It's that it's so, well, dumb.
Climatism or global warming alarmism is the most prominent recent example of science being coopted to serve a political agenda, writes Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the in the fall 2013 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He compares it to past examples: Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, and the eugenics movement.Emphasis added. The amount of sheer drivel is astonishing. I actually think that this more than anything is what has shifted public opinion away from support for the whole ZOMG THERMAGEDDON!!!1!!eleventy! thing. While I think that the public has great respect for science in general, they smell a rat - the sheer quantity of drivel is obvious even if you don't (like me) dig into the data. People see that the statements defy logic - if only because the alarmist press reports contradict each other. Like here, in this shadenfreudalicious bit of mockery.
Lindzen describes the Iron Triangle and the Iron Rice Bowl, in which ambiguous statements by scientists are translated into alarmist statements by media and advocacy groups, influencing politicians to feed more money to the acquiescent scientists.
In consequence, he writes, “A profound dumbing down of the discussion…interacts with the ascendancy of incompetents.” Prizes and accolades are awarded for politically correct statements, even if they defy logic. “Unfortunately, this also often induces better scientists to join the pack in order to preserve their status,” Lindzen adds.
And so I find that I've probably written most of what I'll write on the subject. There's really nothing more to say, other than I'm glad that the public seems quite sane in the face of the Scientific-Academic-Government Complex.
2 comments:
I think you're wrong in believing that the general public is getting tired of global warming. Most of the people I know think it's real: most of the time I simply shut up now, online and IRL, because I'm tired of being scolded as a troglodyte when I point out the flaws in AGW. There is a substantial number of people who understand global warming is a fraud, but my experience says they are well in the minority. If people don't discuss it, it's because they simply assume it's true and that everyone else agrees with them.
And the reason most of them believe it is because they're told so often by the MSM that's its true. Perhaps the people among whom you most proximately live and move and have your being are more aligned with your thoughts, but if so they're not actually representative of the general population. (Of course, this could apply in reverse to me....but I'm not that optimistic.)
Average global temperature history since 1975 is like a hill. We went up the hill from 1975 to 2001 where the average global temperature trend reached a plateau (per the average of the five government agencies that publicly report average global temperature anomalies). The average global temperature trend since 2001 has been flat to slightly declining but is on the plateau at the top of the hill. Claiming that the hill is highest at its top is not very profound. The temperature trend has started to decline but the decline will be slow; about 0.1 K per decade for the planet, approximately twice that fast for land areas.
A licensed mechanical engineer (retired) who has been researching this issue (unfunded) for 6 years, and in the process discovered what actually caused global warming and why it ended, has four papers on the web that you may find of interest. They provide some eye-opening insight on the cause of change to average global temperature and why it has stopped warming. The papers are straight-forward calculations (not just theory) using readily available data up to May, 2013. (data through July made no significant difference)
The first one is 'Global warming made simple' at http://lowaltitudeclouds.blogspot.com It shows, with simple thermal radiation calculations, how a tiny change in the amount of low-altitude clouds could account for half of the average global temperature change in the 20th century, and what could have caused that tiny cloud change. (The other half of the temperature change is from net average natural ocean oscillation which is dominated by the PDO)
The second paper is 'Natural Climate change has been hiding in plain sight' at http://climatechange90.blogspot.com/2013/05/natural-climate-change-has-been.html . This paper presents a simple equation that, using a single external forcing, calculates average global temperatures since they have been accurately measured world wide (about 1895) with an accuracy of 90%, irrespective of whether the influence of CO2 is included or not. The equation uses a proxy which is the time-integral of sunspot numbers (the external forcing). A graph is included which shows the calculated trajectory overlaid on measurements.
Change to the level of atmospheric CO2 has had no significant effect on average global temperature.
The time-integral of sunspot numbers since 1610 which is shown at http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_23.html corroborates the significance of this factor.
A third paper, ‘The End of Global Warming’ at http://endofgw.blogspot.com/ expands recent (since 1996) measurements and includes a graph showing the growing separation between the rising CO2 and not-rising average global temperature. It also discusses future uncertainties.
The fourth paper http://consensusmistakes.blogspot.com/ exposes some of the mistakes that have been made by the ‘Consensus’ and the IPCC
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