19 thoughts on “Well, Here is Fisking Fodder From Michael Mann”

  2. The NAS confirmed his findings on the Hockey Stick! WTF? They completely trashed it!

    Then they trashed themselves by saying there were “other” hockey sticks, without investigating the “science” behind them. Thank God for the internet!

  3. Oh my! What arrogance! “Our original work showed…” Work no one can reproduce. The petulant little boy needs a time out.

  4. Does that mean that everyone should have to drive an electric car and adopt a polar bear?

    I can’t believe he actually went there. He probably likes Coca-cola. I think you guys (including the World Wildlife Fund) are really making the same mistake all over again, cute cartoon characters notwithstanding. What is your fallback if populations keep climbing? Claim victory? I don’t think “la-la land” adequately describes the alternate reality you inhabit. There has to be pharmaceuticals involved.

    Many fossil-fuel interests and their allies are following the same attack-the-science strategy that tobacco companies adopted to delay smoking regulation.

    Burning fossil fuels = smoking tobacco.

    Did you have anyone review this before you submitted it?

    But British police have not determined who stole the emails. Recent reports of police expenditures suggest they may be devoting far fewer resources to it than other similar investigations.

    What similar investigations are you referring to? Reporter hacking of voice mails? Never mind. Here’s my question: If Scotland yard finds out FOIA was a BP employee, how will that exculpate you?

    We should respect the role science and scientists play in society, especially when scientists identify new risks. Whether those risks stem from smoking, lead exposure or the increasing use of fossil fuels, scientists will always work to increase knowledge and reduce uncertainty.

    Nice finish. I personally thank you sincerely for your tireless work in reducing uncertainty. Bang up job. Go have a smoke.

    1. We should respect the role science and scientists play in society, especially when scientists identify new risks hazards.

      FIFH, risks are unknowns.

      1. Leland, there is terminology out there where a known risk is a “risk” and an unknown risk is an “uncertainty”.

        1. I understand people use that terminology, but look at the qualifier. An unknown risk is an uncertainty: wouldn’t an unknown unicorn also be an uncertainty? At the same time, a known risk is a risk: well yes, a risk is a risk.

          But a risk is a probability that an undesireable event may occur. Probability ratio may be known, but whether the event occurs or not is unknown. If we knew, it wouldn’t be a probability.

          To be fair, many definitions now include a 2nd meaning in which risk is just a synonym for hazard. But the 1st definition is a probability.

  5. Does that mean that everyone should have to drive an electric car and adopt a polar bear?

    About 50% of US electricity production comes from coal powered powerplants. How is a coal-powered car better for the environment than a petroleum powered car?

    1. Wow really?

      1. Coal+electric is more efficient than petroleum, by an order of magnitude.
      2. Centralized and scrubbed production of pollution is always better.
      3. Coal production is domestic.

      And those three points hold even for sensible definitions of “the environment” that include human interests. You don’t have to be a wackjob anti-civilization warmer to understand why petrol powered vehicles are the worse option. Now if only they could make an electric car that doesn’t suck balls.. Elon?

      1. ” Coal+electric is more efficient than petroleum, by an order of magnitude.”

        Hardly an order of magnitude. At best, maybe a factor of two. Maybe.

        1. Nope, not a factor of 10, not even a factor of 2. It’s not even one.

          The average thermal efficiency of all US coal plants is 10,410 Btu/kWhr (that’s heat in versus electricity out). There are 3,412 Btu in a kWhr, so the average coal fired powerplant is 32.77% efficient (as agreed by all the engineers, DOE, EIA, etc).

          So let’s say we started with 3.051 kWhrs worth of coal and put 1.000 kWhrs to the grid. 6 to 8% of that is lost in transmission and distribution on the grid, so we have about 93% efficiency in delivery to the house, cutting us to 0.930 kWhrs.

