Regarding Bob Armstrong claims - seeking technical information - updated 12/30/15

I'm curious if anyone might offer some technical details and other observations?  Specifically, explaining the flaws in one Bob Armstrong's attacks on science and fundamental physics understanding.  

You see, I like to believe that a good deal of my audience consists of informed students and some actual scientists - it's time for me to put it to a test.  You who do possess the knowledge to see through Bob's game, can you help teach me how to explain it?

Bob Armstrong plays an interesting game.  He projects an image of the well-meaning "independent student" engaged in a sincere effort to understand basic physical principles and extrapolate those principles into the real world.  But, I've been reading the way he distorts his science while weaving his political paranoia into the interpretation of his "intellectual breakthrough".

Worse, he also displays a visceral contempt for established experts, people who have actually dedicated their lives to learning about these matters he professes his sudden interest in. 

Back to the issue at hand: Bob Armstrong's supposed rewriting of "settled physics" and his contempt for the "consensus" understanding.  I'll admit I take a different approach.  While I tend to be skeptical of all I hear - at least until mounting evidence turns a claim into something more substantial - I admit it's been good enough for me to know many thousands of experts have been refining this understanding for centuries and decades.  

Bob, on the other hand has convinced himself all those accomplished experts are too stupid to grasp the basics.  Since I've been spending time looking into Bob's spiel and all the bizarre dead-ends they lead me into, I've been wanting to know a bit more about it.  

Thus, I'm sending out this plea into the ether for someone(s) who are fluent in these matters to spend a few minutes explaining their understanding and observations regarding the various deceptions Bob Armstrong has been projecting.  

Supplemental links to further learning sources would also be much appreciated.  To link in comments: <a href="-----">???</a>
Simple straight-forward response would be welcome.  Clarity is the object.  

I have listed five specifics followed by own understanding and questions, followed by Bob's quotes in their complete context.

________________________________________________

Armstrong:  "the deep relationship between equilibrium temperatures and gravity" 

1000frolly and how the science denying PR machine operates

Lately I've been marveling at the prodigious output of disingenuous climate science ridiculing videos by a certain 1000frolly at YouTube.  He went into over-drive around the Paris climate conference:

4 in the past 24 hours (+4)

11 in the past 2 days (+7)

19 in the past week (+8)

27 in the past 2 weeks (+8)

31 in the past 3 weeks (+4)

39 in the past month (+8)

Everything from "The rise of eco terrorism" - "our last year of freedom?" - to "human CO2 emission are wholly beneficial" - to claiming the scientific understanding of greenhouse gases is a big hoax, of course, ignoring all the modern marvels that demand and in their own way prove that thorough understanding!  

His videos exude such a contempt for Earth's physical being and processes - along with hostility and a contrived paranoid attitude towards their 'opponents' and the established scientific community at large, that I've been increasingly curious about who's behind this YouTube Channel.  

Today I came across an indication that this 1000frolly might be the infamous  Lord  Monckton himself.  This piqued my interest since I've had a few go-arounds with both 1000frolly and the Lord himself, whom I'll admit I studied closely for a while and am in awe of, as a political performer that is.  Unfortunately, the substance of his rhetoric is loaded with malicious fraud.  

Trying to solve the mystery I visited two of his YouTube vids and asked him straight out if he was Lord Monckton, so far no response. (1000frolly has responded with the highbrow: "Sorry; I only answer scientific questions.")  Later while trying to track down more information I came across this excellent exposition on one particular chapter in the War on Science which did such a good job of detailing the networks and connection at work, including Monckton and 1000frolly, that I thought it should be added to my collection.  Regarding the mystery of who's behind 1000frolly if anyone out there has any information please do share.

Now I will hand it over to John Mashey who has done some detailed research into the ways and means of the climate science contrarian PR campaign again people's right to learn about serious climate science and their one and only planet.

\

https://www.desmogblog.com/2013/08/25/defamation-by-internet-part-1-murry-salbys-short-lived-blog-storm

Looks like a Consensus!… even to Oil Industry experts!

For all the crazy-making reruns the Republican science denying PR machine has been bombarding the public with since the Paris climate talks, the bottom line remains that their campaign is built on a card-house of lies and character assassination, bound together by the wishful thinking of people who's imagination and curiosity to understand our planet doesn't extend beyond their own self-interested pocket-books.  

The moranos, moncktons, and wattzers have nothing but their paranoia and loathing for others.  Well, they also have an acquiescent equally self-interested public that simply does not want to know about this challenging threat to our way of life.  Thereby making them an easy mark.

As it turns out, in the real world of our physical planet, the things I learned about climate science way back in the seventies turn out to have been quite accurate science that even oil industry experts agreed on.  From my perspective of paying attention to Earth observations since those days, that AGW understanding has been getting reaffirmed by the events of every succeeding year - all the while our right-wing PR machine keeps getting increasingly disconnected from down to earth realities.

Yet, all it takes to unravel the confusion is a bit of honest curiosity, objectivity, self-skepticism, and a willingness to allow the full spectrum of evidence to determine our understanding.  Oh, and a desire to understand our planet's global heat and moisture distribution engine is also a prerequisite!

Back to that consensus of experts who actually understand the fine details of these matters, it seems the understanding was way broader than we've been led to believe.  For that part of this story, I'll let Inside Climate News take over, 
(the following is a teaser, please link to their full article):

"Exxon's Oil Industry Peers Knew About Climate Dangers in the 1970s, Too"

Members of an American Petroleum Institute task force on CO2 included scientists from nearly every major oil company, including Exxon, Texaco and Shell.

by Neela Banerjee, INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS  \   December 22, 2015

The American Petroleum Institute together with the nation's largest oil companies ran a task force to monitor and share climate research between 1979 and 1983, indicating that the oil industry, not just Exxon alone, was aware of its possible impact on the world's climate far earlier than previously known.

The group's members included senior scientists and engineers from nearly every major U.S. and multinational oil and gas company, including Exxon, Mobil, Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, Sunoco, Sohio and Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil, the predecessors to Chevron, according to internal documents obtained by InsideClimate News and interviews with the task force's former director.

An InsideClimate News investigative series has shown that Exxon launched its own cutting-edge CO2 sampling program in 1978

Now Republicans are cheering for Global Warming

Now that the Paris Climate Conference is over, it's been astounding, and heart wrenching, seeing how the Republican anti climate science crowd has double-downed on their incessant campaign of contrarian crazy-making, I mean YouTube and the internet in general has been getting carpet-bombed with contrarian talks and arguments of the most juvenile rung, but it seems to satisfy their constituency, no one is complaining.

I mean ignorant dismissiveness stuff such as:

R Jr. wrote: CitizensChallenge, We live in an Ice Age. You know those little white things at the poles? Warming is good, otherwise when the Holocene ends, the cold, lack of rain, increased deserts and extreme storms will kill 7+ billion. Oops!

End the Ice Age. Promote Global Warming. Warmth promotes life.

(informative links explaining the science behind my claims is offered at the end of this post)

_________________________

R Jr. has never taken the time to learn about how important those big white things at the poles (along with the pretty white things on top of mountains throughout the world) are to this biosphere humanity evolved within, and is dependent on.

Losing the Arctic's ice cap is going to force radical changes onto ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, along with allowing the ocean water to directly absorb sunlight that used to get reflected back to space - all this will profoundly disrupt the flow of the Jet Streams along with the weather that they create.

As for the glaciers throughout the world, they are keystones of regional hydrologic and weather patterns, along with stabilizers of river flows.  But, Republicans are thoughtlessly cheering on the end of those patterns that our society has become dependent on.  Why?

Don't people understand that our farms, transportation, energy infrastructure, even daily quality of life are all intimately connected to relatively benign and predictable weather patterns.  Losing the polar ice caps and mountain glaciers means radically disrupting those weather patterns and the hydrologic cycles that regional economies and people are dependent on.

Reflecting on our failure to appreciate the weather

Twenty years ago I came across a cartoon by Mike Keefe in the Denver Post that captured an attitude I had found all too pervasive among my fellow Americans: the attitude of entitlement and detached disregard for understanding how our global climate system operates.

It inspired me to write an essay describing my understanding of our planet’s climate system, and it was published in the November/December 1995 issue of the Humanist magazine. Rereading it recently, I noticed some minor errors but the basic story remains as accurate today as it was back then. Since anniversaries are a good time to reflect on history and how far we’ve come (or not), I wrote a twenty year reflection which the Humanist printed in their recent Nov/Dec 2015 issue.  This is a slightly altered version and I've included many links to further information.

I thank Mike for the permission to use his cartoon.

I think it’s worth recalling where our understanding of climate change was twenty years ago.  Though there were fewer media outlets back then, they were more objective and for the most part offered straightforward climate science information. After all, it’s not that tough a story to summarize, even if the details get devilishly difficult.

By ’95 we had learned that weather is the product of climate conditions and that Earth’s climate conditions fluctuated. We knew that CO2 and other greenhouse gases were a major regulator of those fluctuations.

At the same time we were also being forced to confront the reality that it was our own burning of fossil fuels and the machines behind our modern marvels and lavish lifestyles that were increasingly belching “gaseous insulation” into our atmosphere.

Consider George Marshall's "Don't even think about it"

I don't have the free time for sitting around and reading books, fortunately with AudioBooks I can still get at and digest many quality book.  One I've listened to a couple times is George Marshall's "Don't even think about it" which I found quite thought provoking, though I don't personally embrace everything he writes.
  
Then a couple days ago while chasing down another disingenuous contrarian claim I stumbled onto a short video where he summarized his ideas.  It inspired me to listen to something a bit longer and more satisfying that wrestling with yet another con artists' science bashing trash-talk.  At least Marshall shares some enlightening thoughts that we can build on.  (Even if he leaves out a very important key to our inability to grasp what's going down upon our planet - namely, our general disconnect from appreciating our physical planet and the pageant of evolution that got us here.) 

Still, since it fits right into the theme of my musing and struggle to wrap my head around the Republican/libertarian rejection of the realities of our physical world and their ability to totally wrap themselves within a cocoon of a concocted enemy saturated make-believe narrative - one that excludes all reflection and self-skepticism, I've decided to dedicate a post to his talk.  First, I share his quickie overview, followed by an hour long talk followed by a Q/A moderated by George Monbiot.  This I follow with a list of time-signature talking points for the interested student, in turn followed by some thoughts regarding our disconnect from the realities of our physical planet Earth.

Don't even think about it.  by George Marshall

Published on Nov 11, 2014 |  Bloomsbury Publishing  |  4:42

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy68L5jglAg

A witty, insightful, and groundbreaking take on one of the most urgent questions of our time: Why, despite overwhelming scientific evidence, do we still ignore climate change?

____________________________________________________________

George Marshall "Don't Even Think About It" with George Monbiot

Published on Nov 6, 2014 |  Climate Outreach  | 1:30:57

Sock-Puppet's Go-To Sources vs. Science Go-To Sources

Juxtaposing 'trusted' websites of "climate science skeptics" with those of "warmists". 

Recently I had a dialogue with a character who talked with much self-certitude - but little actual interest in the science, though he did try talking science-ie.  He also offered a number of links to support his arguments.  I made a tally and it's quite the Who's Who of political interests focused on promoting their agenda rather than global climate understanding. 

Then, this morning, I came across an interesting 22 item long collection by Peter Gaeta who (like me has taken the time to seriously investigate contrarian claims) put together "… some CRUCIAL links/information on global warming that have proven utterly accurate and reputable" and since he invites us to share his effort, I am happy to do it, particularly since it makes such a perfect contrast to my collection regarding science contrarian blogs.
  
You can find Gaeta's list following my collection of links.  Feel free to copy and pass along these interesting links to important information.

The names below are linked to revealing bios and further information:

CO2Science   (Craig   Idso}

WUWT   (Anthony    Watts)

Climate Depot   (Marc   Morano)

NoFrakkingConsensus  (Donna   Laframboise)

Climatism  (John   Coleman)

SPPI   (Idso,   Carter,   Soon)

Roy  Spenser  (Roy's blunders)

Freeman   Dyson {The ancient theoretical physicist and dreamer who's still pissed at the world for not allowing him to build his atomic bomb powered spaceship.}

Then there's Heartland Institute: