Monday, September 17, 2012

The CharlesH Problem







Has cleaning up the world ever been a bad thing?



Anyway, I'm rambling.

CharlesH wrote, on 9/10:








Idiots never are.








What can you say?






I think their crimes will be obvious in about a decade.



Can we have an accounting, please?


And CharlesH, who clearly knows no science either.





Anyway, I should stop.

I'm tired.







Who would have though it? Certainly not CharlesH.




  1. "I think the most depressing part of the climate debate is the vast number of people who know no science at all"

    There have always been people like that, it's just that with the Internet they find it much easier to get heard.

    What I find most depressing is the academics in other fields who do know about science but almost nothing about climate science and nevertheless feel that they know better than professional climate scientists. These are people who ought to know better!

  2. I'm sure Paul Ehrlich felt the same way when he was so much more knowledgeable than everyone else on population matters. Paul knew disaster was eminent and tens of millions would die prior to the year 2000. We should have put everyone that disagreed with Paul Ehrlich in prison because they were too stupid to understand the consequences that the expert Paul Ehrlich warned about.

  3. Papa Zu - But can you not see how utterly useless that argument is? It's a specific form of the general argument:

    a) David - Scientists says "X" is a problem.
    b) Papa Zu - But here's an example of a scientist who was wrong about something!

    The logical conclusion, if one accepts the validity of your argument, is that science cannot be used to help guide societal decisions, because some guy was wrong once.

    I'm guessing that's not where you want to go with this, but it's the inevitable conclusion of the argument you make.

  4. Perhaps you could join with some of the best communicators in your discipline to create a "climate change" dream team and challenge the "deniers" to a series of debates. As this issue is now in the political realm, it is there you need to win the argument. I am sure that if you summoned up all the science and put it forth you would have no problem winning this debate. With the future of the planet at stake, I have no doubt that you could gather the best minds and the best communicators to speak to the public. May the best projection win...

  5. Anonymous8:03 AM

    David said, "Anyway, I'm rambling." Yes, you are. Put that crap down, you're too old to be dabbling in that stuff.

    David also stated, "He says a lot of stuff, but never proves any of it." That in regards to offering confirmation of the assertion to sea level rise and various other claims. Sadly, David is guilty of exactly the same thing! Well, he did tell us that a graduate student said...... WTF is that, David?

    Lastly after rambling about "crimes against humanity" and to thoughts expressing the desire to stop the free flow of thoughts and ideas David stated, "Anyway, I should stop."

    No David, you should have stopped long before that. The thoughts you've expressed are barely coherent, but, what I've gleaned has diminished my estimation of you as a person.

    James Sexton

  6. "We are at 395 ppm. Compare that to Ice Age charts"

    Or compare it to the Mediaeval Warming period. Slice it. Dice it. Make what you want of it. Some of us have watched greens catastrophising and Chicken Lickening for over 40 years now. In the 70s we were all going to freeze to death eh? None of these catastrophes came to pass, did they? Why not get a life eh and just enjoy the planet as it is, handling whatever has taken place for millions of years. We are just a drop in the ocean of geological time, and will be forgotten before we are remembered. Scheesh. So sick of this SCHLOCK.

    Jeremy Poynton

  7. Wow, I don't think I've seen so much hyperbole and pot-calling-kettle-black in one place in a LONG time. Thanks for the laughs.

  8. No, Jeremy, we were not all going to freeze to death in the '70s -- in fact, Manabe was already making computer models, Stephen Schneider published a major paper on CO2 buildup in Science, and and the Johnson Administration had a report on CO2 warming in the 1960s.

    Yours is exactly the kind of falsehood I'm complaining about -- you write as if it's fact, without bothering to check or understand. Thanks for helping me make my point.

  9. Jeremy: Please read

    "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus," W. Peterson et al, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 89, 1325–1337, 2008

  10. The 70's were great. We had the CIA, NASA, climate scientists, and the lamestream media all hyping the coming ice age. But Mr. Appel has one paper written by a rabid alarmist who was kicked off of wikipedia for dishonest editing practices that he thinks proves that none of this happened. Nice!

  11. And neither are we goung to fry now, David. As I suggested - you are an obsessive. Try life, it's fun

  12. @John Fleck

    John - David is raising the possibility of prosecuting and possibly imprisoning those that disagree with David and others who feel they know more than everyone else and consider themselves experts on climate change. You completely missed my point which is that there is a great risk in prosecuting and/or imprisoning people who speak out against science experts. Didn't we learn from the past that silencing others is never acceptable in a free society?

    There are far more rich and powerful entities, including almost every science group and government, who promote climate alarmism than there are promoting climate skepticism, and the idea of prosecuting and/or imprisoning less powerful people who express disagreement is abhorant to me. I don't want to silence poor people because they don't have PHD's in finance or economics and support ideas that are bad for the economy. Does that help clarify my point? Surely you don't want to silence people from giving there opinions on things they aren't experts on do you? It isn't the way forward for this country is it?

  13. TNfit -

    You should read the actual BAMS paper regarding what scientists and the media were saying in the 1970s regarding future temperature trends. Wherein we (I was a coauthor) provided data in the form of thorough literature review in an effort to tease out what was and what was not being said. Reviewing the actual literature, including the full research papers and media accounts on which the claim has been based over the years, showed them to be egregious cherrypicks, and showed that the bulk of the scientific literature (and a significant amount of media coverage) was dominated by those projecting warming based on increasing greenhouse gases. We showed our work, in great detail.

    To dismiss our paper based on your views of one of the authors is a classic example of the sort of sloppy thinking David's complaining about here. The logicians call it the "argumentum ad hominem".

  14. As a lawyer, and even worse, as a politician, I don't think it'll ever be illegal to deny climate change. By the time we reach sufficient consensus that climate change is real and awful, the people who continue to deny it will be too unimportant to go after by changing the First Amendment.

    What I do expect is 30 years from now the denialists will deny the strength of the evidence 30 years in the past, and trumpet their past roles as "Devil's Advocate."

    Gag me, as they used to say a little south of where I live.

  15. Should clarify that I meant sufficient POLITICAL consensus - the scientific consensus was reached decades ago.

  16. Thanks David. I got my very own post!

    The DavidA problem: Wild exaggeration.

    CharlesH says: The IPCC projects 1-2ft sea level rise over the next 100yrs. Current rate of increase is ~3mm/yr or ~1ft per year. [With me so far?]

    DavidA says: This is a crisis and will require the entire population of Bangladesh to be relocated. [No, I'm not kidding.]

    CharlesH says: In fact it is a trivial problem given 1-2fit rise decreases Bangladesh land area by less than 1%. [Got that? CAGW is really just AGW.]

    Thanks again David.

  17. Anonymous3:47 PM


    Ad hominem attacks and name-calling are signs of a loser, BYW.


