Category Archives: Mathematics

Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

On Climate Change

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…the science battle rages.

It would sure be nice if some of these self-identified climate “scientists” would learn some statistics. And stop calling people who understand statistics names like “denier” and “anti-science.”

[Monday-morning update]

Inside the latest global warming scandal:

This kind of thing is going on all over the world. It is one of the reasons why the satellite data (which, however, go back only to 1979) are so important: they have not been corrupted.

Yup.

[Bumped]

[Update a few minutes later]

Soviet-style disinformation dominates the climate “debate”:

Why is it that when a political figure makes a misstatement about a global warming-related issue, which happens many times every day, no government scientific agency or leading university scientist ever corrects them?

For example, all climate modelers correctly label their speculations of future world temperatures as “projections,” meaning that they have no validated forecast skill. Yet politicians, mass media, and the public treat the models as providing temperature forecasts or predictions. Because this misusage is never corrected, politicians cheerily continue to base expensive public policy on it.

Another example: carbon dioxide, as an essential factor in photosynthesis, is the elixir of planetary life, yet politicians dub it a “pollutant.” Similarly, badging the theoretical global warming problem as a “carbon” issue represents scientific illiteracy because it fails to distinguish the element “carbon” from the molecule “carbon dioxide,” and deliberately encourages the public to confuse a colorless, odorless, beneficial gas with soot. Again, climate-alarmist scientists say little or nothing to correct these mistakes.

Many in the public understand that Hendricks’ behavior is typical of politicians everywhere. But most people do not recognize that fraud is also being directly committed in support of this travesty by many of today’s self-appointed “leading climate scientists.” For when they are not directly massaging the data relied upon in their scientific writings, these scientists often report their findings in ways that are intended to deceive the reader into believing that dangerous global warming exists, or will shortly exist. The UN’s climate reports are the magnum opus of this style of operation.

Yes.

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Climate-Modeling Paradigm

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How robust is it?

Not very. Certainly nowhere near enough to base policy on it.

I was very impressed by Bakker’s intellectual integrity and courage in tackling this topic in the 11th hour of completing his Ph.D. thesis. I am further impressed by his thesis advisors and committee members for allowing/supporting this. Bakker notes many critical comments from his committee members. I checked the list of committee members, one name jumped out at me – Arthur Petersen – who is a philosopher of science that has written about climate models. I suspect that the criticisms were more focused on strengthening the arguments, rather than ‘alarm’ over an essay that criticizes climate models. Kudos to the KNMI.

I seriously doubt that such a thesis would be possible in an atmospheric/oceanic/climate science department in the U.S. – whether the student would dare to tackle this, whether a faculty member would agree to supervise this, and whether a committee would ‘pass’ the thesis.

Epistemic closure.

[Update a few minutes later]

The alarming thing about climate alarmism:

In short, climate change is not worse than we thought. Some indicators are worse, but some are better. That doesn’t mean global warming is not a reality or not a problem. It definitely is. But the narrative that the world’s climate is changing from bad to worse is unhelpful alarmism, which prevents us from focusing on smart solutions.

A well-meaning environmentalist might argue that, because climate change is a reality, why not ramp up the rhetoric and focus on the bad news to make sure the public understands its importance. But isn’t that what has been done for the past 20 years? The public has been bombarded with dramatic headlines and apocalyptic photos of climate change and its consequences. Yet despite endless successions of climate summits, carbon emissions continue to rise, especially in rapidly developing countries like India, China and many African nations.

Because all of the hysteria, name calling and outright lies have appropriately destroyed their credibility.

Business, Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Climate Reporting

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It’s a hot mess.

[Late-morning update]

A media round up, and some thoughts, from Judith Curry, on the State of the Union:

what is wrong with President Obama’s statements as cited above?

  • His statement about humans having exacerbated extreme weather events is not supported by the IPCC
  • The Pentagon is confusing climate change with extreme weather (see above)
  • ‘Climate change is real’ is almost a tautology; climate has always changed and always will, independently of anything humans do.
  • His tweet about ‘97%’ is based on an erroneous and discredited paper [link]

As for ‘Denial from Congress is dangerous’, I doubt that anyone in Congress denies that climate changes. The issue of ‘dangerous’ is a hypothetical, and relates to values (not science).

And speaking of the ‘deniers’ in Congress, did anyone spot any errors in the actual science from Senator Inhofe’s rebuttal?

The apparent ‘contract’ between Obama and his administrators to play politics with climate science seems to be a recipe for anti science and premature policies with negative economic consequences that have little to no impact on the climate.

BUt the important thing is that they line the pockets of his campaign contributors.

Maybe some day, in a future administration, we can have a grown up conversation about climate change (natural and human caused), the potential risks, and a broad range of policy responses.

Let’s hope.