text:
Open Letter to the Executive Producers of YEARS of LIVING DANGEROUSLY
Celebrities on AGW extreme weather
(UPDATE: Added Subject Line to Memo Header)
Subject: Concerns about Upcoming Series Years of Living Dangerously
From: Bob Tisdale
To: James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Daniel Abbasi, Joel Bach, David Gelber, Solly Granatstein, Maria Wilhelm
CC: Jessica Alba, Mark Bittman, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, America Ferrera, Harrison Ford, Thomas Friedman, Michael C. Hall, Chris Hayes, Olivia Munn, M. Sanjayan, Ian Somerhalder, Lesley Stahl
Dear Executive Producers of Years of Living Dangerously:
I am writing to you as the executive producers of the upcoming ShowTime series Years of Living Dangerously to express a few concerns. I have also carbon copied the persons you currently list as starring in the shows.
The overview of the series on your website begins (my boldface):
YEARS of LIVING DANGEROUSLY is global warming like you've never seen it before. Coming to SHOWTIME in April, this multi-part television event tells the biggest story of our time: climate change and the impact it's having on people right now in the US and all over the world. Over the course of eight episodes, we'll report on the crippling effects of climate change-related weather events and the ways individuals, communities, companies and governments are struggling to find solutions to the biggest threat our world has ever faced.
In other words, you're trying to link recent weather events around the globe to increased emissions of manmade greenhouse gases. There are two basic problems: one is based on science; the other is how the series will be perceived by the public.
THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT
Please refer to the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, also known as the IPCC SREX report. Many of the points you're attempting to make in Years of Living Dangerously contradict the IPCC findings. More on this later.
Please also refer to the testimony by three members of the climate science community who testified at the U.S. House Subcommittee on Environment held on December 11, 2013: A Factual Look at the Relationship Between Climate and Weather:
Dr. John R. Christy, Professor and Director, Earth System Science Center, NSSTC, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Dr. David Titley, Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., Professor and Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado
Of the three, Dr. Pielke Jr. presented the most data, using a series of self-explanatory illustrations, which follow (please click on the illustrations to enlarge):
So the claims you appear to be trying to make in Years of Living Dangerously about global weather-related disasters–including hurricanes, global tropical cyclones, floods, tornados and drought–are not supported by data.
Much of Dr. Titley's testimony was about sea level. However, there is a recent study that puts sea level rise into perspective.
Sea levels have climbed 100 to 120 meters (about 330 to 390 feet) since the end of the last ice age, and they were also 4 to 8 meters (13 to 26 feet) higher during the Eemian (the last interglacial period) than they are today. (Refer to the press release for the 2013 paper by Dahl-Jensen, et al. "Eemian Interglacial Reconstructed From a Greenland Folded Ice Core".) Whether or not we curtail greenhouse gas emissions (assuming they significantly affect climate at all), if surface temperatures remain where they are (or even if they resume warming, or if surface temperatures were to cool a little in upcoming decades), sea levels will likely continue to rise. Refer also to Roger Pielke, Jr.'s post "How Much Sea Level Rise Would be Avoided by Aggressive CO2 Reductions?" It's very possible, before the end of the Holocene (the current interglacial), that sea levels could reach the heights seen during the Eemian—4 to 8 meters (13 to 26 feet) higher than they are today. Some readers might believe it's not a matter of if sea levels will reach that height; it's a matter of when.
Thermal expansion is a major component of sea level rise, and the warming of the oceans is also reflected in sea surface temperature and ocean heat content data. But ocean heat content data for the past 55+ years and satellite-era sea surface temperature data both indicate that naturally occurring processes are responsible for that warming. I have been presenting and discussing this for 5 years. An introduction to the natural warming of the global oceans can be found in my illustrated essay "The Manmade Global Warming Challenge" (42MB).
Referring again to the recent House hearing, part of Dr. Christy's testimony was about wildfires. He presented the above graph, showing that in 2013:
The year is well below average as shown in the graphic to the above (data from the National Interagency Fire Center http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html).
I've added a linear trend to the data in the following graph to show that wildfires are showing a slight decline since 1985.
In your trailer for Years of Living Dangerously, Jerry Weintraub states:
The world is changing, and it's all because of global warming, I think.
When data do not support your thoughts, it's time to change your thoughts. That's why I became skeptical of human-induced global warming.
Dr. Christy also presented a graph that showed how poorly climate models simulated tropical atmospheric temperature anomalies at the height of the mid-troposphere. The differences between the models and the observations are very easy to see in that graph.
Basically, Dr. Christy discussed how poorly climate models simulate tropical temperatures of the mid troposphere because all of the predictions of catastrophes are based on models. Plain and simple: If climate models cannot simulate the recent past, they cannot be used to predict the future.
Further to this, over the past few years, I have discussed and illustrated quite plainly in numerous posts at my blog Climate Observations and at the award-winning science blog WattsUpWithThat how climate models cannot simulate surface temperatures (both land and ocean), precipitation, or hemispheric sea ice area. I have collected and expanded on those posts in my book Climate Models Fail. In it, I also presented numerous scientific research papers that expose the serious flaws in climate models. Those studies found that the current generation of climate models (CMIP5) used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report are not capable of properly simulating:
The coupled ocean-atmosphere processes of El Niño and La Niña, the largest contributors to natural variations in global temperature and precipitation on annual, multiyear, and decadal timescales. (Recall that the 1997/98 El Niño was determined to be the cause of extreme weather around the globe. For years we heard that every weather event was caused by El Niño or La Nina. Not long thereafter that shifted to greenhouse gases…solely for political reasons.)
Responses to volcanic eruptions, which can be so powerful that they can even counteract the effects of strong El Niño events.
Precipitation — globally or regionally — including monsoons.
Cloud cover.
Sea surface temperatures.
Global surface temperatures.
Sea ice extent.
Teleconnections, the mechanisms by which a change in a variable in one region of the globe causes a change in another region, even though those regions may be separated by thousands of kilometers.
Blocking, which is associated with heat waves.
The influence of El Niños on hurricanes.
The coupled ocean-atmosphere processes associated with decadal and multidecadal variations in sea surface temperatures, which strongly impact land surface temperatures and precipitation (drought, floods, rainfall rates, etc.) on those same timescales.
Until the climate models are able to simulate those factors, the claims about present and future weather that you are trying to make in Years of Living Dangerously are nothing more than groundless conjecture. If you should happen to refer to climate models in any of your episodes to support your claims, then the series will be viewed as science fiction by those who understand how poorly climate models perform.
SPECIFIC STARS AND EPISODES
BroadwayWorld lists the stars and the topics they cover in their article Matt Damon & More to Explore Climate Change in Epic Showtime Docu-Series YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY. The following are comments about a few of them.
BroadwayWorld writes:
Mark Bittman (food journalist, author, and New York Times columnist) shoots two pieces: he explores rising sea levels and The Aftermath of Super Storm Sandy, with a focus on Union Beach, New Jersey; and, in an investigation that takes him all across the country, he tries to determine just how clean natural gas is.
Chris Hayes (MSNBC's All In) shoots two pieces involving Super Storm Sandy: a U.S. congressman comes face to face with climate change when extreme weather hits close to home; two Far Rockaway families endure the winter following the destructive storm.
I have addressed misleading arguments about Hurricane Sandy in a number of blog posts. See here, here and here. In summary, for the extratropical portion of Sandy's Storm Track (24N-40N, 80W-70W or basically the North Atlantic adjacent to Florida and northward to New Jersey):
Sea surface temperature anomalies there have decreased, not increased, since the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. See the graph here.
Lower troposphere temperature anomalies (temperature of the atmosphere at an altitude of about 3000 meters or 9800 feet) there show no warming since 1990. See the graph here.
Relating to moisture in the air, the specific humidity (the ratio of water vapor to dry air—expressed in kilograms of water vapor per kilogram of dry air—at 2 meters above the surface) has not increased for the extratropical portion of Sandy's storm track since 1990. See the graph here.
Also relating to moisture in the air, the precipitable water (the amount of water in the column of atmosphere if all the water in that column were to be precipitated as rain) shows no trend there since 1985. See the graph here.
We've already discussed sea level.
Note: For associated discussions of Typhoon Haiyan see:
Typhoon Haiyan Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies for Early Storm Track
Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential – It's All in the Presentation
Reality is Absent from Michael Mann's Activist Article on Typhoon Haiyan
Don Cheadle (star of the Showtime series House of Lies) reports on the severe droughts in the Southwest, and sees if a town in Texas can rebound.
I suspect that when you were planning the show you were looking at drought maps from 2012. The November 2012 Palmer Drought Severity Index map follows.
Much can change in a year. The following gif animation presents the NOAA Palmer Drought Severity Index Maps from November 2012 through November 2013. (Source here.) It's blatantly obvious that most of last year's drought conditions in the Midwest are now gone and that the drought conditions in the Southwest have lessened. (You may need to click start the animation.)
Note: The September 2013 map was not available when I prepared the animation on December 14th.
(The idea for the animation comes from the post Romm's Permanent Southwest Drought Disappears by Steve Goddard.)
Matt Damon (Elysium) examines the public health impact of heat waves as they sweep across Los Angeles and other cities around the globe.
The IPCC SREX report webpage was linked earlier. A link to the full report is here. On page 146, the IPCC writes (my boldface):
Kunkel et al. (2008) found that the United States has experienced a general decline in cold waves over the 20th century, with a spike of more cold waves in the 1980s. Further, they report a strong increase in heat waves since 1960, although the heat waves of the 1930s associated with extreme drought conditions still dominate the 1895-2005 time series.
Also, the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC SREX report (here) states on page 7:
In many (but not all) regions over the globe with sufficient data, there is medium confidence that the length or number of warm spells or heat waves has increased.
The IPCC (here) defines "medium confidence" as "About 5 out of 10 chance" of being correct. In other words, the IPCC does not know if heat waves are increasing around the globe.
BroadwayWorld writes (my boldface):
Arnold Schwarzenegger (former Governor of California) treks deep into the forests of the American West, following a team of elite "Hot Shot" firefighters as they face what could be one of the worst fire seasons yet.
Curiously, in the Trailer for Years of Living Dangerously, Arnold Schwarzenegger states:
There is no wildfire season. We have wildfires all year round.
Some might think Arnold Schwarzenegger's statement contradicts the BroadwayWorld article. Additionally, if we look again at the number of wildfires in 2013 from Dr. Christy's recent testimony, (also linked here), 2013 will likely have one of the lowest total number of wildfires in the United States since 1985.
And last, BroadwayWorld writes:
Lesley Stahl (60 Minutes correspondent) travels to Greenland to explore the fate of the Arctic as global temperature increases melt the ice sheet at an unprecedented rate and unlock all sorts of new riches.
