House Republicans have chosen Lord Christopher Monckton, a non-scientist with a penchant for outrageous remarks, as their sole witness at tomorrow’s hearing in front of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) called the hearing in an effort to further restore public confidence in climate science, and to set the record straight that ‘Climategate’ was not the scandal climate deniers and the right-wing media tried to portray in the wake of the theft of private emails from scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.
A press release announcing the hearing states that the scientists "will address the claims of deniers head-on."
The explanatory hearing will include testimony from Lisa Graumlich, director of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, who served on the British panel that last month exonerated the CRU scientists of any malpractice.
Rep. Markey has also called three top American climate scientists to explain that climate science remains fundamentally sound and supported by evidence gathered by reputed scientific institutions around the world. The three expert scientist witnesses were involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that have been attacked by climate deniers, including Lord Monckton.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the Ranking Minority Member of the committee, chose Monckton as the Republican’s sole witness at the hearing.
Of all the people in the world the GOP could call to testify, they chose Christopher (not-really-a-Lord) Monckton, a non-scientist with a diploma in journalism studies and a knack for trampling Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies.
Monckton called American college students advocating for clean energy the “Hitler Youth” and “Nazis” during his crazed rampage at the Americans For Prosperity event at the Copenhagen climate summit. Monckton repeated the "Hitler Youth" comments directly to me in an interview the following day, and then took it way too far when he told Jewish student Ben Wessel, whose grandparents escaped the Holocaust, “I am not going to shake the hand of Hitler youth.” Despite extensive video evidence, Monckton went on to lie to the Associated Press, claiming that he never uttered those words.
At the Tax Day Tea Party in D.C. last month, Monckton opened his speech with a 'joke' suggesting that President Obama was born in Kenya. Monckton previously called President Obama a “monster” during his speech at a GOP fundraiser in Wisconsin, which followed another of his paid appearances for Americans for Prosperity.
In a 1987 article for the American Spectator titled the The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Monckton wrote that:
.... there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently.
With such a long record of inflammatory and baseless statements, what could the GOP possibly see in Monckton that would warrant his appearance as an expert witness on a climate science panel otherwise made up of scientists?
Watch Peter Sinclair's excellent pieces picking apart the claims made by Lord Debunkton, especially this episode of Climate Denial Crock of the Week:
Tune in to the hearing tomorrow at 9:30 AM eastern to watch the hearing on the web at globalwarming.house.gov.
WHAT: Select Committee hearing, “The Foundation of Climate Science”
WHEN: Thursday, May 6, 2010, 9:30 AM
WHERE: 2237 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, and on the web at globalwarming.house.gov
WHO:
Dr. Lisa Graumlich, Director, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, and member of the “Oxburgh Inquiry” panel
Dr. Chris Field, Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and co-chair of “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” portion of new IPCC report due in 2014
Dr. James McCarthy, Professor of Biological Oceanography, Harvard University, past President and Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, co-chair of “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” portion of IPCC report published in 2001
Dr. James Hurrell, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research, contributor to IPCC reports
Lord Christopher Monckton, Chief Policy Adviser, Science and Public Policy Institute
Follow Brendan DeMelle on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bdemelle
You know he's also a birther.
I mean who's it going to hurt.
http://www.grist.org/article/wind-still-enough-to-save-the-world/
-------------------
What Jones said was quite clear,
BBC - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?
Jones - "Yes"
Due to the errors inherent in the data, it is just as likely there is no warming trend at all and thus no global warming. Though the correct term is "no statistically significant warming".
--------------------
Poptech's statement here is multiple kinds of wrong. Addressing these wrongs, one at a time:
1: Poptech's lie by omission:
Here's what Jones actually said:
----------------------
BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?
Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
----------------------
What Jones said here is that no statistically significant global warming since 1995 at the 95% significance level, which isn't the same as saying there has been no statistically significant global warming - not even close.
2: "Due to the errors inherent in the data" is false: statistical significance is a measure of chance, not a measure of errors in the data.