    There is actually no reason that we cannot have a good life, enjoying everything and NOT screwing ourselves into the ground based on junk science produced by advocate "scientists" who support a political agenda.

    There is not a shred of defensible evidence to support the claim that we have any detectable influence on the climate. All predictions are based on fatally flawed computer models which are not science and simply computer programmer wet-dreams.

  18. David,

    I have disagreed with you in the past. I have had my serious differences with james Sexton about Climate issues, but in this case i agree with him that this post is rather incoherent and the idea of "silencing" speech, no matter how wrong or offensive is itself offensive. i understand and sympathize with you concern as i pretty much share your views on the reality of cliamte change, but it is irresponsible for either you a philosopher at penn St. or Mann or anyone else to be alluding to making any speech illegal or crimes agaisnt humanity. It was not illegal for NAZI sympathizers in the US , and it should not have been illegal for communist during the McCarthy era or During WWl and Wilson's "sedition" extradictions>
    I actually sympathize with some denier concerns as I see quite a few people who are what I consider to be alarmists who make predictions about catastrophe based on incomplete or distorted data. Some due so out of ignorance but I am pretty sure some do so in order to "shock" people into action or as ammunition to demonize deniers. In my view neither is acceptable.

  19. David,

    You have been the object of numerous attacks from Goddard. of course you attacked him first (I think). It is completely ad Hominem, which is rathr par for the course. But they are also stupid and juvenile, which is also quite expected.
    Interestingly Goddard has repeatedly censored me and banned me and since i have ben questioning him about arcitc ice spring and summer he apparently has permanently banned me so as not to allow his followers to have me remind all of them that almost every single post he made about the arctic was either wrong or misleading. I will not deny that I had a very sarcastic bent, but I was really just mirroring him, so ther is no way i could have broken any blog rules, escpet for "thou must not ever shove Steve's face in any repeated mistakes he makes".
    I am quite fascianted at the denier need to call knowledgeable people idiots fools and greedy immoral whatnots, whilst spewing pseudo science.
    I will grant you that some of them are quite intelligent ant actually know alot aboput science and the issues involed in climate studies> Goddard certainly being one of those. But the main factor that I see is a overwhelming desire to show their opponents as being wrong, and no real interest in actual reality. they of course accuse people like me of exactly the same thing. the difference is that I acknowledge when i am wrong and I generally do not argue about issues I am not knowledgeable about if presented with information that puts my views in doubt. I have yet to see Goddard ever considr the possibility that he has been worng about any substantive issue on the myriad of areas where he contends all the experts are wrong.

  20. Chuck Highley: Can you show me a non-model-based experiment or reasoning that shows that electrons exist? That smoking causes cancer? That a bridge will stay up or a plane will fly?

    All science is based on models.

    In any case, you are wrong about climate science and climate model projections. Some is some of the physical evidence for man's influence on the climate system:

    "Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997," J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).

    These findings have been confirmed:


    “Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth's infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006,” Chen et al, (2007)

    More papers on this subject are listed here:

  21. Charles, this is a perfect example of your shallow and flawed thinking:


    If you do not see your obvious flaw, no one can possibly teach you a thing.

  22. Brian, I suspect you are right. 30 years from now the deniers-of-today will be trying to salvage themselves by claiming they were pointing out the need for better data, better certainty, better models, etc.

    It's like the way Watts backtracked from his statement that he was prepared to accept whatever BEST found. When they found the data showed warming, he had to find a way to divorce himself from it while still appearing to be on the high road.

  23. On numerous occasions Watts claimed on the PBS video that he believed in global warming, though the rate is overstated. His paper states the rate is about half that claimed by BEST.

    As we know temperatures have been rising since the end of the "little ice age", it seems reasonable to conclude that natural forces are continuing. When, in this recent warming phase, did natural climate action end and when did "man made" warming kick in? And as temps have recently stopped increasing, why then has the warming ended?

  24. I am still wondering about your thoughts on my idea of a series of public debates. Would this not help to convince the public(whose support via funding is ultimately required)that there is no doubt concerning the science? There should be no problems in gathering up the great communicators of climate science when the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Indeed, they should be eager to debate with the deniers and demonstrate the poverty of their "science".

  25. "Charles, this is a perfect example of your shallow and flawed thinking:



    Are you talking about the "~1ft per year" should be "~ft per 100 years" typo?

    That's it? That all you got? A typo!

    What your wild exaggeration regarding the impact of 1-2ft on the Bangladesh? Do you still believe the entire country of Bangladesh will have to be resettled if we have a 1-2ft sea level rise over the next 100yrs?

  26. David,
    You are suffering from the "Noble Cause Corruption" that Anthony Watts talked about on PBS. This was a new idea for me but it is just the modern version of Lenin's tenet that "the end justifies the means".

    Noble Cause" people state what they think the problem is and then demand that the rest of us hand over control of our lives and our money.

    Forget it! It won't happen no matter what you do or say.

  27. CharleH,
    Keep up the good work. It seems that your common sense is causing David to become even more unhinged than usual.

    David says you don't have any basis for your 3 mm/year sea level rise. Maybe he should read this:

  28. David,
    You are panicking over 395 ppm of CO2 causing a rise in global temperature. If it turns out that you are right it will be the first time that has happened.

    For almost a million years the CO2 concentration has been driven by temperature. The GRIP, EPICA and other ice core records are "hard science".

    Going back even further we have Ice Ages occurring in spite of CO2 concentrations exceeding 5,000 ppm:

  29. David,
    Your obsession with CO2 rests on James Hansen's "Greenhouse Effect" theory that was initially proposed to explain the high surface temperature on Venus. Unfortunately, Hansen's theory is wrong. It does not explain the temperatures that are observed, here or on Venus.

    Long before Hansen showed up with his fairy tales, a real scientist called Carl Sagan correctly explained the surface temperature on the surface of Venus (1967):

    Rodrigo Caballero (University College, Dublin) has an excellent set of course notes that should convince you that thermodynamics can explain temperature gradients in planetary tropospheres with much better precision than Hansen can claim:

  30. David,
    I read many blogs on your side of the climate debate including Brave New Climate, Deltoid, Climate Progress, Open Mind, Skeptical Science and others.

    One by one these blogs have censored me so they are now "Read Only" as far as I am concerned. If their arguments were valid they would have been able to vanquish me in open debate but instead they "Moderate" my comments into oblivion.

    To your credit you have not "Moderated" me thus far so maybe a debate is still possible on your blog. If so you will have my respect even if I disagree with you!

  31. Bahamamamma - you are of course totally wrong in everything you write. So far wrong that your links to alleged evidence re. Venus and thermodynamics explaining warming don't work.

    Our obsession with CO2 rests on its proven greenhouse abilities due to the fact that it absorbs certain wavelengths of energy. Anyone who disagrees with this has abandoned all modern science and shuold be ridiculed.

  32. Hang in there David! We need more bloggers like you that firmly stick to the center.

    I also wonder why there's such little talk in the deniosphere about the Seuss effect.

  33. I do appreciate the rubes giving me easy points in our Climate Denier Nincompoopery Game:



    Thanks for the points (and laffs) deniers!



  34. "And CharlesH, who clearly knows no science either."

    I have been published in AIP which I believe is a pier reviewed journal is it not? How about you? Have you been published in a peer reviewed journal?

    Education: physics/business, BYU/Harvard. Sorry, no physics PhD (you got me there). I wanted to make more money (which I did).

    High School: ACT 31/32. AP math 5. I'm pretty intelligent. 2nd in my class.

    "ignorance from Tea Party types in rural Utah"

    Retired (at 55) now in Utah (cheaper). I spent my 25yr professional career semiconductor in ***Oregon***/California. Does that help?

    So I'm not going to win the Nobel prize but you are making a big mistake if you think CAGW skeptics are all country bumpkins. Here is one of my favorite CAGW skeptics and I bet he can run circles around you and your readers on the science intelligence scale.

  35. David Appell you brought tears to my eyes. So much so that I felt compelled to bring my wife into the room so that she too could laugh at you as hard as myself.

  36. David:

    Still waiting for you to comment on my suggestion for a series of debates where you and your colleagues could inform the public in a very public way just how foolish and out of touch with the science are those you call the "deniers". You should have no problem pointing out their disinformation, thus bringing the average person on board with all your proactive measures. Will you comment on my idea?

  37. Hey David,
    We are still waiting for proof that Man's CO2 is causing dangerous warming. According to Hansen's earlier prediction, NYC is now under water and the climate is irreversibly damaged.

    Why don't you:
    1. show that the current climate is outside of historical norms.

    2. Explain what caused the early 20th century temperature rise which was at a similar rate and amplitude to the latest warming pulse, with low CO2 and how CO2, instead of that same cause, caused the late 20th century warming. Look at this as lab experiment with two similar warmings, one without CO2. Explain what caused the earlier one and why that cause did not cause the later one.



    Let's do a little highschool level science and see how scary it is . The numbers I see most ubiquitously are that it's warmed from about 288 kelvin , about 10 degrees warmer than a gray ball in our orbit , to 288.8 while CO2 has has risen from about 3 molecules to 4 per 10k .

    So what can we expect from another molecule per 10k if CO2 is the total driver responsible for that 0.3% rise in our temperature ? Simple linear extrapolation says another 0.8c . Ooh , scary ! And that's not considering the sub-linear logarithmic effect of Beer's law .

    But , of course , those who are terrified by a little bit more of the building block of the biosphere say we're right at the cusp of some massive non-linearity , some tipping point . Well , with all of the effects that may be at play , we are only 3% warmer than a gray ball . Somehow there was no great tipping point in that range from 0 to 279k that got us more than 3% away .

    What profound stupidity to want to purposely suppress the welfare of the living on the basis of fear of the very molecule which enables green life .

  39. Anonymous4:35 PM


    That says it all. That shows the true face of this ideology. This has nothing to do with science, but only with one thing: power.

    Pure and utter "green" fascism. The red, brown and black shirts are "out". The green shirts are "in".

    What will be the greeting? Heil Mann? Heil Gore?

    But yeah, you can try to make free speech and free thought illegal. That'll only work until the people (you know, the folks paying like crazy for your ideas while having absolutely no say in what is done) will start cutting off your heads.

    1789, read up on it you arrogant American bastards.

  40. Anonymous4:40 PM


    Is this the beginning of the Totalitarian Science Party? Or just belated, psychosis induced acknowledgement of its existence?

  41. maybe you should fake a survey with global warming skeptics and accuse them of not believing in the moon landings.

    or make up an interesting and catchy graphic, thrown together from falsified data. maybe... a hockey stick? yeah, that's it!

    or you could produce a film full of laughably false claims about glaciers melting, polar bear populations shrinking, mount kilamanjaro, etc. that should convince people!

    no, wait. how about this: get someone at the noaa to falsify official temperature records by "adjusting" them. lower all the old temps that were hotter than today, and raise all of today's temps that were cooler than in the past. awesome!

    and while you're at it, start calling skeptics "deniers" and link them to nazis.

    best possible solution: use a balanced approach. all of the above. you be sure to win!


  42. This comment has been removed by the author.


    Oh for god's sake. Did the Wright brothers use models to design their planes? Did Democritus need models to formulate his atomic theory of the universe? How have they built bridges for CENTURIES without models? What type of model would you use to show smoking causes cancer? Wouldn't OBSERVATION be the way to make that determination?

    This reliance on models as the "final word" shows just how little actual science backs up the hysterical claims of catastrophe. As someone with a BS in Computer Science, I can tell you: Garbage in, garbage out.

  44. Nice stuff, Dave. Funny how your diatribe seems like incoherent ranting about ranters.

    Instead of wasting your time rambling about "people who know no science of climate change," which is a group that includes yourself, why not make a difference in the world and figure out how to outlaw "climate denialism."

    I don't know how that could be done, but at least you would have the feeling of accomplishing SOMETHING more than bitching about people you have no regard for

  45. Happy to make a deal with you, prosecute all the "skeptics" you want lock them in jail forever - if temps manage to get back up to Hanson's 1980's best case future scenario - the one where we spend trillions of dollars and all go back to living like cave men.

    But if we never get back to that then skeptics get to gag and lock up every single warmist scientist for the rest of their natural lives.

    I agree the AGW debate is stupid. That so many people can believe that something that has been going on naturally billions of years is caused by men

  46. oh snap! check out the rebuttal from charlesh...


  47. pinroot wrote:
    >> This reliance on models as the "final word" <<

    Another person who does not understand science, but somehow feels qualified to write off its findings.

    Models are only one leg of the AGW argument. As I gave links for above, there are physical measurements of an enhanced greenhouse effect. There is the nearly unprecedented rate of change in features such as sea level rise, sea ice melt, and glacial melt. And there is the fact that no other known cause could be causing this much warming, especially in the oceans.

    A B.S. in computer science does not make you a climate science expert. (Only part of computer science is a science anyway, and probably not the part you do.)

  48. dhlii wrote:

    Why do you think one computer model from the 1980s was the last word in climate science?

  49. Professional journalist writes blog post full of brutally incompetent english proving, if nothing else, that being paid to do something doesn't guarantee compentency. Irony deepens as it appears, if his gibberish is being interpretted correctly, to be 20 or so paragraphs of impassioned appeal to trust the authority and the skill of professionals above all else. It occurs to me that people who refuse to question the possibility that they might be wrong don't just protect whatever stupidity they've already earned, their ignorance puts on interest as more and more opportunities to exchange it for humility pass by, smugly ignored. I leave smug comment behind anyway, pretty sure that I'm right this time, and anyway, for sure this Appell guy is still going to be the biggest renob in the room.

