Friday, June 27, 2014

LAST RESORT - a musical interlude

{yea, sorry about all the commercials, they need the money  ;- )  }

Well pals, I'm turning 59 in a few days and I am off on a short adventure this weekend.  Always dreamed of jumping out of an airplane to see what that first step feels like and then what it's like falling through the sky.

Seems a nice time for a thought provoking musical interlude.

LAST RESORT


Uploaded on May 24, 2011
You nailed Don Henley's true meaning of this song 
The pictures give a lot of sense to the lyrics. 
GOOD JOB! Cover by Tony Öhrn.
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Being conservative, at first I had my doubts, since I go way back with Henley's original,
still, didn't take long to give it up and appreciate this excellent rendition of the Eagle's Last Resort.  
Tony Öhrn did the song justice.  The pics did a good job of nailing it too.
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Cheers

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Check out Tony Öhrn's channel


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The 'Trenberth travesty' Travesty - Contemplating Contrarians #3

{edited 7/27/14 morning}

Being part-time retired means I'm part time working, and tis the season, calls keep coming in so I don't have near the time I need to put together a decent post.  Though I have managed to continue the "interesting" conversation with "krischel" over at OurChangingClimate.com.  I keep wanting to report on it, but it piles on too fast to do it justice.  Still, this evening I do want to share the results of this lasted dog-bone I fetched:
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 krischel posted: June 24, 2014 at 18:26
"CC asks: “Do you even understand what Trenberth’s Travesty was all about?”
"K responds: "Yes, I do. It was about hiding uncertainty from the public, rather than being openly honest about it."
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K linked me to Judith Curry's blog post of 3/29/2013 "Has Trenberth found the missing heat"

That in turn led me to Curry's, "Where's the "missing" heat? 1/7/2011 - Then on to a Roy Spencer's article of April 21, 2010: 
"The problem is that the oceans have not been warming in response to this imbalance.  
Trenberth and Fasullo seem to lean toward the possibility that this heat is “missing” somewhere, maybe temporarily trapped in the deep ocean. 
Roger Pielke, Sr., has voiced his opinion that the heat could not have magically avoided the ocean temperature sensors, both in space and floating around the world’s oceans, which monitor ocean surface and upper layer temperatures."

Yet, from the information within the links I share, you can see Spencer has no foundation for claiming "oceans have not been warming…"  Why?  Because we are still waiting on the data from the all important Antarctic continental shelf.  Making their focus on <700m disingenuous.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Falsifiability. A self-refuting theory?


In my continuing effort to grasp the landscape of the denialist mind, I've been grappling with various contrived arguments claiming that Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't scientific because it doesn't meet the "Falsifiability" supposition made by some philosopher.  

These science skeptics never acknowledge that the process of accumulating the various lines of evidence and bits of information, (that the "AGW Theory" is built on), is chock full of validity and quality tests that do try to falsify findings and conjectures - in order to insure their soundness.

But then, it sure does seem like their base mentality is that anything demanding a reevaluation of one's perceptions is deemed a hostile threat… 
so were do we go from here?  

Whatever happened to every side trying to get at a true understand, {which demands an interest in learning and a willingness to allow the strength of the evidence to change one's closely held assumptions and convictions}?

It's all a bit overwhelming.  While I continue to wrestle with how to recount the bizarre dialogue I've had with "k" allow me to share an interesting short video.  Jens Christensen examines the basic premise of the Popperian argument.  Perhaps you'll find it helpful.  I've included notes and time signatures.

Falsifiability. A self-refuting theory?

Monday, June 23, 2014

Keating's $10,000 Disprove AGW Challenge


I came across an interesting challenge that fits right into the basic drift of these posts.  One, Dr. Christopher Keating has put up a $10,000 challenge to the climate science distrusting/demeaning crowd to show off their own science.  This should be interesting.  

You see, it seems to me the Republican/Libertarian types stick to science-by-rhetoric while relying on a small group of fringe scientists who produce science-in-a-vacuum.  It's stuff that needs to be published by in-house faux publications because it can't withstand the scrutiny of objective active experts.  


This has created a wonderful bubble of perception, circular thinking every way one looks.  Twist and distort numbers, or leave out important factors, no problem, so long as the desired attack is achieved.  A paper get's rejected by the establishment, well that's just because it's all a conspiracy out there {never mind the quality of said paper}. Makes absolute sense…  from the inside.


