Category: Climate insanity

Impressions of Michael Mann

This has been bubbling inside me for quite some time now. Maybe it started some years back when Dr. Michael Mann, the hockey stick guy, was on a TV panel show and someone suggested that climate affairs were so bad that it made her/him want to cry. As if on cue, Mann generated crocodile tears, pretending to lament the situation of our climate. It made me want to puke.

But I have a lot of impressions of Mann … perhaps foremost, that while his so-called Hockey Stick is pseudoscience at best, it is very detailed work that requires a great deal of intelligence and effort, even if he was probably exaggerating his case, perhaps even engaging in creative accounting. Steve McIntyre, the Canadian mining engineer who took apart the stick piece by piece, had to devote tremendous effort to replicate Mann’s efforts, not easily dissembled and beyond the reach of us mere mortals. What we found was that tree rings are a complicated science, and without a strong working knowledge of statistics cannot be assembled in a way that sends a “temperature signal” from the past to the present.

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When bad journalism reports on bad science

I ran across an article in the Powell (Wyoming) Tribune called Yellowstone Lake defies warming temperature – what’s its secret? I originally saw the article in the Billings Gazette, but it was paywalled. I went to its city of origin, and again, paywalled. Finally I saw it in the Powell newspaper, where I get four visits before the walls go up.

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The 97% consensus, and the demise of already-corrupted search engines

We here at POM know that among climate scientists there is no 97% “consensus” that Earth is getting warmer and humans are causing that warming. But we can also see that a wall was being built around the propaganda spewing out of IPCC, NASA and other places. Soon to be used following the 97% thrust was the term “denier”. 

97% serves a useful purpose in terms of propaganda – it signals to people who are not paying attention that the work has been done, case closed, no need to think or investigate. It’s a deliberate tactic used because the work has not been done, the case is not closed, and indeed people of intelligence need to think and investigate. 

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Climate Science on Trial

I am currently listening to a daily podcast called Climate Change on Trial, hosted by two Irish film makers, Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney. They are covering the defense of the lawsuit filed in 2012 by Michael Mann against pundit Mark Steyn and blogger Rand Simberg. There are ten episodes available so far, and guess who has listened to all of them? I am rapt, even as so far it is been Mann and company making their case and being cross examined. Real fun is in store, more to follow the very first defense witness, prominent statistician, Abraham J. Wyner of the Wharton School.

Climate Change on Trial is all available at Apple Podcasts, and a new episode will be dropped the day after each trial day.

Wyner comes off as a classic nerd who loves his work. Part of his work in statistics is about sports, and I think his podcast, which I have not located yet, draws a large audience because he gets beyond the dull science. Anyway, Wyner testified that Mann’s hockey stick work was “manipulative,” meaning that many outcomes were possible by torturing that data, but that Mann had an apparent predetermined objective, featured prominently by Al Gore and now the cause of trillions of wasted dollars in search of net zero, the hockey stick. Talk about being juiced.

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The end of snow predicted in 2000 … and 2014 … and 2024

Have you ever had the experience of having seen something, and then realizing later that you were probably just remembering a dream?

OK, it’s just me. I’m the crazy one, right? 

So anyway, we were in Fort Myers, and I was walking down a concourse in an airport, and there was a stack of USA Today’s, and the headline read “Snow will soon be a thing of the past.” 

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Of trees and firewood

This stack of firewood is the sum total of a week’s effort.I am not done by any means, as we normally go through a couple of cords every winter. By my estimation this is over a cord, but I have one partial and another full stack to to go. Note that a cord is 4X4X8, which is what the back two stacks are, roughly. Since the work is very hard I opted to finish the job in October, giving my body a needed rest.

Last year, knowing foot surgery was on the horizon, I put up as much wood as I could in a short period of time. That wood included garage scraps and pieces of willow and aspen (which do not burn as well as pine). We decided that for the first time in our then-twelve years here we would purchase a cord of wood. The cost was going to be $300. We burned less wood, however, and did not get around to purchasing it.

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Something I’ve noticed

I make it a point not to make my readers the object of anger, as it is their tastes and ideas that should govern what is written on this blog. But I do notice that whenever I write about climate change, reads and comments drop off a cliff.

I am going to guess at why: There is a general disinterest in climate change in the public, with it typically finishing 15th or 16th in polls asking what matters most to people. That is reflected in readership here. That is the reality I must deal with, and my choice is to 1) adopt the same indifference to the matter, 2) continue on as before, or 3) lecture you about it.

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Montana Judge Kathy Seeley issues brain-damaged fact-free ruling

Big Swede commented the other day that, amazingly, a nonsense lawsuit filed by some kids in Montana had received a favorable ruling from a judge. Here is the link he supplied. The ruling is simply outrageous, but also chilling. Was there a fix at work? Was it understood in advance that the judge, Kathy Seeley, would allow the bullshit claims to proceed?

Emily Flower, spokeswoman for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, correctly slammed the ruling as absurd in an emailed statement and vowed to appeal.

This ruling is absurd, but not surprising from a judge who let the plaintiffs’ attorneys put on a weeklong taxpayer-funded publicity stunt.

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