Climate Change

[Fan The Flames]

2 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

If it truly WAS about air quality, non compliant vehicles would be banned completely and not allowed to continue polluting just because they've swelled the coffers!

Imagine the impact on people if these cars were banned completely. This is a fairer way, a half way house until they are banned completely.

People can be encouraged to change but government intervention is always required to get the job done. Just like when 4 star was finally banned.

[badgerx16]

28 minutes ago, Scally42 said:

That's the whole reason for putting the video up, if you think he's wrong then let us know how. The IPCC report is free to download

I have already made 1 observation, which didn't seem to elicit a response. Starting his argument with what appears to be an incorrect assertion hardly sells the rest of the interview to me. And fwiw I have downloaded the IPCC report.

Edited 22 August, 2023 by badgerx16

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, Scally42 said:

The fact is nobody has shown any evidence that what was said in that interview with Steven Koonin is not correct

A lengthy, but interesting dissection of the numerous fallacies in Koonin's book...

Debunked? A review of Steven Koonin’s book ‘Unsettled?’ – Debunking Denial

[Scally42]

1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

A lengthy, but interesting dissection of the numerous fallacies in Koonin's book...

Debunked? A review of Steven Koonin’s book ‘Unsettled?’ – Debunking Denial

If you read Koonin's reply he debunks them and shows links to the IPCC report to back up his claims

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, Fan The Flames said:

Imagine the impact on people if these cars were banned completely. This is a fairer way, a half way house until they are banned completely.

People can be encouraged to change but government intervention is always required to get the job done. Just like when 4 star was finally banned.

Imagine the clean air if they were banned. Ultimately that's the goal, seems like a simple solution....

[CB Fry]

10 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Imagine the clean air if they were banned. Ultimately that's the goal, seems like a simple solution....

We're putting you down as a 100% supporter of banning higher emission cars immediately then?

That's definitely what you seem to be saying so good to know where you stand 👍

[Weston Super Saint]

8 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

We're putting you down as a 100% supporter of banning higher emission cars immediately then?

That's definitely what you seem to be saying so good to know where you stand 👍

Absolutely. You want clean air, ban the vehicles causing the pollution. Pretty simple solution really. Stop fucking about with half arsed measures and the children will stop dying, after all that's what it's all about, right, and definitely not a revenue raising tool.

You seem to be happy that the little children are dying because of the higher emission cars, so good to know where you stand 👍 

[Fan The Flames]

23 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Absolutely. You want clean air, ban the vehicles causing the pollution. Pretty simple solution really. Stop fucking about with half arsed measures and the children will stop dying, after all that's what it's all about, right, and definitely not a revenue raising tool.

You seem to be happy that the little children are dying because of the higher emission cars, so good to know where you stand 👍 

You're just too woke.

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Imagine the clean air if they were banned. Ultimately that's the goal, seems like a simple solution....

Tyre particles, brake dust, it will never be clean.

[CB Fry]

2 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Absolutely. You want clean air, ban the vehicles causing the pollution. Pretty simple solution really. Stop fucking about with half arsed measures and the children will stop dying, after all that's what it's all about, right, and definitely not a revenue raising tool.

You seem to be happy that the little children are dying because of the higher emission cars, so good to know where you stand 👍 

Probably all a bit more nuanced that all that but you carry out with your little routine sweetheart x

[Sheaf Saint]

4 hours ago, Scally42 said:

If you read Koonin's reply he debunks them and shows links to the IPCC report to back up his claims

It's a thoughtful and reasoned response, granted, and I like the way they are all very respectful to each other in their choice of words, but he doesn't 'debunk' them at all. He just falls back on the same arguments he makes in the book, and blatantly ignores half of their criticisms.

It's all very well saying he shows links to the IPCC report to back up his claims, but all he does is take a few quotes out of context and presents them as if they serve as evidence to support his main claim that the science is less settled than some parties want us to believe it is. For example, from the IPCC AR5 report, he quotes:

“. . . low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century . . .”

On the face of it, this looks to the layman that things aren't as bad as is being made out. But he fails to expand on the reasoning given in the AR5 report for that low confidence assessment and the other surrounding context:

"There is low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall), owing to lack of direct observations, dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice and geographical inconsistencies in the trends. However, this masks important regional changes and, for example, the frequency and intensity of drought have likely increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa and likely decreased in central North America and northwest Australia since 1950".

He then quotes similar statements regarding low confidence in floods, small-scale weather phenomena, and intensity of tropical cyclones, but again utterly fails to provide any context or reasoning for those confidence assessments (such as the inherent difficulties in gathering the data necessary to conclude anything greater than low confidence).