  50. Very casually, CharlesH got up from his desk to step on a bug. Upon crushing the bug to smithereens with a rolled up magazine titled "Observational Evidence", CharlesH was surprised to hear a tiny voice screaming angrily, "That was nothing! Ha! Was that the best you got? The world is ending! You're the reason why! Rarr! You're a dumb dumbyhead! Grawwwrr!" As CharlesH swept up the remains of the still squawking bug and deposited him into the trash, he realized that some creatures are just to stupid to die...



    Nope, but it does qualify me to talk about computer models and how fundamentally weak they are. They can't even model clouds properly because they still don't know how clouds affect climate.

    On other topics, I like how you start with this: Perhaps we need a decade of true suffering -- I mean REAL hardship -- to break them of their idiocy. I'm just barely old enough to perhaps die in such a decade, but if that's what it really takes....

    And finish with this: I'll be flying home tomorrow...

    Maybe if people like you led by example instead of edict, we would be more inclined to listen.

  52. david, a lot of us have been pretty harsh in the comments, but i want to take a second and give you props for allowing a discussion to take place.

    not every discussion goes the way we want, but the important thing is to remain open to input, regardless of where it is coming from.

    and i have to say, even though i disagree with you on global warming, that i have a great deal of respect for you for not doing what so many others have done.

    best wishes from the other side :)

  53. Pinroot: Actually, no -- being able to write a PERL script does *not* qualify you to opine on climate models, which are far more determined by the subtleties of numerical solutions to PDEs and the difficulty of describing the underlying physics, than being a code jockey.

    You got a better way to determine future climate??

  54. Only part of computer science is a science anyway ...

    True, most of it is art, the only "scientific" part of it to me anyway, is the quantitative treatment of error.

    Which brings another question: How much effort is devoted to the analysis of error, and reporting it accurately along with climate model projections?

    Do you think that ANY of the "results" of such "analysis" would be published, if the errors of the reported projections were in fact larger than the possible "extremes" of some mean values computed in the analysis?

    I don't really think that would have a lot of meaning, but this is exactly what has been done

  55. Thanks rspung. I don't delete comments here(*), regardless of what anyone says. That's their right (and no, I do not really agree with Mann's speculations (and that's all they were) about the future legal consequences of deniability of AGW, though I can't speak for those who live in 2040 or 2050...). And you haven't seen the half of what I receive via email.

    (*) I did, eventually, start denying one commentor, "SBVOR," some guy who lived in the mountains of Colorado who would not write without calling me "Comrade." He stopped trying to make intelligent comments, and became obsessed with me personally.

  56. Brian Valentine:
    Didn't you write, at Steve Goddard's blog, that the greenhouse effect doesn't exist??

  57. Yes I am the same one, Sir, yes.

    Thank you for taking the time to reply.

    Yes, physical quantities that have no consistent definition, may be said not to exist.

    Thus if you can provide a definition of the "atmospheric Greenhouse effect" that does not involve an internal contradiction, I will be glad to change my statement.

    I would hope that you would change your views accordingly, although I am not at present, optimistic

    This is not a trivial exercise

  58. Brian V: I thought that was you.

    Enough said.

  59. You let your fans down, maybe, by walking away

    Anyway I don't think you won any over; ranting against deniers, instead of demonstrating them to be charlatans, probably won't perpetuate your credibility.

    Buona sera

  60. Brian V: The bald truth is, I am not trying to win over the idiots.

    You want to be an idiot? Then be an idiot.

    Such a way of being would put me to shame.

  61. Anonymous8:22 PM

    First they’ll make it a crime to deny climate change, next they’ll make it a crime to think it

  62. As noted by "rspung" and this mamma, David Appell deserves respect for not allowing this blog to deteriorate into an echo chamber on the lines of Joe Romm's "Climate Progress" or John Cook's "SKS".

    I often disagree with him on CAGW but do not see him as an enemy of free speech.

    Some months ago he posted drafts of WG1 & WG2 documents against the expressed wishes of the IPCC.

  63. This blog might attract many more comments if the dumb "captchas" were eliminated!

  64. Yes, the CAPTCHA is annoying. (But easier if you're not wasted.) But without them I am inundated with spam. So you'll just have to deal.

  65. Seriously, Mr. Appell, to any detached observer, it's plain that in this article, you appear to have become quite deranged.

    My advice? Keep on barking, long and loud. That's the surest way to hasten the end of the unutterable nonesense known as CAGW. More and more people on the warmist side are becoming unhinged and, inexorably, the wheels are coming off the bandwagon.

    Like others, I give you credit for not deleting critical responses, if nothing else.

  66. Pinroot: I think you nailed David A's true nature with the excellent juxtaposition of his desire for a climate apocalypse next to his casual mention of flying home the next day. A true believer would try his utmost to do everything he could to minimize his own carbon dioxide emissions as an example to the rest of us as to how easy and painless it can be. Instead he appears to be acting just like the rest of us normal folks. Hypocritical? Sure looks that way, but I see a bright side to this way of thinking.

    This is actually a very good thing for David! This shows that inside him there is some deeply-buried subconscious remnant of scientific skepticism that prevents him from totally falling for the alarmist story. He consciously worships at the altar of CAGW, but his actions betray his true feelings.

    It seems more like he has gotten his politics mixed up with his science, and it's making David Appell look rather more like a political creature than a rational creature. Not a good image for a science communicator to cultivate!

  67. Wow. Now tell us how you ~really~ feel David. Arrogance. Derision. Hatred. Sheesh. Tell it to a shrink.

    I mean really, who do you think you are? No human being (or group of them) can claim ownership of science.

    Particularly in a case such as AGW where politics, money and power are all inextricably integrated into the issue.

    I've modeled a few borderline chaotic systems myself, provided (questionable) stimulus data, run simulations, compared results to prototype system tests and performed worst case analysis - all on control loops with dozens of feedbacks complicating accuracy.

    Of course I'm a hack regarding climate science - I work in the real world (not academia).

    I know enough however to say that modeling the behavior of a control system on a planetary scale might be oh, maybe 1000x more complicated than those I've helped design (with teams of post-grad professionals in numerous disciplines.)

    So forgive me if I dare to question assertions of human extinction based on 0.X vs 0.X*2 degC/century temp rise when it is literally impossible to measure past rates with any accuracy at this resolution and what rate is unacceptable even if (human) CO2 were the primary source.

    The zealotry really is looking more like a new religion than science. Tsk tsk.

  68. This comment has been removed by the author.

  69. Anonymous11:55 PM

    Whatever the point of this rambling post was, it lost the moral high ground in these two sentences:


    Countered with breath-taking hypocrisy:

    "I'll be flying home tomorrow".

    Ready to die but not ready to not fly.