Just in case you're not aware of this, there's a recently study about the Greenland ice sheets by Briner et al. (2013) Amino acid ratios in reworked marine bivalve shells constrain Greenland Ice Sheet history during the Holocene. The press release Greenland's shrunken ice sheet: We've been here before from the University of Buffalo SUNY is much less technical. They write:
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Think Greenland's ice sheet is small today?
It was smaller — as small as it has ever been in recent history — from 3-5,000 years ago, according to scientists who studied the ice sheet's history using a new technique they developed for interpreting the Arctic fossil record.
"What's really interesting about this is that on land, the atmosphere was warmest between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago, maybe as late as 4,000 years ago. The oceans, on the other hand, were warmest between 5-3,000 years ago," said Jason Briner, PhD, University at Buffalo associate professor of geology, who led the study.
"What it tells us is that the ice sheets might really respond to ocean temperatures," he said. "It's a clue to what might happen in the future as the Earth continues to warm."
If sea surface temperatures 3 to 5 thousand years ago were causing Greenland ice sheets to be smaller than they are today, then the current ice sheet size is well within the realm of natural variability.
The second problem that I see with the series Years of Living Dangerously is how it will be perceived by the public.
One of my initial thoughts about your project was that you'd gathered a group of celebrities to promote energy sources other than fossil fuels. So I looked at those of you listed at the end of the trailer as executive producers—the front line for overall project content and finances. Of course I recognized James Cameron's and Arnold Schwarzenegger's names, as would many persons. I discovered that Maria Wilhelm was a business associate of and advisor to Mr. Cameron. I've also heard of movie producer and studio executive Jerry Weintraub, and the names Joel Bach, David Gelber and Solly Granatstein are recognizable from 60 Minutes. But I have never heard of Daniel Abbasi, who is called a "climate-change expert" or "climate expert" at the Variety, HuffingtonPost announcements and in other articles about your project.
Now, I've been studying global warming and climate change for a couple of decades—first as a true-blue believer in human-induced global warming, then as a skeptic. Many of the persons you've listed as science advisors to Years of Living Dangerously at your website are easily recognized eco-celebrities: Robert Corell, Heidi Cullen, Charles H. Greene, James Hansen, Katherine [sic] Hayhoe, Radley Horton, Michael Mann, Michael Oppenheimer, and Joseph Romm. But, sorry to say, Daniel Abbasi was not familiar to me as a "climate-change expert".
That led me to the December 3, 2012 blog post Showtime To Air Climate Change Series From James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub and Arnold Schwarzenegger by your advisor Joseph Romm. Blogger Romm writes (my boldface):
The project is executive produced by James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with Emmy®-winning 60 Minutes producers Joel Bach and David Gelber, and climate expert Daniel Abbasi.
Once again we see "climate expert Daniel Abbasi".
Further, Romm writes (my boldface):
Abbasi, the founder of GameChange Capital, a venture capital firm funding low-carbon solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will work with the series' investigative team to identify and spotlight the most promising ways to decelerate climate change.
GameChange Capital describes itself as:
…a private equity investment firm that provides startup and growth capital to companies offering scalable and profitable solutions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Interesting. "Climate expert Daniel Abbasi" is actually "venture capitalist Daniel Abbasi". That will obviously be exploited by those who have different opinions than you about climate change.
Granted, one of your production companies, Avatar Alliance Foundation, is a non-profit organization. I wasn't able to determine if the others are non-profits as well. Nonetheless, sorry to say, no matter how you try to frame Years of Living Dangerously many persons will view it as a group of multimillionaires attempting to increase their fortunes by profiting from the misfortunes of others. Then again, if you as individuals or as a group are not profiting from Years of Living Dangerously, many persons will view it simply as a small group of very fortunate people attempting to influence politics by exploiting the pain and suffering of people here in the U.S. and around the globe, without the basic consideration that your proposals, for example, will likely cause millions of people less fortunate than you to be driven into fuel poverty—with no justifiable reason for doing so, since data do not support your assumptions. And there will be others who will see Years of Living Dangerously solely as tunnel-visioned millionaires failing to recognize that countless millions of people around the globe are in need of help, right now, adapting to weather-related catastrophes, which have always existed and will continue to exist in the future. Basically, for all of those viewers, Years of Living Dangerously will be perceived as nothing more than just another group of installments in the seemingly non-stop series of climate porn.
Climate Porn is the title of a February 21, 2007 article in Cosmos Magazine authored by Tom Lowe. He writes:
By doing what they do best, the media have taken hold of the climate change debate and placed it firmly in the public and political psyche. However, its predominantly gloomy spin does not appear to have had a significant affect on our day-to-day behaviour; for the majority of people it's business as usual.
The alarming way in which climate change is presented to the public was referred to recently by a leading U.K. think-tank as 'climate porn'. It has been described as unreliable at best and counter-productive at worst.
See Lowe (2006) Is this climate porn? How does climate change communication affect our perceptions and behaviour? and Ereaut and Segnit (2006) Warm Words – How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?
Some will conclude you've fallen into the same trap…the failings of which were discussed 7 years ago.
Let me refer you to another of my blog posts Open Letter to Lewis Black and George Clooney. (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.) It touched on a number of other topics.
At the beginning of your Trailer for Years of Living Dangerously, James Cameron used the "99 doctors" analogy. Because George Clooney had used the same argument in a recent interview, I wrote in that letter to Black and Clooney:
Let me ask: Would you see a podiatrist or a proctologist for a sore throat?
The climate science community, under the direction of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), has only been tasked with determining whether manmade factors, primarily carbon dioxide, could be responsible for the recent bout of global warming, and what the future might bring if the real world responds to projected increases in manmade greenhouse gases in ways that are similar to climate models. They were not asked to determine if naturally caused, sunlight-fueled processes could have caused the global warming over the past 30 years, or to determine the contribution of those natural factors in the future—thus all of the scrambling by climate scientists who are now trying to explain the hiatus in global warming. Refer to the IPCC's History webpage (my boldface):
Today the IPCC's role is as defined in Principles Governing IPCC Work, "…to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation…"
It is not the IPCC's role to understand the scientific basis for naturally caused climate change, which the Earth has experienced all along. As a result, even after decades of modeling efforts, climate models still cannot simulate naturally occurring ocean-atmosphere processes that contribute to global warming or stop it. So a "doctors" example falls flat because it relies on experts whose understandings of climate are extremely limited in scope.
The climate science community and their models cannot explain and simulate the halt in surface temperature warming. (See Von Storch, et al. (2013) "Can Climate Models Explain the Recent Stagnation in Global Warming?", and Fyfe et al. (2013) "Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years".) If they can't explain the halt, they can't explain the prior warming.
And let me rewrite the closing of that post here:
I suspect many of you are open minded, but you haven't really examined or been introduced to the fatal flaws in the hypothesis of human-induced global warming. Are you willing to research and discuss this topic? I have presented data and climate model outputs for the past 5 years, and I've discussed what I've found.
A prime example: because the warming of land surface air temperatures are primarily a response to the warming of sea surface temperatures, the current generation of climate models (CMIP5) has to double the observed rate of warming of the surface of the global oceans over the past 30+ years in order to have land surface temperatures in the models warming at rates that are close to the observations.
The models have to double the rate of warming of the surface temperatures of the global oceans! That atrocious, especially when we consider the decades and billions of dollars wasted by the climate science community chasing a fatally flawed hypothesis…all under the direction of the political entity known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Data and climate model outputs are available to the public, in easy-to-use formats, through a number of sources. Most of my blog posts are also cross posted at the award-winning science blog, WattsUpWithThat, which is the world's most-viewed website about climate change and global warming. I've also presented my findings in my ebooks. Please feel free to ask questions at my blog. I believe I can show you that climate models do not support the hypothesis of human-induced global warming. You may even come to understand the models contradict it.
In closing, I want to thank many of you for your efforts in disaster relief and other charities. But more time and money needs to be spent in proactive efforts to help developing nations create infrastructures, warning systems, evacuation plans, temporary storm shelters, etc., so that people around the globe are capable of moving out of harm's way.
Cleaning up the Earth a little bit with solar panels and windmills is not going to stop rising sea levels, or tropical cyclones, or wildfires, or droughts, or floods, etc. Alternative energy sources will also not stop property losses and death tolls associated with weather-related natural disasters. Helping people and communities to respond safely and to adapt in better ways, however, will.
Enjoy your holidays.
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup
Massive fraud at the EPA from agency's top paid climate official
Gloriously well written!
However, I do not believe that them celebs and movie folks are capable to read that much text…
Ben D
Good on you Bob…
Bob, James Cameron is not the Prime Minister of the UK, whereas David Cameron does direct some woeful green policies.
Jarryd Beck
They won't read all that! After realising in the first paragraph that you disagree with what you are doing, they will delete the email thinking that you are just another denier denigrating their work of saving the world.
Unfortunately I think that your assessment of them being open minded might be a tad over the top. Although the ones who make it to the end to read that might just be a bit more open minded.
RicHard.
As soon as hollywood is involved reality disappears out of the window.
Oldseadog
Excellent precis of the whole argument.
I fear Joel is right, though, and once again MSM will ignore it. Why spoil a good story with the facts, particularly when the facts make you look stupid because of what you have already written?
Paul Homewood
It's James Cameron, Bob, not David.
UK Sceptic
Sadly the science of this issue will go in one ear and out of the other because there is nothing, other than green crusading and post normal logic, inside the heads of the recipients for your message to latch on to. Prepare for the coming Snarknado. It's the only countermeasure against reality they have.
I applaud your attempt to reason with them though.
PMT & Paul Homewood: Corrected the typo, thanks.
joel says: "However, I do not believe that them celebs and movie folks are capable to read that much text…"
Then I guess I'll have to create a video response, too.
Graham Green
Mr Tisdale,
You are a brilliant bloke who really knows his stuff but quite frankly this is like attempting to educate a chimp by throwing the works of Voltaire at it.
4 lines in Tahoma 16 pt, with bullets, well spaced (keep the words short).
Good luck anyway.
I would shorten that to Bob Cameron et al you are lying through you teeth.
If this is being aired as a documentary, will it be possible to take them to court on the grounds of misleading, or indeed needlessly frightening, the public on an important matter by giving out wrong information?
Any pro bono lawyers out there?
Never let the facts get in the way of a good moneymaker. Al Gore will back me up on that.
(Well done, though, Bob.)
Adam Gallon
Unfortunately, Bob's version of the programme isn't going to get made.