Now Dr. Keating has challenged this crowd to put up some of "their science" to see how it stands up.  I'll let Dr. Keating take it from here:


The $10,000 Global Warming Skeptic Challenge! 
http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/p/1000-global-warming-skeptic-challenge.html 
I have heard global warming skeptics make all sorts of statements about how the science doesn't support claims of man-made climate change. I have found all of those statements to be empty and without any kind of supporting evidence. I have, in turn, stated that it is not possible for the skeptics to prove their claims. 
And, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. 
I am announcing the start of the $10,000 Global Warming Skeptic Challenge. 
The rules are easy:
1. I will award $10,000 of my own money to anyone that can prove, via the scientific method, that man-made global climate change is not occurring;
2. There is no entry fee;
3. You must be 18 years old or older to enter;
4. Entries do not have to be original, they only need to be first;
5. I am the final judge of all entries but will provide my comments on why any entry fails to prove the point.
 
That's it!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Catmando: A Richard Feynman Primer For Deniers

While going over the comments to Hans Clusters "Is Climate Science falsifiable" I came across the obligatory (yet misleading) appeal to Dr. Richard Feynman's authority.  Probably the most charismatic and hip atom bomb building physicist there was, kids and lefties loved him.  Back in the day, I read a couple of his books and he did a wonderful job of explaining science, plus his own life story was quite fascinating.  To top it off, one of his last big acts was to bust open the Challenger Shuttle disaster investigation with a simple demonstration that highlighted the foolishness of blasting off a rocket early after a freezing night with icicles still dangling off the gantry.

His name has now become a favored among the contrarian crowd.  You see, Dr. Feynman gave a great many lectures and was loved for his provocative approach to teaching physics and his copious legacy has become a motherlode for the quote-mining debate loving crowd.  


Then looking up more background information I was reading Victor Venema's interesting article "Falsifiable and falsification in science" over at his Variable Variability blog, I found out that a few months ago Catmando took the time to find some Feynman quotes that shed a more realistic light onto his thinking about the scientific process than the disingenuous curve balls our contrarian debate mates toss out.  


Catmando has been kind enough to give me permission to repost his article in full - and both of us give you permission to copy and pass along - but please do give him credit for his work and link back to http://ingeniouspursuits.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-richard-feynman-primer-for-deniers.html.


I also want to invite anyone who knows of other Feynman quotes worth contemplating please do share.

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A Richard Feynman Primer For Deniers

Thursday, 20 February 2014 ~ IngeniousPursuits.blogspot

Deniers love Richard Feynman.  He was everything that they could hope for, successful, witty, a hit with the ladies, a bona fide genius and Nobel laureate.  They love to quote him because he seems to support what they are aiming at: science is uncertain, some bits of science aren't true, etc.

But I sometimes wonder what Feynman would have made of the denialists.  Since he died in 1988 it isn't possible to ask him and I don't have to hand his collected works so I can't interrogate them either.  But he left some interesting quotes, the sort that the deniers usually don't bother with, that give us an idea of what he might have thought, for instance, of climate change denial.

First exhibit:
“Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools - guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus locus -THAT, I CANNOT STAND! 
An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!”

Thursday, June 12, 2014

The real political division is between rationalists and fantasists.

{I added some illuminating links, 6/13/2014 am}

I received a fund raising letter from our US Senator Bennet (Colorado) that contained an opening line which caught my attention.  Senator Bennet wrote: “I may have only been at this job a few years, but in that time, I’ve become convinced that the real division in our politics isn’t left vs. right, it’s the future vs. the past.”

I thought it was an interesting concept and wound up thinking about it a lot.  I decided that I would have put that differently: The real political division in our political system is between rationalists and fantasists.  


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Richard Tol's big mistake, or malicious behavior?

It's dumbfounding that even in the face of increasingly clear evidence for the seriousness of manmade global warming and the fact that important global geophysical changes have been initiated, changes that will undoubtedly radically rearrange the world we have come to love, the contrarian community, {you know, that god-fearing Republican/Libertarian community of deep pockets}, have been ramping up their attacks on science with an increasingly bizarre disconnect from the facts on the ground.  

It's hideous watching all these powerful people who will never admit to any mistakes - nor show any interest in constructively learning from the information at hand.  Faith over Fact!  Or is it simply disregard?  

Monday, June 9, 2014

“Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider”

{edited 6/9/2014 evening}

“Science and Distortion - Stephen Schneider”

Produced by Stephen Thomson and Plomomedia

Is a tribute to the late Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider.  A video montage featuring clips of Stephen Schneider speaking at Climate One - including interview clips of a young Dr. Schneider explaining the 1970s "consensus." 

It's a selection of incisive observations regarding the decades long Republican/Libertarian driven PR attack on science and all attempts at a rational public global warming education dialogue.

Since this short list of Dr. Schneider's observations are worth becoming familiar with, I transcribed them, both to help me digest the information and to share with others who might be curious.