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Update: Since posting this diary, I’ve read Rahmstorf’s translated article that triggered the blog post that that I had quoted (within another quote, by an obvious English speaker). Well, what can I say but “Mea Culpa”. Although the blog post within the native English blog post is (for me) machine translated German, commenting on what is, for me, also machine translated German, I can’t see that my understanding of what was being said is a fair representation of Rahmstorf.
While it’s not new news that the the IPCC sea level rise estimates are way off, from Rahmstorf’s article (translated by my Chrome browser), Rahmstorf is not pretending that he has forgotten the previously determined, experimentally determined value. Nor is he simply lying about values that he previously signed off on (in the IPCC 4th assessment).
He apparently has such faith in the computer models that, even though they’re way off in terms of sea level (as well as numerous other defects, both theoretical and experimentally observed), and apparently have not been corrected to give more accurate sea level rise since 2007, he still feels comfortable comparing them to real measurements and saying that this facet of global warming is worse than the models.
I frankly don’t think he was being sensationalistic or dishonest in his discussion of sea level rise (which is not the same as saying that I don’t think he’s wrong); rather, I think the German blogger gave a misleading twist to what Rahmstorf was saying.
I usually read WattsUpWithThat.com, ClimateRealists.org (who generally poo poo Green House Gas theory, and thus the generally ignorant pronouncements of climate catastrophist fans about “denying anthropogenic” causation of heat changes has some reality, within a minority of dissidents) and Lubos Motl’s blog, which also carries articles on superstring theory, as well as political stuff and assorted articles about Motl’s Czech homeland). My jumping off point for this story, however, what climatedepot.com, which does have a more “fanboy” appearance, and tends not to carry original analysis (unlike WattsUpWithThat.com, which regularly tears apart shabby climate “science” papers “in house”, and debunks ridiculous claims, both by catastrophists with Ph.D.’s, as well as those that obviously don’t know any science; Motls also does some original analysis; CR has some guest scientists – like the other two – but I don’t think they do any analysis in house).
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Himself. His 2007 self, to be precise. I kid you not.
In his latest claim, Rahmstorf claims that just a few years ago, sea levels were thought to be rising 2 mm/year. Suddenly the sea level, the satellites say, is actually now rising at 3.2 mm/ year – that’s 60% faster then they thought!
But as Kulke points out in his piece titled False climate alarm surrounds an old hat, Rahmstorf is suffering from (selective) amnesia, and forgot what he said in the UN-IPCC report of (2007): Rahmstorf back then:
Satellite measurements show a rise of 3.1 mm/year for the period 1993-2003 – and if you consider the measurements through 2006, it’s even 3.3 mm/year.”
77 Comments
“Climate Study: Extreme Rain Storms in Midwest Have Doubled in Last 50 Years, Often Leading to Worsened Flooding
Report Details Major Storm/Flooding Trends in 8 States: IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, OH and WI; Midwest Illustrates Growing Concerns About Climate Link Between Big Storms and Flooding.”
“CHICAGO (May 16, 2012) – The kind of deluges that in recent years washed out Cedar Rapids, IA, forced the Army Corps of Engineers to intentionally blow up levees to save Cairo, IL, and sent the Missouri River over its banks for hundreds of miles are part of a growing trend, according to a new report released today by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Big storms, leading to big floods, are occurring with increasing frequency in the Midwest, with incidences of the most severe downpours doubling over the last half century, the report finds.
Stephen Saunders, the president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the report’s lead author, said: “Global studies already show that human-caused climate change is driving more extreme precipitation, and now we’ve documented how great the increase has been in the Midwest and linked the extreme storms to flooding in the region. A threshold may already have been crossed, so that major floods in the Midwest perhaps now should no longer be considered purely natural disasters but instead mixed natural/unnatural disasters. And if emissions keep going up, the forecast is for more extreme storms in the region.”
In addition to region-wide trends, the report presents trends in the eight Midwestern states. For the worst storms (three inches or more of rain in 24 hours) from 1961-2011, the report outlines the following state-level trends: Indiana (+160 percent); Wisconsin (+203 percent); Missouri (+81 percent); Michigan (+180 percent); Minnesota (+104 percent); Illinois (+83 percent); Ohio (+40 percent); and Iowa (+32 percent).
Titled, “Doubled Trouble: More Midwestern Extreme Storms,” the new NRDC-RMCO report adds several years of data to previous reports tracking the issue of Midwestern storms. Key findings include:
Since 1961, the Midwest has had an increasing number of large storms. The largest of storms, those of three inches or more of precipitation in a single day, increased the most, with their annual frequency having increased by 103 percent over the roughly half century period through 2011. For storms of at least two inches but less than three inches in a day, the trend was a 81 percent increase; for storms of one to two inches, a 34 percent increase. Smaller storms did not have a significant increase.