          At the house we have to run an AC to DC converter for charging, and those rarely run higher than 95% efficiency, so we’re down to 0.880 kWhrs. Then we have to charge and discharge the battery, which for lithium-ion is about 85% efficient. So we’re down to 0.748 kWhrs available to the motor control circuit. That circuit’s going to be about 95% efficient, and a good brushless DC motor is going to be about 90% efficient. So 0.639 kWhrs gets delivered to the wheels. We started with 3.51 kWhrs in the coal, so the total system is 18.22% efficient.

          To get 1 kWhr applied to the wheels requires 5.49 kWhr worth of chemical energy from coal, which when burned emitted 3.82 pounds of carbon dioxide.

          A low-compression ratio gasoline engine is 26% efficient, and 93% efficient regarding mechanical losses (transmission, etc), for a total efficiency of about 24%. Including idling and stopping and starting, the average low-performance engine runs at 18 to 20% efficiency.

          A more advanced gasoline engine is 28 to 30% efficient, with up to 21% going to the wheels. But these losses also include the energy going to the alternator (to run your bass-thumping stereo and your lights), your power steering, and your heater (which is a freebie from the waste heat).

          An automotive diesel engine is about 32 to 36% efficient, with about 27% going to the wheels. To get 1 kWhr of energy to the wheel required only 3.704 kwHr worth of diesel fuel (instead of 5.49 kWhr worth of coal), and since diesel fuel has lots of hydrogen atoms, this amount only emits 2.16 pounds of CO2, not 3.82 pounds like the coal/electric did.

          So even ignoring the massive weight of the batteries you’re dragging around, and that in an electric car the heater actually sucks battery life, sticking with diesel is not only more efficient, it emits only 57% as much CO2 as the “green” electric vehicle (per kWhr to the wheels). Even the gasoline engine would only emit 68% as much CO2 as the electric vehicle, and is likewise more efficient.

          Then factor in cruising range, initial expense, weight, and the long charging times, and you can see why we abandoned electric vehicles as automobiles back in the early 1900’s. Back then they only got about 50 miles to a charge, with the record in 1916 or so standing at 200 miles, whereas today they get about 50 miles to a charge, with the new Tesla record at 300 miles (it went really slowly).

          1. Thanks for that, George. I scanned the web to come up with my figure, but it was mostly electric car shills and I had to dig to find their reported efficiency factor was only about two, which I thought was still probably optimistic (which is why I qualified it with “maybe”). Your figures are more in line with my intuition, which is basically, there is no free lunch.

  6. In April 2010, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli demanded emails I sent or received from other scientists while at the University of Virginia. A judge concluded Mr. Cuccinelli hadn’t demonstrated any good reason to see that correspondence. Shortly after that, the American Tradition Institute, a group with ties to fossil-fuel interests, asked for the same emails under the state’s open records laws. The university rightly asserted that much of my private correspondence is just that and not subject to release.

    Last I checked, the University of Virginia is a public institution. If he was using his publicly funded email system for private correspondence, then he was in error. I’m not saying he broke laws, as many public institutions allow some level of personal use of email systems, but such use is not private.

    Celebrating theft is silly.

    If Mann meant this, then he would understand why use of public email systems as personal and private communication systems should not be tolerated. If he wants private correspondence, then he needs to use his personal property and not that of UVA.

  7. Another great post at watts, but I have to take serous issue with his “best way to sum up all of this”. That clearly goes to Ed Cook:

    i.e. we know with certainty that we know fuck-all

  8. Such chutzpah. The man has no shame. And, the supporting commenters are three years behind on their discredited talking points.

  9. Mike Mann approximately equals Michael A. Bellesiles. But he may take comfort in being greater than Michael Moore.

  10. Pouncer, why not take a page from Bellesiles and convince Michael Mann that our use of fossil fuels is actually an elaborate myth, and that although everyone thinks we’ve always burned fossil fuels, we never actually did. It’s just part of our folk history that we used to drive around in things called cars, an idea popularized by movies like “American Graffiti” and songs like Golden Earring’s “Radar Love”, but no more real than X-Wings and Tie Fighters.

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