"Climate Change, nothing much has changed and what has probably hasn't got a lot to do with us" just isn't going to attract the viewers and thus the investors.
Maybe too detailed, but I've tried educating warmists before, they have neither the maths or the patience to learn and often point blank refuse to look at the numbers.
Even the ones in AR4 figure 2.4 that don't even add up to the total at the bottom – yes, the IPCC fails 3 times to add up 12 numbers, and fails to calculated the mean of their own cloud albedo numbers.
Simply put, the models can't predict cloud movement, so they can't know cloud albedo, which is half the earths albedo, which means they cannot solve the equation that says if its getting warmer or not. Every time a cloud moves their theory is proved wrong. Still too technical though – you might have better luck with 'Look at the snow!!'
DirkH
Come vizz me if you wont to leev.
Hope we see some 30 feet blue frogs.
Ken Hall
I admire your tenacity of showing the actual data to those warmist idiots, but sadly, they simply deny the facts and keep their heads stuck firmly in the very expensive sand.
They need climate alarmism to satiate their God complexes as a way to "save the earth."
If they faced actual facts, then they would not know how to save that, which actually does not need saving at all.
Bertram Felden
Epic piece of work Mr Tisdale, but I am absolutely certain that none of those on your list of recipients are in the least bit interested in any facts or evidence on this subject. They all live in a celebrity bubble. The do things differently there.
Ian Wilson
Thanks Bob for the wonderful effort. If nothing else comes out from this endeavor at least we have a first rate resource to show to our alarmist politicians to show them that Chicken-Little is a bit-player when compared to their ruminations on climate interruption (aka climate change/global warming).
jbenton2013
Who the hell are these 'celebrities'? Apart from Matt Damon I don't recognise any of the names. Jessica Alba seems to ring a bell somewhere in my mind but I've no idea what she is or does. Clearly all Z listers apart from Damon.
It's just the new Scientology for these folks. All trendies need their cults.
Climate Science™- We have just enough information to make wild-assed guesses.
jim south london
The Year of Living Dangerously jet setting Uber rich Alist Hollywood Liberals telling the rest of us plebs how we should all live our lifes.Wait till South Park do the satire of it
Bloke down the pub
Nice post Bob, but I suspect the horse has already bolted.
Truthseeker
jbenton2013 says:
You need to get out more. You have not heard of Harrison Ford (let me give you a hint – Star Wars – the first three), Don Cheadle (Oceans Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen), Jessica Alba – lots of recent films. This is a group of A list useful idiots.
So essentially what we have here is a bunch of stars who have volunteered to be the front people for the climate version of the show Ancient Aliens. "I'm not saying that it is climate change, but it's climate change"
Jack Simmons
Don't investment firms get into trouble when they present false information to potential investors?
Alan the Brit
Well posted!
Sadly thought I suspect they will persevere in their ghastly religion & ignore what you advise. I should also point out that celebrities, whilst they may indeed be wealthy, are no guarantee of intelligence, quite the opposite in my experience! They are merely performers to the public gallery, they portray fictional characters in fictional situations, merely for our entertainment & their egotistical onanism!
RexAlan
Well done Bob.
Don't know what to say though.
I keep bashing away at my local warmists with basically the same story. I think I'm getting nowhere
but occasionally I see a penny drop and that makes it all worth the effort.
J. Swift
Bob's version of the programme was made in the UK by independent Channel 4 quite a few years back. It was called 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. It was heavily attacked by the UK's Socialist State Broadcaster otherwise known as the BBC.
I fear it's all over for the West, sabotaged by an increasingly sentimental and scientifically illiterate middle class who are easily manipulated by communists masquerading as 'nice' environmentalists.
Meanwhile China continues burning coal to grow its economy and land the first rover on the Moon since 1976.
Jesus H Christ what was that? o_0
Spoiled super rich elites who made their fortunes making movies about made up things are now going to not only tell us the truth, but do it for altruisitc motives. Boycott them, their movies, Showtime, and ridicule them for the corrupt twits they are.
This is way AGW will not be stopped. Slimy actors with slimy film people and a public with an average IQ below ZERO.
Julian in Wales
Very well written but very long, will they read it Probably not, but they would probably never have got into this project if they had the sorts of minds that would inquire into the background of teh climate change debate. These people are full of themselves and have very little sense of their failings.
I like this summary : "Nonetheless, sorry to say, no matter how you try to frame Years of Living Dangerously many persons will view it as a group of multimillionaires attempting to increase their fortunes by profiting from the misfortunes of others. Then again, if you as individuals or as a group are not profiting from Years of Living Dangerously, many persons will view it simply as a small group of very fortunate people attempting to influence politics by exploiting the pain and suffering of people here in the U.S. and around the globe, without the basic consideration that your proposals, for example, will likely cause millions of people less fortunate than you to be driven into fuel poverty—with no justifiable reason for doing so, since data do not support your assumptions. And there will be others who will see Years of Living Dangerously solely as tunnel-visioned millionaires failing to recognize that countless millions of people around the globe are in need of help, right now, adapting to weather-related catastrophes, which have always existed and will continue to exist in the future. Basically, for all of those viewers, Years of Living Dangerously will be perceived as nothing more than just another group of installments in the seemingly non-stop series of climate porn."
Brian H
EDIT;
THE SCIENCIFIC ASPECT There is no such word as "sciencific"
Great article but you should have started with what you buried in the middle: "[T]he claims … are not supported by data."
Sigh. But they don't care about facts, do they.
I often wonder about how this contemporary climate alarmism mania will end. Does anybody know? Did former manias like the tulips mania crash, or did they just fade away?
Climate alarmism has resulted in lots of money needlessly wasted; diminished credibility for governments and universities; and potentially lots of angry taxpayers incensed at the waste on such a ridiculous notion that man can influence climate.
Over a thousand years ago a very wise king called Canute (Knut) demonstrated to fawning courtiers that actually even he – a king – had no control over the tides.
RichardLH
Nice post Bob. I do think you need an executive summary though (as observed few are likely to read all that you have written).
If I may be so bold as to try (and keeping it as short as is possible to aid likely reading)
"Both the IPCC and data presented recently to the USA government disagree strongly with your premise that climate change is directly related to weather events in the manner that you are promoting.
Please include a reference to these views documented in detail below in your work in order to give a more balanced and unbiased viewpoint.
refs and longer text".
Stephen Richards, you do the average public a disservice. The ordinary man and woman on the street is more savvy than you think. Certainly more savvier than your average bubble headed celebrity or grasping politician. The public at large might not be trained scientists but they recognise BS when they see it, especially when it impacts on their lives in the way AGW does.
Brian H says: "There is no such word as 'sciencific'"
Thanks. corrected. MSWord doesn't pick up typos in all caps–at least that's my excuse.
Bob B.
(fingers in ears) La La La La La I can't hear you La La La La
Martin: I took your comment to mean that I was missing the Subject line of the memo header. I've added it. Thanks.
"I often wonder about how this contemporary climate alarmism mania will end. Does anybody know? Did former manias like the tulips mania crash, or did they just fade away? "
A financial mania always crashes violently due to positive feedback; a scientific "mania" disappears without a sound – see the switch from Ice Age panic to Global Warming panic which happened silently during the mid 80ies. In the meantime there was the Nuclear Winter and Waldsterben and Ozone Hole panics to entertain the public, and before we knew, there was Hansen and the IPCC to predict Global Warming.
alexwade
Bob, you are addressing hypocrites. These are the same people that cry about gun violence and support very strong gun laws but turn around and star in ultra-violent movies with lots of gun violence. They are crying about our evil modern ways, but they won't give up mansions that require a lot of energy to maintain or their movie career which will require a lot of energy to create.
Punch a brick way 100 times. You will have more success doing that than getting these hypocrites to listen.
They are the modern-day carpetbaggers, capitalizing off of people's ignorance and fear of real events worldwide which have always occurred, but due to modern-day technology we now have nearly-instantaneous access to these events. The hype and spin put on these events has reached epic proportions. The completely wrong, yet irresistible connection to "climate", which has become their shorthand for "manmade climate" then gets pasted on for that climate porn panache. Sex sells, and climate porn is the next best thing. The problem of course, is that when the lines between fact and fantasy are blurred, people have trouble telling the difference. Many, many people get sucked in to the idea that our weather is becoming wilder, and more dangerous. It is part of a mass delusion, as is the idea that it is somehow our fault. It is extremely difficult to get actual facts accross to people who simply aren't interested, as the belief in a myth is more exciting.
TinOK
Cancelling my subscription to Showtime.
An excellent summary. But, as others have commented, what do these people care about science or the truth?
Recently a UK judgement confirmed that Scientology is a genuine religion. That's utterly sickening and shows how far from reality the establishment can wander.
But there is hope. Michael Gove, our education secretary, described Scientology as 'an evil cult'.
It's a perfect description of Scientology. It's also a perfect description of something else….
Joe Born
Although I've been able to take some time this morning to assemble the data to which DocMartyn directed me, it's likely that this thread's activity will wind down before I will get around to replicating his work or modeling what Mr. Engelbeen has explained.
But I don't want to let the opportunity pass to thank Mr. Engelbeen, DocMartyn, and others on this thread again for an enlightening exchange and in particular to Mr. Engelbeen for his patience. To me the discussion has really been helpful (even though I agree with the sentiment others have expressed that, as far as the ultimate issue is concerned, it doesn't matter much how long enhanced CO2 concentrations persist).
Oops! My last comment was intended for another thread. Sorry for being off topic.
Based on the Wikipedia page for "Years of Living Dangerously"…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_of_Living_Dangerously
Everyone's favorite blogger "Joseph Romm is the chief science editor."
Wiki's reference is here:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2013/10/31/documentary-series-years-of-living-dangerously-to-premiere-in-april-2014-on-showtime/212775/
Thank you, Dirk, for explaining the bleeding obvious to me. I am a goose, aren't I.
Brian Awford
I think we can appreciate how Martin Luther must have felt about doctrines of purgatory ,transubstantiation, sale of indulgences et al .
However it did take the Reformation and the Enlightenment over a couple of hundred years to expose the medieval ideas for what they were : a con trick to keep the masses in their place while
extracting maximum revenues from them.
I am afraid there are so many conniving politicians who view 'Climate Change'
as a super wheeze to extract ever more tax from a public scared stiff about a non-existent problem.
Greg Goodman
Bob, who is your target audience for this opus?
Clearly not the people you pretend to address it to, they won't read more that two or three lines.
Did you actually send them a copy or is sounding off on WUWT deemed to be "sending" an open letter?
Seriously, even I got bored by about 1/4 of the way through and I'm interested in the subject.
I share your frustration at this sort of crap getting MSM coverage but Hollywood has never let the truth get in the way of the story line.
