Arguments
Climate Scientist reacts to Donald Trump's climate comments
Posted on 13 November 2019 by Guest Author
Donald Trump is taking America out of the Paris Climate Agreement. But this isn't the first bizarre global warming action from the President. ClimateAdam takes a look at some of the most... remarkable climate change comments from Trump.
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Well said. It's sad that time has to be wasted shooting this nonsense down, but its important to do so. Some people like to claim facts don't change people minds, which is absurd when you think about it. Facts change at least some people minds even a few denialists eg Richard Mueller.
Donald Trumps climate denialism is probably largely or at least partly fake. Hes not a complete moron. By analogy its like a drug addict or criminal knowing they have done wrong and making up any old nonsense in their defence. Trump is used to making money out of business as usual won't like anything changing his world, but any mass infrastructure programme will create jobs, increase wealth, and stimulate the economy. Look at history, you have the industrial revolution that changed how we did things, the new deal of the 1930's, WW2, the post war years where the highway network was built, mass air travel, the list is endless.
To a certain extent people who pretend to believe something that is factually wrong as a trade for some other gain are taking on humiliation, selling out their character in a zero sum transaction.
There was a fad here in the US for a while for product promotions entailing people being drizzled with honey and then standing in a booth loaded with loose dollar bills while blowers whirled the currency around them— on television, in front of strangers. There were a number of variations on this scheme, having in common the feature of making participants look foolish in exchange for a little money. The transaction boiled down to "look stupid in public for financial gain."
In this case the situation is arguably worse because while honey washes away with a simple laundering, blown credibility and esteem in the public eye is a permanent stain.
Donald J Trump is the antithesis of a responsible and selfless world leader.He is the extreme example of many politicians, in many countries. A common cause is the catalyst to unite people, this climate blog and others worldwide are informing the ordinary people about our planets biospheres increasing tragedy. I want to be so hopeful we can unite to solve it. When,how and who is the question.I think i copied this quote from this climate blog-is this the reason why we are not still seeing the danger of inaction " Rapid reduction of carbon emissions is still excluded from consideration by policymakers because it is deemed to be too economically dislocating. The fact that the present political path of 3°C or more of warming would result in a world overwhelmed by extreme climate impacts, leading to outright chaos, is avoided. The dominant neo-liberal framing of progress, through globalisation and deregulation, suppresses regulatory action which would address the real climate challenge because it undermines the prevailing political–economic orthodoxy."
prove we are smart,
That quote does appear to describe 'part of the problem'. But the issue is larger and more complex than that.
The problem of the socioeconomic-political response to the expanded awareness and improved understanding of climate science is one of the largest of the many unsustainable problems developed by competition for perceptions of superiority relative to Others with popularity and profitability as the main measures of merit. But it is not the only problem that the fatally flawed systems produce and resist the correction of.
Popularity and profitability can be obtained by getting away with a diversity of unsustainable activities that can be promoted and prolonged by successful fiction-based marketing (making up stuff that will influence easily impressed people).
Expanding awareness and improved understanding can be seen to struggle to over-come powerfully developed fiction based beliefs. Perceptions of the potential for personal benefit can be very powerful motivations for people to believe a fiction rather than expand their awareness and improve their understanding. It is almost as powerful as the fear of losing developed perceptions of superiority or losing developed perceptions of potential for personal benefit (an example being all the people want higher-paying coal mining jobs, or any other 'higher-paying' fossil fuel production jobs and fear the loss of that opportunity).
Human history is full of examples of unsustainable beliefs and resulting actions becoming popular and profitable (for a portion of the population) that required External Parties to Intervene to get people to stop behaving in ways that produced negative impacts on Others. Those interventions start with attempts to expand awareness and improve understanding. But in many cases new restrictions of behaviour, new or revised laws or regulations with more effective enforcement and more severe penalties to limit the harm done by people, are required to limit the impacts of people who will not expand their awareness and improve their understanding of how to 'not act in ways that create, or increase the risk of creating, negative consequences for Others'.
Some people will always try to do as they please, based on what they want to believe, even when there is a high risk that they will be justifiably penalized for doing so. They will try to not be perceived as the one creating the negative impact (claiming that Others are the ones behaving badly). And they will try to find loopholes in the restriction mechanisms that get developed (preferring to be able to create the appearance of a restriction but knowing how to 'work around the system rules they got to influence the creation of'.
