“Climate Fears and Finance” - A look at CRC's Dr. S.J. Allen’s fraud.

I will be taking a closer look at Dr. Steven Allen’s (Capital Research Center) YouTube feature, “Climate Fears and Finance” which is a stringing together of misrepresentations, innuendo and lies about a topic that is of critical importance to our future, after an introduction. 

Finishing my Investors Business Daily takedown was the usual let down.  No one seems concerned or interested.  No one wants to be bothered.  In my short email exchanges with Dr. Mann, I could almost hear him thinking: ‘Buddy, I got a bottom drawer full of this and worse! What do you want me to do about it?’  Thing is, that’s right.  He’s got far more important work to do with that incredible brain, his time is too precious to be squandered on such contrived delusionals.

Still, people should care.  In particular, I can’t grasp why there are so few knowledgable students who care about their futures and honesty enough to confront such trash in comments sections where ever that sort of fraud gets astro-turfed.  

Why aren’t hundreds writing the sort of take-downs I am - say what you will about my quality or tone, these dissections are to the point and packed with valid information that climate science contrarians always run and hide from.  Nor are they tough to put together, if you have a familiarity with the topic, a curiosity to search out more information and wrestle with arguments.  They also make excellent personal learning tools. 

Or, for that matter the older folks like me who have been attentive witnesses to the past decades of slow ominous degradation of the biosphere we were born into, mature people who resent juvenile malicious nonsense when they see it.  We have Potholer54 and Greenman3610, but need many more.  Why are we leaving the playing field open to these strategically manipulative fraudsters?

In any event I did what I could, it’s part of the record now, back to catching up on my wage slaving obligations.  In my spare time I've returned to wresting with the Map Territory Problem and am reading from suggestions that Trenberth and Francis offered and this.  Of course, such reading always leads to looking up more papers.  Check out one link, read the abstract, perhaps dig into the full paper if available, do a little searching for other stuff related to points raised, see something else that catches my eye, before I know, I’ve got multiple pages with a dozen tabs on each open and me overwhelmed with info overload and deeply humbled by the folds within folds of complexities.  That’s when I must step back allowing things to soak in, reestablish my grip on the fundamentals and to get some perspective.

If I visit CFI and am not careful my sparring mate Mikie The Contrarian will have me chasing another one of his shticks.  Which is how I discovered the scandalous Dr. S.J. Allen of the Capital Research Center where he’s Vice President & Chief Investigative Officer.  He previously served as press secretary to U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton, as editor of Tea Party Review magazine, and as senior researcher for Newt Gingrich 2012.  

edited 9/30/2017,  9:00 PM
Links to info re feedback mechanisms added October 11.

#5 Debating Republican Disconnect From Climate Science - Model Uncertainty

CC: I compliment E.M. for making the effort to explain himself and open himself up to critique.  That said, after reading his more detailed arguments, I don’t think I misunderstood at all.  I rather suspect E.M. isn’t aware of the memes he’s passing along like a destructive virus.

He has offered me the opportunity to describe the many games Republicans play with themselves in order to avoid facing our planet’s geophysical realities, for this opportunity I am grateful.

  

This will need to become a series if I’m going to do E.M.’s list justice.  For instance, the first paragraph offers me an opportunity to focus on the Republican PR machine’s unhinged dismissal of climate models and their accuracy.

_________________________________________________

E.M. writes:  I’m going to start this post by pointing out that you are taking the substance of my thoughts completely incorrectly. I put this on myself, as my thoughts were quickly written in a comment section and not articulated nearly as clearly as they could have been. 

My original statement came out poorly, and the questions I posed were intended not to critique the science of AGW, but to point out the limitations that arise from scientific modeling, easily the hardest task any research team is faced with.

________________________________________________

CC: No doubt climate models are among the most difficult and exacting challenges climate scientists undertake.  

But I wonder, Why not begin this topic with a review of all that climate models have been nailing with amazing precision?  What is the point of laser focusing on model uncertainties that deal with fine details?  Why do Republicans ignore the fundamental well understood facts?  
Being obsessed with all you don't know, does not enable learning!

E.M., are you willing to consider all the things climate models have been getting correct?

___________________________________________________

‘Climate models are unproven’–Actually, GCM’s have many confirmed successes under their belts

By Coby Beck on Nov 20, 2006

http://grist.org/article/climate-models-are-unproven/

… In 1988, James Hansen of NASA GISS fame predicted [PDF] that temperature would climb over the next 12 years, with a possible brief episode of cooling in the event of a large volcanic eruption. He made this prediction in a landmark paper and before a Senate hearing, which marked the official “coming out” to the general public of anthropogenic global warming. 

Twelve years later, he was proven remarkably correct, requiring adjustment only for the timing difference between the simulated future volcanic eruption and the actual eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

And let’s face it, every year of increasing global mean temperature is one more year of success for the climate models. The acceleration of the rise is also playing out as predicted, though to be fair, decades will need to pass before such confirmation is inarguable.

Putting global surface temperatures aside, there are some other significant model predictions made and confirmed:

• models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed;

• models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere, even while satellite readings seemed to disagree — but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, this warming has been observed;

• models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed;

• models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;

• models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this;

• models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening;

• and finally, to get back to where we started, models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and so far they are correct. …

Return of Lord of the Flies (#10…)

Oh dear, my ol pal AL can't leave it be.  

He again provides me with such an excellent example of what the Republican/libertarian PR Machine is all about and the tactics they are reduced to, I'm not letting it go to waste. 

It is posted with his words unaltered, no courtesy spell correction here.  I carry on a rhetorical conversation with AL, since he never listens to what his 'opponents' are trying to explain.  I figure it might help some appreciate what is going on out there in the Republican/libertarian alter-universe, since this is the way they go after any messenger of climate science education.

It's worth making a big deal out of, because this is how they keep us away from addressing the real issues, instead we continue wasting yet more precious irreplaceable time.

_________________________________________________

Arne wrote - February 6, 2016, 6:15 PM 

+Dave Smith Jesus, you're retarded. Just go back and read you own wall of text you have posted here. But I'm not surprised if you won't, since they are just dishonest ramblings.  (If you take the time to scroll up the interminable thread, you'll notice that Dave knows very well how to read scientific papers and respond to challenges in a even toned, polite, informative, I dare say, constructive, manner.)

Are Climate Science Skeptics new age Galileos ?

{Update -  if the topic interests you, here's a link to a must read article by Bart Verheggen:
John Christy, Richard McNider and Roy Spencer trying to overturn mainstream science by rewriting history and re-baselining graphs
February 22, 2014 by Bart Verheggen
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/john-christy-richard-mcnider-roy-spencer-flat-earth-hot-spot-figure-baseline/

Who are the Flat Earthers?

Before the advent of modern climatology, common wisdom had it that we tiny humans couldn’t possibly influence climate. Modern science shows we can. Yet John Christy and Richard McNider claim the exact opposite in a recent WSJ op-ed, in which they claim that their outdated views on climate somehow make them modern-day Galileo’s (or in their words: Why they are the ones declaring that the earth is round while the vast majority of the climate scientists persist in thinking the earth is flat). ...}

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

One of the tactics denialists use to avoid facing facts is diverting attention from the real issues with all sorts of irrelevant diversions.

An excellent example of this tactic is resorting to the Galileo Defense, in order to prop up scientists who have lost their legitimacy within the international community of scientists and experts - rather than focusing on discussing why these scientists have lost the trust of their colleagues.

As it happens I just heard this tactic used once too often, so have decided to do my little part in setting the record straight by sharing an interesting review of what the real issues were in Galileo's battles with the Catholic Church.