He then goes on to say that "The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) says very much the same things".  Except it doesn't...

" Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5."

IPCC AR6 Working Group 1: Summary for Policymakers | Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis

The narrative he is trying to create is that the overall confidence in the assertion that AGW is happening is lower than it actually is, that nothing is as bad as is being made out, and that we've got loads of time to solve this so we might as well keep on burning fossil fuels as long as we like. He's wrong. I take on board his line about global energy infrastructure not being ready to transition to net zero instantly, and the undoubted problems that the global economy would suffer if we tried to do it too quickly, but he goes too far the other way and his blasé attitude and lack of urgency about the situation is disconcerting. 

Edited 22 August, 2023 by Sheaf Saint

[OldNick]

On 22/08/2023 at 07:09, Weston Super Saint said:

Well, would you look at that, a climate scientist with an agenda.  Who knew, eh?

And none of the people in the media and the councils etc etc etc whose livelihood depends on climate change don't have their own agenda.

[Scally42]

18 hours ago, Sheaf Saint said:

It's a thoughtful and reasoned response, granted, and I like the way they are all very respectful to each other in their choice of words, but he doesn't 'debunk' them at all. He just falls back on the same arguments he makes in the book, and blatantly ignores half of their criticisms.

It's all very well saying he shows links to the IPCC report to back up his claims, but all he does is take a few quotes out of context and presents them as if they serve as evidence to support his main claim that the science is less settled than some parties want us to believe it is. For example, from the IPCC AR5 report, he quotes:

“. . . low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century . . .”

On the face of it, this looks to the layman that things aren't as bad as is being made out. But he fails to expand on the reasoning given in the AR5 report for that low confidence assessment and the other surrounding context:

"There is low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall), owing to lack of direct observations, dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice and geographical inconsistencies in the trends. However, this masks important regional changes and, for example, the frequency and intensity of drought have likely increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa and likely decreased in central North America and northwest Australia since 1950".

He then quotes similar statements regarding low confidence in floods, small-scale weather phenomena, and intensity of tropical cyclones, but again utterly fails to provide any context or reasoning for those confidence assessments (such as the inherent difficulties in gathering the data necessary to conclude anything greater than low confidence).

He then goes on to say that "The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) says very much the same things".  Except it doesn't...

" Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since AR5."

IPCC AR6 Working Group 1: Summary for Policymakers | Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis

The narrative he is trying to create is that the overall confidence in the assertion that AGW is happening is lower than it actually is, that nothing is as bad as is being made out, and that we've got loads of time to solve this so we might as well keep on burning fossil fuels as long as we like. He's wrong. I take on board his line about global energy infrastructure not being ready to transition to net zero instantly, and the undoubted problems that the global economy would suffer if we tried to do it too quickly, but he goes too far the other way and his blasé attitude and lack of urgency about the situation is disconcerting. 

You can dress it up how you like, if they say low confidence then that means low confidence. So the IPCC did not know if there was any trend  in droughts since the middle of the 20th century, this is not some thing they have to predict this is what has actually happened. We're talking about 70 years not 10,000 years, they couldn't tell us some thing as basic as that with any certainty yet we're supposed to believe they can tell us what will happen in the future. We've had a lot of warming yet in 2014 they couldn't say if precipitation around the globe had been affected by this warming.  7 years later they've got all that sorted and now know exactly what's going on. 

[Sheaf Saint]

1 hour ago, Scally42 said:

You can dress it up how you like, if they say low confidence then that means low confidence. So the IPCC did not know if there was any trend  in droughts since the middle of the 20th century, this is not some thing they have to predict this is what has actually happened. We're talking about 70 years not 10,000 years, they couldn't tell us some thing as basic as that with any certainty yet we're supposed to believe they can tell us what will happen in the future. We've had a lot of warming yet in 2014 they couldn't say if precipitation around the globe had been affected by this warming.  7 years later they've got all that sorted and now know exactly what's going on. 

Urgh, you didn't read the IPCC report to understand the context did you.

In the specific phrases that Kooning quoted, low confidence means low confidence in the likely changes in trend and attribution to a few specific weather and climate events, but not all. I'm not going to bother re-posting it if you're just not even going to read it. But there are numerous reasons why it is extremely difficult to gather the necessary data required to conclude anything greater than low confidence in some areas.