That is the reality of human behaviour. There will always be some people wanting to resist expanded awareness and improved understanding that limits their Freedom to believe what they want and do as they please. And there are some undeserving Winners who try to get personal advantages from that nasty reality of human behaviour that makes many people 'easily impressed into passionately believing Fictions rather than learning to expand their awareness and improve their understanding'.
The challenge for the future of humanity (and throughout humanity's history) is limiting the success of those type of people today, and every day. Admitting that there must be 'limits on the Freedom of people to do whatever they want based on whatever they want to believe' appears to be what is required. That is a Tough Awareness and Understanding to Sell, especially in the developed socioeconomic-political environments. And it likely can't be done through punchy catchy news-minute scale statements', advertising slogans, or tweet sized snippets of communication. Those things work well for promoting Fictions. Non-Fiction is not as simple to communicate.
In order to understand how people can continue to ignore the science of climate change, one has to understand the detrimental role religion plays in this issue.
louislorenziprince@5,
Agreed. Many detrimental fiction-based passionate beliefs are based on the religious belief that 'people being freer to believe and do whatever they wish that is contrary to expanded awareness and improving understaninding will develop lasting improvements for humanity'.
That fatally flawed belief is the basis for many religions. And one of the most damaging religious beliefs is the belief in Free Market Libertarianism and its related misleading marketing systems.
Neoliberalism originated with mainstream economists who were worried about policies in the 1970's of too much protectionist trade and tariffs, excessive government ownership of industry, excessive controls on immigration, and excessive occupational licencing and over regulation of the business sector, and with some justification. They wanted these things to end, but never promoted complete deregulation and provatisation of everything, and any basic economics text will tell you governmnets should have environmental regulations.
It's largely right wing politicians who have distorted neoliberalism into something self promoting and toxic.
Like OPOF says its hard explaining this in short sound bites and catchy phrases. Explaining the truth is a bit more nuanced, but we should keep at it.
“It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”
I really hope human nature can change and prove this statement wrong.
Is it up to the media to accomplish this?
prove we are smart@10,
A few important points:
When asking if the media is supposed to fix this, think about how much media reporting you can recall referring to the Stockholm Conference or any of the many stages of expanded awareness and improved understanding since then, including the SDGs. Don't just think about the climate science reporting related to the required Climate Action Goal, though it is a significant case exposing the problem.
In 1988, Edward S. Herman developed the Propaganda Model to try to explain the media failing to helpfully expand awareness and improve understanding of the many harmful unsustainable developments by humans and the required corrections. It is presented in the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent (there is also a 1992 movie with the same name), was updated by Alan MacLeod in 2019 in the book "Propaganda in the Information Age".
"The media" would need to break the constraints and pressures on its behaviour that the Propaganda Model clearly indicates are very powerful influences on the stories that get told. There is undeniably a lot of excusing and defending of unjustified Winners in the Status Quo (if their unworthiness of being perceived to be winners can not be kept hidden), including claiming the need to report 'Balance' or 'Not be offensive' even if that means presenting Fiction and Non-Fiction as if they are comparable (because everyone's Opinion is equally valid - Right?).
Nigelj@7 (I am hopefully back to recognising the proper numbering of previous comments),
There are other potentially more accurate explanations for what many among the international wealthy were pushing for in the 1970s, and continue to push for with their war on climate science, and their wars against so many other inconvenient expansions of awareness and improvements of understanding.
It is possible that the attitude developed by many of the wealthier powerful people in the 1970s was an exploitative response to global leadership desires to help develop the less developed nations, and a fearful response to the Global Leadership pursuit of expanded awareness and improved understanding that led to the 1972 Stockholm Conference.
A significant number of powerful people did not like requirements for higher performance standards for professionals or protections for workers and the environment that were developing in the more developed nations. Those things restricted business pursuits and made things 'more expensive'.
That powerful group's collective approach to globalization can be seen to be driven by a desire to get away with lousier treatment of workers and the environment in nations that were less aware of the need for higher standards for professionals and protections for workers and the environment. And to maximize the profitability of those international pursuits they wanted reduced barriers to importing the products of those understandably 'lower standard' pursuits of profit.
The Stockholm Conference of 1972 was the first global leadership collective acknowledgement that economic competition was not developing sustainable helpful results, and was not 'self-correcting for expanded awareness and improved understanding in pursuit of lasting improvements for humanity. That conference, and subsequent collaborative global pursuits of expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to achieve lasting improvements for humanity, expose the reality that there is a lack of responsible governing of competitions for Status.