4: "it is just as likely there is no warming trend at all" is false again: if there was no observed warming trend at all that still wouldn't mean there has been no global warming, it just means that said warming wasn't observed on the earth's surface, which is form of temperature data that Jones was referring to, over that time interval.
5: "it is just as likely there is no warming trend at all" is false a third time over: two other global surface datasets, which Jones was not referring to, show a mean global warming trend since 1995 that is statistically significant at the 95% level. (Which shouldn't be surprising, since Jones' dataset is "quite close to the 95% significance level.
Poptech you lied by omission, and you literally have no idea of what you are talking about here.
And oh yeah: you are a conduit for global warming denier lies.
6. "it is just as likely there is no warming trend at all and thus no global warming" too is false. You are confusing the warming trend as indicated by the data and the actual warming trend, which are not the same thing.
7. "it is just as likely there is no warming trend at all and thus no global warming" is again false. Even if your assertion "it is just as likely there is no warming trend at all" were correct (which again it isn't), and even if the data trend were the same as the actual trend (which again it isn't), and even if a flat actual trend over that time period meant that there was no global warming over that time period (which again it doesn't), that would still mean that it was just as likely that there was global warming over that time period - which again isn't the same as saying there was "no global warming," not even close. To assert otherwise is equivalent to asserting that heads (or tails - take your pick) can't come up in a coin toss, which is of course absurd.
And that lying Daily Mail headline is still at the top of Andrew/Poptech's blog (blogetty blog blog blog).
$%#! deniers.
Poptech: "Yes I proudly maintain the well researched information on that link."
Me, referencing the first linked 'news' headline that Poptech 'proudly maintains' on that link:
"'Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 (Daily Mail, UK)'
Do you understand that that Daily Mail headline is a lie, Poptech?"
Poptech: "It is not a lie, there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995. "
Wrong, and on two levels:
1: That Daily Mail headline does not say that there has been "there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995" - it instead says "There has been no global warming since 1995". Do you understand that these are not equivalent statements, and to assert that they are is a lie?
2: Your assertion that "there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995" is also categorically false in any event. To the contrary, what Dr. Jones said in that BBC interview that that Daily Mail article was 'reporting' on is that there has been statistically significant warming since 1995, and with a level of statistical significance that is "quite close to" the 95% significance level.
You are a conduit for global warming denier lies, Poptech.
statistical significance of warming = 0
?
Are those equivalent statements, or not? Why? Or why not?
lol.. Gotta love argument by empty mudslinging.. or not.
Again:
1: That Daily Mail headline does not say that there has been "there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995" - it instead says "There has been no global warming since 1995". Do you understand that these are not equivalent statements, and to assert that they are is a lie?
Please answer the question, Poptech - thanks.
2: Your assertion that "there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995" is also categorically false in any event. Do you understand that Dr. Jones said in that BBC interview is that there has been statistically significant warming since 1995, and with a level of statistical significance that is "quite close to" the 95% significance level?
Please answer that question too - thanks.
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/11/better-recheck-that-list.html
in which Pielke, Jr has a conversation with "Andrew", who made the list and who I think is PopTech, that boils down to this:
Pielke, Jr: "You better recheck your list, because 21 of those papers are by me or my Dad, and they're not skeptical of AGW the way you think."
Andrew: "Of course they are, and I ain't taking them off my list."
Priceless.
This is Poptech's blog?
http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050
If so that's an impressive pile of global warming denier distortions and lies you've assembled there, Poptech. Let's start with your very first link at the top of the page:
"Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 (Daily Mail, UK)"
If that's your blog Poptech that alone demonstrates that you don't understand that that Daily Mail headline is a blatant lie and are serving as a "useful idiot" who passing along global warming denier lies to others, or that you instead are knowingly passing along global warming denier lies in order to intentionally fool and otherwise mislead others, or both. In other words, if that's your blog then that alone demonstrates that you are a global warming science denier, either by ignorance or design.