Next time I suggest you clearly decide who you are hoping to address and set youself a word limit before starting.
Saying in one paragraph that extreme weather happens and always has happened and that they are ignoring IPCC SREX is about as long as you can let it get.
With all due respect to the effort you expended, these people simply aren't literate enough to even attempt to read the material you provided and since it was uninvited your communication attempt simply be screened out by an assistant who recognizes that 1) it's over the intended recipients head and 2) would infuriat them because it goes against the Meme.
A side note on Cameron's "Avatar". Did anybody notice how warlike the Blues were? The first, "on planet", screen I remember is of a large Ore Hauler coming in through the gate with the tires pincushioned with yard long arrows. No peace loving Noble Savages around here,
Brian Awford, I think you are a tad bigotted.
Yes pre-Reformation Catholicism had its faults but gave the West hospitals, universities and best of all through the deveopment of liturgical music – triadic harmony.
So yep, even the three chord blues owes a debt to Catholic Christendom. Amazing.
Bill Marsh
Dr Tisdale, I applaud the effort you expended to create this letter, but, I fear you are tilting at windmills. It is my opinion that these folks are not interested in the truth or presentation of the truth to the American People. They have a story they want to tell and they are going to tell it regardless of the facts. Nothing you or I can do will dissuade them from that course.
Bill Marsh: Thanks for the kind words, but, FYI, there's no Dr before my name.
fenbeagleblog
…Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind
Merry Christmas to Watts up with that, and all who visit, from a small dog….
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/the-windmills-of-your-mind/
Dr Colin Walsh
Global warming is as well established as any other physical science. You might be using a winter quilt now with a high tog rating. Do you believe that a higher tog rating means a warmer quilt? You trust it, right? Because you expect it to have more feathers, fibers or whatever else they might have stuffed into it to make it trap more heat. Gas in the atmosphere does the same thing, only on a much bigger scale. CO2 traps heat far better than oxygen or nitrogen. Methane is over 20 times more powerful than CO2 in this respect. The main greenhouse gases, according to climate scientists, are CO2 and water vapour. Have you ever wondered why cloudy nights are warmer than clear ones? That's the explanation.
I watched someone demonstrate the heat-absorbing power of CO2. A candle was lit and its image picked up by an infra-red camera, which picks up heat radiation instead of light. An air-filled chamber was placed between the camera and the candle, and the candle's image could still be seen on the screen. Then carbon dioxide gas was pumped into the chamber and I watched as the candle's image gradually disappeared. I found that a pretty convincing demonstration. The heat energy doesn't disappear though – it warms up the gas.
It has been calculated that the Earth would be 30 degrees C colder without its atmospheric CO2. Venus is much hotter than Mercury, even though it is further from the sun. Why? The greenhouse effect of its CO2 atmosphere. As far as I know, planetary scientists who have measured the atmospheric temperature of Venus haven't made a lot of money out of their work. They do it because they enjoy finding things out, like the vast majority of scientists everywhere.
Dave Stephens
Formula: Find suffering. Point to the extra-darn-settled science of catastrophic climate weirdness as the obvious cause. Bemoan the lack of progress on fighting this insidious evil caused by bad people who make too much money and buy too many things and spew carbon from their golden taints aimed mercilessly at a damaged, fragile earth. Collect Oscars. Enjoy accolades. Smirk at the idiots who prattle on and on about the sad state of the science and the blindness of the climate models…
Just an engineer
The proper term for films like this and "An Inconvenient Truth" is Crockumentary.
Bob, your work is good but this is too long, as others have pointed out. The irony that the bunch of kooks you have aimed this at will reject it out of hand claiming it is too kooky is wonderful.
I would suggest a very brief abstract summary up front.
It is fascinating to me that the IPCC is out lowering expectations and reducing panic in its recent work product. But the AGW meme is so powerful that the kooks, true believers and rent seekers are now ignoring it. The climate obsessed community needs the climate crisis. Without their years of faithful gullibility and careers and fortunes are all for naught. Over at a respectable science blog there are still kooks claiming the literally untrue: that the oil industry receives tens of billions in subsidies. Those lies have to be countered by at least the pretense that the liars are serving some greater good. Write this on the massive scale the egos attached to the names listed as executive producers for this schlock require and it is mind boggling. Add to that the con-artistry of the phony 'climate expert' who is actually at best some sort of alleged 'investor'….. My bet is that this entire enterprise will have the impact of that instantly forgotten cinematic waste, "The Age of Stupid" But the faux 'climate expert' will have made his millions off the gullible list of executive producers. As we dig deeper into the AGW movement it is more and more like the cheesiest forms of televangelism: parasites feeding on the vulnerable and ignorant with total emphasis on messaging and insider profits.
DirkH says "A financial mania always crashes violently due to positive feedback; a scientific "mania" disappears without a sound – see the switch from Ice Age panic to Global Warming panic which happened silently during the mid 80ies".
I totally agree: in this present era Joe Public always seems to need some "the sky is falling" issue/neurosis to worry about – reinforced (as if by a positive feedback) by the speed and penetrative power of today's communications and, ultimately, by the fact that bad news always generates more revenue than good news.
I'm afraid I don't see this ending until it is replaced by some other neurosis – probably a return to the 1970's "an ice age is coming" scare again.
I think it is an excellent summary and I shall take a copy and use it when I need to inform someone of a few facts and figures. Thank you, Bob, and I hope it evokes a response, although I suspect the programmes are already in the can and nothing will stop them from being shown after investing that heavily in making them – gotta recoup that outlay and make a few bucks!
From a legal standpoint this provides evidence these people were warned what they were producing was a lie. Bob, make sure you send a reference to this posting to these people in the mail. That might be useful one day. What would be even nicer is if a lawyer could send a certified copy to the producers with a warming.
Looking ahead to next April we will likely have crossed 17.5 years of no warming (possibly close to 18). In addition, if this winter turns out to be a brutal one, these folks will look silly. This could actually work for skeptics. And, having an investment guy as their advisor could also work for us. More evidence this is all about money.
BTW, I respond to the doctor analogy in two ways. Feel free to use either of them.
1) Climate science is in its infancy. Would you go to a 19th century doctor where blood letting was a primary treatment option?
2) Climate models are failing at over 97%. Would you go to a doctor whose diagnoses failed 97% of the time?
Mardler
Good stuff, Bob but:-
1. They won't read it. They're "artists" for whom science does not exist, my guess is most can barely add 2 and 2 correctly and wouldn't know the constituent elements of water.
2. If you want to grab their attention use:-
2.1. A headline sentence as a banner – e.g. "Misguided TV show ignores scientific truth: climate has always changed, global temperatures are stable, extreme weather events down."
2.2. An executive summary that is – short, very short.
Btw, I loved, "I have also carbon copied…"!
ferdberple
So we have a group of ultra carbon polluters telling us to stop polluting so that they can pollute more.
While these folks jet set around the world, their message is loud and clear. It is everyone else causing the problem. Our money gives us license to screw the maid or the masseuse or the rest of you. If you, the little people do it, then it is wrong. When we do it, it is our right.
> Who the hell are these 'celebrities'? Apart from Matt Damon I don't recognise any of the names.
Wow, I thought I was the most clueless person on the planet when it comes to recognizing current celebrities.
One of the few letters I've written was to Lesley Stahl before the 60 Minutes story in 2008 where Al Gore said
I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they're almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat. That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off.
I never heard back.
Since then I've met folks like Harrison Schmitt, who is both a climate skeptic and the only geologist to go rock collecting on the Moon. I didn't ask him if he were a flat earther. 🙂
James Cameron, eh? He wasn't involved the 60 Minutes piece, but if you want a 2008 era comment, try:
At the very least, we should be preparing for either eventuality. Al Gore and others transfixed by the steady rise of CO2 may discover they're on a modern day version of the Titanic and on a collision course with a climate change they refuse to see.
Well, maybe you should stick with what you wrote, though most of the recipients won't read beyond the first paragraph.
Hollywood Celeb's Cause Climate Change
Reuters: Scientists today confirmed that Hollywood celebrities, through their sure-affluent lifestyles, are the leading cause of Climate Change worldwide. Of all the people on the face of the earth, it is Hollywood "A" Listed Celebs that on a per capita basis are the greatest source of Carbon Pollution on the Planet.
In a related story, the EPA announced today wide ranging Carbon Indulgences for the hyper rich and their ongoing donations to the political process.
Navy Bob
The main reason this letter will have zero effect, despite Mr. Tisdale's hard work and good intentions, is that to Cameron and his galaxy of stars this is a political issue, not a scientific one. The intent of the series is to get more Democrats elected by convincing low-information voters (i.e., people whose political knowledge comes from watching TV) that catastrophic climate change, Democrats' main political issue next to health care, is actually something worth worrying about. A letter pointing out the scientific error of their ways is, to put it mildly, a waste of time.
"I am writing to you as the executive producers of the upcoming ShowTime series Years of Living Dangerously to express a few concerns."
Trust me, nobody will see this series unless it's on network TV. The people who watch ShowTime (are there people who actually subscribe to that dreck?? Yeeesshh!!) probably don't care one bit about "climate change"…
Pippen Kool
Concise and, never mind.
I'm sure they will all take time to read this very interesting article with 27 figures.
Jean Parisot
We now know what its like to live in a Crichton novel.
Greg Goodman says: "Bob, who is your target audience for this opus?"
My target audience? People new to this discussion…who are interested enough in the subject matter to read the entire post and those linked to it.
When I write an open letter, I never imagine it will be read by the people to whom it is addressed. I was surprised though when my obscure little blog received a number of hits from the State Department after my open letter to John Kerry.
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/open-letter-to-the-honorable-john-kerry-u-s-secretary-of-state/
But, in cases like that, I actually suspect the visitor is the guard at the front desk just passing time online.
Pippen Kool says:
I took the liberty to produce a summary for those who find it difficult to read more than a couple of lines of text (even with pictures).
Hollywood fighting CO2 induced global warming is like Weight Watchers fighting obesity by distributing ice cream.
…. The amount of CO2 generated by the production of this series has to be mind boggling. The fuel bills, air travel, lighting, commuting, studio energy…. Then, I wonder if they'll "mitigate" their "carbon footprint" by donating to their own investment fund, like Gore did with An Inconvenient Truth by paying into his Generation Investment Management. He spun it to make himself look good.
Having a family member who has fought wildfires, serious wildfires (in California, both northern and southern) I was a bit surprised to learn that almost 90% of wildfires are man-caused. To argue that the fires would be less severe if the average temperature were 2degF less is pretty silly. As silly as it would be to argue that more CO2 in the atmosphere helps limit the spread of wildfires because there's less oxygen.
