aware that mankind has pumped and continues to pump countless megatons of co2 into the atmosphere. So at the end of the day the opinion of that 97% is based on a 1+1=2 kind of sum. Hence no incongruity. The simple fact is that we cannot pump so much carbon into the atmosphere and it have zero effect. To believe that is just ridiculous and is counter to everything we know about the properties of co2.
I am not here as a scientist because I am not one. And I am not delivering any thesis. I am only giving my own humble opinion based on what I believe to be the most credible information I have accumulated through many years of reading. I am not here to gratuitously agree with everything James says or believes and I have no doubt he would not welcome that if I did. In an earlier post I provided links to court missives that clearly show Dr Ball to be a liar and cited his own words and associations to demonstrate my initial post was warranted and not invective for invectives sake. If you choose to view it any differently you are of course free to do so. I will continue to have faith in my own ability to spot bs when I see it.
You persist in citing a “97% figure” without citing where this number comes from. I realize you are not interested in such details, but for those who are reading this thread that are interested in the number (which was discussed in this interview), you might wish to start here:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11191-013-9647-9
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/03/cooks-97-consensus-disproven-by-a-new-paper-showing-major-math-errors/
Then you compound this with a strawman argument. The 97% claim by Lewandosky and Cook is not that CO2 causes temperature increases, as you assert, but specifically that 97% of peer-reviewed papers support the idea that humans have caused at least half the 0.7ºC global warming since 1950. When subjected to the slightest scrutiny, this “97%” number collapses to “0.3%”, but the point, once again, is that there is almost no one who claims that adding CO2 to the atmosphere does not increase temperature. The real question is what is the rate of climate sensitivity.
I attempted to raise this point before and you chose to ignore it, but I will raise it once again for the benefit of those reading this thread who are interested in actual scientific discussion of this question. In a nutshell, the IPCC claims the “most likely” value of climate sensitivity is 3ºC:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-5.html#box-10-2
There are now over 40 peer-reviewed published papers that suggest a median climate sensitivity of 1.1ºC:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.jp/2014/11/40-published-papers-find-climate.html
This would help to explain why actual recorded temperatures (both UAH Lower Troposphere satellite records and HadCRUT4 surface records) demonstrate that (ironically enough) 97% of CMIP5 climate models that the IPCC “relies heavily on” (http://www.ipcc-data.org/sim/gcm_monthly/AR5/) grossly overestimated the amount of warming we have actually experienced over the last 20 years:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/cmip5-90-models-global-tsfc-vs-obs1.jpg
But why let pesky observations get in the way of a good model?
Feel free to respond with more citationless strawman arguments.
Hi James,
Thanks for your observations. They do surprise me it must be said. Not so much the content but the tone.
I am afraid there will still be no supportive links in this reply either for the same reasons as previously stated. It is 21.20, I left my hotel at 7am, I have driven 158 miles, climbed several telephone poles, run dropwires and connect 5 households in remote areas of the highlands to the internet. I am 2 hours from home and have pulled up for a rest and a coffee before the final leg home. This is a typical day for me. I do not have the luxury of being a full time researcher, nor the typing speed on this device to be able to post links like spots on a kid with chickenpox.
In addition to this your overabundance of links can themselves be reasonably viewed as a tactical diversion.
Sorry I hit the send button by mistake…so continued from previous…
Posting too many links is no better than never providing any. You provided six in that post alone. Which says to me you have made no attempt to actually understand my argument. But let’s take your first link which gives a fancy name, “agnotology”, to the fact that different people have different opinions. You use this brief to state that as few as 0.3% of climate scientists think warming is anthropogenic! Do you really believe that? If you read and don’t skim that small piece only says that neither argument can be trusted. Nothing more.
As for the straw man argument you challenged me before to provide proof that Dr Ball is a liar and cannot be trusted. So I provided the court depositions when he tried to litigate for libel the Calgary Herald and Dr Daniel Johnson. An action he subsequently had to abandon because he is indeed a liar. These links categorically refute the straw man argument and I am very surprised that you come back at me now with such a claim. His lies are not minor. To misrepresent your qualification and tenure, and he continues to do so despite Winnipeg University asking him to desist. To compound this by stating and continuing to state he was Canada’s first PhD in Climatology when he patently was not says a lot about the man. Simply he is an opportunist, a fantasist and a liar. The evidence for that comes from him.
I am not really that bothered about the climate debate. As your first link states there is an abundance of bs on both sides of the debate. I use the 97% figure not because it is clinically accurate but because I believe most climate scientists do think global weirding is in no small measure anthropogenic in cause. If you believe otherwise that’s your choice.
Additionally you appear to ignore the other irrefutable facts I presented, his association with the oil industry sponsered Friends of Science, his platforming with Hannity and Beck on Fox News and his creationist supporting statement I quoted previously. These are not straw man arguments they are a matter of public record.
