Steele saga - Repost 4/5 - Jim can you clarify your argument?

  

This is a reposting of the forth of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again.

Here's an example of my process in action and using these incidents to further my own understanding.  While Jim was off at his private club trashing me, I was trying to find a way to simplify the issues for more constructive discussion.

I tried boiling it down to it's most fundamental and came up with two basic questions for Jim.  I figured this would be a good place to start our debate, but Mr. Steele pretended not to hear.  

How about it Jim, you've had over a year to stew on it.

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Friday, January 30, 2015

Mr. Jim Steele, Can you clarify your argument?

A) That wildlife biologists working in extreme conditions and over continental landscapes make mistakes?

B) Disputing that Anthropogenic Global Warming with it's profound changing climate driven landscapes alterations causes adverse cascading consequences for wildlife and eco-systems (read our biosphere)?  

LandscapesAndCycles blinded by belief - The straight poop on penguins indeed ¶1/6

{touch up edits completed}

The following post reviews the first six paragraphs of an essay written by Mr. Jim Steele: "Blinded by Beliefs:TheStraightPoopOnEmperorPenguins."  The essay grossly misrepresents scientific studies and observations; while unjustly slandering honorable trustworthy scientists.  My intention is to outline it's many errors as rationally as possible, while presenting links to many authoritative sources that offer independent learning opportunities to help you decide.

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LandscapesAndCycles' childish opening shot intentionally trivializes the situation, 

after all penguins have been acclimatized to those harsh weather conditions
and that environment, its food-web, and its seasonal rhythms 
since time immemorial  

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landscapesandcycles.net/resilient-emperor-penguin.html

Blinded by Beliefs: The Straight Poop on Emperor Penguins

  July 1, 2014 {I've added the red highlights}

Adapted from the chapter The Emperor Penguin Has No Clothes in Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism by Jim Steele  

{The essay's text is in courier font) 

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The essay starts out by constructing a phony, but dramatic, stage setting.

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¶1  "Two recent press releases concerning the Emperor Penguin’s fate illustrate contrasting forces that will either advance or suppress trustworthy conservation science."

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Think about what's been done with these words.  They artfully imply that there's a struggle going on between a cadre of biased untrustworthy closed minded ('environmentalist'?) scientists and "trustworthy" scientists.  It's pure innuendo with malicious intent, based on misrepresentation, misdirection and ignoring huge swaths of available information.  

Making judgements based on media stories is dishonest.  A serious discussion demands we go to first-hand sources instead of relying on political theater.  Doing so reveals a community of individuals dedicated to learning and understanding.  It is alive with constructive skepticism and honest debate.  With the full scope of available evidence informing the collective state of understanding.

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Embodying that truism is a paper by lead author Dr. Michelle LaRue who reports new advances in reading the Emperor Penguin’s fecal stains on Antarctic sea ice that are visible in satellite pictures. Two years ago the fecal stain method identified several large, hitherto unknown colonies and nearly doubled our estimate of the world’s Emperor Penguins.^1,2 
That didn’t mean climate change had necessarily increased penguin numbers, but a larger more robust population meant Emperor Penguins were far more resilient to any form of change.

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"far more resilient to any form of change."  Nonsense, the study makes no claims about resilience to "any form of change."  

In fact, the LaRue et. al study was about a pioneering method utilizing high resolution satellite imagery to gather a more complete and accurate population count on a continent wide scale.  Dr. LaRue does indeed acknowledge the many developing environmental threats facing penguins.   

What the study means is that some population counts and assumptions need reassessment, but it says nothing about penguin resilience; or the threats they face because of their changing landscape.  Nor does it have anything to say about the 70s population decline around Dumont d’Urville.  Here's what the study actually says {my highlights}:

possessed by the idea of catastrophic climate change?

My "LandscapesAndCycles Penguin Poop (7/1/14)" critique project keeps stretching out.  The price of taking Mr. Steele's advice and going to first sources with my questions.  But, it's a small price indeed considering the many responses and scientific papers I've been receiving and reading, nearly 50 at last count. 

I keep getting closer, but it's still not ready for posting, though I did make it down to the final paragraph today which is such a text book example of deception, and of the ruthless disregard for the civility our man Steele professes and expects of others, that I decided it deserves it's own write up.  

"¶19  "... despite the lack of any warming trend what so ever, the scientific literature is spammed and the public bombarded with more propaganda claiming climate change has put penguins in peril. ... Robert Bolton wrote, “A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind” and catastrophic climate change is tragically possessing too many minds."" 

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As for the "lack of warming trend whatsoever" 

this video puts the big picture into perspective, 

followed by links that put the Antarctic situation into perspective,
followed by a look at this CAGW that's "possessing minds".

ClimateCentral.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1J09xL0NGQ

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Mr. Jim Steele, Can you clarify your argument?

A) That wildlife biologists working in extreme conditions and over continental landscapes make mistakes?

B) Disputing that Anthropogenic Global Warming with it's profound changing climate driven landscapes alterations causes adverse cascading consequences for wildlife and eco-systems (read our biosphere)?  

Can Mr. Steele come clean and explain what his fundamental thesis is?

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I have been wrestling with Mr. Jim Steele's YouTube "Climate Science Horror Story" talk to the IEEE for quite a while because it slammed right into my long-time {some call it} obsession with trying to grasp how people can so easily lie to themselves about something as fundamental as understanding and appreciating how our fantastic, beautiful, bountiful, wonderful planet Earth functions and how our society and we ourselves are damaging it.

Besides the YouTube talk Mr. Steele has a blog "Landscapes And Cycles" and his spiel is that local landscapes and natural cycles are ALL important and that we the people should disregard the global.  His talk ignores that natural cycles and wildlife dynamics operate within the biosphere which is dependent on our Earth's protective atmosphere… which regulates the conditions our biosphere inhabits.  

To me it seems that Jim and his public doesn't want to recognize that we exist within a "global heat distribution engine" and that as with any engine when we supercharge it with extra fuel/energy {just like at NASCAR} that engine will break loose.