There was a show on global warming some years ago that presented people all over the world talking about the dangers. Funny, really, since each production crew had to travel to the location, set up lights, then fly home. Great way to prove your point.
It's like filling up giant helium balloons to display the message "Don't waste helium!"
Athelstan.
Hollywoodland, an elegy.
There's so much snow all year round,
Not global warming solved – I'll be bound.
Men make money out of sequels galore, part thirty two! and all very old stagers too,
Politics of the left is all that they do.
Computer games intrudes on their grief, soon and not before time – it'll all be gone with the wind,
Needs must – a new axe to grind we shall find!
Shouty young dudes get all over hot,
about polar bears, super storms and whatnot.
Victims not helped by hand wringing false claim,
Cannot the Sunset cognoscenti feel no shame?
Man's to blame, the easy target just like once – Britain an enemy – among others it's Braveheart Gibson then
Burning the planet and no true grit, it lost out to the money men.
A new cause célebre, man made climate destruction lies onto the screen,
Straight to DVD and no in between.
Empty houses, lonely rows,
Here lies the body of Hollywoodland at long last in its death throes.
I need to work on the scan – true.
Henry Galt.
Dr Colin Walsh says:
Please stick to fixing broken limbs and coughs and colds Doc.
Your utter ignorance of climate science is not becoming of an MD.
If your room was filled with the Earth's atmosphere it already contained @400 ppmv of CO2 and you could see the candle? Seriously? Do you think tripling the 400 ppmv of CO2 in said room would result in any visible dimming of said candle?
Nylo
Thanks Dr Colin Walsh, but FYI nearly nobody here negates the fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that having more of it is probably contributing in some ammount to the warming that we experienced during the XX century. If you have heard otherwise, you have been mislead by the same type of people that wants debate not to exist. The keys here are not if CO2 is a greenhouse gas but 1) how much of an effect it will have on temperatures, i.e. what is the atmospheric temperature sensitivity to increases of CO2, 2) has the overall effect of the increased temperatures been good or bad so far, 3) if there were further additions of CO2 and further increases of atmospheric temperatures, would the overall consecuences be good or bad, 4) how much evidence we have regarding the answers to all those previous questions.
Alan Robertson
Oh, but this is such an important documentary.
Oh, and I forgot to add, 5) will the currently proposed solutions do anything even measurable to stop temperatures from increasing and sea level from rising.
JohnWho
Did they show the difference between 0 ppm CO2 and 50 ppm CO2 and 100 ppm CO2 and 200 ppm CO2 and 300 ppm CO2, and 400 ppm CO2….. etc. ?
The "air filled" chamber, if un-fooled around with, was present day, somewhat under 400 ppm CO2 according to what year this demonstration was filmed/videoed. "Pumping in" additional CO2 may have raised the levels quickly to thousands and even millions of ppm relatively quickly assuming the chamber wasn't pressurized and the original "air" was displaced.
Other than "CO2 absorbs heat", what do we learn here?
Just wonderin'.
Vince Causey
It's a laudable effort Bob, but I fear it will have about as much effect as if Schindler had written to Goebbles to inform him that the Jews aren't such a bad lot and and actually make a net contribution to the economy. In other words, they ain't interested in facts.
more soylent green!
Well, what do you expect? While 'there is no evidence that man-made climate change is (or will be) a catastrophic problem' may be scientifically accurate won't but many butts in the seats.
Of course these people aren't merely trying to entertain the masses, they're trying to scare people into action. This is pure activism by Hollywood elites who want to project their fears onto everyone else and get us proles to agitate for political change.
Note to James Cameron and others: "Do as I say and not as I do" never went over well when we were children and are parents said that to us and expecting adults accept this any better is arrogance personified.
Dr Colin Walsh says: "Global warming is as well established as any other physical science."
In reality, it's not. Human-induced global warming is government-sponsored eco-marketing masquerading as science. I have nothing against environmentalism. In fact, I have one of the lowest carbon footprints of the people I know.
The only way to verify the hypothesis of human-induced global warming is with climate models and they're…looking for a nice way to say this…sorry, can't find one. Climate models are crap. They can't simulate surface temperatures. See all of the posts here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-lost/
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-comparison-sst/
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-comparison-lsat/
They can't simulate precipitation. See all of the posts here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-comparison-precipitation/
And they can't simulate hemispheric sea ice area:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/category/model-data-sea-ice/
philjourdan
Joe Romm is the Science advisor? That is like Margaret Sanger being your "Family Adviser"!
Oh wait, PP…
For Dr Colin Walsh December 16, 2013 at 5:13 am
There is something very strange about the experiment you claim to have witnessed. CO2 absorbs radiation at wavelengths around 15 miccrons. Consequently, infrared cameras are specifically designed to operate outside this absorption band; they operate in the atmospheric window, typically between 8 and 12 microns. The image of the candle cannot have disappeared due CO2 absorption as you describe it. There would still be plenty of radiation at the unaffected wavelengths. Do you have any further details? What was the material of the chamber? What were its IR transmission properties?
The Earth is 30 degress warmer due to the presence of ALL greenhouse gases, not just CO2. On its own, CO2 may contribute about 5 degrees to that warming. The question is not does CO2 cause warming, because it should, it is how much more warming could we expect given the near saturation of the CO2 absorption bands.
"The data does not support your conclusion"
I expect every skeptic has that phrase memorized and have used it many times.
Most importantly, the data which might support the possibility that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing the atmosphere to become measurably (or at least detectible by today's equipment) warmer than it would if we were not emitting the CO2, simply is not there. The conclusion is based on ego and political expediency and not on data. Our contribution to atmospheric temperature through CO2 emissions is too minor to matter.
Beyond that, whether ice melts somewhere, glaciers retreat somewhere, Mt. Kilimanjaro loses snow, a coral reef changes, Polar bears do something somewhere, a plant or creature goes extinct, a typhoon/cyclone/hurricane forms, there is a drought or flood somewhere, a river dries up somewhere – the data does not support the conclusion that it was caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
This Showtime series, "climate science" computer models or simulations, Al Gore's movie, etc. are all conclusions not supported by data.
Just some more observations.
amoorhouse
MATT DAMON!!!!
wws
The showtime producers have forgotten something that may be more important than anything: moralistic screeching, posing as "entertainment", never works. People keep thinking they need to do it, they must do it to Educate the Ignorant!!! … but it never works. People tune it out.
The way to fight this is with ridicule – since their claims are all nonsense, ignore that. Continually portray this as nothing but a bunch of rich prigs trying to keep the lower classes down by making their lives more expensive.
For anyone who still wonders, THIS ISN'T ABOUT SCIENCE ANYMORE. That's why Bob's letter, while wonderfully accurate, will have no impact at all. He's focused on the science, and the warmists have already given up on that. You can't fight them by making points they don't care about.
Focus, over and over, on how this show is boring, banal, preachy, and dreary. And then this series will have all of the impact of a cow-pie thrown into a mud puddle.
climatologist
Well done, but in vain.
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
I would love to know what product you use to treat the chronic sharp pain in your forehead resulting from repeated forceful impact into brick walls …
Bob Greene
Great response, Bob. Since I don't get Showtime, I won't have a chance to intentionally miss this piece of propaganda: "ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc." (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda) Since the programs are truly propaganda pieces, why don't we call them what they are? Matt Damon, et al, serious scientists (climate or any other type)?
Don B
The UK's Mail on Sunday describes the massive conflicts of interest of those who advise government to carry out policies which enrich the advisors:
"Other industries would stand accused of damning conflicts of interest but when it comes to global warming, anything goes…
"The Mail on Sunday today reveals the extraordinary web of political and financial interests creating dozens of eco-millionaires from green levies on household energy bills.
"A three-month investigation shows that some of the most outspoken campaigners who demand that consumers pay the colossal price of shifting to renewable energy are also getting rich from their efforts."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523726/Web-green-politicians-tycoons-power-brokers-help-benefit-billions-raised-bills.html
Very noble effort, Bob. But this, like everything else will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. They've chosen their sides of the debate, and fortunately for them, it's the side that will financially benefit them.
Stephen Rasey
"Years of Living Dangerously" ought to apply to 1988 to 2009, From the Hansen-Wirth hearing to ClimateGate.
The Years we listened to the likes of Hansen, Jones, Mann, Romm cry, "The SKY is falling!"
Years where the public were cowed into robing from the fuel poor to give to the green rich.
I don't know what's more amusing, your arguments being support by narrow, carefully crafted data points to illustrate a very specific conclusion… or the fact that you ignore the rest of the content which you link us to as your support.
If everyone who read this post bothered to vet the information instead of being overwhelmed by the presentation of "data" (brilliant execution, by the way), they would quickly learn that this straw man is as shallow and hollow as the celebrities you so valiantly attempt to criticize.
Bravo, you have become the very thing you apparently loathe, an entertainer.
It's been a while since I've read such well written fiction, and for that I thank you.
lurker, passing through laughing
@Dr Colin Walsh says:
You are very gullible if you believed the demosntration you allegedly saw represents a demonstration of the dangers of CO2 in our atmosphere.
It is surprising that a fine Dr. such as yourself would realize that the entire atmosphere is responsible for our maintaining our temperatures, not simply CO2. Water vapor is far more powerful and important than CO2.
Coach Springer
Another vote for deaf ears. The rationale going something like this: We are successful, therefore we are important, We care, therefore you must care. Therefore, we don't care. Then again, the letter is for our reference, not their repentance.
Steve Oregon
Tisdale,
Somewhere a loopy alarmist is pushing their homemade 10-10 button and they are imagining your head exploding. Don't ya think?
You commented, "My target audience? People new to this discussion…who are interested enough in the subject matter to read the entire post and those linked to it."
Your outstanding piece is the perfect thing for people to send their elected officials at every level to repudiate their efforts to impose sweeping policies to reduce emissions.
Oregon is a poster child for foolish and deceitful government with everyone downstream from the governor following orders. Every local community is falling in line to obey the directives without any resistance whatsoever.
http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=36945
Hollywood is one thing but when essentially every public official and agency is participating in defrauding the public we are in serious trouble.
There is some push back up north in Washington. It should be happening at every opportunity everywhere.
Check out how it starts with their batty Governor Inslee.
http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_tvwplayer&eventID=2013120003
Then it got heated.
Democrats, Republicans Put Their Opposing Visions on Climate Change in Writing, by Brad Shannon and in the December 12 The Olympian
link at
http://www.theolympian.com/2013/12/12/2882156/inslees-democrats-republicans.html, begins as copied below.