The lack of effective restrictions in competitions for status developed many unsustainable activities that had very negative impacts on portions of the current population and the future of humanity. It also developed powerful resistance to correcting those activities, because the corrections would reduce the status of some powerful people. That awareness and understanding has been expanded and improved since the 1970s, with understandings like the Sustainable Development Goals as more robust threats to the desires of that group.
Adam Smith, and all who followed his way of thinking, were wrong about what the 'Invisible Hand' would do. Their fantasy Fiction was that freedom of everyone to do as they please in consumer product and services competitions would develop good results.
The justification of the Adam Smith and Milton Freedman type of thinking relies on beliefs like the following:
The Invisible Hand would only do what they believe if the entire population governed all activity by measuring merit and value based on expanded awareness and improved understanding applied to develop sustainable improvements for the future of humanity. That Fantasy Fictional society would naturally devalue or penalize activities that create, or have a higher risk of creating, negative consequences for Others.
What those believers did not understand was the way that many people would be easily impressed into believing Fictions, and how undeserving people would be able to develop perceptions of status based on unjustified popularity and profitability. The idea that a better result is produced by having everyone freer to believe what they wish and do as they please is a Fantasy Fiction. It will never be Reality. And misleading marketing, only telling parts of the Non-Fiction story with fictional passion-triggering embellishments, or successfully making stuff up (especially when disguised as News Reporting), is a powerful part of the problem they continue to fail to acknowledge (because misleading marketing is an essential part of their way of winning).
OPOF @10, I disagree in part. Adam Smith believed in the invisible hand in an ideological sense, in that people following their own economic interests in order to make money would benefit everyone as a side effect and better than government's telling people what the best economic choices are. But he was no laissez faire economist that thought governments should limit their activities to very narrow motives of a justice system and defence force. He accepted the need for public education and some regulation of business.
And Smith was very cynical about the motives of business and recognised business could cause problems. He was mainly concerned about the problem of tariffs and also control over economic behaviour in a fundamental sense. Of course he did not promote big government either. And bear in mind this was 400 years ago and modern economists have more evolved views. Here is what Adam Smith really said and meant:
msc.gutenberg.edu/2013/03/adam-smith-was-no-laissez-faire-ideologue/
economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/03/adam-smith-and-the-role-of-government.html
Milton Freidman is towards the extreme edge of economics, and founded the monetarist school that did indeed promote something close to laissez faire capitalism with very small governmnet, and I agree with you he had delusional expectations of how such s system would self regulate, an dhave full information, and how people would behave etcetera. But the majority of modern economists do not subscribe completely to his views and see a larger role for governments, but stopping short of 1970's style socialism.
Most modern economists see a role for legislation related to basic workers rights, health and safety and the environment.
My point is the power brokers in business and also politicians pick and choose whatever economic idea suits their agenda at the time. They are unprincipled. They interpret theory as they see fit and leave out bits they dont like, and have no consistency in the application. They interpret free markets to mean free of all management and regulation when even Adam Smith did not promote that. He promoted markets free of tariff barriers and excessive government control.
Just a bit of history really. You are right in broad principle the invisible hand is certainly "not enough" to provide optimal results. Generally advanced countries have a good deal of law around workers rights and the environment and properly so. We have to ensure 1) its the right sort of law and 2) its not eroded by free market fanatics and people with short term agendas and no care for working conditions. There is a difference between freedom to do mostly ones own economic thing, and oppression of workers and environmental vandalism.
Trump climate policy, and global climate politics in general, is being driven by the economic and ecological advantages of dense energy over dilute, intermittent energies. https://www.masterresource.org/trump-on-climate-change/paris-climate-accord-withdrawal-underway-trump-right/
nigelj@11,
Different opinions of Adam Smith abound. I will try to limit this response to relate to the struggle to achieve the corrections of human activity that climate science has exposed are required.
It is not possible to interview Adam Smith to obtain clarification regarding his position. However, undeniably, Adam Smith was thinking and writing at a time when there was less awareness and understanding of human behaviour, especially in competitions. So, Adam Smith deserves more benefit of the doubt than more recent thinkers who really should know better. (btw, Smith wrote “Wealth of Nations” less than 250 years ago, not 400 years ago).
Charley Dewberry points out many things. But it does not include Smith stating that the government has the responsibility to expand the awareness and improve the understanding of the population regarding what should be supported and promoted or what should be discouraged and penalized in the economic competitions in order to achieve sustainable improvements for humanity. How was that requirement expected to be achieved? Even the points made by Charley Dewberry indicated that Smith did not trust economic competitors to do this.
The list of Adam Smith's government roles presented by the “Economist's View” also makes no mention of how the required expanded awareness and improving understanding to achieve sustainable improvements for humanity is to be achieved. Smith limited the Government role to educating people to being more useful economic participants (more useful to employers and pursuers of profit).
Therefore my main points remain. Adam Smith and those who followed his line of reasoning appear to believe that expanded awareness and improved understanding would naturally win in competitions for status, correcting unjustified Fictions and end up effectively governing all of human activity with no need for external (government) intervention on the competitions regarding that issue (note that the powerful people governing what happens begs the question of not including that activity as a Government Role). The presumption appears to be that the powerful would be more aware and understanding and they would be easily able to govern (that government word again) what happens and make any required corrections happen.
Who would believe that expanded awareness and improved understanding would not easily win over unjustified Fictional Beliefs? Someone who does not acknowledge the damaging power of misleading marketing would fail to understand and admit what can actually happen, and remain a believer of a harmful Fiction. Yet Charley Dewberry includes references that Adam Smith was aware of the power of misleading marketing by unjustly powerful people, but he does not offer anything in Smith's writing about how that misleading marketing is to be governed and limited (those pesky expansions of government intervention to limit economic activity).
Many people, including Adam Smith, appear to fail to acknowledge the need for expanded awareness and improved understanding to govern and limit what humans do, especially governing and limiting the damaging power of misleading marketing.
Greta Thunberg is correct to point out that global leaders should govern based on the expanding awareness and improving understanding, even if it is not popular or if the required corrections are economically negative for some people. Over-development in incorrect fantasy fiction (misleading marketing) driven directions will inevitably have negative consequences. Those negative consequences should be limited to the biggest beneficiaries of the incorrectly prolonged beliefs in the fantasy fictions.
That is fundamentally the basis for global Climate Action. The most fortunate must: lead the ending of fossil fuel use, help all others deal with the already developed negative consequences, and help the less-fortunate develop in more sustainable ways than the incorrectly more fortunate have done to date.
OPOF @13, fair comment. However my point is more that most modern mainstream economists have a largely sensible approach to things. Its not perfect - and we would both find criticisms of them as you have alluded to above, but its more sensible than people perhaps realise. I've scanned a few economics texts and they acknowledge business doesn't always behave ideally. and you have various market failures. They acknowledge the problems you raise but use different words for it. They acknowledge the need for business regulations at an appropriate level and economists are starting to acknowledge the problems of high growth economies.
So what goes wrong? Sadly its business people and politicians who ignore parts of mainstream economic theory they dont like, or who interpret things in bizarre ways, or who gravitate to the extreme schools of economics like the Chicago school and Milton Freidman, or who interpret Adam Smith in a way that suits them much like people interpret the bible. Politicians need to be called out for this behaviour.
In the end we only have so many options to deal with misleading marketing, which is is very real problem. 1) Better government regulation, with more robust penalties 2) spreading awarenesss of the problem 3) public shaming of organisations and individuals who engage in misleading marketing 3) getting some courses in analytical thinking and logic into schools. 4) setting good standards for ourselves 5) not being afraid to criticise our friends and colleagues on occasion (diplomatically).
Rob Bradley @12
"Trump climate policy, and global climate politics in general, is being driven by the economic and ecological advantages of dense energy over dilute, intermittent energies. "
Trump climate policy is ignorant and self serving. He just wants to keep business as usual going because hes used to it.
Nobody disputes that fossil fuels are energy dense, but they present us with a range of problems. It's not just the climate problem, these resosurces are very finite and are running out fast. America has run out of easily extracted oil, read about Huberts peak, and is scraping the bottom of the barrel with fracking. In about 100 years we will have run out of fossil fuels that can be economically extracted, sooner in many places. Just do a simple google search of peak oil etc and read some of the reputable, academic mainstream publications.
It's absurd to claim fossil fuels have ecological advantages. You list none and provide no evidence. Burning fossil fuels releases a whole range of toxic gases and particulates that harm virtually all forms of life. Remember acid rain the the 1970's that ended up requiring complicated filters being fitted to coal fired power? And that still doesn't completely fix the problem.
You should spend less time swallowing fictions and spin by Myron Ebell and more time looking at reality, reading proper scientific history, and thinking for yourself.
Maybe my response isn't very diplomatic. Too bad for that.
We can solve this thing with renewable energy and storage or even some nuclear power. Nothing wrong with a hybrid system.
nigelj@14,
I agree and understand that there is a diversity of understanding among current day economists with many of them seeing the serious problems that are being developed.
I admit to being easily annoyed by the 'popularity' of those who want to make up and maintain fictions rather than face and deal with what should be rather obvious to someone with their level of awareness and understanding. And many of them seem to base their claims on fundamentals like the writings of Smith, admittedly using some fictional license (misleading marketing) when they do that because Smith is not around to set the record straight regarding his points or update his position.
What is disappointing is the way that even the likes of Stern have played the game of 'discounting negative impacts on future generations', though they admittedly use a lower discount rate than the abhorrent likes of Lord Moncton have done. To be fair, Stern may have been wanting to simply show that even using a discount rate, which is incorrect when evaluating the acceptability of a portion of current day humanity benefiting today in ways that impose negative consequences on future generations, indicated that aggressive reduction of fossil fuel use was cost-effective. But to be fairer, I have not see any reporting that that was Stern's intent when he used the discount rate that he did.
One Planet Only Forever @16
I must admit I do find some economists extremely annoying. Having ploughed through one of Milton Freidmans books, I'm just not that impressed and sadly this guy has influenced people like Reagon and Greenspan. But people like Friedman are outspoken and at the extreme end of debate. I also found a large group of more moderate economists that make more sense.
Monkton should be the last person politicians pay attention to as far as discount rates and climate science goes. He has an arts degree majoring in literature and a journalism diploma and a long history of misquoting people and worse.
I guess that Stern is trying to do what hes been taught to do. However I'm not convinced the use of discount rates applied to climate is fundamentally wrong in principle. I did read something you wrote on it but only briefly because I was busy at the time so I'm not dismissing your take on it.
However it seems to me the problem is more that it's just too hard to apply a discount rate to an issue like climate and come up with anything meaningful because of the complexities of the issue and the difficulty understanding the full implications of the issue and the strong sense that the negatives are very substantial, and could well be even worse than we think. The most meaningful number would be very low as Stern has ended up with, but even his number doesn't look low enough.
Discount rates work well enough when trying to cost alternative business propositions against just investing money in standard investment schemes, and looking forward a couple of decades, which is all easy enough to quantify, but discount rates look to be at the limit with complex ecological and climate systems problems. So at the limit as to be meaningless.
nigelj,
A brief presentation on discount rates as they apply to the required corrections of what has developed based on the expanded awareness and improved understanding of climate science.
Quick Way to look at it:
Even without discounting the future negatives, a comparison of the current day negatives related to ending the increase of future negatives is a grossly incorrect evaluation. It is like a person saying they should not have to stop producing a negative impact on their neighbour if 'their perceived loss of benefit by stopping what they are doing' is a match for or more than 'their perception of the level of negative impact they are having on their neighbour'. That is an absurd evaluation. They need to stop causing the negative impact on their neighbour, as perceived by their neighbour (not as perceived by them), no matter how much personal benefit they believe they would be giving up.
More Detailed way to see it:
When a business is looking into optional action choices they use discount rates on the future values to select the option they would prefer to experience. And the business evaluation works when the ones making the current investment will be the ones dealing with or benefiting from the future results.
A government considering a benefit for the future population it governs by spending on action today should also use a discount rate to determine the merit of the current expense vs. the future benefit. Though they would not use the same discount rate as a business investment that wants quicker reward. The business decision would generally be based on a higher discount rate, future benefits having less perceived value.
The twist comes when looking at future negatives. An evaluation that uses a high discount rate when the option has potential high future negative results is setting the business up for a future failure. And if a decision like that is discovered soon enough the ones who made that risky bet may suffer the consequence, or they may not.
And a government should seriously question choosing an action that has a potential negative consequence. Its actions should be producing future benefit, not future costs. So, in spite of some cases where government should operate more like a business, when there are negative future consequences it is essential that government not evaluate its options as if it were a business. There should be no discounting of the future negatives.
The lack of responsible correction of developed activity by the more fortunate portion of the global population through the past 30 years has created a bigger future negative impact. And it has developed economies that do not deserve their developed perceptions of success. And as a result it has developed popular resistance to the required correction.
The objective for responsible leadership needs to be ending the creation of the negatives (no discounting of future negatives allowed), even if that means negative current day economic results for the people who unjustly bet on getting away with the activity that needs to be stopped.
OPOF @18, thanks. Your quick way to see it is hard to understand, while your more detailed view is easier to understand and sounds right. I also have a lot of trouble with discounting future negatives, but I had trouble putting this into words.
Of course the aim of the thing is to put a price on carbon, but in so doing it is like they are saying we are allowing a bit of carbon balanced against some adaptation, and to me this is just wrong because no ammount of emissions can be justified.
However the important thing is to just put a price on carbon, and it has to start somewhere, and not agonise over the exact price. If it doesn't produce the results intended, clearly it would have to be altered probably upwards. There's too much policy "paralysis of analysis" and not enough action.
nigelj@19,
Moncton was an easy target for criticism regarding the use of high discount rates. But Nordhaus is like Moncton in that regard.
The quick way to see the issue is that it is unacceptable for someone to do something that causes a negative impact on Other people.
In the Neighbour example there is no consideration for balance of interest between the parties. The one causing the negative impact on Others has to stop doing that no matter how they might try to justify it by a comparison of negatives (their perceived negative of having to give up their benefit because the way they get it produces the negative result for Others.
The reason it may have been difficult to see is trying to think that using a negative-to-negative evaluation with discount rates is "the way to set a Price on Carbon as the solution to the problem".
Putting a 'calculated' price on carbon can help change attitudes. But, the only way that A Price on Carbon is "The Solution" is to rapidly steadily increase the price until the required rapid ending of fossil fuel use is achieved. And that action should be expected to produce negative results for the portions of the population most heavily invested in benefiting from fossil fuel use, particularly the portion of the already more fortunate who did not significantly reduce their pursuit of benefit from fossil fuels through the past 30 years.
Trying to determine "The Proper Price on Carbon" is a Fool's Game. The Carbon Price needs to increase rapidly to whatever it take to achieve the required result, and the required result can no longer be 'no negative impact on the current developed economies'. And that desired path to the required solution may only have been a possibility if the aggressive correction had started in the 1970s.
And while that ending of fossil fuel use is rapidly achieved, the wealthiest need to continue sacrificing portions of their wealth to help the less fortunate sustainable improve the lives they live.
That is the reality laid out by the Sustainable Development Goals. That is why there is so much resistance to "improving awareness and increased understanding of the need to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals". Some people perceived to be more successful and powerful people deserve to lose status and also do more to help Others as their status is reduced. And they will fight against that happening, just like a Bad neighbour fighting to be able to keep on negatively affecting Others.
I always enjoy reading your replies Nigelj and One Planet Only Forever, we never stop learning and no-one knows everything..Thats not a criticism. I had a quick look at Australian Sustainable Goals, at some projects..
https://sdgs.org.au/projects/
I guess mostly positive stuff there but the Glencore " ad " of rehabilitating of 1000+ hectare of mining land and also doing this..
On 6 March 2019, it was revealed by The Guardian Australia that Glencore, aided by consulting firm CT Group, had engaged in a large-scale, globally coordinated lobbying campaign to promote coal use "by undermining environmental activists, influencing politicians and spreading sophisticated pro-coal messaging on social media."[93] The campaign was started in 2017 and ran until 2019, when it was shut down in February, according to Glencore.[93]
certainly brought out the cynic in me about the tenth largest company in the world..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencore
But what i really would like to know is how to argue against this..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEXC2k4iiXc
That website is certainly not my info goto, but how this right wing conservative has twisted our meteorlogicals stats has me beat...
prove we are smart @21,
The muppet in the video simply combines a number of weak or falacious argument to support his grand "there is no AGW" delusion.
The first bit of it is feeding off this weblog at denialist site http://joannenova.com.au. There are genuine reasons for adjusting temperature data but the usual nonsense from denialists is that such adjustments are fake, or at least they are fake when the raw data is more favourble to their delusions.
The Mayor of Glen Innes featured in the denialist video says nothing about what data is used to establish AGW. I'm sure if the number of +40ºC daily maximums was how to measure AGW, we would have debunked that particular denialist argument many times before.