    David, if you cannot see how dangerous your rant is, then perhaps you need to read less political science and more history - specifically on the rise of Communism and Nazism.

    If you don't have time for that, perhaps just read 1984, or some articles on Rwanda, Yugoslavia or even just turn on CNN and watch what goes on in the free-speech-free middle east.

    Your rant is dangerous, extreme and shows poor mental health, a man riddled with hate.

    You may feel you have the moral high-ground, the facts and the cause, but science has been wrong before and will be again.

    And finally, where do you stop on stifling free speech? Should Anthony Watts be fined? Imprisoned? Executed? Tortured until he loves Big Brother?

    If a nutter with a gun shoots a noted climate skeptic, is that acceptable to you?

  70. I guess David's ploy is a reverse Voltaire (a "Voltaire-face"?) -- I disagree with what you say, and am willing to die, that you might be deprived of the right to say it. Not very enlightened, and definitely not pretty.

  71. Firstly, may I also add my approval of the lack of banning and spirit of openness. (Unless of course, David is really just collecting names and IPs to give to the "Sceptic Finder General" so we can be rounded up. :-) )

    Re models. I think a major point is missed here. It is not about the models per se, but how they are elevated. The chemist who was on one of the climategate inquiries noted this as well. Running a climate model is not an "experiment", it's a computer run. It is the elevation of model output to parity with observational evidence that is the concern for many on the sceptic side.

    Note for example that models predicted warming in the tropical troposphere, but the weather balloons couldn't find it. We then got a paper showing that the groundspeed of the balloon is a better indicator of temps than the thermometer onboard the balloon and what do you know, the new proxy matched the model.

    If real life data disagrees with the model then the model is wrong and needs work. The first response should not be the assumption that the data is wrong and the model correct. Data trumps model runs, or it does if you are actually doing "science".

    Re "The arctic ice" etc. We've been measuring the area for only some 30 years with satellites. In such a short space of time any change, either increase or decrease is going to be "almost unprecedented". Duh.

    Similarly it is just as silly to say that there should be concern because it is warmer now than at any time in the last 500 years. Of course it is, the last 500 years were a mini ice age. It's like announcing in late spring that there is cause for concern because it is warmer than at any time in the last 9 months.

    David also suggests considering the effect of an extra 1 part in 10,000 of CO2. Yes, it must make a difference. But also David, the tropic are contracting at about 1 mile per year, Cancer is moving South and Capricorn is moving north, thus concentrating the Suns rays on a smaller and smaller part of the Earths surface each year.

    Now the tropics are only 1,600 odd miles from the Equator so this intensification is 1 part in 1,600, almost an order of magnitude larger. Obviously since the angle of incidence is getting smaller then more energy is reaching the surface each year and must also cause warming.

  72. David, would you be able to clarify what you mean by "the nearly unprecedented rate of change..."?

    Seems to fall under the same broad category as 'nearly pregnant'. The rate of change either in unprecedented, or, as appears to be the case, is not unprecedented.

    Thanks in advance.

  73. Sorry, a few more points.

    It is disingenuous to say that sceptics deny climate change. The vast majority don't and never have. Asking someone to prove that their forecasts is not denial. The climate changes all the time and the simple fact is that the data does not show anything unusual going on.

    Now land use and CO2 must have some effect, I think that is obvious. However these effects are inputs into the very complex climate machine where the feedbacks will feedback on each other so to just consider the temp rise expected from the CO2 rise is simplistic to say the least.

    Pushing on the accelerator in your car will cause you to speed up, but the actual increase is not directly related to the pedal, there are other factors to consider.

    As for people from outside the field commenting, well so they should. The argument that only climate scientists are qualified is rubbish of the first order. Climate science analysis is mathematical and statistical in nature and to suggest that only climate scientists are qualified is special pleading and nothing more. Poor statistical analysis is poor stats regardless of the field. A correlation barely above random chance is barely above random chance whether it is in physics or climate science.

    Unless someone wants to argue that mathematics works differently in this particular field? No?

    Finally. "the people who really understand this are deeply, deeply concerned. Some of those who understand it the best are worried the most"

    Appeal to Authority. The funny thing is that some time ago the people "who really understand" things were worried about whites breeding with blacks. The scientists who "know something" were very worried back then too. They came up with the brilliant idea of "Eugenics", so pardon us mere mortals for not bowing and scraping at the altar of some scientists stellar wisdom.

    John Fleck argued against this point earlier but he has it backwards. If you want action, then prove it is required and due to the very long list of "Things Science got wrong in the past" then "Just because the people who study this say so" is not an argument at all. It is pure Appeal to Authority.

    By all means listen, but also look at the track record to see whether they are spouting rubbish.

    "Nullus in Verbia" has no exceptions and to argue that it should is politics and not science.

  74. Anonymous8:02 AM

    Chill out and read up on some of Einstein's pearls of wisdom:


    “Information is not knowledge.” Albert Einstein


    And most importantly:

    'The Goal' lecture at Princeton University (1939), quoted in Philipp Frank and George Rosen,


    — Albert Einstein

  75. When I get into discussions with people, I stick to facts but my global warming friends are immune. They always fall back into the "correlation is causation" fallacy and their eyes glaze over. They become impenetrable in their appeal to authority. "The IPCC says so!" or "97% of all scientists believe in global warming!" is all they know, and so they become caught in the theology of global warming or it's pale cousin, climate change. They don't know the facts, and they defer to the old argumentum ad verecundiam, the appeal-to-authority fallacy. They may be correct, but it is insufficient to prove their point. Science doesn't work that way. I only need provide contrary evidence and any theory that was once considered valid, must now be considered flawed. That is all. A new theory can be proposed and it will take into account the new evidence and I suspect it will be a superior theory, because it now is inclusive of the new reality. And this is where we sit in the global warming debate as far as I can tell. A theory was proposed. It functioned well and found favour amongst the political class, but now the data no longer fit the theory, and nature which all along has been working in a quite independently fashion, has diverged from the projected path, leaving the global warming theory without scientific merit. Another theory may yet be devised and I am sure that it will be superior, as is the case with our understanding of the planet. And here is my simple case: We have been told that as CO2 increases, the temperature increases. The relationship is linear, and the results have been projected well into the future. Without going into the "garbage in-garbage out" debate, for the sake of the discussion, I accept their projections of catastrophe. However, for the past 15 years we have pumped CO2 into the atmosphere at the most prolific rate in the history of mankind, and yet, the temperature has not increased. We are far below the projected rate of temperature increase, and are even below the rate projected assuming we completely quit using carbon energy in the year 2000. This alone invalidates the theory.

