Watch Sen. Whitehouse, a badass, totally own Sen. Inhofe, a climate change denier, on climate change

Cute, except this devastating proof looks entirely made up. Why is the el-nino warming temp. peak in 1998 smaller than the 2007-2008 peak that… shouldn’t even be there since isn’t that time period the coldest part of this century so far? Graph the real temperature data and then be snarky about how smart you are. Anybody can post a gif they don’t understand.

Wow, you seem a bit hot under the collar.

8 Likes

I think the important thing we can all take away from this video is that the US Senate has a candy drawer.

12 Likes

From what I heard, he’s saying that atmospheric temperature only accounts for 3 to 4% of the heat absorbed. So to base one’s argument on the (questionable) fact that atmospheric temperature has been stable for several years is to ignore 97% of the problem. Not only that but if you interpret the chart that chenille kindly presented as a series of steps, there is no reason to believe that the most recent step will be the last one.

2 Likes

Because the surface temperature anomaly being plotted was higher at the beginning of 2007 than it was in 1998, as shows up in data sets like NOAA and GISS, as well as MSU for the lower troposphere.

Most sources talking about how cold 2007 was seem to be breathlessly quoting Motl on the MSU data, which do show it as colder but only for higher atmospheric layers. Needless to say that is not mean the graphed surface data is wrong. And it does not even mean the upper layers were particularly cold on a larger scale, because here century is really only a puffy term for the last decade.

Maybe instead of assuming I don’t understand what my graph shows, you should question whether your sources are giving you an honest picture, because this isn’t the first time they have misled you.

10 Likes

“Bookmark this video, and paste it whenever you encounter climate change deniers online.”

pfft

Whitehouse clearly has this whole thing backwards. As one of the esteemed members of these fora noted several weeks ago: having the consensus (or rather their “agreement”, which is totally not the same thing as consensus) of THE group of people who know what they’re talking about clearly indicatess that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Yeah … yeah, my head still hurts trying to figure that one out too. If leaps of logic were an Olympic track and field event, Wynn would be a shoo-in for the gold.

Oh, and I see Mark and CII have the good old Gish Gallop up and running. Good show, team. Good show.

2 Likes

Well, there’s this…

“Revelle’s daughter wrote:
Contrary to George Will’s “Al Gore’s Green Guilt” Roger Revelle—our father and the “father” of the greenhouse effect—remained deeply concerned about global warming until his death in July 1991. That same year he wrote: “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.” Will and other critics of Sen. Al Gore have seized these words to suggest that Revelle, who was also Gore’s professor and mentor, renounced his belief in global warming. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Revelle inveighed against “drastic” action, he was using that adjective in its literal sense—measures that would cost trillions of dollars. Up until his death, he thought that extreme measures were premature. But he continued to recommend immediate prudent steps to mitigate and delay climatic warming. Some of those steps go well beyond anything Gore or other national politicians have yet to advocate.[9]” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Revelle

There’s a difference between drastic action, throwing trillions of dollars uselessly at a problem and prudent, thoughtful action. On the other hand, the longer we do nothing, the more expensive any possible solution will be.

3 Likes

the Senator is saying that focusing on one specific part [roughly 3%] of the evidence which happens to kind of agree with your dismissal of a fact is really very silly when the overwhelming majority of the evidence , and indeed expert analysis and opinion, fully supports that fact.

It’s a bit like how your comment is focused on one very small part of his speech and totally ignored the rest of it, and posits confusion based on that tiny part.

It’s incredibly easy to convince yourself you are correct when you ignore 97% of the evidence. Tragically the real world continues existing, entirely irrelevant of your ignorance.

8 Likes

So, is there an ocean temperature based model that shows the rise this video suggests should be occurring since that is where 96% of the climate change is occurring? If not, does not it put some doubt in his assertion that the inability of the air temp models to predict the past 10 years or so can be easily dismissed. If they exist, why are we not talking about them instead?

i am not a denier but am skeptical since the models and forecasts that fueled climate change believers to doom- monger, predict the end of Manhattan/Malibu as we know it, and call for a shortage of polar bears have not lived up to their billing. I would welcome newer data/models if they offered better predictions and could demonstrate the the senator’s “the ocean is absorbing the heat” is more than conjecture. One would think that if such data existed, It would be the center of our discussions.

I have the opportunity to actually vote against him, and I do so at every opportunity.

But since I’m not likely to actually see him defeated in an election, I take special pleasure in watching this video.

1 Like

Whitehouse for President! Just for the name if nothing else.

4 Likes

There could be a Whitehouse in the White House.

Not much really. The predictions generally come with error bars to deal with unknowns, and right now are reaching the lower limit of those bars. Also there is the temperature escalator, plus lots of thermal energy appearing in the ocean - and it is - doesn’t exactly undermine the idea it is increasing in general.

All of which means the models should be improved rather than that they failed. But hey, I can see wanting to do better, and as a skeptic you would have looked for alternatives. So what better models have you found? Becuse for all such complaints about AGW, I’ve never seen any accurate predictions without it at all.

Not really even attempts at them, which speaks to how much real skepticism is out there.

2 Likes

It’s rare that I want to switch your government for ours, but on this issue, yes please.

@Mark_Estes if you want a demonstration of how good the atmospheric models actually are, check this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ2qUz47iI4#t=2183

It’s from documentary “Science Under Attack” and the clip I’ve jumped to shows the host visiting NASA where they have side by side screens, one showing actual weather observations and the other shows what the models predict the weather should look like. The two are undeniably similar. The dude from NASA also puts it this way, which best defines how science sees the issue:

“We measure scientific progress in our ability to reduce the uncertainties, and by that measure we’re making extraordinary progress”

Almost good enough to get a tattoo of, so every time someone chimes in with “Thanks sciencebama, your prediction was only within the range you suggested it would be, not at the high end of the range. You must be wrong!” I can just point at the tattoo. I probably need some of these too:

8 Likes

Also, The Spice Girls. The Spice Girls! What about the Spice Girls? Who cares? Spice Girls.

It seems to me that we are long past the point where attempts to present things like factual data in the Senate can be expected to accomplish anything. (Certainly, it’s easy enough to pass off the actions of Coke and Pepsi and so on as pandering to the market.)

I think that their reasoning in the long term, it that its cheaper to wait for 4-5 billion people to die due to climate change related reasons, (all you got to do is bury them), rather than take action that would have to change the current paradigm.
Besides if you belong at the part of the population in charge, you dont really care. You have the money to relocate, or do whatever necessary to “survive” unlike the rest. Hence climate deniers are born!

2 Likes

Exactly. The wealthy and powerful leaders don’t care what they do to the environment or to the economy, since they have the resources (all safely invested offshore) to go wherever it is most convenient.

I pity the poor, working-class sap who thinks they really represent or care about him or her.

Of course climate denying has nothing at all to do with science. They get a few shills (or hapless gullibles) to nit pick and obfuscate so it appears there is scientific controversy, but there isn’t.

The question is one of policy making and the prudent thing to do, of course, would be to begin doing something about climate change. But, as usual, when comes down to a choice between people or wealth, the Republicans always, always, always vote for protecting entrenched wealth. Delaying lines the pockets of big oil and, like many corporations, it’s only next quarter they’re worried about, not next century.

Sadly, we’ll be arguing this same BS in gas masks in a hundred years.

1 Like

And another thing.

If wingnuts are so interested in scientific controversy, why did they pick climate change to get their grundies in a bunch about? Purely out of scientific curiosity? Why not say some other real scientific controversy like string theory?

And don’t get me started on Creationism.

Someone could make up a whole bunch of totally bogus crap about String Theory and nobody would ever know. Have you seen the actual theories/math they work with?