You either do not understand that the strawman argument has to do with your claim that there is some other side to this debate that is taking the position that CO2 does not cause any warming in the atmosphere or you are deliberately trolling. You continue to talk about Tim Ball as if this is of any relevance whatsoever to any of the facts presented in this interview or this debate. I think there really is nothing further to discuss on this topic at this point. I look forward to having Dr. Ball on the program again in the near future to continue our discussion.
If that is your proposition then it is your own straw man argument. It is entirely justified to question the credentials of someone who claims themselves and expert and this was the purpose of my original post.
Here is a link to the basis of my “97%” figure:http://theconsensusproject.com/#sharePage
This site has a comprehensive FAQ section that full explains its methodology.
You have still not answered me despite your aggressive demands on me. Do you really think 0.3% of scientists think climate change by means of human activity increasing co2 is a real figure?
This argument of no consensus that Ball uses and abuses is a red herring to start with and was initially championed by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) which used subterfuge and deception to try and trick scientists into signing up to their denialist madness. The following is a letter from a professor who was not duped by the con and took the trouble to expose it in detail and puts with far more gravitas than I the position I take on this.http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n08/global-warming.html And here a statement from The National Academy of Scientists that confirms this effort of fraud.http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=s04201998
More recent claims of major dissent when put under scrutiny reveal the same kind of tactics. Such as the supposed 19,000 sceptical scientists actually only really numbering 19 !!http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus-intermediate.htm
I have spent the whole morning reviewing this whole nonsense I had dismissed and learned to ignore years ago. Nothing has changed. Its the same old noises from the same old farts. The truth that remains is that the scientific community continues to excersise a great deal of caution in publishing and are never slow to highlight the uncertainties they encounter. This is the polar opposite of the climate skeptics.
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I made the choice to contribute to this site because I have found myself in broad agreement with much of the work you do to expose the elites and their machinations. I had followed a few of your links in the past and found them to be sound. However this episode and your apparent cognative dissonance, (after all you are usually to be found exposing the crimes of capitalist hegemony), on this subject will lend me to be far more cautious in my appraisals of your work in future.
http://www.biocab.org/Climate_Geologic_Timescale.html
I found this interesting looking at Co2 and Temperature on a much larger timescale.
I remain sceptical about the accuracy of the graphs themselves and more so of the interpretive conclusions the author draws from them. The reasons for this are in the first instance That barely a month goes by without a paper being published that has used a novel methodology that overturns the findings of earlier studies. Secondly a site like that is not scientific. It has a presupposed conclusion from the outset and that act alone makes a very high degree of confirmation bias inevitable.
What I would agree with is that climate change is an eternal fact with or without human influence. I am not ideologically opposed to rising temperatures, quite the opposite I believe rising temperatures will make the earth more productive. This would hold true for both managed and natural production over the long term. I can’t think of a good reason not to welcome higher productivity.
Hello candideschmyles,
I noticed your three links come from the same desmogblog site. I was wondering if you’d taken into consideration the following link:
http://sppiblog.org/news/the-truth-about-desmogblog-and-sourchwatch
‘Tis nothing short of torturous this endless battle for credible sources…
Couldn’t agree more that credibile sources are difficult to find. However the PDF documents I linked to were legal depositions to a court. If they cannot be trusted then I suppose nothing can. To my knowledge it was my first time on the site and I imagine I won’t be back.
Yes, apparently even members of the justice system (who’ve helped to provide the legal documents you linked to) cannot be trusted as DeSmog benefactor John Lefebvre himself is a lawyer who’s pleaded guilty to money laundering charges:
“The DeSmogBlog team is especially grateful to our benefactor John Lefebvre, a lawyer, internet entrepreneur and past-president of NETeller, a firm that has been providing secure online transactions since 1999.â€
Blog Funder Guilty of Money-Laundering (Heartland Institute, February 1, 2008)
“John Lefebvre, the top financial benefactor of the DeSmog Blog, is facing substantial prison time after pleading guilty to federal money-laundering charges.
http://sppiblog.org/news/the-truth-about-desmogblog-and-sourchwatch
I guess you understand that it’s painful to confront walls of consensus as Tim Ball can probably attest to.
Hi and thanks for your supportive words. It is funny the way things play out sometimes. How expectations can be dashed in a moment. I am actually quite shocked that my first contribution to the debate here has met with such a hostile response. I would have imagined it very differently had I stopped to imagine it at all. However I do not like everything about my own choices sometimes so to apply higher standards of James than I do of myself would really be a self-deceit. And so I do not plan to abandon my contribution here after a stumble at the first turn. After all James’ prodigious output is a true goldmine of info and many of his guests have been excellent.
I am new here and so cannot comment on any downward trend or the emergence of a personality cult. I certainly hope that is not true.
For the record:
My name here is my only alias across all platforms, twitter, YouTube, google+, farcebook etc. I am not a serial troll and my real name is David Carlson and I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. I am also far from prodigious. I prefer to digest than disgorge. So to anyone else who may suspect a troll can we please put that to rest now. Thank you.