Scientist is supposed to have said no warming, then yes warming, but within margin of error, but then real warming, but due to solar cycles, then a chart which says that the globe is actually cooling. The political stuff is just as confused. Am I to believe Obama is a communist or a socialist?
http://xkcd.com/169/
Evasion.
Ok, let's try this again:
Do you maintain control of the content of this webpage, Poptech?
http://z4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/index.php?showtopic=2050
Either way that page is an impressive pile of global warming denier distortions and lies. Let's start with the first link at the top of the page:
"Climategate U-turn as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995 (Daily Mail, UK)"
Do you understand that that headline is a lie, Poptech?
statistical significance of warming = 0
????
Poptech, you say that the actual evidence of climate change -- such as the permafrost melting -- has nothing to do with the skeptics' arguments. Are you actually admitting that your arguments disregard real life? If it's nothing more than a game to you guys, and you don't give a rat's patootie about the lives and livelihoods of real people, maybe you should stop acting like spoiled children who demand all the attention and let the grown-ups deal with the problem.
Skeptics are not arguing that there is no evidence of climate change, the debate is the extent to which man is responsible and the evidence for any sort of catastrophe. Skeptics argue for little to no influence by man and no evidence of catastrophe. Contrary to what you are saying skeptics care very much about people's livelyhood and believe the only way to protect that livelyhood is to not stiffle economic growth through meaningless carbon regulations which will do nothing for the climate even based on the beliefs of alarmists.
Regarding permafrost melting their is peer-reviewed evidence that this is likely not a problem,
Near-surface permafrost degradation: How severe during the 21st century?
(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 34, Issue 9, May 2007)
- G. Delisle
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2007GL029323.shtml
"Based on paleoclimatic data and in consequence of this study, it is suggested that scenarios calling for massive release of methane in the near future from degrading permafrost are questionable."
I don't believe it either, since you just made that up. However, at the time you applied your favorite word "irrelevant." You say that when you are dismissing evidence which doesn't appear to lead to your predetermined outcome.
"Skeptics are not arguing that there is no evidence of climate change..."
Many deny warming, including you. The most common is to deny that there has been any significant warming since 1989. Your own denier blog claims that the warming isn't real, but due to biases in the weather station placement. That makes you wrong twice.
"Skeptics argue for little to no influence by man and no evidence of catastrophe..."
A skeptic is someone who is still seeking answers. You incorrectly use that word to describe a firm position in opposition to scientific consensus. A made up mind isn't skeptical. Since you only seek evidence of a predetermined outcome, you are merely in denial. You should follow Lindzen's lead and call yourselves deniers. At least you'll be correct in some way.
While you are at it, you may want to reconcile all the contradictory claims. You've got stuff that says it is cooling, that there is no change, and that it is warming. You'll also have to reconcile all the contradictory positions about what is driving climate change. You've got a mess of claims attributing climate to anything and everything but humans.
You pretend to be a credible source of information, but you don't even know what global temperatures are doing or why. So lets not see you here whining about legitimate science until you have your own blog in some kind of order.
First, you are wrong.
University of Illinois at Chicago Survey:
Scientists agree human-induced global warming is real
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/uoia-ssa011609.php
rblackbird: "9000 PhD scientists have signed the Oregon Petition questioning agw theory."
Yet another reference to the "Oregon Petition" hoax, which has been repeatedly debunked. But hey don't take my word for it - here's the National Review's Jim Manzi:
---------------------
I started to read Mark Levin’s massive bestseller Liberty and Tyranny...
He goes on to cite a petition “rejecting the theory of human-caused global warming” sponsored by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine... There was very little quality control: At least one person signed it as Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. Scientific American did the hard work of actually contacting a sample of individual signatories, and estimated that there are about 200 climate scientists who agree with the statement in the petition among the signatories. And most important by far... In the key sentence it says that signatories do not believe that there is compelling scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gases will cause catastrophic heating and disruption of the earth’s climate. Depending on the definition of “catastrophic,” I could agree to that. Yet I don’t reject the notion of man-made global warming.
