Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Global temperatures falling because El Nino ended? Well, THAT can’t be right. It’s completely contrary to the consensus of opinion in the scientific community.
Time to make a few “adjustments” to the readings.
Joe Doakes
Good politicized science, like good writing, is all in the rewriting.
Whenever your elite betters on the left thunder their jeremiads, telling you you need to adopt one or another of their draconian responses to some catastrophe just over the horizon, because science, remind them that the essence of science is disproving hypotheses.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Sure, things are great now but in 80 years, they’ll suck. So give me all your money today.
There’s a reason that message doesn’t resonate with ordinary voters and it has nothing to do with science.
Joe Doakes
The climate mafia strives for Al Capone. They achieve something more like Elmer Gantry.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
New article in Nature says the Earth is getting greener, more plants sucking more CO2 out of the air.
The article mentions that elevated atmospheric CO2 explains some of the greening but carefully avoids linking CO2 levels to temperature. But if green plants suck CO2 out of the air, then shouldn’t global greening lower atmospheric CO2? And if global warming is caused by CO2, which more plants are now sucking out of the air, shouldn’t that mitigate global warming?
I wonder if the computer models used by climate scientists incorporate enough CO2 reduction due to global greening?
Joe Doakes
The models do what they’re told to do.
Ten years or so ago, when Germany embarked on a trillion-dollar campaign to phase out fossil and nuclear power and replace it with wind, the Greens, the Climate-Change Mafia and the media – along with a whooole lot of Green Energy scammers – applauded like Comintern members at a Stalin speech.
Today? Crickets.
The government plans to cap the total amount of wind energy at 40 to 45 percent of national capacity, according to the report. By 2019, this policy would cause a massive reduction of 6,000 megawatts of wind power capacity compared to the end of 2015’s capacity.
“The domestic market for many [wind turbine] manufacturers collapses completely,” Julia Verlinden, a spokesperson for the German Green Party, told Berliner Zeitung. “With their plan, the federal government is killing the wind companies.” Verlinden goes on to blame the political influence of “old, fossil fuel power plants.”
They can “blame” the fact that “Green energy” is not economically sustainable.
At all.
When I was a kid, the world’s social justice warrior crowd warned us that the world was headed for inevitable catastrophic famine. Some of the very voices behind “global warming” today – Paul Ehrlich springs to mind – warned (and profited greatly from warning) us that India would be down to under 100 million people by 1990, and that Africa was going be pretty much revert to nature, its human inhabitants all starved out. Even the US was going to be the subject of “inevitable” food riots by the mid-eighties.
Naturally, the only possible remedy was to socialize the world economy.
Today?
People are wondering with a straight face if we have “too much food”, as the world has more overweight than malnourished people for the first time in history.
I fully expect to see a Kyoto Treaty for fat, sooner than later.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
It occurs to me that the Obama administration may be quietly supporting a Final Solution to global warming.
World population increased from 2 billion in 1950 to 7 billion today. All those extra people exhaling carbon dioxide, raising cattle that produce methane flatulence, heating their homes with natural gas, driving cars, charging their iPhones with electricity generated from burning coal . . . they all contribute to global warming. Hey, Liberals are right, global warming IS produced by mankind: the world simply has too many people emitting too much carbon.
It wouldn’t, if we could reduce world population back to 1950 levels. But how would we do it in a politically acceptable way? No Blood For Oil is still a favorite Liberal hymn.
If we support policies that undermine world-wide oil prices, the economy will collapse in oil-producing countries, leading to mass starvation, reducing the population, freeing up carbon credits for Americans.
If we release terrorists from Gitmo and also foment insurrection in Arab countries, civil war will break out leading to bloodshed, disease and starvation, reducing the population, freeing up carbon credits for Americans.
If we unleash the Ebola virus in Africa and the Zika virus in South America and warn women not to get pregnant for three years, we reduce the birth rate below replacement level, reducing the population, freeing up carbon credits for Americans.
If we let felons out of prison and decline to prosecute killers based on color, thousands will die in inner cities, reducing the population, freeing up carbon credits for wealthier Americans.
Europe is getting ready to eliminate millions of asylum seekers. North Korea is making noises – maybe a major war on that peninsula will draw in some neighbors to die fighting? And how are things between India and Pakistan right now, any chance they might massacre a few millions of each other’s citizens for us?
Genocide could turn out to be nicely guilt-free, as it’s not a choice, it’s a necessity to survive global warming. Settled science, doncha know? Maybe President Obama really will halt the rise of the oceans and begin the heal the planet. Boy, would I have egg on my face.