The Glen Innes Annual Max data for the period 1907-2012 doesn't show any significant warming trend, although when combined with the Annual Min data, the Annual Average data 1907-2012 does. And over the period 1975-2012 the Average data is running at +0.15ºC/decade although the noise reduces the statistical significance (+/- 0.12ºC/decade at 2sd). The Annual Max also shows a reasonable warming trend but the noise makes it statistically insignificant at 2sd +0.12ºC(+/-0.21)/decade.
And the various reports of cold winters are not incompatible with AGW although it is wise not to listen to other swivel-eyed climate deniers unless you are happy broadcasting fake news. So the blather about a cold winter ahead for the UK is nought but blather. "Claims that the UK is set to face the chillest winter in a century and even a white Christmas have been dismissed by the Met Office."
And arguing against a swivel-eyed loon in full flow isn't for the faint hearted. Unless you have history with the guy, or you can succinctly debunk his nonsense, I would suggest you let this Rowan Dean make a fool of himself. He appears not to always be careful with what he spouts. For instance, I see last year that he proclaimed that "A growing number of scientists now believe solar activity is the real culprit behind so-called climate change." This is the sort of nosense that can be addressed assertively. "A growing number of scientists"? What are their names? Put up or shut up!!
MA RODGER @22, thanks for chasing down those facts and good advice. I have commented on that right wing, disinformation site in the past and linked to this climate science blog. Wilfully ignorant people are enablers of political corruption..
I drafted this earlier, but then had errands to run, and MA Rogers has provided a great reply.
However, applying the advice of other wise commentators at this site I had a little fun making fun of this. So I am sharing it.
Also, the parts at the end of my original draft (still there) about the guy needing to get a new job leads me to suggest a possible action that could be helpful.
In Canada every business with a broadcasting licence can have complaints about inappropriate content result in regulatory actions from the CRTC, the Licence Governing body. In addition, the Advertising Standards Council acts on complaints about misleading advertising. If similar Institutions exist in Australia, you could submit parallel complaints to the Licence Governing body and the Advertising Standards Council about this specific episode being inappropriate content that is also misleading advertising.
You could also use MA Rogers points to help your friends improve their awareness and understanding by pointing out the many gross errors made by this Guy in this episode.
No Copyright on this comment. Like any comment I make here, it is offered for all to improve, correct, and use as they see fit.
Here are the Key Points presented sort of as they come up during this entertaining, though admittedly annoyingly incorrect, presentation (unlike some entertainment, even vaguely educational, except as a Bad Example). Think of it as similar to a Sportscaster's Play-by-play, or Game Bloopers bit.
The entire game played was a Massive Miss regarding Global Warming evaluation. The global warming trend is best seen in the global average of surface temperature data, not selected local data sets. And that data needs to be reviewed and adjusted for things like changes of conditions at the monitoring locations that affect the temperature measurement at that specific location, including improvements to the monitoring equipment set-up or the local relocation of the monitoring equipment.
The reasons for adjusting the raw data is explained by Australia's BoM here.
But let's play along anyway:
Then there is More:
His presentation shoots and missed on so many counts. So much Missing. Someone should be 'changing his career' (his team manager needs to do that because this guy appears to be clueless). Maybe a letter could be sent to his bosses questioning his ability to correctly interpret and report information. It appears he lacks the ability to properly Report evidence-based understanding. Maybe Sports would be 'his thing' (sportscasters are the Entertainers of Information Reporters, even more so than Entertainment Reporters).
The Sportscasters might welcome him, but I doubt that. Even a Sportscaster has to get the scores and statistics correct, and know what game they are talking about.
Most important, anyone trying to claim they won based on this guy's reporting would be in serious trouble. Claiming to win of a bet with a friend based on this guy's reporting should seriously affect the friendship, hopefully by the friend having pity and trying to help educate the fooled one. Trying to get paid by a bookie based on this guy's reporting would be worse. Bookies are not interested in Helping Others, and bookies base their actions on a detailed understanding of the facts.
To be clear, my comment @24 is regarding the video clip link in prove we are smart's comment @21.
In my final edit of my comment @24, made while re-watching the video, I failed to pick up that the following bullet does not apply.
"And it is further out of bounds to to say that the uncorrected data is “... the chart that the BOM used previously ...”."
That bullet does not apply since the comment was an accurate reference to the chart of adjusted data before the latest adjustments were made. It was one of the few 'correct statements made'.