Drought, in particular, is especially hard to quantify because it is a vague term that has different definitions in different regions, and is recorded and reported differently around the world. This severly hampers any efforts to build a robust dataset of global trends. When you add in to that the fact that it is all but impossible to directly attribute any one singular event to climate change, you cannot conclude any greater confidence. It doesn't actually prove that warming isn't happening or isn't causing an increase in impacts of dry weather events though. 

Take a look at the table of the different weather events in the AR5 report:

It's interesting that Koonin very deliberatley cherry picked the events for which the assessment was low confidence (and for which the report gives clear explanations of the uncertainties resulting in this conclusion), and conveniently ignores all the others which are assessed as either medium confidence, likely, or very likely.

Why do you think he did that?

 

1 hour ago, Scally42 said:

We've had a lot of warming yet in 2014 they couldn't say if precipitation around the globe had been affected by this warming.  

Wrong. See table above. In 2014 the IPCC conclcuded it was likely that there had been an increase in heavy precipitation events, and had medium confidence that this increase was attributable to human activity.

 

1 hour ago, Scally42 said:

7 years later they've got all that sorted and now know exactly what's going on. 

I can only assume you are trying to make out that the IPCC's knowledge in this matter has gone from very low to nearly 100% in a short space of time, and that is somehow suspicious. But this statement is false. They don't know exactly what is going on, because no credible scientist would ever make such a claim, but they do now have much better data which has allowed for an assessment of greater likelihood/confidence than they were able to in 2013. This is from the AR6 report:

"The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased since the 1950s over most land area for which observational data are sufficient for trend analysis (high confidence), and human-induced climate change is likely the main driver. Human-induced climate change has contributed to increases in agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions due to increased land evapotranspiration (medium confidence). "

So there has been a marked improvement in the scientific understanding since the previous assessment, but not one so large as you are trying to infer.

 

[Scally42]

1 hour ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Urgh, you didn't read the IPCC report to understand the context did you.

In the specific phrases that Kooning quoted, low confidence means low confidence in the likely changes in trend and attribution to a few specific weather and climate events, but not all. I'm not going to bother re-posting it if you're just not even going to read it. But there are numerous reasons why it is extremely difficult to gather the necessary data required to conclude anything greater than low confidence in some areas.

Drought, in particular, is especially hard to quantify because it is a vague term that has different definitions in different regions, and is recorded and reported differently around the world. This severly hampers any efforts to build a robust dataset of global trends. When you add in to that the fact that it is all but impossible to directly attribute any one singular event to climate change, you cannot conclude any greater confidence. It doesn't actually prove that warming isn't happening or isn't causing an increase in impacts of dry weather events though. 

Take a look at the table of the different weather events in the AR5 report:

It's interesting that Koonin very deliberatley cherry picked the events for which the assessment was low confidence (and for which the report gives clear explanations of the uncertainties resulting in this conclusion), and conveniently ignores all the others which are assessed as either medium confidence, likely, or very likely.

Why do you think he did that?

 

Wrong. See table above. In 2014 the IPCC conclcuded it was likely that there had been an increase in heavy precipitation events, and had medium confidence that this increase was attributable to human activity.

 

I can only assume you are trying to make out that the IPCC's knowledge in this matter has gone from very low to nearly 100% in a short space of time, and that is somehow suspicious. But this statement is false. They don't know exactly what is going on, because no credible scientist would ever make such a claim, but they do now have much better data which has allowed for an assessment of greater likelihood/confidence than they were able to in 2013. This is from the AR6 report:

"The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased since the 1950s over most land area for which observational data are sufficient for trend analysis (high confidence), and human-induced climate change is likely the main driver. Human-induced climate change has contributed to increases in agricultural and ecological droughts in some regions due to increased land evapotranspiration (medium confidence). "

So there has been a marked improvement in the scientific understanding since the previous assessment, but not one so large as you are trying to infer.

 

I don't get where your coming from, nobody is doubting global warming that's not up for debate. Saying some thing has low confidennce because you cannot gather the data to prove it is happening is basically saying you have no idea if it's happening or not. The IPCC cannot infer that droughts are becoming more persistent due to climate change unless they have the data to prove this. They may well be saying they have high confidance now in AR6 but they were not in AR5

[Guided Missile]

On 22/08/2023 at 17:05, Scally42 said:

That's the whole reason for putting the video up, if you think he's wrong then let us know how. The IPCC report is free to download

Rather than watching the video, a while ago, I read his book cover to cover, pretty much as soon as it was published. It took around 7 hours, plus the time spent looking at the sources he referenced and where the data resides. As you say, the main sources are IPCC reports. My takeaway is that Koonin has written the most important and scientifically credible book ever, on the net zero cult, which debunks the whole zero carbon fallacy. I bet a pound to a pinch of shit that none of the usual trolls on this site have actually read his book, but just simply repeat their unsupported position, on what is an incredibly complicated subject. What gets me is that they are willing to spend all of our tax on the unproven net zero bollox, which has simply become a tool for the Marxist left to take down the highly successful Western capitalist democracies. You just have to watch the complete lack of support for net zero from China, Russia and the rest, with third world dictatorships looking for handouts and raw material (e.g. lithium) sales for the milk floats, being forced down our throats.

