Tears, bitter polar bear tears
Now the New York Times’s environment desk has closed these bears will die!!!
It’s Death of Little Nell time again in the field of climate “science.” The New York Times – aka Pravda – has announced the closure of its Environment Desk. Rumours that the entire environment team, headed by Andy Revkin, have volunteered to be recycled into compost and spread on the lawn of the new billion dollar home Al Gore bought with the proceeds of his sale of Current TV to Middle Eastern oil interests are as yet unconfirmed. What we do know is that it’s very, very sad and that all over the Arctic baby polar bears are weeping bitter tears of regret.
A spokesman for the New York Times, quoted in the Guardian, has reaffirmed the paper’s commitment to environmental issues.
“We devote a lot of resources to it, now more than ever. We have not lost any desire for environmental coverage. This is purely a structural matter.”
Absolutely. It’s what newspapers always do when they’re committed to a particular field: close down the entire department responsible for covering it.
But it’s still not going to stop some mean-minded cynics sniping and casting aspersions, I’ll bet. Why, some of them will be pointing out the eerie coincidence with the Met Office recent tacit admission that “global warming” isn’t anywhere near what that their dodgy models predicted it would be. And also with NASA’s recent admission that solar variation has a much more significant on terrestrial climate than it has hitherto been prepared to acknowledge. If you didn’t know better, you’d almost get the impression that AGW theory has been so crushingly falsified that hard-headed newspaper executives, even ones at papers as painfully right-on as the New York Times, just aren’t prepared to fund its promulgation any more.
What this means for similarly overstaffed environment desks at other left-wing newspapers one can scarcely begin to imagine. Might it be that we never again read a piece by Leo Hickman entitled “How Do You Tell Your Five Year Old Son That His World Is About To Explode In A Blazing Fireball Because Of Man’s Selfishness And Greed And Refusal To Change His Lifestyle?”
What, and no more Caroline Lucas essays, either on jaunty topics like “My plan for Britain: rationing; cold baths; the banning of cars; and hairshirts for everyone – to be enforced by my new green Mutaween of Environmental Commissars”?
And how would we cope if we never get to read any more Damian Carrington articles on “Official: wind farms are brilliant for bats and rare birds, boosting their numbers by gazillions every year – says new research by RenewablesUK,” and “Global warming: why the latest evidence that it’s going down is sure-fire proof that it’s going up, says Met Office” and “How fracking poisons the water supply, steals food from the poor, encourages racism and causes baby kittens in wicker baskets to die in agony mewling for their mothers”.
And what, for pity’s sake, about poor George Monbiot??????
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22 thoughts on “Now even Pravda admits the ‘global warming’ jig is up”
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As for your ‘oil industry’ quip, i assume you’re referring to Gore selling his cable TV station to Al Jazeera news.
Here, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU&wide=1
Seriously, watch it. All of it. With an open mind, free of prejudice. Then read the list of sources that helped make the film. Then come back on here and say something honest. Something sincere.
This is the usual self righteous rot that the environmentalist morons trot out.
Apply some very basic scientific method to the problem. Have you ever heard of ‘signal vs noise’? or ‘Statistical significance?’
If not, look it up.
Then consider that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and we only have a reliable data-set for less than a hundred years.
To claim any sort of causation on such a pathetic set of the data is joke science and if presented as a finding of something else, say the genetic likelihood of ginger people being left handed, all the eminent ‘climate scientists’ would laugh it out the door.
If not, look it up.
But, of course, how stupid of me: Rather than accept that the vast majority of scientists have examined all the palaeoclimatic evidence and concluded that the primary cause of ongoing climate disruption (occurring ten times faster than any previous natural change) is a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 (rather than a 4% increase in water vapour or a <1% increase in total solar irradiance)… You prefer to invoke a conspiracy theory that requires the vast majority of scientists and/or governments to agree to perpetuate a myth in order to frighten people into accepting ever higher levels of taxation and/or autocratic government.
If so, can you tell me how they have managed to stitch-up the statistics that tell us every decade since the 1970s has been warmer than its predecessor; and/or that extreme weather events of all kinds are becoming more frequent and more intense (as predicted by atmospheric physics for a warming planet)?… And please try responding with something that has not been repeatedly debunked such as “Global warming stopped in 1998″. David Rose tries that one roughly every six months and, every time he does, the Met Office (and many others) tell him why he is wrong…
Sadly, however, whereas history may well always be written by the winners, conspiracy theories are, as David Aaronovitch points out in his book Voodoo Histories, generally ‘history’ as written by the losers; ‘bedtime stories’ for people who find reality far too scary to deal with; or as a means of abdicating any/all responsibility for the World not being as they would like it to be.
Can I suggest you stop listening to people who tell you what you want to hear, stop pretending that all opinions are equally valid, and start dealing with the extremely high probability that the vast majority of relevantly qualified scientists know what they are talking about; and are not lying to you in order to perpetuate their research funding. You are picking a fight with history and science and, one thing I can guarantee, you will lose.