The rates of increase for all large storms accelerated over time, with the last analyzed decade, 2001-2010, showing the greatest jumps. For the largest storms, in 2001-2010 there were 52 percent more storms per year than in the baseline period.
The frequency of extreme storms has increased so much in recent years that the first 12 years of this century included seven of the nine top years (since 1961) for the most extreme storms in the Midwest.
With more frequent extreme storms, the average return period between two such storms has become shorter. In 1961-1970, extreme storms averaged once every 3.8 years at an individual location in the Midwest. That is two to four times more frequent than a major hurricane making landfall at a typical location along the U.S. coast from North Carolina to Texas. By 2001-2010, the average return period for Midwestern extreme storms at a single location was down to 2.2 years—or four to eight times more frequent than landfalling major hurricanes.
The report also presents new evidence linking extreme storms in the Midwest to major floods, the region’s most costly regularly occurring natural disasters. The new analysis shows that the two worst years in the Midwest for storms of three inches or more per day were 2008 and 1993, the years with the Midwest’s worst floods in some 80 years, which caused $16 billion and $33 billion in damages and rank, among the nation’s worst natural disasters. The report presents new evidence linking the 2008 flooding to extreme storms, showing that in areas with the worst flooding 48 percent of the local precipitation came from extreme storms. ….”
Even though you have a degree in Math and Science, this Post gets a Big Fail F.
BooRadley has earned a grade, of A.
It would be nice to have a link.
Oops, first part of the comment got deleted accidentally.
I tried to follow this to the actual source from the actual IPCC report – no link to that. Just a blog site that links to a German language media report.
Climate-Gate 2.0! Benghzi-Gate! Wolverines!
Good luck with that… it doesn’t exist.
Martian leader/
“It is as always.”
/Martian leader
… i.e. the denialists are conflating and confabulating like mad as the world fries.
In this case they are attempting to pass off a paper that was published in Science by Rahmstorf as if it were the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report… needless to say things get even weirder from that point on.
Engage if you must but remember to roll a san check at regular intervals.
I’m waiting for some links to sites of experts, any warming (which is not admitted) being conclusively shown to be caused directly by comet/spaceship approaching planet earth, gravitational field of a nearby galaxy, shadow people, vampire time travellers, all verified by remote viewers.
all of which was staged as part of the elaborate hoax to get their greedy hands of all of the government money flowing in vast sums to anyone who is willing to participate.
We learned more useful information from your recent series of posts on tonsils than from this fact-deficient climate-change denialist offering.
I wonder why these goofy posts, inevitably end up as being “recommended” very quickly.
how the h#ll does that happen?
Who is “recommending” these things?
Ooh-ooh! I know I saw one once; it was by Erich von Däniken.
where does Alfred E. Neuman stand?
People who want to highlight illogical thinking? Or perhaps people who just want a laugh? If those were the only recs for denialist diaries then the world would be a happier place.
But the sad truth is that there are a lot of people who’ve sunk a lot of commitment into denialism, often with the best of intentions.
And their only defense against the ever-growing mountain of evidence for human-caused climate change is the endless supply of Koch-funded factoids they recirculate among themselves.
yeah, that’s it.
har.thanks for the chuckle.
I do recommend Metmars sometimes. BooRadley’s comment made the Post worthy of Recommendation.
And I like the Zero Point Energy technology retrofitted from the outer space aliens crashed saucers.
And many people whose intentions are to deceive. Many of them in prominent places.
I do know that the polls cited at climateprogress show that something like 70 % of Americans accept the science, and understand what’s happening.
Wikipedia, re the WG1 report of the IPCC 4th assessment (2007):
This claim is on page 5.
Wikipedia also tells us that Rahmstorf was one of the lead authors of the 2007 IPCC report.
This makes the idea plausible that Rahmstorf had a hand in inserting the 3.1 mm/year figure for sea level rise. (Which doesn’t seem so important, frankly, since this 3.1mm/year figure was, indeed, in the IPCC report.) He’s also specifically mentioned as a “contributing author” of Chapter 5, “Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level”
Here’s a link to the report. (112 MegaBytes!)
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4_wg1_full_report.pdf
(From here)
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Well, the download finished and I took a quick look. From Chapter 5, page 411 (as per document paging) or page 422 in Adobe reader:
It’s definite that Rahmstorf knew about the 2007 sea level rise figure; and highly probable that Rahmstorf had to sign off on it. (Unless, of course, he was kicked in the head by a mule and spent 2007 in a coma, and people just used his name to try and remember him fondly.)
