It's the CO2 Stupid!

As the Green Lantern over at Slate concludes in a very nice job of explaining why water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing of climate change to the warm side:

There are many skeptical assertions worth engaging, such as the questionable efficacy of carbon offsets and the potential for our species to endure moderate warming in exchange for greater economic growth. But the water-vapor argument is designed only to mislead, taking a kernel of scientific truth and blowing it up into a risible call to inaction. And so the Lantern vows to continue blathering on about CO2.

Repeating this tired canard is a feedback loop itself: stuck on stupid.

Thinktank Echochamber

It seems uber conseravtive thinktank blogger Michael Fumento doesn't allow comments on his blog. Well, it saves him embarassement of having others more knowlegeable prove him wrong. How free is that platform? I published his ad hominem. Yet another Postcard from Wingerville here. Fumento is a fellow at the Hudson Institute, and part of an organized global warming denial effort chronicled in the Newsweek piece I reported on in the last post. It appears I struck a nerve.

Mistaken Assumption No. 6: If only.."

...enough problems can be found, global warming will go away.
No it won't, but it makes for some nice comedic theatre. Maybe.

"I believe there is a pressure on scientists to be conservative."

Writes NASA's James Hansen. "Papers are accepted for publication more readily if they do not push too far and are larded with caveats."

So again, the record shows the opposite of what wingnut sceptics say, which is they're hyping global warming to get funding. On the contrary, according to Hansen, who would be in a position to know, that's the way NOT to get funding. It's clear any scientific trail that leads to a place the oil companies don't want to go gets chastised. By this administration anyway. Was there ever any doubt of this? Not here.

Climate Denierama

Climate Denierama abounds this week and Dr. Michael Mann responds to the BS by wingnut CNN-sanctioned Glenn Beck, and left-wing whacko Alexander Cockburn. Cockburns and Coburn/Colburns are closely releated and I can attest to some in my own family so inclined, albeit conservatively political, and averse to scientific reasoning. Cockburn is evidence it can happen on both sides of this ideological spectrum.

RE Beck, his cast is the same dubious industry shills as Media Matters fleshes out here. It's pitiful to get a scientist at any level to lie for money. All the deniers are in this category.

Polar Bear Climate Change link Stuffed by Administration

After saying they didn't look at climate change , the Interior Department did indeed consult climate scientists before the listing was announced. One thing is certain: global warming is one helluva conflict. The enemy here are naysayers who deny its existence, and this is dangerous for the world.

Denier's Last Fefuge

Monbiot explains how the usual suspect wingnut anti-scientists are still wrong after all these years.

Return To Lomborg

Consider fellow Dane and Arhus University graduate in biology, Kåre Fog on the errors of Bjorn Lomborg, a non scientist, who hubristically dismisses scientific conclusions by using sleight of handism. Crichton has bought into the ruse of The Skeptical Environmentalist.

On Climate Models

At a Glance: Climate modelling

*The scientific consensus is that the observed warming of the Earth during the past half-century is mostly due to human emissions of greenhouse gases

*Predicting climate change depends on sophisticated computer models developed over the past 50 years

*Climate models are based on the Navier–Stokes equations for fluid flow, which are solved numerically on a grid covering the globe

*These models have been very successful in simulating the past climate, giving researchers confidence in their predictions

*The most likely value for the global temperature increase by 2100 is in the range 1.4–5.8 °C, which could have catastrophic consequences

One thing is certain: These models can predict the future better than a wingnut can in his head. It's the math stupid. or as one commenter on my novel said, "Everyone knows most conservatives are illiterate," scientifically for sure that is the case.

It's a Hoax!

Jennifer Marohasy the Brisbane based botanist and climate sceptic does her country a great disservice with her denialism. This is illustrated in this sceptical Op-ed from down under. There is a good reason I used some Aussie deniers in Warm Front as The Kookaburra Consortium. Like the birds, they mock reality. I'm hearing the Song of the Dodo though in their chant.