---------------------
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTMzMTY2ZmU2ZGY1YzQ3N2Q0MWY4M2M4OTMyZGRjMjY=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py2XVILHUjQ
32,000 deniers (National Post, Canada)
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=522276
"Some claimed the petition was riddled with duplicate names. They were no duplicates, just different scientists with the same name. Some claimed the petition had phonies. There was only one phony: Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, planted by a Greenpeace organization to discredit the petition and soon removed. Other names that seemed to be phony -- such as Michael Fox, the actor, and Perry Mason, the fictional lawyer in a TV series -- were actually bona fide scientists, properly credentialed."
There are many more climate scientists who signed,
http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php
For instance,
3,804 Atmosphere, Earth, & Environment Scientists
The petition explicitly does not support regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
As explained in this short documentary -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py2XVILHUjQ
"Anyone with a PhD these days will have their research paper listed somewhere on the internet, either with their alma mater or their job bio.
The Oregon Petition contains the names of law offices, dentists, and people who have no internet presence other than the petition. I looked up over a hundred names and the closest I came to finding someone qualified was a guy who does blood tests for NASA."
Me: Exactly what standards do you use to classify 3,804 signers as "Atmosphere, Earth, & Environment Scientists"?
Thanks in advance, PT.
This discrepancy is explained: Gore has worked closely with scientists to learn the science behind agw. No one here has proved,however, that Monckton himself has not similarly worked with scientists to develop his message.
My point is only one of them is scientifically correct. Their degrees or lack thereof, and their eccentricities (Al sure loves those carbon-spewing mansions!) are irrelevant.
Furthermore, Monckton presents his own analysis of scientific research. He produces pseuo-scientific reference-laden papers that make claims contrary to mainstream science. He's not a scientist, but he tries to ACT like he is. Gore never does this.
"their eccentricities (Al sure loves those carbon-spewing mansions!) are irrelevant."
And speaking of irrelevant...
Second, there really is no such thing as a "climate scientist" if the term is used to suggest that such person is an expert in "climate science." Climate science is not a defined field of scholarship, and is not recognized as a scientific discipline such as physics, geology, chemistry, oceanography, glaciology, etc. Members of these disciplines may study the physics, chemistry, etc., of climate and climate related subjects, but they are experts regarding topics mainly within their own disciplines. Nobody is an expert in all aspects of climate.
I do not understand how you can say Monckton "is out of synch with mainstream science." Do you mean "climate science?" That is meaningless. What part of "mainstream science" is he out of synch with? Do you mean he is out of synch with chemistry, physics, etc.? I wish you or others would analyze his testimony to Congress in detail, and show where Monckton argues against the principles of any recognized scientific discipline.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?p=5&t=209&&a=17
Consensus does exist. One could even say that among QUALIFIED professionals, "the science is settled."
"Climate change related obsessions and/or compulsions were identified in 28% of patients presenting with obsessive compulsive disorder. Their obsessions included leaving taps on and wasting water, leaving lights on and wasting electricity, pets dying of thirst, leaving the stove on and wasting gas as well as obsessions that global warming had contributed to house floors cracking, pipes leaking, roof problems and white ants eating the house.
"Compulsions in response to these obsessions included the checking of taps, light switches, pet water bowls and house structures.
"Media coverage about the possible catastrophic consequences to our planet concerning global warming is extensive and potentially anxiety provoking. We found that many obsessive compulsive disorder patients were concerned about reducing their global footprint," said study author Dr Mairwen Jones." http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/psychiatry-congress/5/47523
Or, do you blame soap manufacturers for obsessive washing of hands by obsessive compulsive patients?
As Excusian noted right below here, unlike Monckton Gore consulted with the actual scientists doing the research that he presents and he has also maintained his grip on reality. Also unlike Monckton, in general terms Gore is communicating the overwhelming scientific consensus on the subject.