A little takeaway on global CO2 levels. Below 150ppm and all life on Earth ends. Levels of around 500ppm, predicted in the next 50 years and MAYBE global temperatures increase by 3C (together with a corresponding increase in crop yields). Pretty much sums up why I'm very relaxed about current and future global CO2 levels.

Finally, don't comment about Koonin's book if you haven't read it. It will just make you look like an uninformed chump. 

 

[Guided Missile]

On 09/08/2023 at 14:23, Guided Missile said:

The advantage of the ignore function allows me to guess what my trolls will have posted. My guess is total bullshit and self-aggrandisement, as in "listen to me, I'm an expert." Still, in the hope that nottooclevertim is willing to engage in the scientific method of debate (not that I've read what the arsewhipe posted), here's an example of scientific lying to try and prove a point:

The National Climate Assessment (NCA2014) stated this:
The intensity, frequency, and duration of North Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest (Category 4 and 5) hurricanes, have all increased since the early 1980s. The relative contributions of human and natural causes to these increases are still uncertain. Hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates are projected to increase as the climate continues to warm.
The following graph is included, with a sharp upward rising trend, to suggest the severity of the problem.

This is cherry-picked information that is misinforming – it is completely factual but not factually complete. When you zoom out and reframe the same data into a longer climatically relevant time period, the result looks less compelling and certainly less alarming.

 I call the above data, an example of a scientist lying, deliberately.

 

Talking about Koonin cherry picking, the above is worth repeating.

[aintforever]

7 hours ago, Guided Missile said:

Talking about Koonin cherry picking, the above is worth repeating.

The thing is, it’s hard to take you seriously after that meltdown you previously had on this subject. You remember, the one where you lost it and admitted you didn’t give a fuck about the environment because you like driving a big car and your offspring will be fine because they will have money.

At least then you showed a bit of honesty.

[OldNick]

12 minutes ago, aintforever said:

The thing is, it’s hard to take you seriously after that meltdown you previously had on this subject. You remember, the one where you lost it and admitted you didn’t give a fuck about the environment because you like driving a big car and your offspring will be fine because they will have money.

At least then you showed a bit of honesty.

I think you will find that after being informed by 'experts/scientists' as a child at Junior school in the late 1960's, being told that oil was going to run out, that we were going into an ice age, cancer would be cured before i was 30, that we knew all the elements there were and impossible that would be anymore (Southampton University Professor's own words) etc etc you become slightly more cynical as time goes on when prophets of doom come about. There are a lot of powerful people making a lot of money form Climate change, many peoples living comes from it and of course it is a fantastic revenue stream for governments with tax.

Population is the problem not oil or fossil fuels 

[Scally42]

7 hours ago, Guided Missile said:

Rather than watching the video, a while ago, I read his book cover to cover, pretty much as soon as it was published. It took around 7 hours, plus the time spent looking at the sources he referenced and where the data resides. As you say, the main sources are IPCC reports. My takeaway is that Koonin has written the most important and scientifically credible book ever, on the net zero cult, which debunks the whole zero carbon fallacy. I bet a pound to a pinch of shit that none of the usual trolls on this site have actually read his book, but just simply repeat their unsupported position, on what is an incredibly complicated subject. What gets me is that they are willing to spend all of our tax on the unproven net zero bollox, which has simply become a tool for the Marxist left to take down the highly successful Western capitalist democracies. You just have to watch the complete lack of support for net zero from China, Russia and the rest, with third world dictatorships looking for handouts and raw material (e.g. lithium) sales for the milk floats, being forced down our throats.

A little takeaway on global CO2 levels. Below 150ppm and all life on Earth ends. Levels of around 500ppm, predicted in the next 50 years and MAYBE global temperatures increase by 3C (together with a corresponding increase in crop yields). Pretty much sums up why I'm very relaxed about current and future global CO2 levels.

Finally, don't comment about Koonin's book if you haven't read it. It will just make you look like an uninformed chump. 

 

I've read quite a few books on the different aspects of the climate change debate and I think Unsettled is probably the best. Anybody who has read the book will realise that Koonin believes there is a right and a wrong way to do science and a lot of what goes on at the IPCC is dubious at best, when your paycheck depends on pushing a particular narrative it's never going to end well. Sceptics are more likely to read and do research on a subject than somebody who believes in something so therefore just listens to what the media spouts at them. 

[ashnats]

On 22/08/2023 at 02:16, Scally42 said:

Thanks for your imput, so any one who writes a book about anything is discredited because they make money out of their views. So you've no idea if he's correct in what he says then?

No, keyword is "motivated". Think it is common knowledge that the motivation here is nothing to do with science and everything to do with revenue, the book is not taken seriously outside of its pandered to audience.

[andypen]

31 minutes ago, Scally42 said:

I've read quite a few books on the different aspects of the climate change debate and I think Unsettled is probably the best. Anybody who has read the book will realise that Koonin believes there is a right and a wrong way to do science and a lot of what goes on at the IPCC is dubious at best, when your paycheck depends on pushing a particular narrative it's never going to end well. Sceptics are more likely to read and do research on a subject than somebody who believes in something so therefore just listens to what the media spouts at them. 

The ULEZ scam is a prime example. Sadiq Khan's own researchers stated that the expansion scheme would have a negligible impact on air quality in the suburbs, and having previously stated that he would not expand the scheme here we are. This is a man who travels London in a fleet of 3 Range Rovers and has made £400M from it so far. Anyone who thinks this isn't about money must be deluded (with all respect).

[Whitey Grandad]

3 minutes ago, andypen said:

The ULEZ scam is a prime example. Sadiq Khan's own researchers stated that the expansion scheme would have a negligible impact on air quality in the suburbs, and having previously stated that he would not expand the scheme here we are. This is a man who travels London in a fleet of 3 Range Rovers and has made £400M from it so far. Anyone who thinks this isn't about money must be deluded (with all respect).

There’s a bit about ULEZ in The Times today (paywall)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ulez-camera-vandalism-car-van-compliant-0mp2g66s2

”90% of Ulez cameras put out of action in new area”

[Sheaf Saint]

21 hours ago, Scally42 said:

Saying some thing has low confidennce because you cannot gather the data to prove it is happening is basically saying you have no idea if it's happening or not. The IPCC cannot infer that droughts are becoming more persistent due to climate change unless they have the data to prove this. They may well be saying they have high confidance now in AR6 but they were not in AR5

You still don't get this do you.

The 'low confidence' assessment in this instance relates solely to any change in global trends, and I have explained in my previous posts why this is so difficult to assess. This article explains it a little more clearly...

"A direct link between climate change and drought is complicated by the many meteorological, hydrological, geological, and societal drivers that combine to cause droughts. However, there is increasing evidence that climate change is influencing rainfall patterns in many regions around the world."

Hydrological drought, for example can be caused purely by over-abstraction of water and not related to lack of rainfall at all. Therefore, if any one country declares a drought incident, but it is a hydrological drought rather than a meteorological one, that still gets added to the 'number of droughts' statistics. Furthermore, as I said previously, different countries use different criteria to declare a drought incident. So it is virtually impossible to gather all the global data into one dataset and say with any great degree of confidence that the number of droughts as a result of climate change is increasing. But, again, that doesn't mean there isn't an increasing problem with drought around the world:

"There is still low confidence that human influence has affected trends in meteorological droughts in most regions. However, there is medium confidence human influence has contributed to the severity of certain events with more detailed studies. There is also medium confidence that human-induced climate change has contributed to increasing trends in the probability or intensity of recent agricultural and ecological droughts."

So yes, it is perfectly possible to say that there is low confidence in the change in trends globally but still be reasonably confident that impacts from climate-change related droughts are increasing. 

And yes, there has been an increase in the general level of confidence between AR5 and AR6, but Koonin does not acknowledge that and makes a false statement that AR6 basically says the same thing as AR5 in this respect, which it clearly doesn't if you actually bother to read it properly instead of just hanging on his every word because your pre-existing bias makes you want to believe everything he says.

[Sheaf Saint]

3 hours ago, Scally42 said:

I've read quite a few books on the different aspects of the climate change debate and I think Unsettled is probably the best. Anybody who has read the book will realise that Koonin believes there is a right and a wrong way to do science and a lot of what goes on at the IPCC is dubious at best, when your paycheck depends on pushing a particular narrative it's never going to end well. 