Joe Doakes
Omelette/eggs. Just saying.
To: Colgate
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re: Your Super Bowl Ad
Colgate,
So I watched the teaser for your Super Bowl spot:
I get it. There’s big money in appealing to the altruism of the soft-core social justice warrior. There’s a whole generation of Millennials out there who are impressed by symbols.
And I am not one of the people who “wastes” water like the guy in the ad. I’m way too frugal for that.
But I have a question. Several, actually:
Thanks in advance.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Driving SUVs burns fossil fuels gives off carbon, which causes a greenhouse effect, which heats the planet, causing global warming.
Except the planet isn’t getting warmer, according to temperature measurements.
Ah, but that’s because driving SUVs burning fossil fuels also gives off sulfate aerosols which cool the local area where they’re generated and therefore causes artificially low temperature readings, masking the extent of heating elsewhere around the world.
End result: global warming is worse than we thought because it’s hidden. Secret Global Warming. So hand over your money, quick!
I preferred “epicycles,” that was a more elegant solution to explain why the theory was correct in spite of the evidence.
Joe Doakes
I have a hunch Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary Samoan Lawyer is behind it all. “It’s not necessary for you to understand the theory, or even that it be legitimate. Merely that you keep the checks coming”.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
What the world needs now, is tin pot mayors and local dept heads to flit off to Paris, to save the environment by telling everyone else to stop using fuel to flit about. And to agitate for more outdoor refrigerated hockey rinks so no child ever needs to know the tragedy of soft ice in a January thaw.
Idiots. Has all the class and sense of a local ordinance to condemn war in the holy land, or to admonish the Boko Harem kidnappers, or other sweeping consequential mouthings of liberal platitudes.
Check out the list of dept heads, bike czars, you name it. Anyone with a government expense account is getting in on this one. Exhibit director at the Science Museum? I suppose that makes them the anointed climate expert? What with having created from plaster of paris and scraps of cloth an exhibit that is every bit as scientifically sound as the so-called consensus evidence.
Also – look who’s paying for it. Some do-gooder group. Which is funded by tax dollars. Which are contributed by cities, run by the politicians who are getting a free vacation in Paris. Money-laundering their graft and pretending it’s noble effort to save the planet. They never hold these conferences in Darfur or Mogadishu.
joe doakes
If this were the private sector, the regulatory authorities would squat on it like a rhinoceros with diarrhea.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Britain is ahead of the US in shifting to green power generated by wind and solar panels, the cost of which is subsidized by government.
Except when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow; then they need back-up power provided by diesel generator farms, the cost of which also is subsidized by government.
You might want to talk to your pals on the Met Council about requesting additional funding now to establish diesel backup generator farms alongside the solar panel farms, to keep the lights on when the sun goes down and the wind goes calm. No point waiting for a crisis to re-invent the wheel in Minnesota when we can see clearly how it’s already being done in Britain.
Joe Doakes
I know that they used to have these…things that utilized huge generators and economies of scale to generate massive amounts of power, powered by gas, oil, coal, or even nuclear power.
What were those?
JoeDoakes from Como Park notes the same thing I did yesterday:
Global warming alarmists lie with statistics to panic the public, hoping they’ll react in fear instead of reason.
This article from Powerline explains how to make a chart look scary by changing the scale.
I think gun controllers do it, too. I’ll look for examples.
Joe Doakes
You can pretty much name the issue: “war on women”; “Obamacare will lower the deficit”; Obama has added less to the debt than any president since the War; more gun laws equal less crime; the science is settled.
The Big Lie is a key part of the Democrat Party’s approach; to make up an alternate reality for their low-information base, without fear of being “fact-checked” by a media that is their PR agency Praetorian Guard.
Here’s the send-off line of Michelle Malkin’s piece on the ill-advised nature of the Pope’s jeremiad against air conditioning:
If the pontiff truly believes “excessive consumption” of modern conveniences is causing evil “climate change,” will he be shutting down and returning the multi-million-dollar system Carrier generously gifted to the Vatican Museums?
If not, I suggest, with all due respect, that Pope Francis do humanity a favor and refrain from blowing any more hot air unless he’s willing to stew in his own.
What is Malkin talking about?
I’ve been saying for years – when you add politics to science, you don’t get scientific politics – you get politicized science.
I can’t see how the same doesn’t go for religion.
The NYTimes sloooooowly backs away from the “Settled Science” of 47 years ago:
The New York Times just published an extraordinary “retro report”—a short video paired with an article—looking back at Paul Ehrlich’s “population bomb” theory, the fear that an uncontrolled human population would outstrip the ability of the Earth to support it.