Gotta love false equivalency rhetoric, or not.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Debunking Lord Monckton Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfA1LpiYk2o
Debunking Lord Monckton Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duxG4lyeSlc
Most people took me to task because Gore had won a Peace Prize for a movie and a book he was loosely involved with. Lord (inherited title) Monckton was a minor player in Thatcher's government. Monckton's education was in the Greek Classics and Gore's was in Journalism and law. Neither know squat outside of what their obviously biased advisors feed them.
I mentioned Monckton to be the more entertaining, as listening to Gore speak will cure insomnia in a flash. The problem is celebrity being mistaken for knowledge and allows the sheeple, who steadfast refuse to think for themselves, to follow false prophets.
An example: Linus Pauling, a double prize winner, decided he was an expert in wellness. He preached far and wide the virtues of massive overdosing of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). He died a healthy man and 15 years too soon to discover long term massive overdosing of ascorbic acid would be attributed to liver damage and renal shutdown.
An authority in one field does not mean an authority in all fields.
For grins, this sent to me awhile back from a friend in England
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/
Can't say the same of Monckton.
"Monckton? Srsly? The man could hardly be more ridiculous if he were wearing a powdered wig and tights."
If his presentations are in the same voice, doesn't that suggest he wrote the things under his name? I would imagine it is easier to entertain when you aren't paying close attention to facts or data. After all, Monkton doesn't even know the name or gender of the researcher upon which his opinion supposedly rests.
I didn't read the rest, because I grew bored. So whatever it was you said, must be wrong.
And actually, it brought to mind the tale of Little Gomez, who had aspirations and pretensions like Monckton's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoDTef6pDg4
Not a very good recording, but it gets the point across.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293366-1
The scientists all made excellent presentations.
Monckton approach was to be the "policy" guy accusing the highly qualified scientists as being "political." Right after Monckton says he's not there to discuss the science, he set off on a sciencey-sounding critique. First he argues that because the IPCC presented multiple trend lines based on differing time frames that there was an attempt to mislead. However, all the trend lines are clearly marked and all demonstrate warming. Needing to explain away the warming trend, he blames solar radiation. As Peter Sinclair warned us in the youtube video posted above, Monckton misrepresented Dr. Pinker's work to do so (Pinker, Zhang & Dutton 2005). A sign of improvement from the tape in Sinclair's piece is that Monckton has learned that Pinker isn't a 'he,' but weirdly calls her by the wrong first name. If Monckton doesn't know the researchers' first name, I wonder how he knows that Pinker is a "satellite nerd uninterested in the whole global warming debate?" He quotes Lindzen and Choi 2009, a recent denier paper which has not been well received. From that evidence he suggests that warming isn't going to happen, so no one should do anything [to hurt energy company profits]. Of course, if the proof of that was just published, how was it that Monckton was so sure of the same conclusion these past couple of years.
"Richard Lindzen, the meteorology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology best known for his longstanding rejection of research pointing to dangerous climate disruption from human-generated greenhouse gases, has been bluntly challenged over a popular paper in Geophysical Research Letters last year that he co-wrote with post-doctoral researcher Yong-Sang Choi. The paper, assessing tropical sea surface temperatures in relation to flows of energy into and out of the atmosphere, asserted that the climate system was far less sensitive to human actions than the predominant view had it."
"In a followup paper accepted for publication in the same journal that examines the same question using the same sea-temperature data sets, four scientists say the Lindzen-Choi conclusions are “seriously in error.” When one flaw is fixed, they say, the analysis produces a much warmer estimate of future climate. But the result gets hotter still, they add, if an objective method is used to select the sea data in place of the choices made by the M.I.T. team."
"In a telephone interview today, Dr. Trenberth told me that the flaws in the Lindzen-Choi paper “have all the appearance of the authors having contrived to get the answer they got.”"
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/a-rebuttal-to-a-cool-climate-paper/