What’s the matter metamars? You hafta post here because Infowars wouldn’t let you post there? ROTFLMAO!
I thought “zero point energy” was from Syndrome, Mr. Incredible’s arch nemesis? Either way, it’s perfectly appropriate for this post.
lol!!!
Here’s a handy chart depicting the number of peer reviewed papers supporting the idea of anthropogenic climate change since 1991 vs the peer reviewed papers rejecting anthropogenic climate change. The salient rule to reading this chart is that the black area represents the papers accepting the theory while the red area represents the papers dismissing it.
Superb, comment and pie-chart, Margaret!
Recommended … for the comments, beginning with BooRadley’s … to the entire FDL community.
DW
And, for those waiting for that link from metamars, here’s the actual relevant paper by Rahmstorf, Foster and Cazenave.
… and it’s not behind a paywall…
… and it’s not Rahmstorf’s 2007 paper that was published in Science…
… and it’s not an IPCC assessment…
… and its facts are not offhand from a newspaper article that denialists are tripping over themselves to “reinterpret”…
… what it is, is more very bad news for the rest of us .
Comparing climate projections to observations up to 2011
I can recommend this post for the comments I guess. Some of them are funny, others thoughtful, still others a combination of the two.
Thanks.
and thanks to Margaret for the link to the chart.
comment from there….
“There is no controversy among scientists on this issue. None. Anthropogenic climate change is as well established as evolution.”
As it is true that “biology makes no sense except in light of evolution”, so also the weather we’re experiencing makes no sense except in the light of anthropogenic climate change.
x2
Well, I’d like to thank *you* for this bestest funniest one:
Do you understand the concept that most of the scientists who you would call “deniers” (which rhymes with “Holocaust deniers”) don’t actually deny either that climate changes, nor that human anthropogenic CO2 has a heating effect on the climate?
I don’t find this concept hard to understand, at all, but people like you can’t seem to process the idea.
However, let’s say that I’m wrong, and in fact you DO understand the above. The question then becomes, “Why do you keep lying (via false, unrealistic framing) about what real scientists who don’t buy climate catastrophism actually say about the subject?”
Anybody can discover how misleading your framing is, by reading and listening to Nir Shaviv, Bob Carter, Dick Lindzen, etc., etc.
Speaking of Bob Carter(geologist), he was interviewed Denis Rancourt (physicist) recently, and they got into the subject of HOW climate science came to be so corrupted. E.g., they agreed on what to me was a completely unsurprising statement, and that is that the best scientists to ask about how serious a threat is CAGW, are retired scientists.
Why? Because you can’t deny them tenure, you can’t block their research funds, etc., etc.
What did surprise me is that Bob Carter – who’s quite outspoken and a leader for sanity with respect to AGW – admitted that he didn’t become active until he retired.
I guess discretion was the better part of valor, even for Big Bob.
He also admitted that he felt sorry for young researchers trapped in the system. If they’re too honest, they can end up unemployed.
I have to laugh. How ironic to see this post which obviously came out without the benefit of seeing today’s report on the loss of Greenland and Antarctic ice. The announcment of the study showed up on CNN’s website this evening.
“Greenland, Antarctica ice melt speeding up, study finds”
“(CNN) — Two decades of satellite readings back up what dramatic pictures have suggested in recent years: The mile-thick ice sheets that cover Greenland and most of Antarctica are melting at a faster rate in a warming world.
That’s the conclusion of an international network of scientists who released their review of one of the biggest question marks in climate science Thursday.
The net loss of billions of tons of ice a year added about 11 millimeters — seven-sixteenths of an inch — to global average sea levels between 1992 and 2011, about 20% of the increase during that time, those researchers reported.
While that’s a small number, “Small changes in sea levels in certain places mean very big changes in the kind of protection of infrastructure that you need to have in place,” said Erik Ivins, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and one of the contributors to Thursday’s study.”
Full Article is at:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/29/world/europe/climate-ice-sheets/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
BTW for concrete information that clearly articulates flaws in the climate denier position, see the American Meteorological Society’s Information Statement on Climate Change released in August this year. It provides clear statements of fact which answer the four basic climate change questions shown below in terms even metamers and your favorite neighborhood wingnut can understand:
How is climate changing?
Why is climate changing?
How can climate change be projected into the future?
How is the climate expected to change in the future?
See:
https://www.ametsoc.org/policy/2012climatechange.html
The last sentence sums everything up succinctly:
“Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.”
“And so it goes…”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
BTW Kurt’s brother Bernard was an atmospheric scientist and conducted a lot of research on cloud physics and lightning. For a biography of this interesting scientist see:
http://www.atmos.albany.edu/deas/bvonn/bvonnegut.html
First – thanks to Margaret for linking to the actual current paper.
Here’s the pertinent passage:
“The satellite-based linear trend 1993–2011 is 3.2 ± 0.5 mm yr−1, which is 60% faster than the best IPCC estimate of 2.0 mm yr−1 for the same interval”
Note the reference to the OBSERVED DATA (satellite-based linear trend 1993-2011). This is in COMPLETE ACCORD with the IPCC document – which was also citing OBSERVED DATA.
What Metamars is mistaking is that the 60% refers to the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OBSERVED DATA AND WHAT THE MODELS HAVE PREDICTED – the IPCC ESTIMATE.
A closer reading shows that the models accurate reflect CO2 concentrations and temperature rise.
What is being said here is that the OCEANS ARE RISING MUCH FASTER THEN THE MODELS – ACCURATE IN OTHER AREAS – HAVE INDICATED.
It’s not a cause for breathless, snarky, misunderstood gotcha-ism. It’s a huge cause for concern.
It is Gates Palooza, as in Watergate. Nobody died in Watergate, except in Vietnam. And Howard Hunt’s, wife she died. Watergate was merely stealing an election, and using COINTELPRO against Americans.
But Climate-gate2.0-gate. That is a Gate, world wide conspiracy Gate, with at least 94 other gates. BIGGER than Benghazi-gate.
And that is just a few of the “A”‘s. But Horror of Horrors, APS is a New Sinister Force, brainwashing the children.
I must ask you Metamars, did Jesus walk with dinosaurs?
That is just part of their changing position to do whatever they can to hold off on taking any action to stop the dangerous process we are involved in.
First, the position was: there is no warming trend.
Then it was: OK, there is a warming trend, but it has nothing to do with human activities.
After that, it was, OK human activities are having an effect, but the ultimate impact will not be as bad as some scientists are predicting.
Basically, the end goal of the deniers is to play on whatever uncertainty they think they can use, in order to delay putting on the brakes for our greenhouse gas production.
You have forgotten how science works and scorn and stupid blog links don’t make up for that. You’ve left the realm of good science and leaped fully into the arena of paranoia. Again, why post here when infowars would provide you with plenty if sycophantic commentators, ready to agree that The Illuminati are out to put everybody in FEMA camps, using global warming as an excuse?
Oh btw, I’ve flagged your comment for equating me with Holocaust deniers. That’s not only absurd and unnecessarily venomous, that’s completely irrelevant to whatever point you’re trying to make, (which seems to be that I’m either stupid, evil or stupid and evil. I’m not going to put up with it. If you can’t make your case without falling back on ad hominem accusations like that, you must not feel too secure about your own argument.
Retirement appears to be a relative term for “Big Bob”
Documents leaked from the Heartland Institute show he’s on the payroll for $1667 a month.
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2012%20Climate%20Strategy.pdf
To be fair, I didn’t read the comment that way. I actually thought his point was that maybe we were equating his denialist friends with “Holocaust deniers.”
Good point. It is his Post and he should and can easily redact that inappropriate reference.
We have been rough on him. But he has been quite nasty himself. The debate is epic. This battle is not for the faint hearted.
In the context of the rest of the comment, I think my interpretation is the correct one. Like being accused of being unable to grasp elementary concepts and “lying”, (though what I lied about is admittedly unclear to me), nor have I used the word “denier” so far. Those things in themselves are empirically ad hominem, even if the Holocaust thing may be open to interpretation. Yes, I certainly came across as not taking his assertions seriously but it’s hard for me to do so when there have been almost 14,000 peer reviewed papers that support my point of view but only 24 that support his. This is empirical. It’s not a matter of opinion.
I did read his comment in that way.
mfi
You stop that right now. That reality based stuff has been proved to be illegal, immoral, and fattening.
mfi
For:
Read:
I’d comment further but am too busy wiping tears of laughter from my eyes.
(Ich würde weiter kommentieren, aber ich bin zu beschäftigt, wischte sich die Tränen des Lachens aus meinen Augen!)
Mark aus Irland
LOL! (Lachen Aus Laut!)
…auch Maschinen Deutsche übersetzt…
Too fucking much! That’s damn near as funny as the time me and deGroote couldn’t stop laughing when one intrepid interviewer asking about his Quartet referred to the violins as “dieselganger”
This statement reminds me of the sort of desperate acts of faith (or otherwise overhyped claims, often to the point of foolishness), regularly made fun of by Peter Woit, on his Not Even Wrong blog, about the fond desires of string theorists.