The Washington State Legislature passed legislation in 2008 calling for the state to reduce total greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and the Republicans and the Democrats serving on Governor Jay Inslee's Climate Legislative and Executive Workgroup have unveiled starkly different proposals for how Washington might meet its goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.
The 2008 legislation calling for Washington to reduce total greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 was based on questionable climate models suggesting that our Washington temperatures would be increasing at a rate of about 0.5 degrees F per decade because of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. These climate models have now been shown to be incorrect because the NOAA National Climatic Data Center Climate at a Glance site at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/ presents the official Washington state climate data indicating that:
· Washington state's annual temperatures have trended downward at a rate of 0.4 degrees F per decade since 1990.
· Washington state's annual temperatures have trended downward rapidly at a rate of 2.2 degrees F per decade over the last 10 years.
This may be long for a letter, but not for an Open Letter.
For the summarizing of much important facts, I'll nominate this post to be tagged as another "Watts' Best" entry.
What is not explored by Bob is what is more dangerous to the world?
2 degrees of warming, or
2 degrees of cooling?
Crop failures and starvation are nothing to wish on the world.
Hot under the collar
Even I have to admit, the Executive Producers you have written to have a good reputation – for producing fiction. Doesn't stop them from being taken in by the Global Warming Hysteria and unfortunately adding to it with their propaganda.
Interesting that one of their 'climate experts' is a venture capitalist who's company invests in "funding low carbon profitable solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" no conflict of interest there then!
Unfortunately the 'profitable' part is paid for by the rest of us being in fuel poverty.
Tom Trevor
If you could condense that down to say one sentence you might have something they would read and could understand. You have to phrase it the way they would. Try something like "you are wrong."
The 2012 droughts in Texas are evidence against 'global warming' theory.
The 2012 droughts in Texas were the result of the 2012 La Nina event. La Nina is a cold water upwelling in the Pacific off the south west coast of the US. Cold water doesn't evaporate as readily as warmer water, putting less moisture in the air off the west coast. Drier air off west coast brings drought to Texas. This is standard, non-controversial meteorology.
According to 'global warming' theory, the warming planet brings fewer and weaker La Nina events. Fewer and weaker La Nina events means fewer and weaker droughts in Texas.
Conversely, 'global warming' theory predicts more El Nino (warm water) events. El Nino events put more moisture into the air of the south west coast of the US, leading to increased rainfall in Texas.
Thus, droughts in Texas are evidence against 'global warming' theory. For these people to pretend otherwise is exactly the sort of blatant, politicized dishonesty that 'global warming' advocates are known for.
Or maybe "You are wrong,you girly men."
William R
As others have said, it's all in vain. These people are true believers, and not so much in AGW/climate change. You've seen them shift their story on that already, and they'll do it again, because it's all just a means to an end. Their end goal is a global socialist utopia, and people who believe in this aren't just going to let a little data on temps/floods/hurricanes/tornadoes stop them.
The only thing you can do to these people that would have any impact is to vote with your feet. Boycott anything these people take part in. Cancel your subscription to Showtime, or any other service that promotes this ideology…and if you wish, let them know why you won't be sending them money anymore as well. If spoiled millionaire turned socialists don't appreciate the economic system that made them wealthy, then let's do our part to make them un-wealthy!
dbstealey
Rusty Shackleford,
Why don't YOU vet this information?
Maybe you can't, so you just complain.
BTW, what, specifically, is "fiction"? Your entire critique is very weak tea.
Its over 5 paragraphs long. This guarantees that it will never be read…
R. de Haan
Great piece Bob Tisdale. I know you have to do this. We're living dangerously since 1986 when this crazy scare took off and none of the alarmist predictions from those day's ever materialized. The time has come to sew these ass holes. It's the only language people like that understand.
Mark and two Cats
From http://www.bornrich.com/james-cameron.html
"Although James Cameron stated, 'we are going to have to live with less' and has supported government mandated reductions in energy use, his own possessions which include a 100 acre ranch, a JetRanger helicopter, collection of dirt bikes, a yacht, and a Humvee fire truck are a proof of anything but 'Living with less'. "
"Cameron owns a mansion [in Malibu], which is spread over 8,272 sq ft. This mansion features six bedrooms and seven bathrooms. James Cameron stays with his wife Suzy Amis and their three children.The home proudly boasts a tennis court, swimming pool, gourmet kitchen, interior garden and courtyard, guest house, and an indoor cinema."
The rules and the privation that follows therefrom are for the little people, not the elite who propound them.
Nice work Bob, I suspect if enough people comment on the vacuous ones, some of their paid friends, might condense this down to a message actors could understand.
But unless some celebrity magazine simplifies these facts,down to sue card size, not a chance these professionally empty suits will understand.
Stranding them enmass on an ice flow, might , only might, penetrate their delusions.
Dismal state of society when anyone takes actors opinions as meaningful, they excel at submerging their personality, into the facade of another person.
So I always wonder; when an actor speaks, who is talking?
Which model is it that is just above the measured temps? In the "christy-model-data.png" chart I think it is NorESM1 (small orange dots)? It is hard for me to be sure which one it is. It is the one that shows flat, although slightly higher than observed, temps.
They actually seem to have a model that is worth refining. Lets cut funding to all the others as they are total failures and see what this one can do.
tobias smit
joel @1.24 am
they read scripts etc much in the way like this: "he says" and then " I says"
but for the rest I also think that was a great report about as well written as any I have seen.
Carl F
Thanks for putting in all the effort on this Bob. It might not be read by your target audience, but at least you tried. Well done.
I would like to use it as a reference for my warmist friends, but if I send them to WUWT, they will only scoff and refuse to look. Is there another place it is posted?
Walter Allensworth
Wonderful summary of the skeptic's case Mr. Tisdale, and I thank you for putting it all in one place.
Sadly, you will have lost your target audience after the first paragraph.
They will toggle the little handle and the water will go round and round.
They are smart people and they already know the skeptic's view.
It's not about truth, or science.
It's about control.
The facts you present are inconsistent with their objective of control.
The people they control want 'bread and circuses' and do not want to think for themselves.
Cameron et al will continue with the farcical programming and the 47% will be fooled because they want to be fooled.
The best fate for over-the-top uninformed alarmism is lack of an audience and subsequent loss of money. May the ratings suck.
Reasonable Skeptic
@Dr, Colin Walsh,
With all due respect, I believe that you should look a little more critically at what you believe to be true.
In 1988, only a decade into the warming, Hansen told congress that the science was settled. 25 years later the settled science can't explain the climate pause.
In 1979, the very first estimate of climate sensitivity for CO.2 was suggested to be 1.8 to 5.0 degrees C for a doubling of CO.2 (exact numbers may be wrong, I am going from memory) and in the most recent IPCC findings the exact same numbers were issued. 34 Years of science conducted and we have made absolutely zero progress on the single most important question with respect to GHGs.
The debate is all about climate sensitivity, which is made up of direct warming and feedbacks. Direct warming is a closed case, thus we are left with feedbacks. How can we not have made any progress on our understanding of feedbacks after 34 years?
I hope that you continue to cast a critical eye on warmists and skeptics. Both sides are trying to sell you on their views. Do your utmost to recognize the difference between rhetoric and facts based on solid data, science and logic.
P.S. Valid data trumps science.
Comments on my post are welcomed. I do not want to mislead, I want to inform.
William Astley
Film sequences of extreme weather events complete with scary music and stars makes an interesting eight part series on extreme weather. It appears the warmists live in a bubble and are oblivious to the real problems that face the US and the other developed countries. We are wasting billions upon billions of dollars on green scams which have resulted in almost no difference in CO2 emission in our country and certainly will have no affect on world CO2 emissions. Spending money on green scams absolutely will have no affect on extreme weather. Regardless the US, the EU countries, and the other developed countries have run out of money to spend on everything. The scams will be cut first, as hospitals, roads, schools, bridges, police force, electricity, and so on will have first priority.
Meanwhile, back to the science, the planet has started to cool. The media is starting to notice an unexpected cooling of both poles. In 2013 there was record sea ice in the Antarctic for all months of the year which is unprecedented in 30 years of observation. In the Arctic there was the largest increase in summer sea ice year over year on record.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
The bounce back in the extent of sea ice in the Arctic this summer was reflected also in the volume of ice. "One of the things we'd noticed in our data was that the volume of ice year-to-year was not varying anything like as much as the ice extent – at least for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012," explained Rachel Tilling from the UK's Nerc Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM). "This is why we're really quite surprised by what we've seen in 2013.
"We didn't expect the greater ice extent left at the end of the summer melt to be reflected in the volume. (William: A step change requires a physical explanation. Hint the sun.)
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Chip Javert
I understand your angst, but why spend so much effort trying to stop Hollywood (yuck) from broadcasting shows about children never seeing snow again to a population that is watching TV because they're snowed in?
Tom O
Bob, maybe you need to post the addresses of those you sent this to. Then if all the skeptics here that don't think they will read it, would be so kind as to follow up with short notes saying that they read what you posted and realize that a person of normal intelligence would see that AGW can't be tied to extreme weather, perhaps they would read it since, after all, they ought to be better than people of average intelligence. but one thing is for certain, although the probability that they will read – and understand – what you posted, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." One thing is certain, nothing will happen if no one tries to make it happen.
I have also carbon copied the persons you currently list as starring in the shows…..
carbon copied LMAO
Rob says: "I have also carbon copied the persons you currently list as starring in the shows…..
It enjoyed it as I wrote it.
Tom O says: "Bob, maybe you need to post the addresses of those you sent this to."
This and the cross post at my blog are the only transmittals of the memo.
Uncle Gus
DirkH: It won't fade away like a scientific mania, because it isn't one. It's financial and political and cultural, in fact there has never been anything quite like it. If it crashes, it will be different from anything we have ever seen.
TimC: It can't segue quietly into something else, like the "coming ice age". There's too much money involved, too many reputations.
Antonia: I've been wondering about this for years. One interesting thing is that the collapse of the scientific underpinnings has had no effect at all, but simple panic fatigue on the part of the public is killing them. It has to end. It can't end. What next? Show trials? Collective amnesia? (Loved your comment about the Catholic Church and the twelve bar blues, by the way!)
Great summary of the state of knowledge, circa 2013. For the CAGW'ers, the last 15 years has not happened.
Unfortunately those in Hollywood think like California surfers: they will ride any big wave they see and profit from its energy. If they can do a little moral posturing, that's just wonderful, but not necessary to their decisions.
The Climate Change Scare is a perfect Hollywood big wave. Afterall, Zombies and Vampires are not real, but you would not know that watching recent movies. Catastrophic Climate Change is right there with the Zombies and Vampires. Not even Science Fiction, just Fantasy.
rogerknights
Bob Tisdale says;
Wasn't there a paper out a year or so ago that found that, due to an undetected recent rising of the southern Appalachians in N. Carolina, the sea level rise in the Eemian was much less than previously thought? (I've searched for that paper here and in my Word file, but couldn't find it. Does anyone know what I'm referring to? if so, I hope they'll post a link.)
Rusty Shackleford says: "I don't know what's more amusing, your arguments being support by narrow, carefully crafted data points to illustrate a very specific conclusion… or the fact that you ignore the rest of the content which you link us to as your support…"
When you come down from your high horse, please feel to quote me chapter and verse from the "rest of the content" of my links that you believe I've ignored.
REPLY: "Rusty Shackleford" hmmm, an interesting choice for a fake identity. – Anthony
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says: "I would love to know what product you use to treat the chronic sharp pain in your forehead resulting from repeated forceful impact into brick walls …"
The brick walls are gone…long ago. I have, since then, used the bricks to throw at my television. The first brick is the most fun–makes a loud bang, followed by a tinkling sound–but there are still benefits to all the others.
Reply to Bob Tisdale
@Bob Tisdale – "The first brick is the most fun–makes a loud bang, followed by a tinkling sound"
Ah, one of the pleasures that technology has robbed us of. Now they just make a crack and thud. LCDs just do not have the oomph that the old CRTs did. 😉
Theo Goodwin
Brilliant, brilliant work, Mr. Tisdale. No small part of the brilliance is found in the article's readability.
This article is easily understandable by high schoolers and middle schoolers. In addition, the article is written so well that it is just a plain old joy to read. Your efforts and products have reached the heroic level, Mr. Tisdale. Thank you so very much for your remarkable service to science and humanity.
"Bob Tisdale says:
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
Uncle Gus says:
Solar and Wind sector already crashed several times in different places; EU carbon certificates already crashed; multiple EV and battery makers went broke. It's not really monolithic.
Aphan
Thank you Bob for this, and all you do. Even if none of the people you intended it for ever read it, there are many of us who can, and will, share it with people who will.
To those who are critical of its length, or of Bob's repeated attempts to educate brick walls, I think you need to be reminded that great and noble figures in history are those who speak truth for truth's sake, and who never give up. I don't believe Bob does this in hopes of becoming popular, or famous, or even respected in the field. I think Bob does this because it's the truth, it's fact, and he simply cannot stop representing it because his nature refuses to give up. Bob continues where most people would give up and walk away. Bob walks the walk. Bob gives me hope and makes me want to keep fighting for TRUTH, in all aspects of my life, not just this one. And I am thankful for him and his stubborn determination.
Slacko
Greg Goodman says:
A graph limit would help even more, if the message would tolerate such a reduction.
If it is as bad as it sounds, I'll just boycott anyone associated with it.
"As far as I know, planetary scientists who have measured the atmospheric temperature of Venus haven't made a lot of money out of their work. They do it because they enjoy finding things out, like the vast majority of scientists everywhere."
Astrophysicist Dr. James Hansen who made a wrong model to explain the high surface temperatures of Venus has made millions, cashed in dozens of awards by European aristocracy and American liberal foundations and had bestselling catastrophist books revolving around the "Venus syndrome" on Earth. His employer NASA earns 1.2 billion USD a year with the climate scare to this day.
I'm sure he enjoyed it a lot.
. . .I watched someone demonstrate the heat-absorbing power of CO2. A candle was lit and its image picked up by an infra-red camera, which picks up heat radiation instead of light. An air-filled chamber was placed between the camera and the candle, and the candle's image could still be seen on the screen. Then carbon dioxide gas was pumped into the chamber and I watched as the candle's image gradually disappeared. I found that a pretty convincing demonstration. The heat energy doesn't disappear though – it warms up the gas.
Doc, if this is typical of your ability to interpret a test result, I wouldn't let you treat a hangnail!
For those who have commented that Mr. Tisdale's post has little practical value, because the makers of the series will not read it, please recall that the greatest failing of the American Left is overreach. This series is a classic example of overreach. And it is going to be on television. There will be millions (OK, maybe thousands) of people who are talking about the series. Mr. Tisdale has provided a document that enables most anyone to criticize the points made in the series. For example, when your middle schooler, high schooler, or college student starts talking about the series you can give them some criticisms and follow it up with a printed copy of Mr. Tisdale's article. Also, NPR and similar organizations will do on-air reviews of the series. NPR accepts email and phone calls. Use such opportunities.
lorne50
Carl F says:
go to the horse's mouth{sic} blog
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/open-letter-to-the-executive-producers-of-years-of-living-dangerously/
I have also carbon copied the persons you currently list as starring in the shows.
Uh oh! You do realise you are communicating with carbonphobes? You'll soon set them frothing at the mouth. Or maybe not. See James Cameron, the eco-hypocrite. WARNING: Ask someone to tie both your hands down to your chair as you may be liable to break your PC.
http://youtu.be/TKZ4RolQxec
John F. Hultquist
This needs to reach the new social media and "go viral."
I do not watch television;
– did from 1954; high lite was 1960 World Series with home run by Bill Mazeroski;
– it has gone down hill since
– TV quit 10 years ago, never replaced
Have never seen Showtime.
However, I have read that the companies that advertize so as to sell goods to citizens do not like bad public images and neither they, nor the movie stars, like to be laughing stocks for it hurts their bottom lines.
Thus, Bob T.'s post (well done, as usual) needs to reach the new social media and "go viral" as they say. I can send the link to a few folks I know – they will be in agreement but it won't do much. I can't "tweet" it or make it on to Facebook, or other such things.
at 1:52 am, Bob says "Then I guess I'll have to create a video response, too."
See here: http://m4gw.com/
m4gw = Minnesotans for Global Warming
They seem to understand how new-media works. Maybe they can help.
Svend Ferdinandsen
I like that : I have also "carbon copied" the persons you currently list as starring in the shows.
Rusty Shackleford says:
I don't know what's more amusing, …
Well, if you really want to be amused, why not take a look at some of the warmist arguments.
Like tree stumps being exposed by 'unprecedented' retreating ice sheets for example. Or the fact that the global warming siren is still at full blast after 17 years of cooling, while CO2 just keeps on rising. What about the lunacy of measuring sea level at multiple locations but only using the data from sites where the land is known to be subsiding. How about closing down weather stations that don't report high enough temperatures, and moving the remainder to UHI zones.
And then there's the Hockey Stick. Do you play hockey, Mr Shackleford? Just for laughs?
Merovign
I wonder how many people wrote letters to the NYT, back in the day, asking them to stop covering up Soviet atrocities.
Doesn't seem to have had any effect, but no harm in trying I suppose.
Arninetyes
Have no fear. None of these people will read this, no matter how well the case against AGW is made. Even if they did, here's the kicker: If they truly believed CO2 was causing dangerous warming, and evidence piled up against the theory, they should be relieved, even pleased. They aren't. Evidence against AGW goes against their world view which, it seems, includes reducing the standard of living for everyone on the planet. Except, of course for themselves.
Bob Tisdale says: "When you come down from your high horse, please feel to quote me chapter and verse from the "rest of the content" of my links that you believe I've ignored."
Bob, as much as I would love to do your job for you I cannot, in good conscience, provide you with more scientifically sound, peer reviewed, scrutinized, and globally accepted evidence for you to blatantly ignore, only to twist to your mind numbingly childish world view.
You're reputation of ignoring science and making egregious claims about the world brings in to question your "credentials" not only as someone worth engaging in a discussion where progress is the goal, but as someone who should be discussing such serious issues threatening the very existence of human kind as a whole in the first place.
I simply cannot abide such poisonous, wild misinformation being casually released to fan the flames of simpletons who's arguments are more reminiscent of an infant throwing a tantrum.
We have not had a science fiction writer as talented as you since the late Arthur C. Clarke.
REPLY: In other words, besides being a fake, you have nothing substantive to offer to the discussion. Toodles then – Anthony
"wild misinformation being casually released to fan the flames of simpletons who's arguments are more reminiscent of an infant throwing a tantrum."
Wow! That is an excellent description of what Warmists/Alarmists do in support of their position.
I may use it, thanks.
Bob –
May I suggest you use plenty of animations, they really like them. Beetter yet, make it entirely animated, that should ensure it will be watched. Oh, and do it in 3D. They just can't get enough of that 3D.
John F. Hultquist says:
> I do not watch television;
> – did from 1954; high lite was 1960 World Series with home run by Bill Mazeroski;
> – it has gone down hill since
> – TV quit 10 years ago, never replaced
> Have never seen Showtime.
I bought my first color TV to watch Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man. It was money well spent. (Carl Sagan's Cosmos was not.) 2013 is the 40th anniversary on the BBC, next year on PBS in the States. Yesterday I ordered a set of DVDs for wife & daughter, and to share at work and so on.
The next best thing was watching NASA-TV's coverage of the landing of Mars rover Curiosity. I think they called it 7 Minutes of Terror. Utterly amazing how many things had to work perfectly to get the rover down. And did. And no Walter Cronkite to talk over mission control.
A short video that mocks the ignorance of the Hollywood elite, like the famous "hide the decline" cartoon, would be wonderful!!!
Frankly your pissing into a less frequent hurricane here , facts be damned its all about 'the message '
Don't you know their 'saving the planet ' which means there is amount of BS which is to high for them to pile up.
John West
[Squawk] … [shh] … Dr. Walsh … paging Dr. Walsh …
"Have you ever wondered why cloudy nights are warmer than clear ones? That's the explanation."
Water vapor and clouds are the major variables determining the downwelling IR, not CO2.
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
Rusty Shackleford: Thank you for your December 16, 2013 at 12:35 pm reply. As I suspected, you are not able to confirm the claim you made in your earlier comment. That's a shame. You were so well written I was hoping to learn something today. Sadly, you had nothing to offer.
My reputation is sound, which is why this post ranked in the top ten blog posts in WordPress "What's hot" list today. And there's a very basic reason why my reputation is so sound. I present data. That's fundamentally it. Nothing special. I also present the outputs of climate models for comparison to data and rarely do the model outputs and data agree. This post was actually a break for me because I used a lot of graphs created by others.
Thanks for visiting my blog today, too. But next time, in addition to clicking on the links to the categories I provided in comments above, you might want to also open the blog posts in those lists. That way you can see what I actually presented…instead of simply looking at a list of the titles to the posts. Then again, you may be too blinded by your own assumptions to fully appreciate what's there.
Sadly, Rusty, you were a disappointment. I was looking forward to a nice detailed discussion.
Bob's piece is a comprehensive smackdown of extreme climate, dangerous warming, unprecedented climate change horse crap. Alas, they don't care about the facts, they care about making money out of this con job. By the way has James Cameron got rid of on of his adjacent villas (each with a pool) and his fleet of cars, a fire engine, motorbikes, submarine etc? LOL.
Steve Reddish
Wow!! Rusty's post is a keeper – if only because it is the best (or worst) example of CAGW debating methodology I have seen in a while. It is totally fact-free, while containing all the tell-tale ingredients:
challenging credentials
arguing from authority
sanctimoniousness
projection of faults
use of fancy words without actually understanding their meaning
garbled syntax
misused punctuation
and just plain idiocy: his conscience will not let him share data supporting CAGW!
Adrian Mann
Now this is all fine and dandy – a comprehensive, coherent, well researched and presented dismantling of the whole sorry fiasco that is CAGW but I fear it's pearls before swine. Unfortunately, the A-list celebutards that have been enlisted to further the cause are dim, easily lead, gullible fools that have little more going for them than good looks and good agents. What they're bothered about is their public image and their box-office appeal, ratings or sales, which means more movies, TV shows, contracts, more adoration, more money, more fame. So long as the majority of the consumers of whatever it is they do side with whatever cause it is, that's the bandwagon they'll jump on, science and facts be damned. Only when public opinion turns will they turn. Just follow the money.
The nineteenth century French politician Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin is supposed to have said, on seeing a crowd marching through Paris, 'There go my people. I must find out where they're going so I can lead them'. And that's what we have here.
Now, come up with a pitch for a movie, where a group of disgruntled and underfunded researchers get together with lobbyists and activists, enlist the help of gullible but well meaning public figures to perpetrate a monstrous scam on the entire world, hoodwinking media, the UN, governments and the people, syphoning off titanic mountains of cash along the way, and then, on the verge of being exposed as frauds due to the incontrivertible mass off evidence, quietly divert attention and slip away with the loot, leaving a confused and betrayed people wondering how they got fooled for so long, and you might have something… think "Wall Street" meets "Inception" meets "The Matrix", with a dash of "All the Presidents Men" and "The West Wing". Until that happy day, it's going to be trench warfare. Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
@ Jimbo, I watched it, it did not tie down my arms but thanks for the warning. Being realistic re the Gore, Cameroon's and their ilk I did not expect anything less. (but my blood temp went in to global warming syndrome, the hockey stick version thereof.)
At rabbit, these people sadly enough have so much money they won't even notice, ( look at Cameron's homestead) and it becomes a write off anyway.
You know, Rusty Shackleford, I can't help but wonder if you are one of the numerous people involved in "Years of Living Dangerously". If so, 2013 weather must have been a terrible disappointment for you and the others.
Arctic sea ice was nowhere close to record lows. And there were record highs for sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere.
There were very few hurricanes. And the drought of strong hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. continued for yet another year.
There were comparatively very few tornados this year.
No great floods in the U.S.
There was a substantial lessening of the drought conditions in the U.S., even in Texas.
Few heat waves to speak of in the U.S.
U.S. wildfires in 2013 were much lower than usual.
And there were numerous peer-reviewed papers that illustrated and discussed (1) how crappy climate models perform and (2) how conditions now are not unusual compared to those 2000 to 5000 years ago.
All in all, 2013 was a bad year for alarmists.
Anytime you'd like to continue this discussion, please feel free to drop by my blog and ask questions. But I would appreciate it if you'd drop the fake identity.
Thanks for entertaining us on this thread.
"Bob, as much as I would love to do your job for you I cannot…"&etc.
That is about as clear of an admission that "Rusty Shacklefor" doesn't understand debate as he could provide.
Most readers of this award winning site are very science literate. We can understand and follow the debate, because we have a background and/or an interest in science issues.
But not Mr Shackleford, who has only made a series of ignorant, unscientific ad hominem comments. He will not take a stand regarding any particular scientific point, obviously because he would have his clock cleaned by Bob and others who thoroughly understand the issues.
'Shackleford' is merely one of the many zombies who have taken a stand based on their politics, not on science. Now he is stuck, trying to wing it. That works at the thinly-trafficked alarmist echo chamber blogs that are populated by the typical small handful of like minded head-nodders. But here, 'Rusty' is in way over his head.
I'm calling you out, RS: I challenge you to pick any particular scientific point, or fact, or chart, or graph that Bob has posted, and refute it based on empirical evidence and verifiable facts…
…if you can.
JimF
Bob, those massive celebrity intellects won't get past the first chart you showed. They are mental ciphers, riding some wave that they think is good for their futures. But we appreciate your efforts.
bobl
Dr Walsh, unfortunately you have come to a science site armed with a mere anecdote that CO2 is capable of absorbing (well more like diffusing) IR light. We aren't stupid you know, we know that! In fact, In the bands of real interest, actually that diffusion occurs much earlier. But it's all irrelevant, in the bands of light in which this happens, there is only so much energy to diffuse, the radiative mechanisms are already intercepting over 85 % of that incident energy for our mere 33 degrees (all causes) of warming above blackbody, how much more can actually happen?
Even given the party trick you saw, if the CO2 you saw rose 5 degrees, now take that bag of CO2 and then spread it out inside an aircraft hanger in the ratio of one part CO2 to 2500 parts air – how much difference is that going to make to the temperature in the hangar?
You talk about blankets (poor analogy because blankets warm by preventing convection cooling but we'll give you the benefit of the doubt and use your analogy). This CO2 blanket is a pretty leaky one covering just 0.04% (0.0004) of you body, I doubt your left foot would be warmed by that blanket. Put another way a bed sheet may be about 500 threads per inch, our CO2 equivalent is 1 thread every 5 inches.
On, this site we discuss feedbacks, UHI, CO2 equilibrium residence time, dynamic biosphere adaption, energy budget, hydrglrological response. We are well beyond "Is CO2 a GHG".
That must be a record, Rusty slapped down to the point of giving up in just two posts, really the quality of pro AGW, anti-science trolls is slipping fast.
Reed Coray
Dr Colin Walsh says: December 16, 2013 at 5:13 am
If between the camera and the flame you had placed a mirror facing the flame, the camera would also not see the flame. Would you conclude that the energy warms up the mirror? It does, but only a little bit. Mostly, the flame's IR radiation, like the flame's visible radiation is reflected by the mirror. What you observed is the absorption of IR radiation by CO2. If you had aimed the camera not at the flame but at the chamber at an oblique angle (i.e., not directly are the candle) in the case of an air-filled chamber you would have registered some but not much IR energy, and in the case of a CO2 filled chamber, you would have seen a higher level of IR energy. It's true that the IR energy warms the CO2. But the CO2 also radiates IR energy in all directions. The issue isn't whether or not CO2 absorbs/radiates IR energy–it does. The issue is whether the net result of such IR absorption/radiation coupled with heat transfer via conduction/convection results is an increase in temperature–not of the gas, but of material surrounded by the gas. CO2 in the atmosphere will likely cause an increase in Earth surface temperature. However, injecting CO2 into the vacuum region of a thermos bottle has the opposite effect. If you don't believe this, try to find a thermos bottle that advertises its improved heat storing capability because instead of a vacuum between the thermos bottle chamber wall and the thermos bottle outer wall, CO2 gas is injected into that region.
Mr Tisdale
I enjoy your posts, and appreciate your efforts.
One small niggle however, two of your graphs seem to show a negative mass of water in the atmosphere. Axes mislabelled?
Michael D Smith
Nice work Bob. Anticipating what I estimate will be yet another alarmist hit piece with little foundation in science or actual observations, I have taken the liberty of reserving the hashtag #LiesCameronTells so that we can identify and correct his misrepresentations one by one as the series comes out.
It might be as big as #ClimateThanks!
http://www.hashtags.org/definition/liescamerontells/
@naturalclimate
Its very good to have one post consolidate so much data into one place, thank you!
However, I suspect that, to reach the intended target audience, a Hollywood style 'pitch' is required.
After all, that is how the idea of this film content would have been 'sold' to the actors in the first place.
Perhaps a few emails to each of the 'stars' fan clubs would not go amiss in pointing out the stupidity of their actions?
Do WUWT readers have any ideas for 'pitches' or emails?
ghl: The graphs of specific humidity and precipitable water are anomalies. One was identified as anomalies, the other wasn't. Sorry.
[enumerated list of squibs]
You forgot to mention that the GASTA Plateau persists.
Overwhelming!
As many of his posts Bob's open letter is too well documented and articulated to have any chance to capture the attention of the destinee.
Facts are boring, fear sells better.
He cares for facts and evidences, they care for emotion and post-modern virtual life.
In addition, the money is not on his side but rather in the movie & entertainment business, in the creation of a bubble of non-nuclear alternative energy sources, and in the decerebration of the masses (= muti-media advertisement business).
Bob I wish you well but I'm afraid that "Years of living dangerously" will be produced and forcefully distributed without any consideration for you disturbing remarks
"My reputation is sound."
On this particular site, your reputation as a blogger is sound. Do you have any scientific reputation? Any qualifications?
Mr. Lion
There are far too many "words, facts and things" in your letter to be in any way comprehended by virtually everyone in Hollywood.
From the information given by commenters to this site it appears that the multimillionaire 'Hollywood Royalty' written to can afford to pay for any increasing 'carbon tax', with their big mansions, helicopters, Humvee's, yachts etc. Obviously the message in their alarmist propaganda is only for the poor peasants who can't afford the increasing energy costs for their own modest energy requirements.
The message is, "please increase my fortune, so I can play with more of my 'carbon using' toys".
"You poor people, you must pay more and save the planet, no time to lose".
You should publish the email addresses of these people, imo, so we can give them a piece of our minds. They have no right to privacy in this issue at all and it would be interesting to see them get a landslide of negativity
Tom Friedman, is the perfect example of a shyster who uses a phony degree to get a job he could not attain honestly and that is the job of Climate Expert! What he knows about Climate, you could put in a tube of travel sized toothpaste. As a writer on the mideast he was fine but in the last 20 years he seems to think he is a guru and can tell the rest of us what's up on every subject known to man. He is the perfect poster boy of liberal arrogance.
I used to think some of the megalomaniac characters in Hollywood films were a bit far fetched, but on second thoughts perhaps they were modelled on the producers?
If someone sent them a script with an evil megalomaniac preaching to everyone else to lower their 'carbon footprint' in order to 'save the polar bears' while they themselves were making money out of it and had the largest 'carbon footprint' of all would they think it a bit far fetched?
ThinAir
Just cancel your cable or Showtime subscription for the month. Maybe they will notice.
Man, this guy has Jessica Alba's email address?