Michael E. Kraft: Climate-change deniers deserve punishment

The internet is abuzz with that headline as the Republican/libertarian anti-science echo-chamber is busy creating a new enemy du jour.  Interestingly, "punishment" doesn't appear once in the text of the story, or in anything Dr. Kraft said (I suspect their aggravation is an indication of denialista's guilty conscience more than anything). 

The word was embedded in the headline, written by an editor seeking to sell copy.  Yet, yet, just like the Dr. Viner "no snow lie", these politically motivated folks couldn't give a damned about facts, or honestly, or learning, instead they are off and running with yet another maliciously misleading headline intend on slandering a respected productive scientist, while ignoring the substance of the article itself.

http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/20160411/michael-e-kraft-climate-change-deniers-deserve-punishment

Michael E. Kraft: Climate-change deniers deserve punishment
By Michael E. Kraft
Posted Apr. 11, 2016 

… However, denying the best scientific evidence we have is neither smart nor safe. It could lead to greater societal harm than if we had taken sensible action when reliable knowledge was first available. 

Dismissal of well-established climate science has parallels to decades of debate over tobacco use and its effects on health. Tobacco companies long denied any causal relation ...
Similarly, some fossil fuel companies for decades publicly rejected established climate science and the role of burning fossil fuels in anthropogenic climate change while their internal studies confirmed both.
... 

This is what a scientist sounds like, Dr. Randall on Clouds and such.

In my recent series, "Profiles in Malicious Deception", one of the main characters was the notion that Solar influences and Cosmic Rays somehow control cloud formation via "micro-physical effects".  One Henrik Svensmark and other boosters of this notion go on to claim that clouds are the actual regulators of our planet's temperature, so we need not worry about the gigatons of CO2 we keep adding to our planet's atmospheric carbon cycle at ever faster pace.

It's quite irrational thinking, full of ignored non sequiturs and supported by nothing more than an absolutist self-certainty and ridicule towards all attempts at constructive debate, dialogue, or education.

I'd always intended to follow up with a good YouTube lecture of a scientist explaining the basics about clouds and their role in our global heat and moisture distribution engine.  It took some effort to find and a while to finish my notes, it was worth it, since it makes a heck of a contrast to 1000frolly's presumptuous, insult dripping approach to explaining science.  This man I enjoyed listening to.  Taking notes was an enlightening process rather than the drag 1000frolly's video was.  I've included my notes under his video. 
This is what a scientist sounds like.

Professor David Randall: 

The Role of Clouds and Water Vapor 
in Climate Change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjE4GDC7afQ

Simon Fraser University

Uploaded on Apr 14, 2011

Dr. David Randall: Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences

Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 

This lecture is part of SFU's 2011 global warming seminar series 

"Global Warming: A Science Perspective".

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1:06 - Professor David Randall - Thanks very much for the introduction and for the invitation.  I'm very happy to be here.

Outline of talk

1)  Climate change on the back of an envelope

2)  Climate models

2)  Cloud and water vapor feedbacks

2:10  -   Climate change on the back of an envelope.

Why do we think that more co2 wall make the climate warm up?

Is it because of trends in the observational record (correlation between temps and CO2)?

    No.  That is not the reason.

Is it because of computer climate models?

    No.  That is not the reason.

It is a lot simpler than that.

The climate system does what it does because it's heated.  

There's a pattern of heating and cooling if you change the heating, you change the climate and this is basically why we expect a climate change in response to increasing greenhouse gases.

CAGW (CO2 science), let’s not jump to conclusions...

My splendid period of 'down time' has come and gone, my life is once again crowded with work and other obligations, so my 'puter and blogging time has been slashed.  I do have a couple projects close to finished, but nothing ready to post.  This evening I just wanted to share a comment I made over at Center For Inquiry.   It speaks to one of the issues I believe needs better enunciating and broadcasting.

Dude says: "As for the catastrophic global warming, let’s not jump from the frying pan into the fire."

Citizenschallenge writes: To my ears, this sounds like another fool ridiculing the notion of CAGW. 

That would be catastrophic anthropogenic global warming - that would be a warming of our Earth (and its climate system) causing our planet to become inhospitable to human wants, expectations, needs and ability to cope with.

Here are a few questions such individuals refuse to respond to:

CC:  What, you don’t believe in the reality of accumulating compounding interest?  What about acknowledging trends?

Why reject the evidence that Atmospheric Greenhouse gases are increasing at an unheard of rate; that we are responsible for it; and that they will remain in the atmosphere a very long time?  Science tells us these gases are atmospheric insulation. - Reality tells us temps are increasing and glaciers are melting at frightening and increasing speeds. - But Republicans/libertarians want to play word games and pretend away this reality with distractions into an endless smoke and mirrors labyrinth of trivial pursuits. 

Why do you think the trends in glacier melting are going to reverse themselves under the current regime?
                                                                                                         Why do you believe rising sea levels aren’t going to severely impact coastal cities, infrastructure and population centers in massive catastrophically disruptive ways?

Why, don’t you think the disruption of millennia’s old seasonal cycles and scrambling the interconnected coordination between a vast variety of living organisms is going to wreak havoc with our agriculture bounty?  

Here are some realities such individuals refuse to acknowledge:

CC:  We have a society today where most people don’t have a clue how complex and interdependent the public infrastructure, that enables all this, has become. People take the weather and moderate temperatures for granted never realizing what a knife edge society has always lived by. Tweak those parameters just a few degrees up or down and it makes a huge, life altering difference to the inhabitants of this planet.

Today in Earth's history, humanity with our fossil fuels burning are in the driver’s seat - what part of that doesn’t make sense to Republican and libertarian types?            Please someone explain!
How can the Republican/libertarian PR machine of supposed grown-ups justify pretending CO2 Science is a hoax?

Society has made incredible strides in the past couple hundred years, “escaping” ancient constraints - unfortunately we younger generations have become reckless thanks to our mass-media fed sense of entitlement that instills an apathy that inturn breeds ignorance, laziness and blindness.  

It’s a story that’s old as humankind, new generations thoughtlessly squandering the hard won achievements of their elders and winding up destitute.  Only this time around we’ve run out of new horizons for our children, and future generations, to escape to and start the cycle of exploitation and thoughtless destruction yet again.  

The only thing you can bet on these days is that there is a terrible reckoning barreling down on us, yet look to our political and business leaders.  All I see is smoke’n-mirrors from disingenuous scoundrels.

(This is comment 208 of a rambling affair about how to avoid Climate Model lessons, if you're curious, link here)