Why don’t you address the point I actually raised, rather than spout off about your favourite talking points?
The world’s weather system is 4.5 billion years old. We have data for less than a century.
Explain, please, how that is not joke science?
It is on par with any of the ludicrous studies you will read in the Daily Mail about how staring at the Mona Lisa gives you cancer (or cures cancer depending on the day).
As for this: “If so, can you tell me how they have managed to stitch-up the statistics that tell us every decade since the 1970s has been warmer than its predecessor”
So what?
The world is 4.5 billion years old. A couple of decades of warming? It could not be any less statistically relevant.
” the vast majority of scientists have examined all the palaeoclimatic evidence and concluded that the primary cause of ongoing climate disruption”
I don’t imagine any ‘grand conspiracy’ at all. It is a collective inability to apply basic scientific rigour to a bandwagon. How exciting is it to suggest that we lack the data to decide either way.
The conclusions that are drawn from the data-set examined are probably sound – but that is the exact problem.
A sample of ten people does not mean it is representative for the rest of the planet.
A trend of a few decades (disputed) does not indicate anything that is statistically significant over the life of the system.
You blather about the palaeoclimatic evidence – but they are hardly sensitive and accurate measures of temperature, are they? Sharp temperature increases can easily exist without showing up in ice-core samples etc…
As for your (and the environmental movement as a whole) deep love of argumentum ad populum, try to remember Copernicus, The Law of Parity, Steric hindrance, viruses as the cause of cancer, fusion reactors, et al.
Scientific consensus and orthodoxy is nowhere near as cast iron as you seem to think it is.
AGW is just a theory and one with, if viewed rationally, a less than compelling evidence base (4.5 billion years vs >100 years of hard data). Portraying it as anything else is disingenuous. Using it as a tool for policy setting is dangerous.
There are many more environmental causes that are more deserving and get a pathetic fraction of the money or energy devoted to it. While we wring our hands about carbon credits we will probably lose the Rhino and African elephant and most of our rainforests besides.
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/climate-science-in-a-nut-fragment/
Climate sceptics are not like Galileo (or Copernicus); who were fighting against the anti-intellectual and obscurantist Catholic Church. Rejection of the modern-day consensus regarding anthropogenic climate disruption – theoretically deduced, confirmed by observation, and validated my predictive computer modelling – is the antithesis of what Copernicus and Galileo did for the advancement of science. It took the Catholic Church centuries to admit its error; and we can but hope that climate sceptics will now be a lot faster.
If you are not a conspiracy theorist, why is it that you consider yourself more likely to be correct about climate science than the vast majority of climate scientists? Are they all just plain stupid? Thanks to Occam’s Razor, it is far more likely that the vast majority of climate scientists are correct and that the fossil fuel industry has – just as the tobacco industry did – orchestrated a lengthy campaign to discredit the science and the scientists that endanger its future profitability. If anyone is in any doubt, I think they should read this:
http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/ew@shell/API-prop.html
Can I ask why you do not dispute the theory of gravity, the existence of the Higgs-Boson, or 22 dimensions of space-time? Could it perhaps be because (unlike the finite nature of this planet’s natural resources and recycling capabilities) the reality of these things does not demand changes in human behaviour to make it sustainable?
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/the-co2-fairy-does-not-exist-yet/
“You prefer to invoke a conspiracy theory that requires the vast majority of scientists and/or governments to agree to perpetuate a myth in order to frighten people into accepting ever higher levels of taxation and/or autocratic government”
You move on, without even a whiff of shame, to this:
“the fossil fuel industry has – just as the tobacco industry did – orchestrated a lengthy campaign to discredit the science and the scientists that endanger its future profitability.”
Good gracious.
I see you decided not to engage with the other examples of scientific orthodoxy that were proved to be incorrect. The more modern examples are much more relevant – no battles against the evil Catholics there.
“If you are not a conspiracy theorist, why is it that you consider yourself more likely to be correct about climate science than the vast majority of climate scientists? ”
This myth that fact is established by majority is the most bizzare outcome of this climate ‘debate’. Why? When has that ever been the case?
And I don’t claim any special status for myself, either. I am merely pointing out what appears obvious and irrefutable – as other scientists have done.
But of course this will just invoke a round of top-trumps style, ‘my scientist is better than your scientist nonsense’.
It is the crusade mentality that has seized control of the argument that is so disturbing. A rational approach would be to embrace the uncertainty which clearly outweighs any of the certainties and is, after all, the heart of a scientific approach.
http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/all-that-is-wrong-with-the-market-place-of-ideas/
I am afraid that the Merchants of Doubt have converted residual uncertainty (in climate science) into unreasonable doubt (in the minds of a diminishing proportion of the general public). However, even if people will not believe scientists, it seems that they will believe the evidence of their own eyes:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248468/A-growing-number-global-warming-sceptics-Americans-say-global-warming-real-threat.html
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence
I could list untold other ‘morons’, as you call them, but it’s a waste of time, as your argument reflects an unfortunate yet typically prejudiced and closed-minded attitude, the ignorance of which is indicative of a total lack of comprehension to this vastly complex issue.
Environmentalists are highlighting the signal, while your argument, if one can call it that, represents background noise.
Seriously, go back to school.
On and on you go without ever even engaging with the problem.
“your argument reflects an unfortunate yet typically prejudiced and closed-minded attitude”
What, by pointing out an irrefutable fact that we have a minuscule set of measurable and consistent data?
You seem to think that I am screaming ‘its all just a conspiracy! its not happening!’. I am not. I am pointing out that if you approach the subject with the same scientific rigour that is applied elsewhere then it falls down at this very basic point.
We don’t have enough data to make solid conclusions.
Any theories derived from the available data is therefore suspect.
Anyone who has even a passing understanding of scientific theory should be able to understand this.
“Environmentalists are highlighting the signal, while your argument, if one can call it that, represents background noise.”
This again highlights your complete unfamiliarity with a really quite basic concept. Try, hard as it will be for you, to imagine the issue if it were presented in another context.
Imagine being told that there was a extreme correlation between the instances of repeat offenders and living next to electrical substations. All the data gathered points to a compelling case for causation – yet when you look at it the study covers ten people against a world population of 6.9 billion. You would (one would hope) dismiss it out of hand.
Interesting, but hardly representative. Hardly a reason to dictate policy.
“We don’t have enough data to make solid conclusions,”
you make it sound like you’re a scientist studying and examining the data. Now obviously i don’t know you (praise Jesus), as i live in the real world, but i know enough from the immature comments above that you are not a scientist. Not even close. So comments like this are disingenuous at best, and incredibly harmful and destructive at worst. harmful because it’s so completely untrue. Destructive because the consequences of such narrow-minded bigotry and obtuseness is that ‘we’, i.e. humanity, will never address the issue until its too late.
Why don’t you just read and listen to what scientists and experts are saying every day? The data is there, it is valid. The conclusions are painfully obvious and agreed by such an overwhelming majority, that, as you keep harping on about, the minority opinion – opinion, mind, represents such a minute number, that it is insignificant and ergo ignored by everyone. Except of course by non-scientist liars and idiots like Delingpole.
Here, i’ll even humour you. I’ll throw you a bone. Hell, i’ll give you 2! (did you even watch the documentary ‘Home’ in the above link?):
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
http://www.thenation.com/video/158093/noam-chomsky-how-climate-change-became-liberal-hoax#
“On and on you go without ever engaging with the problem.”
Mate, the problem is you! I hear what you’re saying about a lack of credible or valid data. I get it. It’s just that this argument is not true. It’s so wide of the mark as to be offensive.
“by pointing out an irrefutable fact that we have a minuscule set of measurable and consistent data”
Just because you say something, or believe something is irrefutable, doesn’t make it true or factual. What you are saying is not true. It is a lie. I’m not saying you’re a liar, as i’m sure you believe in what you say, much like the religious zealot believes in a bearded man sitting in a cloud and hating gay people, or like the insane person who believes their psychosis-induced imagined world to be reality. You are deluded, sir. And it’s only your ego that refuses to allow you to take a deep breath, read an article like this:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html
and still have your head stuck in the sand.
Ok, i’m done. Please don’t reply to this until you have read or watched the links as i’m really not interested in anything you have to say. I understand your argument, i just don’t accept it. Maybe if you were a scientist your opinion would carry some weight, but you’re not. So quit pretending you’re an expert that knows more than people like David Attenborough. I’m sick to the back teeth of arm-chair critics like you pretending your warped and corrupted world view should be respected.
Dave Morris may have been a bit rude but he has a valid point: James is not a scientist and is on record as saying he has neither the time to read nor the ability to understand peer-reviewed scientific papers. Therefore, taking his cue from PR companies like Hill & Knowlton , he just sticks to trying to discredit science and scientists… because of another one of his acknowledged handicaps – his libertarian conservative prejudice.
Have you read at least the Executive Summary of the new US National Climate Assessment (it is written for a non-specialist such as yourself)? If not, why not? Have you already discounted this as just more evidence the climate change hoax/conspiracy has now taken over large parts of the US government?
See my World’s biggest watermelon found in Washington DC (27 April 2012).
It disappoints me that you will not even acknowledge my existence. Is your ego so fragile that you are still annoyed about a stupid stunt I pulled two years ago? If so, this is a great shame because my purpose is not to attack you; I am trying to help you acknowledge the limitations of your own expertise (such as we all have).
As I have made clear on my blog, I am no Watermelon; I am certainly not a Liberal or a Socialist; and therefore you and I have much more in common than you might have thought.