You do realise that the vast majority of the authors who contribute to the IPCC reports give their time voluntarily, don't you? No, of course not. Yet you wilfully believe every word published by contrarian scientists who have been shown to have accepted funding from the fossil fuel industry. Maybe listen to your own advice in future.

3 hours ago, Scally42 said:

Sceptics are more likely to read and do research on a subject than somebody who believes in something so therefore just listens to what the media spouts at them. 

Coming from someone who metaphorically sticks his fingers in his ears and goes "LA-LA-LA" every time anyone provides some credible evidence to show his assertions are wrong, that is a spectacular lack of self-awareness.

As I posted recently, I used to sit on your side of the fence a number of years ago. A 'sceptic', if you will. So I did read and research the subject - I studied for a degree in environmental science. And guess what? I came to the conclusion that my previous position was wrong, because the evidence for that was overwhelming.

Edited 24 August, 2023 by Sheaf Saint

[Sheaf Saint]

3 hours ago, aintforever said:

The thing is, it’s hard to take you seriously after that meltdown you previously had on this subject. You remember, the one where you lost it and admitted you didn’t give a fuck about the environment because you like driving a big car and your offspring will be fine because they will have money.

At least then you showed a bit of honesty.

He waived any right to ever be taken seriously on the subject a few years ago when he posted a load of utter drivel copied and pasted from the Association of British Drivers website, and tried to pass it off as scientific fact.

[Scally42]

37 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

You do realise that the vast majority of the authors who contribute to the IPCC reports give their time voluntarily, don't you? No, of course not. Yet you wilfully believe every word published by contrarian scientists who have been shown to have accepted funding from the fossil fuel industry. Maybe listen to your own advice in future.

Coming from someone who metaphorically sticks his fingers in his ears and goes "LA-LA-LA" every time anyone provides some credible evidence to show his assertions are wrong, that is a spectacular lack of self-awareness.

As I posted recently, I used to sit on your side of the fence a number of years ago. A 'sceptic', if you will. So I did read and research the subject - I studied for a degree in environmental science. And guess what? I came to the conclusion that my previous position was wrong, because the evidence for that was overwhelming.

They may well give their time to the IPCC for free but that's not their day job is It? What scientists have been proven to be funded by the fossil fuels Industry? Koonin worked for BP for a while, that was a paid job, they don't pay him for what he does now

[Sheaf Saint]

9 minutes ago, Scally42 said:

They may well give their time to the IPCC for free but that's not their day job is It? What scientists have been proven to be funded by the fossil fuels Industry? Koonin worked for BP for a while, that was a paid job, they don't pay him for what he does now

You previously shared a self-published paper co-authored by Willie Soon (along with Ronan and Michael Connolly)...

https://www.desmog.com/willie-soon/

In his own words:

"In the past, I have received scientific research grants from Exxon-Mobil Foundation, Southern Company and the Charles G. Koch Foundation for my work on various topics, including scientific research on the Sun-climate connection".

[Guided Missile]

On 09/08/2023 at 11:11, Guided Missile said:

I would like to state, after many, many years of experience, that scientists lie. The ethics involved in the lies, we have all been told, by "scientists" and their gormless supporters, (usually self serving politicians or corporations), have been rapidly increasing.

Talking of which, read all about it, here:

Quote

Scientist who peer reviewed Ulez report is member of research group funded by City Hall.
Dr Gary Fuller served as the sole reviewer of ‘landmark’ study hailed by Sadiq Khan

The fucker...

[Fan The Flames]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/07/why-climate-deniers-are-wrong-validity-heat-measurements?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[Guided Missile]

Climate scientist admits overhyping impact of global warming on wildfires to get published here:

Quote

A climate scientist has admitted overhyping the impact of global warming on wildfires to ensure his work was published in the prestigious science journal Nature. Dr Patrick Brown, the co-director of the climate and energy team at The Breakthrough Institute, Berkeley, published a paper last week arguing that climate change had increased wildfires in California. The Nature study has been accessed more than 3,000 times online and was cited by 109 news outlets across the globe.

But in a blog and series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, Dr Brown admitted that there were other factors influencing wildfires that he had purposefully omitted – such as poor forestry management and an increase in people starting fires deliberately or accidentally.

 

[Guided Missile]

And on cue, Matt Ridley comments on the lying scientists in the Telegraph this morning. Worth a read and apposite to this thread and others.

Quote

Patrick Brown, the co-director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute in California, has blown the whistle on an open secret about climate science: it’s biased in favour of alarmism. He published a paper in Nature magazine on the effect of climate change on wildfires. In it he told the truth: there was an effect. But not the whole truth: other factors play a big role in fires too. On Maui, the failure of the electric utility to manage vegetation along power lines was a probable cause of the devastating recent fires, but climate change proved a convenient excuse. 

Editors at journals such as Nature seem to prefer publishing simplistic, negative news and speculation about climate change. “It is standard practice to calculate impacts for scary hypothetical future warming scenarios that strain credibility,” wrote Brown. So, after learning this lesson the hard way when his nuanced papers were rejected, he adapted his latest to suit their apparent prejudices – and it was published. Nature’s editor, Magdalena Skipper, responded by trying to shoot the messenger, criticising Brown’s deception as “poor research practices”. 

We have known for years that distinguished scientists who think that global warming is a problem but not a “crisis” get ostracised, cancelled or rejected by peer reviewers. Meanwhile, even the most trivial study that comes to an alarmist conclusion – such as a notorious one that found fish behaviour to be affected by carbon dioxide – gets rushed into print and celebrated in the media. Junior scientists notice and tailor their texts accordingly. 

One of the biggest measurable impacts of increased carbon dioxide is global greening – the recent increase in green vegetation on the planet, equivalent to twice the area of the United States and counting. But as I discovered when I broke a story on this in 2015, pointing this out brings a hail of professorial hate down on your head. I was even singled out in a Boston University press release for daring to suggest that more green vegetation might not be bad news. 

Brown says that “there is a taboo against studying or even mentioning successes since they are thought to undermine the motivation for greenhouse gas emissions reductions”.

Quote

It’s not just climate change. The main science journals have been quick to accept the Chinese regime’s insistence that a lab leak could not have caused the pandemic, refusing to publish several papers that argued otherwise and to investigate the issue, while rushing into print half-baked studies that seemed to implicate the seafood market in Wuhan. One such study purported to have found possible evidence that raccoon dogs were infected and was hyped. The total debunking of that study last month by Professor Jesse Bloom was ignored. 

Taxpayer, you are not hearing the whole truth from the academics you fund

Like mushrooms, we're kept in the dark and showered with shit.

Edited 8 September, 2023 by Guided Missile

[Fan The Flames]

4 hours ago, Guided Missile said:

Climate scientist admits overhyping impact of global warming on wildfires to get published here:

The Editor of Nature refuted this claim yesterday, pointing to articles they published that disproves his claim. She was very pissed off.

[sadoldgit]

Whenever I read a post from GM on here I am reminded of Amity Mayor, Larry Vaughn from Jaws.

[Whitey Grandad]

2 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Whenever I read a post from GM on here I am reminded of Amity Mayor, Larry Vaughn from Jaws.

I was thinking of Comical Ali

[Tamesaint]

38 minutes ago, sadoldgit said:

Whenever I read a post from GM on here I am reminded of Amity Mayor, Larry Vaughn from Jaws.

I just think of him dodging his nurses to get access to the internet. 

[buctootim]

2 hours ago, Guided Missile said:

Like mushrooms, we're kept in the dark and showered with shit.

 

Sounds like your friends and family are making reasonable choices tbf 

[Guided Missile]

2 hours ago, Fan The Flames said:

The Editor of Nature refuted this claim yesterday, pointing to articles they published that disproves his claim. She was very pissed off.

Fuck her. Here's the authors reply on X:

Quote

A couple responses to what editor-in-chief of Nature, Dr. Magdalena Skipper has said:

Skipper: "The only thing in Patrick Brown’s statements about the editorial processes in scholarly journals that we agree on is that science should not work through the efforts by which he published this article."

Me: I am glad we agree, but I think it is simply wrong to imagine that researchers do not customize the presentation of their research to be conducive to high-impact journals. The idealized notion that you would only go to Nature, Science or PNAS when you happen to stumble upon a great discovery is just not how it works. Everyone who publishes consistently in these journals knows this or is not very self-reflective. By the way, it is totally understandable when you realize how valuable high-impact publications are for a researcher's career.

Skipper: "We are now carefully considering the implications of his stated actions; certainly, they reflect poor research practices and are not in line with the standards we set for our journal. We have an expectation that researchers use the most appropriate data and methods when assessing these data, and that they include all key facts and results that are relevant to the main conclusions of a paper."

Me: This is all very boilerplate, but it sounds like something you would say if my claim was that I omitted data in the paper itself. That is not the case. All key facts and results that were relevant to the main conclusions of the paper *were* included. My point is broader than that. The paper itself is not sufficient to make broader concrete conclusions about changes in wildfire behavior over time (because it focuses on only one aspect, climate). Yet, papers like this, that focus exclusively on the climate component are over-represented, and thus the aggregate message coming out of high-impact journals is skewed.

Skipper: "When it comes to science, Nature does not have a preferred narrative."

Me: As someone who has been reading the Nature journal family, submitting to it, reviewing for it, and publishing in it, I think that is nonsense. 

Consider Paper A, which projects large future increases in heat-related mortality but totally ignores cold-related mortality. 

Consider Paper B, which does the opposite: projects large future decreases in cold-related mortality but ignores any change in heat-related mortality. 

Is anyone really going to argue that these papers would get the exact same fair hearing at a high-impact journal? 

Paper A was actually published by Nature Climate Change: https://nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01058-x

Writing Paper B is disincentivized because everyone in the field knows it would be incredibly difficult to publish in a high-impact journal.

Is that really "no preferred narrative"?

 

[Fan The Flames]

12 minutes ago, Guided Missile said:

Fuck her. Here's the authors reply on X:

 

The paper A  paper B thing is just conjecture.

[Guided Missile]

And fuck the journal she edits. Springer-Nature is a multibillion-dollar, for-profit, private media empire. They have the same incentives as any for-profit media company- NYT or Fox News- to tell the stories that get audience engagement. Scientists have an incentive, in the form of prestige, to play along.

Still, it's fun to see the sheep on here lap up the bullshit. (Those that aren't on ignore. Jeez, that's most of them)

[Guided Missile]

3 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

The paper A  paper B thing is just conjecture.

He's the author, she's just another selective media whore. 

[Fan The Flames]

3 minutes ago, Guided Missile said:

He's the author, she's just another selective media whore. 

Ok

[badgerx16]

3 hours ago, sadoldgit said:

Whenever I read a post from GM on here I am reminded of Amity Mayor, Larry Vaughn from Jaws.

 

3 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

I was thinking of Comical Ali

 

2 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

I just think of him dodging his nurses to get access to the internet. 

Just think of all the pent up anger and frustration he must have in his life that we see vented on here.

[east-stand-nic]

3 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

I just think of him dodging his nurses to get access to the internet. 

u and sog making light of mental health again, shame on you pious fools.

[east-stand-nic]

6 hours ago, Guided Missile said:

And on cue, Matt Ridley comments on the lying scientists in the Telegraph this morning. Worth a read and apposite to this thread and others.

Like mushrooms, we're kept in the dark and showered with shit.

I tried telling people during covid and many other times, the science they get shoved down their throats comes from government back scientists and funded research. Speak out against it, you get pushed away made out an alcoholic or similar, discredited and unfunded. Of course the masses will not see this as it scares them to think they have been lied to all their lives. Yet they happily call the tories liars. You couldn't make it up.

[aintforever]

What was this lying fucker's incentive then?

[Weston Super Saint]

34 minutes ago, aintforever said:

What was this lying fucker's incentive then?

Bless you for getting the wrong end of the stick.

The claim is that climate scientists who have agendas are being incentivised, not Prime Minister's 30 fucking years ago.

But it comes as no surprise that the finer details have passed you by as always.

[aintforever]

32 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Bless you for getting the wrong end of the stick.

The claim is that climate scientists who have agendas are being incentivised, not Prime Minister's 30 fucking years ago.

But it comes as no surprise that the finer details have passed you by as always.

Of course some scientists have incentives to exaggerate - it's the same for both sides. My point is that it doesn't change the fundamental problem. 

There are way more incentives on the denier side to lie -as we have seen.

First climate change 'wasn't happening - it was a socialist hoax'.

Then it 'was happening but it's just natural causes'.

Then it is 'caused by man but not by much (or we don't know how much)'.

Now it's changing to 'we are causing it but it might be a good thing anyway.'

 Weird how it's the same people that change their story each time, those who have a problem with paying tax.

Edited 8 September, 2023 by aintforever

[buctootim]

22 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

The claim is that climate scientists who have agendas are being incentivised

There is far more money to be made from accepting cash from Shell, Exxon and the other parts of oil and gas than mediocre government research grants.  

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, east-stand-nic said:

I tried telling people during covid and many other times, the science they get shoved down their throats comes from government back scientists and funded research. Speak out against it, you get pushed away made out an alcoholic or similar, discredited and unfunded. Of course the masses will not see this as it scares them to think they have been lied to all their lives. Yet they happily call the tories liars. You couldn't make it up.

Most of the BS you post is just that.

Still, it's nice that it seems GM has found a new friend.

Edited 8 September, 2023 by badgerx16