Dec02
Fire Up The SUVs
on December 2, 2011 at 9:23 amPosted In: Political Commentary, Science And Society
Is the sun heading for a new Maunder Minimum?
[Update a while later]
In which there was an attempt to get a skeptic’s PhD revoked. Because, you know, we can’t have skeptics involved with science.
[Afternoon update]
The sacrament of the bulb. It really is indistinguishable from a religion.
I think the plan is for the new minimum, whenever it appears (not soon, I hope) to be named the Eddy minimum, for the guy who identified the Maunder and Sporer minima. Interesting times…
As an aside, I wonder how this will affect space travel? Sounds like we might see reduced solar radiation exposure and less solar flares?
We’re in a minimum right now, and CME activity is enormous. I don’t think the two are connected.
I hope we do not have a new Maunder Minimum. Unlike global warming, global cooling would be a real problem.
A full-scale ice age, which will happen sooner or later (probably in the next 1,000 years) will be disastrous for humans in general.
Abelard, a full-scale ice age will certainly cause a lot of social upheaval, especially in Northern Europe and Canada, and you should prepare by reading “Thriving on Chaos.”
For example, as someone who lives south of the last line of glacial advance, I intend to open my house and offer shelter to Scandianivian co-ed climate refugees.
That’s certainly a noble cause my good sir. If you have one I’d like to sign up for your newsletter.
And, no doubt just read it for the articles on fine dining and interviews with notable people.
I was just reading a “debunking” paper the CAGW folks are trumpeting, which gave an example of debunking the idea that the sun controls the climate by pointing out that solar activity and temperature have been moving in opposite directions.
So, I put a pot of water on my stove and turn it up to high so the water starts heating up. But if I then turn the stove down to medium-high and observe that the water is still warming up, I’ve disproved the link between my stove and water temperature.
That’s what passes for scientific thought with these idiots.
But then, when it reaches the plateau before the downturn, they will tell you the long term trend is still up, and it’s hotter than it’s ever been!
They’ve been doing that this week, pointing to 2011′s temperature as one of the hottest on record. Yeah, when your cyclic waveform is peaking, each sample around the peak is also very high.
Re “team ugliness” – Michaels, a climatologist employed by the Cato Institute, calls Phil Jones a liar and academic fraud who falsified data and then destroyed it.
In response, Tom Wigley says, “I think I found a basic math error in Michael’s research, which Michaels either didn’t know he’d made or didn’t care to fix.”
I would tell Michaels that if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. For the simile-impaired, if you call somebody a fraud and a liar, don’t be surprised if they return the favor.
So, it’s all just reciprocal name-calling, Chris? I can’t help but notice that Phil Jones has lied about a FOIA request, breaking UK law in the process, while no similar accusation has been discovered about Michaels. So it goes beyond mere name-calling to actual acts by the people in question.
It’s also worth noting that Wigley chose to make his accusation in a way that Michaels wouldn’t automatically hear of it. While public accusations have the largest readership, it’s worth noting that they at least inform someone that they’ve been accused of something. Circulating an email only among a climate science elite means that Michaels wouldn’t have heard of it unless word eventually got to him about it. Phil Jones got a chance to defend himself. Michaels only gets a chance because he had the good fortune to receive a copy of the message.
I notice that no legal authorities in the UK seem to think that Phil Jones broke the law. In fact, after Jones resigned, he was reinstated at CRU.
I notice that no legal authorities in the UK seem to think that Phil Jones broke the law.
So? What’s your point? The British political establishment is just as politically correct as in other places. They are simply exercising prosecutorial discretion in the service of the scam.
When every proof that there is no conspiracy is taken as a sign that yet another entity is in on the conspiracy, you might be a conspiracy theorist.
That’s not a conspiracy — it’s just every-day corruption.
From your link, Chris:
Professor Jones is criticised also over unhelpfulness in providing emails to climate sceptics who had put in Freedom of Information Act requests to see them and the committee finds evidence “that emails might have been deleted in order to make them unavailable should a subsequent request be made for them”. But members of the review team said they had not asked Professor Jones specifically if had deleted emails in order to prevent them being seen.
So there is evidence, officially, that Jones broke the law.
In response, Tom Wigley says, “
I thinkI found a basic math error in Michael’s research, which Michaels either didn’t know he’d made or didn’t care to fix, or one that he actually didn’t make at all. Please keep this to yourselves while a case can be made to destroy his career.”I would tell Michaels that if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
To his face? Or would you email someone else and tell them your sentiment, hoping it wouldn’t leak out until you were certain he really, truly CAN’T stand the heat. Figuring that if he actually likes being in the kitchen, you can stay quiet until you find out whether or not he’s more uncomfortabe in the bathroom.
Enough similes there for you Chris?
Then there’s the other side of this faith-based system, blatant profiteering. The latest example is James Hansen, who has apparently failed to report something like $1.6 million in income and gifts. I apologize if this is old news (since the FOIA release that led to the story was apparently granted in early November), but hadn’t heard about it before.
Blue Planet Prize ($500,000), travel for Hansen and his wife to Tokyo, Japan, 2010
Does anyone know how much Exxon’s Black Planet Prize is?
Looks like it’s funded by the Japanese Asahi Glass company. Current winner is Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator. Remember this the next time some jackass posts here there’s no money in global warming proselytizing.
One of the top google links is to a press release at “Polar Bears International”, where you can adopt a polar bear. If bear populations continue to increase, eventually we’ll have to start shooting them. Wonder if they have a planned response. Be a shame if little Virginia’s adopted pet ends up as a flank steak on a plate somewhere.
I thought it was a general rule that meat that eats other meat isn’t very tasty.
Just a vicious rumour. It does taste different. I’ve eaten bear and cougar and they were pretty good.
My only experience in that regard is crow. It tastes awful.
Just following up on the follow up of Tim Blair’s “The Sacrament of the Bulb” post: The Wall Street Journal article at the heart of Blair’s piece was posted Nov 29, 2011, Patrick Osgood’s Twitter reaction to Andrew Brown’s UK Guardian article “Only Faith Can Solve the Energy Crisis” was also posted Nov 29, 2011, but the Guardian Article itself was from June 15, 2009.
Perhaps since then Andrew Brown has lost his faith in environmentalism, or his belief in its importance, because he hasn’t seemed to bring it up much since then. He writes on faith, religion, and other related topics. Some of his articles were kind of interesting.
Andrew Brown’s blog at the Guardian.
Anyway, someone should point out that if you’re using electric heat in the winter (such as space heaters), turning off incandescent light bulbs, TV’s, computers, and phone chargers achieves absolutely nothing.
“It is, if you like, a gesture of faith. ”
It is your genuflection to the new gods. Bow down, lest you be caste down!