Global Warming Denialism, Or Why Intelligent People Never Run Out ot Things to Do

Tim's Lambert's non-exhaustive list on the fallacies in Ian Plimer's "Heaven and Earth" is a perfect example on why stupid/dishonest people make so much work for the rest of us.

Here are the notes I made on some of the other problems with Plimer's book. These are nowhere near exhaustive -- this is just what leapt off the page and assaulted me.

p11 No source given for figure 1 but is based on a graph in AR4WG1 Technical Summary. The massive drop in temperatures comes from using the temps for the first half of 2008 to represent all of 2008. It looks very different if you graph the actual 2008 temp, added in red below:

plimerfig1.png

p14 Claims IPCC has no evidence to support its conclusion of 90% certainty that at least half of recent warming is anthropogenic. Nowhere does he even admit the existence of the evidence in Chapter 9 of AR4 WG1

p19 repeats Paul Reiter's false claims about the IPCC authors on the health effects of global warming

p21 Repeats SEPP smear of Santer

p22 Claims hockey stick is a fraud

p25 Figure 3 is infamous graph from the Great Global Warming Swindle. Graphs ends in 1980 but horizontal scale makes it look like it goes to 2000. Even Swindlers had to fix this one.

p26 Figure 4: Start point of graph is cherry picked to mislead

p87-99 claims hockey stick is a fraud and the NRC panel that vindicated it was a cover up.

p99 False claims that GISS was forced to withdraw claims about global temperature. Plimer confuses USA temperatures with the global ones.

p131 Figure 15 Dodgy sunspot temperature graph from GGWS. Ends in 1980, if continued sunspot-temp correlation goes away.

p198 claims Arctic sea ice is expanding

p198 claims drowned polar bears were actually killed by "high winds"

p198 claims polar bear numbers are increasing

p199 claims malaria is common in cold climates. No cite!

p209 Claims undersea volcanoes can have a profound effect on surface temps

p281 Claims alpine glaciers are not retreating. Cited source actually says that glacial retreat is not accelerating.

p286 Claims the IPCC has "no evidence" to support its statement that glaciers are retreating.

p322 Cites Morner on Maldives.

p325 Says that even if we burn all fossil fuels we won't be able to double atmospheric CO2.

p349 the hockey stick is "infamous"

p366 Claims climate sensitivity is 0.5C. No footnote!

p367 Confused about by the fact that the Earth warms the atmosphere and asks how this means GHGs can cause warming. How does he think a blanket works?

p370 Claims 98% of GH effect is H2O. No footnote!

p371 Claims climate sensitivity is 0.5C. No footnote!

p376 Claims that if temperature measurements are rounded to the nearest degree, the average of many measurements is only accurate to the nearest degree.

p377 Claims that surfacestations.org proves that temp measurements have a warming bias

p378 Implies that surface record does not include measurements in the oceans

p381 claims molten rocks significantly warm ocean. No cite!

p382 "In fact, satellites and radiosondes show that there is no global warming.[1918]" Woohoo! at last a cite. Trouble is, it says exactly the opposite of what Plimer claims

p382 claims hockey stick is a fabrication

p388 claims no such thing as an average temp, citing Essex and McKitrick nonsense

p391 claims Hadley Centre has shown that warming stopped in 1998. Hadley says:

Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand.

p391 claims IPCC ignores 2/3 of the cooling effect of evaporation citing Wentz et al, but Wentz says no such thing

p413 claims volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans. No cite! This one was in GGWS. Plimer's a geologist. You'd think he would at least know something about volcanoes.

p420 figure 52 is Beck's bogus CO2 graph

p421 claims only 4% of CO2 in atmosphere is from humans. No cite!

p425 claims anthropogenic CO2 produces only 0.1% of global warming. No cite!

p425 claims IPCC have exaggerated CO2 forcing 20 fold.

p437 "Chapter 5 of IPCC AR4 (Humans Responsible for Climate Change) .. is based on the opinions of just five independent scientists". Wrong chapter number, chapter title, and it has over 50 authors.

p442 claims Lysenko parallels the global warming movement

p443 repeats Monckton's claims about An Inconvenient Truth without mentioning that most were rejected by the court

p444 claims IPCC reports are written by just 35 scientists who are controlled by an even smaller number

p452 cites Oregon petition

p452 cites Peiser's false claims about Oreskes

p467 claims that the 38 scientists who asked Durkin to correct the errors in GGWS did so because that deemed it to present an "incorrect moral outlook". One of the error that they wanted Durkin to correct was the bogus graph that Plimer puts on page 25.

p474 claims hockey stick is dishonest

p477 quotes Khilyuk & Chilingar whose thesis is that humans aren't responsible because our CO2 emissions, measured over the history of the planet, are less than that of volcanoes. Also cited on p479 and p492.

p484 claims IPCC AR4 WG1 SPM "showed cooling for 100 of the last 160 years"

p485 claims Montreal Protocol used precautionary principle to ban CFCs but we didn't ban chlorination even though chlorine destroys ozone!!! [Not in the stratosphere it doesn't]

p486 misrepresents Revelle

p486 cites false WorldNetDaily claim that Gore buys offsets from himself

p487 cites Melanie Philips as an authority on the hockey stick, asserting it is the "most discredited study in the history of science"

p472 claims Pinatubo emitted as much CO2 as humans in a year. No cite! And obviously wrong if you glance at Mauna Loa data.

p472 termite methane emissions are 20 times potent than human CO2 emissions. No cite!

p492 false claim that DDT ban killed 40 million

Michele Bachmann, No Intelligence Needed

I think the comments some it up best:

Hell, just get her to stand in a room filled with CO2 for a while.

Clearly, she should be willing.

Another Reason Obama Rocks

He covered up Jesus (alright, only Jes, but the Jefferson sentiments are still there).

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus' name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

The gold "IHS" monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported.

How to Get Conservatives to Go Green

Simple. Propose that if they be environmentally responsible, it shows how much they hate Obama.

Oh, Worldnutdaily, how you fill my life with amusement.

I Was Drunk, So It Must Be Rape

So, a lady, and I use the term loosely, in England, gets sloshed and then has sex with a man twenty years younger. And, it must be rape, because she would have never consented to sleep with him if she was sober. I could see this being rape if, I don't know, she was passed out, he pinned her down, or something else, but she says,

engaging in sexual intercourse in a number of different positions

which would imply, based on that number of different positions quip, that she was not forced. Drunk, yes, but not forced. Seriously, had the man actually been found guilty, it would open up a whole can of worms. We'd here things like, "I want the bartender to clean my bathroom. I never would have ordered that round of tequila if I was sober, and I would never have puked all over my own floor when I got home." You'd think by the age of 45 she would learn that alcohol causes a loss of inhibition, and that's why most people drink.

"It wasn't my fault," isn't an excuse for drunk drivers causing accidents, and it's not for her either.

Teleprompter Gate

Another reason why 24 hour news channels are superfluous.

Truth in Advertising

Yes, yes it is.

Maybe Geitner Is Not Just a Chip Off the Paulson Block

Yesterday, from the Treasury:

As Secretary Geithner stated in his testimony today, "To address these failures will require comprehensive reform -- not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the road. The new rules must be simpler and more effectively enforced and produce a more stable system, that protects consumers and investors, that rewards innovation and that is able to adapt and evolve with changes in the financial market."

Four Broad Components of Comprehensive Regulatory Reform:

1. Addressing Systemic Risk: This crisis – and the cases of firms like Lehman Brothers and AIG – has made clear that certain large, interconnected firms and markets need to be under a more consistent and more conservative regulatory regime. It is not enough to address the potential insolvency of individual institutions – we must also ensure the stability of the system itself.
2. Protecting Consumers and Investors: It is crucial that when households make choices to invest their savings we have clear rules of the road that prevent manipulation and abuse. While outright fraud like that perpetrated by Bernie Madoff is already illegal, these cases highlight the need to strengthen enforcement and improve transparency for all investors. Lax regulation also left too many households exposed to deception and abuse when taking out home mortgage loans
3. Eliminating Gaps in Our Regulatory Structure: Our regulatory structure must assign clear authority, resources, and accountability for each of its key functions. We must not let turf wars or concerns about the shape of organizational charts prevent us from establishing a substantive system of regulation that meets the needs of the American people.
4. Fostering International Coordination: To keep pace with increasingly global markets, we must ensure that international rules for financial regulation are consistent with the high standards we will be implementing in the United States. Additionally, we will launch a new, three-pronged initiative to address prudential supervision, tax havens, and money laundering issues in weakly-regulated jurisdictions.