  76. Also, I will give you the absolute end of the "global" warming theory. As you know, there is a distinct lack of ice this year, and there is even less than in 2007. However, like 2007, there is an abundance of ice in Antarctica. In fact, we are above the 1979-2000 satellite average by about 1 million square km. And just last week a paper was released that showed that the Antarctic has been gaining ice mass since 2003, and not losing ice since 1992. As you know, the Antarctic contains about 90% of the ice on this planet, while the Arctic contains about .01% of the global total, that is one ten thousandth of the total. The Antarctic contains about 90% of the ice on this planet. Any small gain in the Antarctic dwarfs any loss in the Arctic. For example, a 1% increase in the Antarctic is almost 300,000 cubic km., while the Arctic only contains 24,000 cubic km. in winter! For the moment let’s not get caught up with the increasing albedo in the arctic-I recognize this is an important issue. With this report it is clearly possible to suggest that, far from a low in ice, we could be at a high. And if the thought that this planet contains more ice that we have had in the past 30 years or so means that “global warming” is clearly not occurring, it also means that “GLOBAL” warming is also not happening. There is no global, for if there was then the Antarctic would be losing ice mass. Which it is not. These are two very serious flaws in the “global warming” debate, and while I put them to you I await for my cheques from “big oil”. To be fair, climate science is in it’s infancy, and it needs to grow up and learn from it’s shortcomings. Perhaps in a few years they will create new climate models that better understand the vast complexities of the earth. However, I dare not hold my breath waiting for the spokespeople for the climate scare to confess to their inadequacies. For then I surely will die in my own CO2.

  77. Please could you clarify some aspects of what you said here:

    "You can't simply claim that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas.

    I think they're crimes will be obvious in about a decade.


    Are you saying merely that you predict that things will become so desperate that climate change denial will be made into a crime, or are you saying that you advocate that denial should be made into a crime?

    Likewise, was your impression that Michael Mann merely predicted that climate change denial be criminalized or did he advocate that?

  78. The DavidA Problem:

    Someone (hell, anyone) who disagrees with me is a criminal and should be prosecuted.

    tbh: if it ever comes to this. I will gladly switch to being a climate change denier because I'd rather die for the right to express my opinion, no matter how wrong, than watch it wither and die at the hands of thought police such as yourself.

  79. Natalie: I guess I'm saying (if anything) that climate change will get so bad that, in some countries (though not the US), denying manmade GW will be illegal, akin to how some countries regulate holocaust denial or Nazi memorabilia, or how Germany is now considering banning the anti-Mohammed film that has caused the current uproar.

    I do not think this will ever happen in the US -- I think the 1st amendment is the most valuable constitutional right we possess.

    (I can't elaborate on Michael Mann's comment beyond the one sentence he told me almost several years ago.).

  80. "I think the 1st amendment is the most valuable constitutional right we possess."

    Well, Mr. Appell, you could've fooled and me, and quite frankly, I think most everyone else as well based on the responses above (no need to go into details).

    However, your response to Natalie shows a hint of contrition which I find encouraging.

    Listen, you have a public profile, and I offer some serious advice. Please consider removing this post from your blog. It only fosters hate and that is something we all could benefit from a little less of. And that is something that I think everyone—skeptic, denier or believer—will agree on.

    And if we can't agree on that, then this is no longer a debate over science but instead a war that will ultimately end in bloodshed even on our shores, not some distant land.

    You need to find a quiet place by yourself and think hard upon what you have posted here and what your next action should be.

    I sincerely hope I am making sense.

  81. "Bill Clinton": Unless you can prove, in an email to me, that this is your real name, your future comments will be removed.

    Man up and use your real name.

  82. I am not sure what you mean by prove my name in an email. I am not even sure why my name is relevant. When did this suddenly become about me and my name?

    But I can see you like to pick fights. Or, you are feeling a little picked on right now. In either case, go ahead and delete my comments.

    But one word of caution, there are two types of people you are publicly picking a fight with in your post (I have no dog in this fight, merely offering advice, take it or leave it).

    The first are those who so zealously believe in the First Amendment, they will gladly die to see it upheld.

    The second are those who so zealously believe in the right to bear arms they stand firm with the visage: over my dead body.

    Are you sure you really want to take either or both of these groups on?

    I advise you to reconsider.

  83. The encouragement of the use of authentic names is about the only meaningful thing you contributed on your own web page here.

    Were you at Stony Brook when Chen-Ning Yang was there?

    He debunked an immense of amount of junk in his lifetime, I am surprised none of his skepticism rubbed off on you.

    You came away with nothin' from your graduate education, evidently.

  84. No scientific consensus has been reached on climate change. As an atmospheric scientist, I can assure you we fight like cats and dogs. Most folks who earn their living or raise funds for university research are convinced of looming climate disaster. Most scientists like me who are not funded by global warming money...and there is a lot of it...are highly skeptical of the disaster scenarios.

  85. David Appell apparently thinks that scienctific advancement should now be decided by the legal system. This is why I hate global warming extremists. They don't actually believe in the scientific process and want to depend on group think, consensus, and now Congress to decide on the best theory.

  86. As an atmospheric scientist, I am beginning to see amazing similarities between the global warming issue and saturated fat and heart disease science. We all know that butter and cream are bad for you, right? The Amer Heart Assoc recommended low fat, high carb diets with margarine and those fake egg things. "All scientists agreed". Except that now 30-40 years later, we are finding they were mostly wrong and the evidence was scant and the recommendations got way ahead of the skill of nutritional science.

    Although I'm a firm believer in climate change, I'm not the least bit worried about it. Like butter and eggs, the dangers seem remarkably over-hyped. Sure, it's probably better to eat nuts and olive oil and energy efficiency is a good thing, but over-reacting to incomplete and poorly understood science can have seriously bad eating trans fats and refined carbs and creating a nation of giant fat people from low fat diets.

    Climate science is in it's infancy. Forecasts so far have been worse than just drawing a trendline with a ruler. Feedbacks are completely unknown and huge components of models are effectively just bogussed in.

    I urge patience and listen to informed voices that disagree with you. The whole thing is complex and not at all as straightforward as we've been led to believe.

  87. Climate science is in its infancy.

    I'll say. The origins of the El Niño aren't known.

    Yet it is claimed that AGW somehow makes the El Niño "worse."

    Reflect on that and the idea of rational connection between "cause" and "effect"!

    Up until the 1970's, say, "climatology" had every bit as much "scientific" basis as stock market forecasting - drawing circles and triangles etc to look for "trends."

    "Modeling" was applied to give it some rational basis - such as to uncover the origins of things like El Niño.

    Which it failed at, but did provide a basis to justify AGW that appeared "scientific."

    This is where we are now, and a consequence is people like "physicist" David Appell spewing nonsense and profanity about people who might not have a lot of faith in it.

    "Scientific Creationists" are in fact more rational and tolerant...

    This is not a reflection on the degeneration of modern "science" - rather a reflection on modern "liberalism"

  88. Mary Brown said...

    No scientific consensus has been reached on climate change. As an atmospheric scientist, ...Most scientists like me who are not funded by global warming money...and there is a lot of it..