The Times lays out some of the evidence for the theory’s failure, including the fact that the world’s population was about 3.5 billion when Ehrlich first made his apocalyptic prognostications in 1968. It’s 7 billion now, and we haven’t starved, we haven’t run out of resources, and we’re better off than we’ve ever been.
Although they never really admit wrongdoing:
And the Times is still committed to an outgrowth of the same apocalyptic theory. It cites British journalist Fred Pearce: “In Mr. Pearce’s view, the villain is not overpopulation but, rather, overconsumption. ‘We can survive massive demographic change,’ he said in 2011. But he is less sanguine about the overuse of available resources and its effects on climate change.” Perhaps some day they’ll do a look back on the failure of the global warming hysteria—though at this rate, we should expect to see that some time around 2062.
Or not. The existence of billions of people who weren’t supposed to be alive is pretty easy to prove. The climate is nice and nebulous and ambiguous. It’s the perfect lefty crisis-not-to-be-wasted.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
One year ago . . . the End of Snow. One year later . . . Woist Blizzahd Evah!
Well, worst in our lifetimes, which is all that matters, right?
It’s possible weather runs in cycles, but the cycles last so long that humans don’t recognize them. “It hasn’t snowed this hard in 50 years” may be perfectly true and yet perfectly normal . . . if snowfall runs in 100 year cycles.
The reason Global Warming Alarmists have to fudge their data and shift from tree rings to temperature readings to make their models work, is because we don’t have reliable data from a long-enough time period to draw honest conclusions or propose sensible solutions.
It’s like checking the thermometer at 7:00 am and again 8:00, lowering the 7:00 am temperature to account for not being fully awake when you took that reading, then drawing a line on a graph and predicting the world will be aflame before midnight unless we all stop drinking hot coffee. If temperatures are cyclical, rising and falling with the sun, then you don’t have enough data to support your prediction – whether or not you fudge the data – and your proposed cure won’t solve anything.
Joe Doakes
What part of “settled” are people missing, doggonnit?
If I remember anything from my half-semester as a biology major about the scientific method, it’s this: as long as you have plenty of explanations for why your data utterly fails to support your theory, you’re still in the game!
No, really!
A friend of mine in the insurance industry sent me this:
The Minnesota Department of Commerce sent a Climate Risk Disclosure Questionnaire to Minnesota insurers yesterday and ended up on my desk. It is ridiculous.
Here’s some background to it.
Here’s the exact survey I received yesterday, it’s a pretty standard form used by other states.
Here’s how I really want to answer. I think this accurately captures how all insurance companies ought to answer.Your friend,
[redacted]
I’ll include the survey (and my friend’s answers, in italics) below.
———-
Climate Risk Disclosure Survey
Question One: Does the company have a plan to assess, reduce or mitigate its emissions in its operations or organizations?
No.
Question Two: Does the company have a climate change policy with respect to risk
management and investment management? If yes, please summarize. If no, how do you
account for climate change in your risk management?
Yes, we look for industries that will are particularly vulnerable to higher taxes and fees from proposed carbon credit trading and excessive carbon taxes. In addition we are monitoring industries that are vulnerable to higher energy prices caused by an expected government policies which will force industry away from cheaper, safer, and more efficient carbon-based energy sources.
Question Three: Describe your company’s process for identifying climate change-related risks and assessing the degree that they could affect your business, including financial implications.
Since all of the scientific models predicting climate change are completely unreliable, an actuarial assessment of climate-related risks would also be completely unreliable. Therefore no financial implications can be adequately factored in to our financial modeling.
Question Four: Summarize the current or anticipated risks that climate change poses to your company. Explain the ways that these risks could affect your business. Include identification of the geographical areas affected by these risks.
Since all of the scientific models predicting climate change are completely unreliable, an actuarial assessment of climate-related risks would also be completely unreliable. Therefore no financial implications can be adequately factored in to our financial modeling.
Question Five: Has the company considered the impact of climate change on its investment
portfolio? Has it altered its investment strategy in response to these considerations? If so,
please summarize steps you have taken.
Yes, we look for industries that will are particularly vulnerable to higher taxes and fees from proposed carbon credit trading and excessive carbon taxes. In addition we are monitoring industries that are vulnerable to higher energy prices caused by an expected government policies which will force industry away from cheaper, safer, and more efficient carbon-based energy sources.
Question Six: Summarize steps the company has taken to encourage policyholders to reduce the losses caused by climate change-influenced events.
We have not taken any.
Question Seven: Discuss steps, if any, the company has taken to engage key constituencies on the topic of climate change.
None.
Question Eight: Describe actions the company is taking to manage the risks climate change
poses to your business including, in general terms, the use of computer modeling.
We are monitoring the additional carbon-related taxes and fees being imposed by all levels of government and building these into our financial models which predict higher costs of doing business and we are planning to raise our premiums to cover these additional fees.
———-
I think that was a perfectly useful template.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Is it coincidence that the Leftist areas of the nation are growing hotter fastest? Couldn’t possibly be that the weather monitoring and recording is tweaked the most there?
http://www.twincities.com/nation/ci_25899883/northeast-southwest-growing-hotter-faster-than-rest-u
The article admits cities that rely on just one weather station are the most unreliable for records. Oh really, you think? So the relocation of trees and buildings that redirect shade, wind and other elements of the weather may have something to do with the measured results over time?
I’m skeptical. I suspect weather runs in longer than 30-year cycles. For example, Great Plains drought in 1880, dustbowl in 1930’s, present drought started in 2010 or so, all accompanied by significant temperature changes from the between-drought range.
The scientists specifically say they picked 1984 to avoid cherry-picking. Spontaneous denials make me suspicious.
Joe Doakes
Somebody needs to tell Joe that suspicion just isn’t scientific, these days.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
This is a nice change. The animal-rights crowd paying the circus $15 million on top of the $9 million it already paid, for false accusations of animal abuse.
Joe Doakes
Those “lets have a Nuremberg Trial for Global Warming Denialists!” hamsters might wanna take a gander…
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
The President campaigned for re-election on the grounds that General Motors was alive but Osama Bin Laden was dead.
Except . . . if Global Warming threatens the very existence of human life on this planet, and autos cause Global Warming, shouldn’t he have let General Motors die?
And if Islamic Terror is merely a law enforcement nuisance, shouldn’t he have let Osama Bin Laden live?
Maybe he read the articles in the newspaper out of order and got confused?
Joe Doakes
Polar Bears don’t vote.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Minnesota is having the worst winter in 30 years. Meanwhile, Australia just had its hottest Summer. Plainly, the Aussies are no allies: they’re heat thieves. They’ve stolen our global warming and I, for one, want it back.
I say we invade at once, at least through April; then we can call it off and be home in time for the fishing opener.
Joe Doakes
Minnesotans who are that upset about weather could at least rehearse an invasion…
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Our oldest son is a Senior Chief Petty Officer stationed near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He sent this photo of his front yard, taken Tuesday, February 11, 2014.
They received 8-1/2 inches of new snow with sleet and freezing rain expected [late last week].
More proof of global warming?
Joe: All evidence supports global warming. As does all lack of evidence, and all contradictions in evidence.
(The real question isn’t so much “is the climate changing” as “if it is, would the best response be to give unlimited power to the United Nations and groups of unelected, meritless bureaucrats to sandbag the world’s economies even further at the time when they need prosperity the most”?).
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Damn that global warming, Philadelphia just broke a snowfall record.
Joe Doakes
Joe, read the memo: it’s “darn that climate change“.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
If global warming is causing the snow in Atlanta today, it must have been blazing a century ago when we saw the Great Blizzard of 1888 on the East Coast.
The prairies have always had blizzards, going back to the Schoolhouse Blizzard followed by theArmistice Day Blizzard in 1940 and the 1952 Blizzard. Nobody thinks anything of them – it is supposed to snow like mad on the prairie and that’s not evidence of anything.
But Lake Superior is freezing over for the first time in decades. Duluth is having the coldest wintersince Kennedy was President. That’s got to stand for something.
Joe Doakes
All evidence that supports global warming, supports global warming. On the other hand, all evidence that undercuts global warming, actually supports global warming.
There’s a pattern here.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
A global warming skeptic thinks he has figured out why the computer models don’t match the thermometer outside – the government data is wrong. Not accidentally wrong, but intentionally wrong.
According to his January 19, 2014 blog post, the US government lowered the temperature readings from years gone by but left alone current temperature readings. That makes it look as if the Earth was colder in the past and getting warmer nowadays. They converted a 90-year cooling trend into global warming by faking the data.
The most graphic illustration is the fifth chart down the page, an animated chart of US Temperature that shows how changing the data changes the result. Look for this chart on the website and watch as it changes.
Next thing you know, you’ll be saying that the Government is using the executive branch to stifle speech.