I suggest you find out what the critics of the model meisters say, including their inconsistent (but oh so convenient) use of aerosols, implications of their non-consistent climate sensitivity, their variance with satellite measurements, their failure to accomodate Freeman Dyson’s decades old criticisms, their failure to accomodate solar factors (recently, some models have started incorporating solar UV variation, which varies by 70%, not the .1% of total solar invariance, that the realclimate people like to blabber about.).
John von Neumann said, “With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.” At least some of the models have done spectacularly bad (think Hansen).
Suggest you also google metamars and “omitted variable fraud”.
Haven’t read much of it, but you can get a sense of an objective critic of so-called “accurate” climate models from Judith Curry’s comments: http://judithcurry.com/2012/11/09/climate-model-discussion-thread/.
AFAIK, the climate models are terrible with major drivers like PDO and ENSO. I don’t think anybody can satisfactorily explain these.
Like Richard Feynman, I can live with uncertainty. The challenge of science is to reduce uncertainty down to as little as possible, but we can’t guarantee getting there. Michio Kaku has also made this point – we may just not be smart enough to develop a Theory of Everything.
Let’s pretend that the models were genuinely accurate ito prediction, as opposed to being tuned to hindcast late 20th century, well (see John von Neumann quote, above; see also Judith Curry ref). Doesn’t the fact that they’d be so off ito sea level bother you? Why do you think they don’t fix their models?
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Bonus section: You can google metamars and Endersbee; also metamars and Pangburn, for what to me are fascinating clues about ultimate causes of heating. A good deal of the heating of earth’s core and mantle is from radioactivity. Wikipedia says,
An estimated 45 to 90 percent of the heat escaping from the Earth originates from radioactive decay of elements within the mantle.[8]
If climate models assume that, whatever the correct value is, it’s constant, than MAYBE, this HUGE source of heat can be safely ignored. I believe they use a similar argument for ignoring total solar irradiance (only varies by .1%).
Unbelievable. What group of people are forever calling dissidents – including highly trained scientists that have more scientific knowledge in their little fingers than many of the climate Cassandras who smear them all the time – “deniers”?
Wake up, will you, please?
In a way, I’m glad you posted this. The smear merchants who toss around the “denier” term act like they’re totally tone deaf to it’s more subtle meaning.
I have to admit, as a propaganda-friendly meme, it’s pretty damn effective. Doesn’t make it right, though.
You ain’t no Richard Feynman. As for Freeman Dyson, even physicists can become senile.
Good catch, although $20,000/year is not exactly a big payday. Hansen is suspected of raking in between $236,000 and $1,232,500 in outside income in 2010. Now, that’s what I would call profitable activism.
Do you know what his traveling expenses come to? The above article says of Hansen:
(N.B.: I don’t know what “in-kind” income could be, other than possibly pre-paid tickets and pre-paid hotels and restaurants. Seems like a strange way to phrase it, though.)
Clearly, Carter is playing for the wrong team if he wants to profit mightily from his climate proselytizing. Wouldn’t you agree with this statement?
Cheapflights.com lists air fare from the US to Australia, round trip, starting at $1948.00. So, if Big Bog wants to come to the US to spread the word, without dipping into his retirement savings, he better not do it too often.
In Australia, where Carter is from, a family of 4 is paying $2,500/year for carbon taxes, that will have essentially no effect on the climate (even given IPCC estimates). How much of this will go towards research for carbon-free, dense sources of energy?
I’m in the US, and have little idea of how much of this cash will be used to develop alternatives to carbon. However, given what I’ve posted about Eric Lerner, as well as LENR’s, I’m not optimistic. It frankly wouldn’t bother me much at all if, say, 10% of the carbon boodle would be put to practical, dense, carbon free energy R&D. Currently, guys like Lerner have to waste time and energy soliciting funding. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?
Frankly, even if Heartland didn’t give him anything, I would like to think that the Australian people would.
Ah, the spaghetti flinging machine is well oiled I see.
What I said was that the predicted CO2 concentrations and correlated temperature rise in the models are what’s been shown to pretty reliable and accurate. You can of course dig into minutae and cherry-pick corner areas all you like. It’s the stock-in-trade of the denier industry, after all.
What that doesn’t do is distract from the fact that you and your cut-and-paste source COMPLETELY misunderstood what that 60% number was indicating – no matter how much you hope it will change the subject.
In future I’m only going to post comments to Metamars’ diaries after I’ve first used Google translate to put them into German and then used it again to re-translate back to English. (I had considered using the “Bing” translation but there’s such a thing as being unnecessarily cruel).
or to put it another way:
In future I will only ride to publish comments Metamars diaries after I first used Google translate to make them available in German and then back to this translation back to English. (I had as the “Bing” translation, but there is such a thing as an unnecessarily cruel).
mfi
Oh, jeez. This from the guy that dismisses works by Chinese scientists showing that the medieval warm period wasnt’ just a European thing, as the result of there being nutballs, everywhere.
So, instead of world-wide conspiracy (probably with Exxon-Mobil payoffs through their foreign agents), we have nutballls with Ph.D.’s all over the world, essentially creating an illusion of conspiracy.
If you want to grasp a more reasonable, world-wide bias, I suggest you FOLLOW THE MONEY. And ask yourself why the Exxon-Mobil dog ISN’T barking. (Also discussed in articles by Denis Rancourt and David F. Noble on Rancourt’s blog, as well as the recent interview by Rancourt of Carter.)
I’m going to be posting about the medieval warm period, eventually.
Metamars and I somehow bonded. So I always enjoy sharing science with him. And I know your contributions will make things even more fun.
He usually responds to my comments. I do think Metamars may be angry with me, for mentioning APS-Gate.
Do you understand what I was getting at with the quote by John von Neumann? I certainly don’t get that impression, from you.
More pasta!
This time I think it’s linguini.
I’m glad you understand the situation! :-)
The very simplest “follow the money” test is: what are the republicans talking about? They are all about corporate money. And the reason why they are GW deniers is because the money is on the denier side.
I’m sure that will be amusing! :-D
But this GW denier stuff might get a bit old, so perhaps it would be more entertaining if you could mix it in with some other type of head-in-the-sand denier stuff?
Maybe you switch back to evolution denial for a bit (You could even quote many of the same GW denial people to do the creationist stuff, since many of the same people who deny Global Warming also deny Evolution).
Side note: metamars keeps mentioning Eric Lerner and Focus Fusion in his climate stuff.
So folks should be made aware that Prof. Lerner and his company Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (LPP) is a legitimate enterprise… a fusion startup currently spearheading research into a possible shortcut to not only fusion but aneutronic fusion using a known device called a dense plasma focus… aneutronic is a fancy way of saying truly waste-free and very cheap fusion energy.
Really. If the experiment works out you couldn’t pile on enough adjectives to describes its knock-on effects on… well… everything. Including climate change.
LPP is very open compared to other fusion startups and they’ve had peer reviewed papers published which detail results that actually place then ahead of the major fusion projects in achieving their goals.
It is an experimental endeavor with no guarantees but LPP hopes to demonstrates scientific feasibility… or not… within the year.
It’s good that metamars speaks out on behalf of the concept, but I thought I should add my two cents.
(Been meaning to diary on this… guess I’ll expand one from this.)
Disclaimer: While I don’t work for LPP, I volunteer on the board of directors of a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to promoting aneutronic fusion: The Focus Fusion Society.
(… very non-profit :) )
You’re desperate. I’ve never denied the facts of evolution. If you say otherwise, you’re lying.
I have been skeptical about accepting “natural selection” (plus sexual selection) as the only possible theoretical basis for evolution. Although I don’t know much about it, there’s something called “epigenetics” that seems to leave a place for mind influencing what otherwise would have been genetic destiny.
There’s also evidence for animal psi (ESP), which certainly would have implications about survivability in the wild – which is where most animals are.
Screwed that one up… left out LPP’s url
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/
I’m actually sitting right now, but I may lie down later, will it be OK if I talk about that stuff then? (assuming I can reach the keyboard from that position)
In any case, why should your denial of the scientific consensus stop with Global Warming?
Consider the words of the GW denialist hero, Dr Roy Spencer:
In the scientific community, I am not alone. There are many fine books out there on the subject. Curiously, most of the books are written by scientists who lost faith in evolution as adults, after they learned how to apply the analytical tools they were taught in college.
Clearly, the exact same modes of internal skepticism (the same “analytical tools”) which led Dr Roy to question Global Warming, also led him to question Evolution. Maybe you’d find the same doubts too, if you’d study the matter a little more.
Anyway, just go with that a bit, and I’m sure it will make your posts more entertaining for us to read.
Good for you! I’ve been meaning to try and start some sort of crowd-sourcing website for Focus Fusion’s benefit. I’m at a new job, though, and won’t have time for a while.
Do you live in NJ?
I spoke to Lerner a few months ago, and though this is way above my pay grade, I could have sworn that his current bottleneck was a problem in materials science/engineering, not so much fundamental fusion physics.