    Dano's sockpuppet replied:

    Oooh! Ooooh!

    I can play that game! let me try!

    I can type anything and assert that it is true! goes. Typing assured phrases...OK...OK...

    There are no monkeys on earth.


    How'd I do? Did my made-up typing convince you?


    Smarter industry sockpuppeteers, please. Someone do a casting call, quick!



  89. David,

    I find it fascinating how the comments on your post, even though i did not agree with parts of it, reflect exactly the sentiments you were espousing.
    Not being a scientist., I al always amazed at how people who apparently know much more than I do can repeat "facts" that I know are either just worng, distorted or so limited that the truth of the matter is the exact opposite of what they are claiming.
    I wonder who this Mary is, who says she is an "atmospheric" scientist, who warns ot listen to informed voices that disagree with you. She contends tht cliamte change is real, without saying what exactly she means by real, but then lists several caveats. Sicne I know some cliamte scientists who are concerned about serious consequences. i am failry sure her contention that grants bias their understanding is garbage. I wodner what other factual information she would care to share with us actually has validity. I consider myself a sceptic and certainly consider a number of possible ways that current cliamte science could be "wrong" the way she describes fat being wrong about weight. I have yet to see anything that is in any way persuasive. Models and other criteria may be very inexact, but physical processes are well understood and even with high uncertainty in some areas the dangers of climate change are potentially devastating.
    For example while I know that in every single baseball game it is almost impossible to predict the outcome, and certainly not the score. but I am willing to bet anyone today that the SF Giants WILL win their division.

  90. I learned a great deal from this post.

    Actually, not the post itself but from the comments of folks like Mary Brown and Brian Valentine.

    I don't have time to list you all so don't feel slighted. My slighting is reserved for the faithful Dano who spouted nonsense as usual.

    My "Gold Star" goes to "S Davis" who pointed out the absurdity of having a hissy fit over vanishing Arctic ice while the other pole is plumping up.

    About a year from now the IPCC will issue its AR5 report. You can bet that it will be full of dire warnings about vanishing ice in spite of what their own scientists say.

    Climate science is full of uncertainties as is well recognized in chapter 2 of the WG1 drafts. Don't expect any such doubts to find their way into the "Summary for Policymakers".

  91. the bahamamama sockpuppet is good evidence the disinformation industry is in the midst of a hiring crisis.

    Where have all the talented lying shills gone?!



  92. @ Dano:

    More name calling / acting like a teenager? Really?

    Is there any wonder why public opinion has moved away from you (aside from the ridiculous AGW assertions)?

    @ David:

    I don't blame you for abandoning this thread.

  93. The disinformation sockpuppets used to be a higher quality. Now they look hapless and flailing.



  94. Mary Brown: You wrote that you are an atmospheric scientist.


  95. bahamamamma wrote:

    This is a great example of the type of shallow thinking I've been writing about.

    Deniers like to write as if Arctic sea ice loss and that of the Antarctic are complementary.

    They are not, if they'd know if they checked the data.

    But they never do, do they?

    Total worldwide sea ice has declined 2.5% from the current 10 yrs to the previous 10 years.

    Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than Antarctic sea ice is increasing. Not that the two poles are equivalent in terms of climatic forces.

  96. You would not have been able to say that this spring, when global sea ice was a million square km. above average. Plus we know that Antarctic sea ice is about 2% of the global ice volume, just under 600,000 cubic km. This compares to the Arctic ice of about 24,000 cubic km. in winter. When the Antarctic is cold and sets records for the amount of sea ice, it means that global sea ice is very high. Sorry chap, but no one ever predicted a growing Antarctic ice mass was a prerequisite for global warming.

  97. Can you find me the climate scientist that, ten years ago, would have declared that humans were going to experience terrible global warming, but first we had to:

    See Antarctic sea extent increase to a known record?
    See Antarctic land ice increase?
    See an increase in the number of penguins?
    See an increase in the number of polar bears?
    See sea levels stop their consistent rise and begin to fall?
    See global cyclonic activity fall?
    See Atlantic hurricane activity decline to record a record low?
    See tornado activity hit an all-time low?
    See an accelerating rise in CO2 emissions but watch global temperatures level or even fall?
    See not one US state make a record high, but watch 5 make new record lows?
    See a mildly negative long term trend in drought conditions in the US?

    He might be an interesting interview!

  98. david, the vast majority of the world's ice is in the antarctic. the volume it is increasing by dwarfs the volume by which the arctic flucuates.

    and nasa has finally admitted what we "deniers" knew all along: the only reason why this year saw a new low in arctic ice cover was the massive storm in august that broke up the ice. it had nothing to do with global "warming".

  99. I thought this was quite interesting as well.

    "A paper published in Theoretical and Applied Climatology finds that between 1965 - 2006, urban regions in the Anatolian Peninsula, Turkey experienced a strong urban heat island effect of over 4°C, while surrounding rural areas showed no statistically significant warming at all."

    Instinctively we know this to be obvious. I suspect that we will begin to see this play out with the temperature record in other parts of the world as well.

    But...the temperature record, despite its flaws, must be defended at all costs. For if the UHI is definitively shown to bias the temperature record positively, then the game is up.

    And a lot of funding would be withdrawn...


  101. What a fabulous collection of deniers, sockpuppets and trolls you have here. It's almost as if there weren't such a thing as "science" or "peer-reviewed journals" and we were arguing theology. Actually, for them we are arguing theology because changing your mind when the evidence changes is something scientists do but not those of a religious faith.

    We have idiots arguing that winter Antarctic sea ice gains are somehow offsetting summer Arctic sea ice losses completely ignoring the fact that the sun doesn't shine on the Antarctic in winter making for no change in global albedo while the sun is right now shining on open water in the Arctic that should be ice.

    We have the clowns denying that the ice losses are unprecedented completely ignoring genetic separation between North Atlantic and North Pacific aquatic species. They also have to ignore the ocean sediment core data which they do quite successfully.

    You have a clown still declaring that there's been no recent global warming based upon a cherry picked BBC interview question that has since been massively debunked.

    I'm actually disappointed that you don't have a chemtrails fanatic or a HAARP conspiracy theorist to round out the set.

    I have to agree with you that at some point climate change denial will be like Holocaust denial illegal. I'll actually go you one further. Some time in the not too distant future some person that has lost his entire family in one of our new tornado superclusters is going to shoot some smug bastard denier that mouths off in front of him.

    Climate change denial is worse than holocaust denial since it is likely to kill far, far, more people. It's getting increasingly difficult to grow grain globally which means hungry people which means war. War like we're seeing in Syria which has suffered recent severe droughts.

    There's no indication we're moving to a more stable climate at all. Nature bats last.

  102. Pango:

    That was quite a nonsensical rant!

    As an admitted heretic to your theological "climate change" I would ask you to remember that the sun is now very much lower in the sky and any low albedo at the north pole at the equinox is more than made up for by the enormous reflectivity that is growing day by day in the south. Did you know that the northern extent of Antarctica is closer to the equator than Yellowknife in the North West Territories? No? Probably because you are too blind to your ideology to let facts enter.

    These ice losses are unprecedented...for the whole 33 years of satellite measurements. There are photos of submarines surfacing in May, 1987 at the North Pole with lots of open ice. There are numerous accounts of ships traveling to over 80 degrees north unencumbered by ice. Wake up.

    And yes, you would like to make reasonable skepticism a crime. What a fascist notion. Which matches up rather nicely with all the talk from the other side of the planet to stifle free speech. How blasphemous that we should dare to challenge the holy order of global warming!

    Finally, have you any notion of the many people that have died while precious resources have been diverted to ludicrous notions as carbon capture, or ocean based windmills? Couldn't that money have been better spent providing electricity for cooking in Africa and Asia as respiratory illnesses kill and injure millions every year. These are people dying today, not imaginary deaths that may occur in a hundred years...My precautionary principle is don't waste money on fantasy when you can save lives today. You deny them life.

  103. S. Davis_ As expected you do not fail to disappoint.

    First, as has been pointed out several times already summer arctic ice area losses are more than enough to overcome winter antarctic ice area gains. A good data visualization is available at Cryosphere Today:

    As to your other pathetic excuses for a counter-argument they amount to "some guy said" without much bother at all in the way of attribution. In the case of submarine pictures that "guy" could be said to be the U.S. Navy which very much believes in AGW. In the second case you're just repeating bullshit previously repeated at WUWT with absolutely no possibility of scientific verification.

    You and your ilk are *not* reasonable skeptics. You're the equivalent of a blogging circle that likes to write about the use of aconite as a beauty treatment denying it's very real dangers as a poison. The facts exist. They are verifiable, yet you insist upon advocating a course of action that will inevitably lead to unnecessary deaths. You're something of a horror.

    To be absolutely clear people have already died in job lots due to climate-change related weather events. Many, many more will die in the near future and unless we figure out some better way of feeding a global civilization than grain agriculture massive numbers are at risk.

  104. Pangolin,
    Your wild ranting is pretty embarrassing for your cause. Let's see how good you are at understanding scientific work collected by the IPCC's WG1 that will underpin the AR5 report due for publication a year from now.

    Download "Chapter 4: Cryosphere", read it and then answer the following questions:

    1. What is the maximum estimated rate of worldwide ice loss measured in Giga-tonnes/year?
    2. What is the average worldwide ice inventory measured in Giga-tonnes?

    Use these numbers to get a rough estimate of the time it would take to return the Earth to the near ice free conditions of the Paleocene-Eocene climate optimum, assuming that our current warm climate continues indefinitely.

    In case there are people who can't afford the time to do all that reading, the answer is one of these:
    A..100 years
    B..1,000 years
    C..10,000 years
    D..100,000 years
    E..1,000,000 years

    When you know the correct answer, the scales may fall from your eyes. Hey David and Dano, this one is for you too!

    My bet is that Mary and S. Davis already know the answer.

  105. Why would we want to play with your straw man when we already know there is a real and present danger today?

    Climate change pumped weather extremes are disrupting grain agriculture today. We don't have to wait until Miami is mangrove swamp and Oklahoma is a desert of blowing sand. Right now the world's major grain growing regions are having an increasing number of bad years which translates to an increasing number of hungry, disruptive, humans.

    Anthropogenic Climate Change is a clear and present danger today making your argument moot.

  106. I guess that is why the globe had its 2nd largest corn harvest and the US had its 8th largest. According to the USDA.

    I am so scared...yawn.

    Climate catastrophe fantacizers just love to raise the fear bar while the rest of the world laughs at them.

  107. What no link? Of course not.

    Try this:
    The most severe and extensive drought in at least 25 years is seriously affecting U.S. agriculture, with impacts on the crop and livestock sectors and with the potential to affect food prices at the retail level. Below is current information on potential impacts of the drought on key commodities and food prices. We will update the material periodically as information becomes available."

    Or alternatively, trust in the markets.

    That looks like prices are UP to me. With a regrettable forecast of a shortage of bacon.

    The UN FAO would tend to support your assertion but the report is dated May 2012 which cannot possibly have taken into account this summer's U.S. drought.

    Given that they're actually betting with real money I suspect the Chicago futures traders have the gist of it. Higher prices due to constrained supplies.

  108. I should have posted the link, but it took about 30 seconds to find it...

    I call BS on the hottest July and also on the worst drought. They are lying to your face.

    "Globally, USDA is still projecting the second-largest corn crop in history. Production in Argentina is up more than 30 percent over last year, while Mexico increased output 19 percent, South Africa 17 percent, Canada 9 percent, and China 4 percent.
    At 2.71 billion metric tons, USDA is also expecting the total 2012-13 grain supply (coarse grains, wheat and rice) to be the second-largest ever. The U.S. ethanol industry is expected to use just 2.9 percent of the global grain supply in 2012-13, according to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA)."

    "This report should bring some calm and increased certainty to the markets," said Dinneen. "With each passing day, we have a better sense of the size of this year's crop. We are thankful that it appears very little additional damage was done to the corn crop in late August and early September."
    He said that it's "truly remarkable" that even in the face of the worst drought in 50 years and the hottest July in recorded history, U.S. farmers were able to produce a corn crop of this size. Dinneen also said the report "clearly shows that all end users are sharing in the pain and participating in demand rationing."

  109. Loopy arts majors working for PR firms and in the media get the opportunity to expand on their doom inspired prose. Science gets lost in the dust in order to make climate hyperbole...if it isn't really happening, let's just make up devastation and call it real.

    Here is the link I forgot from the above post.

  110. Seriously? The local newspaper from Grand Island Nebraska, (Population: 49,239) is your source? So you wouldn't mind if I used say, the student newspaper at UCLA (40,675 enrolled) or some similar source to refute that then huh? Because that's a sad joke.

    Also the guy from the Renewable Fuels association is quoting the May forecast. Not actually all that useful; projections made last May that is.

    You're not even trying hard. Since we're using secondary sources try this:

    The second report, also published by the FAO, focuses on the amount of food we produce and use. It is considerably less optimistic and forecasts that in 2012/13 the world will eat more than it will produce. What’s more, forecasters have downgraded estimates for all of our most important crops: “coarse grains” (which includes the U.S. corn crop) are down 52 million tons, wheat is down 15 million tons and rice is down 6 million tons. This means 2012 to 13 is set to be the sixth year out of the past eleven that we’ve consumed more than we’ve grown.

    Keep yawning; maybe something edible will fly in.

  111. Anonymous11:33 AM

    If you can't beat 'em, join 'em: