I put up a comment on Watts Up With That to the effect that Michael Mann’s PhD was premature, and also citing a paper by Nikolov and Zeller stating that there was no heat transfer within our atmosphere even as more CO2 accumulates, as the process is “adiabatic” which means that the process in our atmosphere and in all of our rocky planets occurring without loss or gain of heat. Global temperatures respond to many forces including insolation and increases and decreases in the planet albedo. I also concluded with the statement that many people, including scientists, “lead with their chin” when they start out their debate by conceding that there is “some” warming caused by CO2 and the GHG effect, that is, green house gases.
Last I looked there were 132 comments on that thread, and mine was taken down. Let’s not get offended by this, but I do have some observations on what was done there, without getting personal.
- Mention of a scientific paper is like asking readers to read the phonebook. (Note to younger readers, back in history telephone companies used to put out large books each year listing all of our names, addresses, and phone numbers.) The best observation that I have seen on the matter is by Mining Engineer Steve McIntyre, who concluded a long post with the following:
And, at the end of the day, {the paper he was reviewing] is best described as climate pornography. In the premier modern journal for climate pornography: Nature. And while climate partisans (and scientists) pretend to read the articles and the fine print, in reality, they, like Penthouse readers in the 1980s, are only interested in the centerfold. In the present case, an air brushed hockey stick diagram. A diagram that raises the same question that Penthouse readers asked back in the day: real or fake?
- The point is that hardly anyone does due diligence, so that John Ioannidis, Stanford professor, claimed that most scientific papers use bad methodology and come to false conclusions. So my mention of the paper N&Z was perhaps just showing off a bit, as I did read the paper and attempted to grasp its significance. Other than me, I am quite certain that no one at WUWT went near it.
- But there is more at play here. Sensitivity to criticism is certainly part of the reason why WUWT took down my comment. I remember (not) writing on this blog way back around 2010 or so, and I was certain by that time that the Twin Towers were not hit by planes and did not collapse for any reason having anything to do with planes. I did not have a full grasp of anything, but the important point was that I was afraid to speak my mind. I knew people were going to use the most common form of argumentation on me, ridicule. I wanted to avoid that. It could be that WUWT just does not want to be associated with my kind of reasoning, which is …
- … that CO2 makes no contribution to warming, and in fact was chosen to be the villain in this tale because “scientists” needed a reason to attack humanity. They chose CO2 because it allowed them to attack our use of fossil fuels. Their main form of scientific debate is character assassination, ad hominem instead of reasoning. And the reason they do that is because …
- … theirs is a house of cards. There are thousands of scientists who know that CO2 is but a stalking horse, and that if they speak out against the scientists who make the GHG argument, they will lose prestige, jobs, grants, tenure. So they clam up. I see that, I understand, but at the end of the day not standing up to bullies does not get anyone anything but shame.
- Which is why, when another blogger interviewed me one time a few years ago, he asked pointedly “You don’t care what people think of you, do you?” And I realized that he was right, that I had done a complete transformation, and that I now do not fear to publish anything. I now freely quote Mark Twain, who said “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.” To that I add that moral courage is a royal pain in the ass. It can cost us dearly. Just ask Judith Curry or Mark Steyn.
- Finally, I look around and see that most public policy regarding climate is based on the premise that CO2 is a problem. This is the result of that massive propaganda campaign mentioned before, and the shared cowardice and malevolence of public officials and scientists alike. They are either in on the game, or afraid to speak up. Noam Chomsky once wrote that people who live lies, as these people do, eventually wear down, and begin to really believe the lies because internal contradictions wear us out. We cannot live like that, so we give it up and join the parade, and in the end really honestly believe that 2+2=5.
I hope I got through that while maintaining dignity and respect. There’s a lot to like about What’s Up With That, but after my comment went down, I withdrew my modest support and have not returned to the site. That’s probably … my bad.
Piece of Mindful 
I have to admit, I used to enjoy reading “Penthouse Forum” even more than looking at the centerfold. Although, I genuinely believed at the time that the letters were written by actual readers. And since I usually found the magazines discarded on the side of highway as a teen, I was “recycling” them and doing my part to reduce CO2. LOL
LikeLike
KS- You’ll never believe this happened to me but I got my grubby mitts on an issue of Penthouse once. Needless to say, none of the stories in the forum ever came true for me or any other fellow earthlings.
LikeLike
And all this time I thought I was the only loser. Hahaha.
LikeLike
If memory serves that was template for every letter.
LikeLike
GEORGE: It’s not real. They’re all made up.
KRAMER: Ohh, it’s real.
GEORGE: Well you know there is an unusual number of people in this country having sex with AMPUTEES!
LikeLike
I’ve never read a word of Penthouse, BUT I once came upon a huge stack (in a few boxes) of antique (black and white) porn mags while working for the council at the local council depot (about 20 years ago, well after this sort of thing was unacceptable in the work place.). I picked up a couple and looked at the ancient photography but I was too afraid of damaging the ancient magazines to read any. Hopefully they are still there for the next generation. All of those magazines were older than me. I now wish I’d read some.
LikeLike
Back in the “antique” days of porno mags in America, there was a Goldilocks triumvirate: Playboy was too cold, Hustler was too hot, but Penthouse was just right. That’s why it was the choice of Miss America to get “exposed” doncha know.
LikeLike
Sorry, what exactly did they take offense at? I would have guessed they’d be sympathetic to your point, but I’m not really that familiar with the site. Do they walk some fine line between the official dogma and total skepticism?
LikeLike
I can only speculate, and tried to better understand it in what I wrote above. I opened the comment, as the thread was about the anniversary of the Climategate scandal, by noting that Michael Mann had written in one about “our closeted friends”. I said that was too clever, as he could claim typo and meant “closest”. But I suggested he meant what he wrote. I also noted that by his own admission he had never paid a dime in legal fees for all of the people he has sued, that other people covered his ass. That sounds conspiratorial, but it means that Mann was put up to what he was doing by others. Why else a free ride?
These folks at WUWT, and loads of others, are in the game to maintain decorum, and forget they are in a trench war. They are often right about what they write and who they attack, but somehow never manage to land a punch.
Mark Tokarski
LikeLike
Several possibilities I guess.. 1, strategic, to avoid being too fringe for the “dull normals” who are unsure and undecided, ie the vast middle ground of non ideologues and non experts.. 2, a personal preference for “decorum,” a temperament or character that prefers to debate science and facts, not psy-war or propaganda.. 3, a controlled opposition role in which much good info is allowed but with certain red lines
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like all of that, yours is a great comment.
I’ve been at this climate stuff a long time. I read the first batch of Climategate emails, and could not fathom why these people were so nasty to outsiders. Others had to keep a harness on Mann, as he would go off on people. He destroyed Judith Curry, intimating in a public email that she had slept her way up the ladder at Penn State. He sued Canadian Tim Ball, and it was easy to deduce that he was doing nothing with the lawsuit, just letting it sit to harm Ball. The Canadian equivalent of our Supreme Court finally ruled that because Mann was not doing anything, that he dismissed the suit and ordered that all of Ball’s legal expenses be paid by Mann. Because it’s Canada and there is no cross-border jurisdiction, Mann simply walked away from it and paid nothing to Ball, who died in penury.
The lawsuit against Mark Steyn had hallmarks of a kangaroo court, which the judge failing to act on inappropriate behaviors, and the jury awarding $1 million to Mann with no basis in jurisprudence, just cuz. That told me that not just Mann, but possibly Steyn and surely the so-called judge and jury were wired to that outcome. That’s show business, not a court trial.
All of this tells me that there is no point in debating science with actors. They don’t know what they are talking about, and know they don’t know. Instead, the whole of the movement from the beginning has been set up as a propaganda front, using techniques like personal attacks, removing people from their jobs or making them lose their grants, harnessing control of scientific journals like Nature, even awarding the Nobel prize to Al Gore, whose two weakest subject at Harvard were science and math. Wikipedia, another intel front, covered Gore’s ass on that.
So it is possible that WUWT is CO, but a lot of good stuff goes through there. My only wish is that they would be more aggressive against their enemies who are not scientists, but rather shills, like Mann, but I think that Anthony Watts is afraid of the power behind Mann, the people who financed his lawsuits, his “closeted friends.”
LikeLiked by 1 person