As they say, the devil is in the details, but it would be nice to turn around the systematic deregulation that really got going with Bill Clinton, and was perpetuated by George Bush.

Organized Crime and Mexico

From Hillary Clinton's recent trip to Mexico:

"The tone should be, the US and Mexican governments have one common enemy, that's organized crime."

I seem to remember reading in history books about a time when the United States was ravaged by organized crime. It was a time when entire cities, from Chicago, to Kansas City, to New York, were literally run by gangsters. And we fixed this, by making the prohibited vice legal. And then the organized criminals made Las Vegas. Nice trade off.

Now would be a great time to make legal those substances that have allowed Mexico to become the cartel state that it is. We have so much on the table, that an organized response by family groups, like those misguided souls mentioned below, would be difficult.

Our current President is more enlightened then our previous linguistically challenged one, and is making strides. We'll see what other progress the country can make.

Added: The Economist on Legalization

Family Guy is Perverted

The American Family Association is upset about a recent Family Guy episode. From their website:

In this perverted episode:

* Peter, the husband/father figure, turns gay after taking an experimental shot of the gay gene. He was paid $125 to take part of this experiment to prove that being gay is not a choice.
* Peter and his new lover make out in a restaurant.
* The lover tells Peter he has arranged an 11-way gay orgy.
* Peter helps his son with his math homework and turns the problem into an explicit conversation about “glory holes” and “circuit parties,” which are references to gay sex.
* Peter leaves his son Chris in charge of the family while he spends time with his gay partner. Upon his new role, Chris immediately passes gas in his sister’s face and knocks out his mother, Lois.
* Peter lies in bed with his rear exposed and moans in pleasure when a horse, which he assumes is his wife, licks his rear.
* Lois, wearing skimpy lingerie, is turned down by her now gay husband.
* Their child, Baby Stewie, eats cereal covered with horse sperm that resembled milk kept in the refrigerator.

What they call perverted, most people call humor. Here's their offending clip, which is a nice montage of punchlines.

It seems like every organization with Family in the name can be summed up with these points:

Homosexuality = Bad
Sex = Bad
Sex Ed = Bad
Christian = Good
Non-Christian = Bad
Boobs/Vagina = Bad
Cock = Bad
Watching these things while saying they're perverted = Good

But these organizations never focus on the actual, measured results of behavior, or what a constitutes a good family in the first place. All they do is repeat the same shit without thinking about what any of it means. They never consider things like studying actual human behavior. I don't see why they have this incessant need to spread their unhappiness to everyone they can.

H/T to Kevin Beck at Dr. Joan Bushwells Chimpanzee Refuge

Must Burn Through Political Capital

Seriously, Barack, did you not learn anything from your predecessor? Did you not see him burn through political capital by ignoring the people, and only listening to his "trusted" advisors, who got everything wrong? People are pissed off, and for good reason. We elected you, not AIG, or any of these other failing institutions. Matt Taibbi, at Rolling Stones, sums it up best.

In essence, the bailout accelerated the decline of regional community lenders by boosting the political power of their giant national competitors.

Which, when you think about it, is insane: What had brought us to the brink of collapse in the first place was this relentless instinct for building ever-larger megacompanies, passing deregulatory measures to gradually feed all the little fish in the sea to an ever-shrinking pool of Bigger Fish. To fix this problem, the government should have slowly liquidated these monster, too-big-to-fail firms and broken them down to smaller, more manageable companies. Instead, federal regulators closed ranks and used an almost completely secret bailout process to double down on the same faulty, merger-happy thinking that got us here in the first place, creating a constellation of megafirms under government control that are even bigger, more unwieldy and more crammed to the gills with systemic risk.

Read the whole thing.

Open up the Fed and Treasury to Congressional oversight, because without that, there are no checks and balances. The stimulus package won't matter when the money is still controlled Geitner, who is just a chip off the old block of Paulson, who helped fucking run these companies into the ground in the first place.

H/T to Mike the Mad Biologist

Sheep Games

This definitely appeals to my inner nerd.



H/T Inhabitat

Ducati Streetfighter

Absolutely beautiful. Motorcycle-USA reviews it.

A Friendly and Appealing Hospital?

This hospital, by 3LHD, almost makes a person want to get sick, just to stay there.

South Park, Still Got It

After all these years, South Park just keeps getting better.