Although I’m not pleased with the level of brainwashing of the public wrt CO2 catastrophism, it is what Carl Jung would call a “psychological fact”. Because of this widespread brainwashing, and because I don’t hear the Exxon-Mobil dog barking, I’m pretty sure the fix is in – the Republicans (also controlled by Wall Street and corporations) are eventually going to cave, the Republican base be damned. The globalist plutocrats will win, again.
There will, of course, be an concomitant loss of sovereignty, and therefore a loss of personal freedom. Meanwhile, the Chinese will probably be snickering.
Even though warding off additional serfdom is likely futile, we are still going to have to give up carbon sources of energy, sooner or later. If a relatively clean source of energy, like FF, came to the fore sooner, it would be all to the good. This should be something that CO2 climate catastrophists and so-called deniers can agree on.
BTW, as you probably know, Lerner is not a so-called “denier”. We only briefly discussed CO2 catastrophism, but he was surprised to hear about my great skepticism. This, from a skeptic of the Big Bang! I find that a bit amusing, though maybe I shouldn’t. (I’m also skeptical about the Big Bang. Too many holes in the theory. Bought Lerner’s cosmology book years ago…)
(I’m also friendly with his ex-roomate, who now lives in town. Jay can easily verify that the Exxon-Mobil and Koch brothers gravy train has somehow passed me by!)
It is sad that you think the republicans and the republican base is what is protecting us from the plutocrats.
The republicans and their base are fully owned by the plutocrats.
The fact that republicans are Global Warming deniers should tell you all you need to know about where the real money is.
It is sad that you can’t distinguish between the Republican base, and the Republican members of the ruling and Mandarin classes.
In fairness, many members of the Republican base can’t distinguish, either. They are as clueless as the Democratic base who think of Obama as their man, even after he’s betrayed them, for the sake of the 1% agenda, so many times.
The power of the plutocracy, controlling both D and R parties, against the wishes of both the D and R bases, was clearly shown with the TARP bailout.
But why let ugly facts interfere with your beautiful theory?
Oh, wait…..
You’re suggesting that I take a page from your GW denier play book? :-D
Actually though, I can agree with you that the republican base might sometimes disagree with the leadership (like the TARP bailout deal). But you should take note that things happened pretty fast in that case, and the base didn’t have time to get their dose of talk-radio brain-washing. I’m sure with a few months Rush Limborg would have had the base singing the plutocrat’s tune fairly quickly.
And, in any case, that would still not explain the republican leadership’s position on GW. The fact that the republican leadership takes a GW denier position tells you where the money is.
Way too simplistic. You think there’s big money only on the so-called denier side? We KNOW that’s wrong! Haven’t you seen my writings on the Goldman Sachs connection? Haven’t you read Matt Taibbi on the Goldman Sachs connection? In this very diary, I gave a FOLLOW THE MONEY link. Where do you think Australia’s $2,500 dollar per year carbon tax is going? To Exxon Mobil?
You also fail to give any reasonable explanation for why the Exxon Mobil dog is NOT barking. Do you think Exxon Mobil will have any trouble selling oil to China, no matter what happens in the US?
I’ve actually looked up, and posted some time ago, a comparison of the capitalization of Exxon Mobil vs. Goldman Sachs. Guess who won that paper battle?
Your simplistic logic is obviously flawed.
You’ve completely destroyed any remaining shreds of credibility you may have still had among the readership of firedoglake metamars. Nicely done. I myself am gratified that so few people believe your absurd theory. Maybe next you’ll publish a screed translated from Nihongo based on a mistaken interpretation that the author claimed HAARP caused the last major Earthquake in Japan.
I hope he doesn’t it’s been done before: Hitler’s HAARP Caused the Japan Earthquake and Most Major Disasters Since 2001.
aircrap.org !!!
mfi
Which “absurd theory” is that?
BTW, would you be so kind as to give us a definition of “climate change denier” that actually fits the reality of the people – in general – to whom this phrase is applied?
Sorry, this is wrong. What I had compared is the capitalization of the entire financial industry vs. the capitalization of the entire petrochemical industry (or entire banking industry vs. entire oil industry; I don’t want to find my exact quote).
Actually, Exxon-Mobil, in particular, is bigger than Goldman Sachs, in particular, 401 Billion USD vs. 55 Billion USD.
Obviously, for Exxon-Mobil to conduct a public educational and advertising campaign, educating the public about the scientific facts of global warming, vs. the holes in theory, distortions, mistakes, and outright lies of the climate catastrophist crowd, would be chump change, for them. Wikipedia says that their net income of 2011 was 41 Billion USD.
Then again, for those who believe “climate change denialism” is primarily a function of petrochemical company expenditures, they could just make up a bunch of lies. Repeating lies is known to work….
By way of comparison, all advertising in the US was 412 Billion USD in 2008.
Thanksgiving Broccoli
As someone pointed out in one of his previous posts, Metamars is a practitioner of the “Gish Gallop”
“If there’s one thing global warming skeptics like to do, it’s recycle. But alas, not “good for the environment” type recycling. Instead, they dig up old climate myths taken from the scrapheap of scientific history, sometimes debunked decades ago in the peer-reviewed literature. They dust them off and jettison them back into cyberspace. Another form of recycling is the adoption of misinformation techniques used in other areas of science. The tobacco industry mastered the merchandising of doubt – techniques that were readily adopted by climate skeptics.
Another misinformation technique originating from the creation/evolution debate is the “Gish Gallop”, named after Duane Gish who in a debate spewed forth an endless torrent of talking points, rendering constructive debate impossible. You have to be crazy to attempt to answer all the points of a Gish Gallop. ”
also includes a list of the drivel served up by such people.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-Gish-Gallop-of-epic-proportions.html
Is there another online translator that’s good or better? We simply aren’t all polyglots, lovely as that would be. I had no idea those translators were so wrong.
Your talking point debunker framing has little to do with climate stuff that I post. Not that you care. You have your rhetorical axe, and grind it you will.
I’m sure, though, without you being aware of it, you actually put your finger on a larger problem. And that is: unanswered, serious arguments. The arguments that tend to get thoroughly answered by intellectual opponents are of the sort that can be answered (both technically, and what I’ll call ‘tribalistically’. Serious arguments that can’t be dispatched, easily, are either ignored, or else the ad hominem sleaze gets whipped out. (A middling case for avoiding serious arguments are pseudo-rationalization such as the one that I’m being accused of here, the “Gish Gallop”.)
There should definitely be a mechanism for all sorts of competing groups to post arguments and data that “stick”, so that newcomers to a debate can (relatively) quickly figure out who is ducking, who is giving a misleading framing, who is giving a misleading analysis (and where the wrong turns were made).
I brainstormed a system for facilitating serious, ‘accountable’ debates, at the James Randi educational forum, but I don’t want to dig up a link. Suffice it to say that human ideation is so complicated, that I’m skeptical my scheme (or outline of a scheme) will work, well. I did some research (mostly reading, not original research) in artificial intelligence, a few years back, and came away unimpressed. AI systems are good at “crisp” subjects, like mathematics, but real world problems are more like fuzzy physics, not pure math. The AI system that I studied was good at solving the problems in a limited domain space, that it was designed for, and completely hopeless for anything else.
Being wrong on a point of detail does not necessarily sink a larger argument.
So, e.g., when I pointed out that the dramatic claims of this diary, and this diary, here at MyFDL, were, in fact, wrong, I did not extrapolate “wrongness” to climate scientists, in general, nor even to the diarists, in general, from their respective, easily debunked diaries.
The proof of Fermat’s theorem was found to have a flaw. As it turns out, the error was fixed, and life went on.
Sometimes you can fix an error; other times you can’t but your central position is still tenable. And other times, your error points to something fundamentally wrong.
Also, in general, science tends to be messy. Climate science is an extremely messy example of “a” science. If you want absolute certainty, become a mathematician.
I doubt anything I’ve written in this comment is of any interest to the mentally lazy, nor to tribalists who just want to belong, and don’t care who they have to smear in order to maintain their group membership.
One other point about the republican base: they are a bunch of mushy headed morons who have already changed their ideas about global warming (but in the wrong direction) due to the programming they’ve received. . . .
http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1126
It is a recent occurrence because they’ve been getting more FOX news brain-washing recently.
I thought you had a degree in Math. Your description of Andrew Wiles proof is misleading. And you do not even give Wiles credit, for his great discovery.
But even worse, it is a false equivalency to compare a brilliant mathematical proof, to the debate about toxic pollution of the atmosphere.
And you defend the Koch brothers, and Exxon and the nuclear power lobby, and the clean coal lobby. These ratfuckers are waging war against science. A few scientists have sold out.
Finally, anyone foolish enough to be caused to have any doubts about this subject by this person’s writings,
Please go to
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/
It’s straightforward, and the people writing there are not trying to mislead.
so long Metamars.
That’s a great pie chart, Margaret.
Not only have our emitted Greenhouse Gases caused this undeniable temperature increase and its consequences, but we know what the Gases are and their respective amounts Radiative Forcing, based on the Global Warming Potential of each Greenhouse Gas.
And that is why we arw seeing the Global Warming predictions of our youth coming true now.