Posted on 05/27/2016 9:37:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
Co-Authored by István Markó
True science requires that data, observations and other evidence support a hypothesis – and that it can withstand withering analysis and criticism – or the hypothesis is wrong.
That’s why Albert Einstein once joked, “If the facts don’t fit your theory, change the facts.” When informed that scientists who rejected his theory of relativity had published a pamphlet, 100 authors against Einstein, he replied: “Why 100? If I were wrong, one would be enough.”
In the realm of climate scientism, the rule seems to be: If the facts don’t support your argument, talk louder, twist the facts, and insult your opponents. That’s certainly what self-styled global warming “experts” like Al Gore and Bill Nye are doing. Rather than debating scientists who don’t accept false claims that humans are causing dangerous climate change, they just proclaim more loudly:
Our theory explains everything that’s happening. Hotter or colder temperatures, wetter or drier weather, less ice in the Arctic, more ice in Antarctica – it’s all due to fossil fuel use.
Climate scientism aggressively misrepresents facts, refuses to discuss energy and climate issues with anyone who points out massive flaws in the manmade climate chaos hypothesis, bullies anyone who won’t condemn carbon dioxide, and brands them as equivalent to Holocaust Deniers.
In a recent Huffington Post article, Mr. Nye “challenges climate change deniers” by claiming, “The science of global warming is long settled, and one may wonder why the United States, nominally the most technologically advanced country in the world, is not the world leader in addressing the threats.”
Perhaps it’s not so settled. When the Australian government recently shifted funds from studying climate change to addressing threats that might result, 275 research jobs were imperiled. The very scientists who’d been saying there was a 97% consensus howled that there really wasn’t one. Climate change is very complex, they cried (which is true), and much more work must be done if we are to provide more accurate temperature predictions, instead of wild forecasts based on CO2 emissions (also true).
Perhaps Mr. Nye and these Australian researchers should discuss what factors other than carbon dioxide actually cause climate and weather fluctuations. They may also encounter other revelations: that climate science is still young and anything but settled; that we have little understanding of what caused major ice ages, little ice ages, warm periods in between and numerous other events throughout the ages; that computer model predictions thus far have been little better than tarot card divinations.
As for Nye’s assertions that “carbon dioxide has an enormous effect on planetary temperatures” and “climate change was discovered in recent times by comparing the Earth to the planet Venus” – those are truly bizarre, misleading, vacuous claims.
The relatively rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 30 years has produced only 0.2°C (0.4°F) of global warming – compared to a 1°C (1.8°F) total temperature increase over the past 150 years. That means the planetary temperature increase has slowed down, as carbon dioxide levels rose. In fact, average temperatures have barely budged for nearly 19 years, an inconvenient reality that even the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) now recognizes.
This is an “enormous effect”? By now, it is increasingly clear, the proper scientific conclusion is that the “greenhouse effect” of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is very minor – as a recent article explains. Mr. Nye and his fans and fellow activists could learn a lot from it.
Objective readers, and even Mr. Nye, would also profit from reading a rather devastating critique of one of The Scientism Guy’s “science-is-easy” demonstrations. It concludes that the greenhouse effect of CO2 molecules is of course real, but Mr. Nye’s clever experiment for Al Gore’s “Climate Reality Project” was the result of “video fakery” and “could never work” as advertised. When will Messrs. Nye and Gore stop peddling their Hollywood special effects?
For that matter, when will they stop playing inter-planetary games? Mr. Nye and the popular media love to tell us that carbon dioxide from oil, gas and coal could soon turn Planet Earth into another Venus: over-heated, barren, rocky and lifeless. Princeton Institute of Advanced Study Professors Freeman Dyson and Will Happer show that this is utter nonsense.
For one thing, Venus is far closer to the sun, so it is subjected to far more solar heat, gravitational pull and surface pressure than Earth is. “If we put a sunshade shielding Venus from sunlight,” Dr. Dyson notes, “it would only take 500 years for its surface to cool down and its atmosphere to condense into a carbon dioxide ocean.” It’s not the high temperature that makes Venus permanently unfriendly to life, he adds; it’s the lack of water.
Second, the amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide are grossly disproportionate. Earth has barely 0.04% carbon dioxide (by volume) in its atmosphere, whereas Venus has 97% and Mars has 95% CO2. Mars much greater distance from the sun also means it has an average surface temperature of -60°C (-80°F) –underscoring yet again how absurd it is to use planetary comparisons to stoke climate change fears.
Third, Earth’s atmosphere used to contain far more carbon dioxide. “For most of the past 550 million years of the Phanerozoic, when multicellular life left a good fossil record, the earth’s CO2 levels were four times, even ten times, higher than now,” Dr. Happer points out. “Yet life flourished on land and in the oceans. Earth never came close to the conditions of Venus.” And it never will.
Fourth, Venus’s much closer proximity to the sun means it receives about twice as much solar flux (radiant energy) as the Earth does: 2637 Watts per square meter versus 1367, Happer explains. The IPCC says doubling atmospheric CO2 concentrations would be equivalent to just 15 W/m2 of additional solar flux. That’s nearly 100 times less than what Venus gets from being closer to the Sun.
Fifth, surface pressure on Venus is about 90 times that of the Earth, and strong convection forces increase the heating of surface air, he continues, making Venus’s surface even hotter. However, dense sulfuric acid clouds prevent most solar heat from ever reaching the planet’s surface. Instead, they reflect most sunlight back into space, which is “one of the reasons Venus is such a lovely morning or evening ‘star.’”
Of course, none of these nerdy details about Earth-Venus differences really matter. We already know plant life on Planet Earth loved the higher CO2 levels that prevailed during the Carboniferous Age and other times when plants enjoyed extraordinary growth.
However, even burning all the economically available fossil fuels would not likely even double current atmospheric CO2 levels – to just 0.08% carbon dioxide, compared to 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen, 0.9% argon and 0.1% for all other gases except water vapor. And doubling CO2would get us away from the near-famine levels for plants that have prevailed for the past tens of millions of years.
Carbon dioxide is absolutely essential for plant growth – and for all life on Earth. Volumes of research clearly demonstrate that crop, garden, forest, grassland and ocean plants want more CO2, not less. The increased greening of our Earth over the past 30 years testifies to the desperate need of plants for this most fundamental fertilizer. The more CO2 they get, the better and faster they grow.
More than 70% of the oxygen present in the atmosphere – and without which we could never live – originates from phytoplankton absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Keep this in mind when Bill Nye The Junk Science Guy tells you carbon dioxide is bad for our oceans and climate.
Dr. Willie Soon is an independent scientist who has been studying the Sun and Earth’s climate for 26 years. Dr. István Markó is a professor of chemistry at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and director of the Organic and Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory.
IMO, the only ones that Nye fooled were little children....
The children , yes .. and
the people whose only news comes in 30 seconds of sound bites
who have the memory retention of a gnat !
also called : "The Democratic Party voter base" !
I noticed that most of the snow is now gone in Minnesota due to what must be global warming...... It was just recently we had loads of snow.
http://wmbriggs.com/post/10145/
I prefer “scientaster”, but could warm up to the winning entry, “scidolator”. The former could refer to the priests, the latter to the laity.
Love the title....nails him.
Yeah, it’s global warming, all right. I notice it every year about this time.
Book Mark
“Perhaps Mr. Nye and these Australian researchers should discuss what factors other than carbon dioxide actually cause climate and weather fluctuations.”
Legitimate scientists know that climate and weather are dynamic systems with a large amount of variables, many of which we haven’t even identified. It is mathematically impossible for us to model those kind of systems with any real accuracy. We cannot even create proper mathematical models of the motion of the bodies in our solar system, and that involves a lot fewer variables, and all of them are known to us.
Mars is one of the largest privately held companies in the US and is operating around the world.
Mars is not the first nor the last company to do this. Many have and many more will.
You need to get on the phone an call Mars and tell them that you are an expert and they are ignorant fools if they think burning fossil fuels causes global warming.
Another one you can call is Steelcase, the largest manufacturer of file cabinets
You can find lists of companies who have already shifted 100% to renewables or have shifted as much as technically feasible. They all think that burning fossil fuels causes global warming.
Call all of them and tell them all that you are highly educated and know more about than they do.
You need to stop hanging around Free Republic preaching to the choir. You need to go out into the real world where policy decisions are being made.
Lies would go nowhere without people to believe them.
“To your average dope 20-something, he is greater than Newton.”
Newton only paved the way for what we call classical physics and laid the foundations of calculus before the age of 30. Moreover, he was a devout Christian. That makes him irrelevant.
Bill Nye is on TV and doesn’t seem to believe in God! That makes him better! He doesn’t believe in any magic, man!!! No magic, dude!!!!
(sarcasm and heavy drug use implied)
“Bill Nye is just another comedian ...”
Seriously, you are exactly right. My first recollection of Bill Nye was from Seattle’s KING TV, Channel 5 about 20 years ago. They ran a locally-produced comedy show called “Almost Live” which followed “Saturday Night Live”. Nye was a member of the cast. He did “Science Guy”, “Speed Walker” and some others.
The “science community” did not mind putting on humorous faces in order to tell scientific truths as understood by the most conscientious scientists. Anyone who remembers the set of Bell Telephone Laboratories science films, for example, would know about that.
The problem isn’t the style, the problem is when it’s hijacked by people who aren’t even trying to do good science in any sense of the word. Bill Nye is NOT the Bell Telephone Laboratories guy! He is an impostor.
I agree 100% with your reply.
Truth is the goal of Human Nature. We are predisposed from birth to seek the truth. Every parent recalls their toddler constantly asking why. Our failure, as a whole of society, has been parents and even some Christian parents replying with either “Because I said so” or “Because the Bible says so”. It’s an “Appeal to Authority” out of sheer laziness or incompetence.
As a result, IMHO, we have lost multiple generations of young minds that have rejected the Familiar Paternalism and are replacing it with a type of Social Paternalism that is being exploited by virtually every institution including our present Government.
These young and now older minds are being conditioned through “Social Acceptance” to literally, believe in nothing and anything at the same time.
They have no foundations for their beliefs.
When I got into heated debates/discussions with my liberal Ex-Girl, I would ask her “What do you own?”, “What do you know to be true?”. This question would more often than not end with her literally physically attacking me. Cognitive dissonance is what I was after,(I got it) and I’m still set aside by the fear these liberals have to the truth.
It’s irrational and borderline insane.
And now they are finding comfort in science. Quantum Physics and its “Uncertainty” is finding a home with the Humanists who are basically Buddhists that ultimately believe that they are their own GOD.
Read or watch Joseph Campbell.
Fred Alan Wolf.
Dr. William Provine (if evolution, there is no Free will)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi8_PsXKz8U
And the young minds they influence;
No Science, No Logic and No Morality: Atheism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxz84kS8k4U
These people are not Stupid. They are using every possible tool they can create to reject Creation/God, so they can conduct themselves in whatever way they feel.
They have no foundations for their beliefs.
Presuppositional Apologetics | Dr. Jason Lisle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j9-cyRbFcs
They reject all foundations of belief as being biased, they reject their own human nature.
They claim and believe that Truth is relative.
It’s no wonder they have found Gaia as their religion.
I suggest, as in Travis’s perspective, to zoom out a bit to see the forest, not just the trees.
Zoom out till you can see the Garden of Eden.
Any semblance of good morality (let alone godliness) that exists today is NOT by any human merit, and to talk as if to insinuate that humans could manage to merit it, is to talk in falsehood. A huge dose of humility is in order, which sends us all to our knees before a gracious and merciful Lord who, however, will not excuse. Get it right unto an end goal of perfect holiness (with all the help needed by My Son)... or else go to hell. No other choice.
I think you misunderstood my comments.
I’m looking at the forest and while I know objective morality exists, I see more and more trees that don’t.
They can’t even predict the weather forecast for tomorrow and they want to tell us what it will be like in 100 years.
Sciencologists.
I did enjoy his Speed Walker and COPS of Ballard sketches.
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