Scottish Sceptic

I have spent much of the last years trying to understand why it is that academics fail to understand the nature of the global temperature signal, whereas most engineers and those of a pragmatic nature who have studied the subject find themselves … let’s just say sceptical of the academic viewpoint.
In the past I’ve tried to explain this difference through a mechanistic approach: that academics do not encounter the same real world problems with the same real world knowledge, so when presented with a real world problem with real world noise & “natural variation”, they have no relevant skills or experience to draw on and so fail to recognise the true complexity of the situation. But I’m beginning to suspect a psychosurgical deficiency in the way academia behaves which is akin to autism.
Last night after watching a film on AI, I was discussing possible alternative strategies for developing AI with my wife in which I asserted that perhaps the biggest block to AI, was that academic researchers are trying to mimic their own “intelligence”. In other words, they may be basing their views on the false premise that what they perceive as “themselves” is “intelligent”. And the reason they cannot see beyond the idea of an “intelligent self” – is that they are falsely arrogant of their own abilities. (Without going into details, it would be like a kid using a calculator. Is the kid with the calculator “intelligent” – just because they come up with the right answers. Therefore is the academic who merely draws from the accumulated knowledge to answer a question really “intelligent”?)
Then afterwards I started researching Maasai group marriage traditions, and reading the academic papers I found the same kinds of “holier than thou” attitude in which those papers were trying to explain why the Maasai were not monogamous “like us”. I was just trying to understand – without allowing my own prejudices to get in the way – why group-marriage was the preferred system of the Maasai. But the academics appeared to want to explain why the Maasai “weren’t like us”.
My question: “what do the Maasai themselves think about group marriage versus monogamy”
Academic question: “why do the Maasai practice group marriage (with the implication they should be monogamous)”?
And, I am finding this more and more: academics are not asking the questions that I want to have answered. They simply either are not interested, or perhaps more accurately, do not understand the types of questions I ask. What is going on here? Continue reading →

I came across this “fact”:

According to the 2010 Health Survey for England, the mean number of sexual partners is 9.3 for men and 4.7 for women.

…. obviously men are just more promiscuous than women … but with whom?

Please explain!

Text:
When asked about the number of opposite sex partners they had had altogether in their life so far, men reported a mean of 9.3 female sexual partners, while women reported a lower number, a mean of 4.7 male sexual partners. The majority of participants indicated that they were certain of the number of opposite sex partners they had had, but 33% of men and 17% of women said that the number was an estimate. More women than men reported having sexual intercourse with only one partner of the opposite sex in their lifetime (24% of women compared with 17% of men), and conversely more men than women reported having sexual intercourse with ten or more partners of the opposite sex (27% of men and 13% of women).
 

See end

If its so easy to detect <1C warming in the last 100 years – A prize for anyone who can identify which simulated run of natural variation from 1880–2014 has had 1C added or subtracted.

Result

Despite the $100,000 prize, there were only 33 entries. Almost all entries were submitted by professional researchers in fields such as physics, computer science, engineering, econometrics, etc.  No winning entry was received.
So, for all the nonsense about “global warming being obvious” in the temperature plot, not one of the idiots who say “it’s obvious” … was able to demonstrate their omnipotent ability to correctly spot trends in natural time series when put to the test.

The HYPOCRITES

But well done to those who actually did submit an answer!
Below is the key information, but for more on the competition info from Doug see Contest Remarks
“After the Contest was announced, the Contest time series (1000 series) were analyzed by the statistician Andrew Gelman. Gelman’s analysis is described in a post on his blog. The analysis concludes that a person trained on time series should expect to correctly identify 854 ± 10 of the 1000 series. (Note that identifying 900 series is required to win the Contest.)
“Simply put, correctly identifying fewer than roughly 865 series can be reasonably done without using specialist techniques from the study of time series. Despite that, all entries to the Contest identified fewer than 865 series. Thus, none of the contestants demonstrated any skill with time series. That occurred even though some of the contestants have substantial professional experience analyzing time series.

My Solution

There was a time, when a religious zealot like Monbiot intentionally lying about bloggers like me would send my blood pressure rising.

The bloggers and institutes whipping up this anger were funded by oil and coal companies.

The simple truth is that I’ve not received a single penny for my work against the vile people like Monbiot who attack ordinary people like me.
But now with Trump … well if I were a cartoonist I’d draw a picture of me taking monbiot’s absurd pack of lies scrumpling them up and throwing them in the bin (not the recycling bin obviously).
Monbiot’s lost: He’s lost his marbles as he’s delusional about us sceptics. He’s lost his credibility after 18 years with no significant warming. And he’s lost the key political support from the US president. He’s lost!!
He knows that when Trump comes in, all the fake science is going out the door and when everyone sees the real science, Monbiot and the greenblob are on the garbage heap.

I’ve been reading a few environmental blogs like the Guardian, and there seems to be this idea that they’ll just have to hunker down and wait till they get a Democrat next time.
But aren’t they forgetting something? Won’t Trump win a second term? This question comes in many part:

1. Would Trump want to stand
2. Is he too old
3. If he wanted to stand, would the Republicans allow him to stand
4. If the Republicans allow him, would the people vote for him

I can’t predict whether Trump would want to stand, whether he would be fit to stand and what the Republicans will do.
So, the big question whether the public would vote for him.

• As a “non-party” candidate – he is almost immune from any party  performance or scandals. So, unlike other presidents, he isn’t susceptible that way.
• Most people who didn’t vote for him, would have been swayed by the massive media machine piled up behind the democrats making him out to be absolutely appalling. So, paradoxically, even if he’s just moderately bad, most people will feel he’s doing really well compared to their expectations.
• And finally – he’s picked some really easy things to do – because they’ve been totally ignored by politicians and so are crying out for change. So, he’s not trying to improve something that’s been picked over time and time again. He’s got some really easy areas to work on which are going to show big results for little investment.

So, he’s not going to get caught by party politics, the Democrats have unwittingly set him a very low bar by which to excel and he’s chosen the “low hanging fruit” for policies.
It looks to me a sure thing! If Trump is willing and able to stand, he’ll be the next president till 2024.

For me Trump represents a long sort after ambition: to know what is really going on with the climate once the biased corrupt upjustments have been removed.
However, I thought today I’d try to work out what is most occupying the oMSM (once mainstream media) now that Trump is coming in to “Clean the swamp”.

Think Progress (link)
You’ve got to hand to them – they really didn’t want Trump and they did all they could to stop him. First thing I notice is the “denier” tag and other insults are being used. This is their oMSM method of keeping politicians in order. It doesn’t work any longer! The next one is the “flip” accusation. Again this simply means “thinking about doing something that is not consented by the oMSM”. A politician who breaks ranks “flips”.

Trump is appointing countless climate science deniers to key positions, which tells you vastly more about what he believes and what he’ll do than his latest semi-coherent ramblings.

Their concerns are who is appointed, what they believe and what they say. Not one word about the science.

But Obama filled his Cabinet with experts like Energy Secretary Steven Chu and EPA Chief Lisa Jackson.

Another classic ploy – built up some people as “experts” (usually without relevant qualifications – but toeing their line) and denigrate everyone else (particularly when more qualified).
New York times (link)
From the start, their first interest is in battles and not science with an opener:

Is the battle to contain global warming now lost? … to many of the shellshocked diplomats gathered in Morocco earlier this month at the first climate summit following the breakthrough agreement in Paris

Again, the focus is on politics, agreements, diplomats. Again we find the same attempts to denigrate Trump with terms like “polluter”. Their interests can be listed:

• Paris agreement
• “Clean” power plan
• Emission reduction strategy
• A new dawn for fossil fuel industry

So basically, their aim is to attack industry through various agreements. And they are outraged that Trump might take the side of industry and tear up those agreements.
There’s nothing I can see about science. They clearly have no real interest at all in the actual science and just publish it as “science-wash” for their political advocacy.
UK independent (a small paper)
Again, they are straight in with the insults “denial”. Again they are talking of “flipping” = dropping their cherished policies. They’re incensed he will Cancel Paris, Clean coal (this is looking ever so much like they’ve all used the same copy-n-paste press release.) Ok, it’s pretty boring reading the same rubbish three times, but I can’t obviously see anything on the science.

Changed search to include “Science”

Guardian (no link as they are vile)

There’s no plan B’: climate change scientists fear consequence of Trump victory

As with all the other oMSM articles – they launch with an insult:

As news of Donald Trump’s victory reached Marrakech on Wednesday, the many thousands … were left in shock and disbelief that the US could elect a climate-change denier as president. Some of the younger activists were in tears.. “My heart is absolutely broken at the election of Trump,” said B.

So, now we’re getting emotional drivel. I eventually found the “science” and it was here:

Trump has consistently denied 40 years of climate science

So even searching for “science” fails to find anything. Again, no real concern for science, just a few figures thrown around as “science-wash” for their politics.
Forbes (link)
This time it doesn’t start with the boring insults, but we again see that it is a conflict between their political views and “industry” – in that we have an Adam and Eve exit from paradise as the start of industry is seen as the cause of the downfall of man:

I accept the consensus among climate scientists that climate change is real, it’s happening now and human activity since the industrial revolution

The article is laid out as a challenge to those who challenge “the existence or extent of climate change”. He then shows a graph of natural sea level rise which has been going on for thousands of years. He’s very keen on “coming up with solutions” … from which I gather that he works in a University ideas department dreaming up “solutions” to a problem he has no idea whether or not it exists. But there’s little actual talk about the science, even in this article supposedly challenging sceptics on the science.
Vox (link)
Finally I found an article in Vox (never heard of them) on NASA  – which is having all the cuts:

A Trump adviser wants to scale back NASA’s ability to study climate change

At this point I’m still not certain they are alarmists. But they set the scene for the end of NASA’s involvement with climate well with:

In the piece, it becomes clear that what Walker really dislikes is NASA’s research on global warming, which he called “heavily politicized” without any real justification.

Now bearing in mind, I’m waiting for even one of these journalists to refer to the implications for the science, the next quote … almost gets there … then diverts:

A move like this, if it actually happened, could be a big deal. Not only would it mean serious changes to US climate research, but it could affect a host of other key NASA programs that provide info on everything from weather to wildfires to drought and much more.

“Science” is just a word to fling about for these guys. It just appears to be a briefing from NASA – trying to protect their funding. Climate seems to be just a pawn – and so long as the funding keeps coming into NASA then they’re content to let it go.
Eventually we get something that seems to reveal their mindset on the actual science:

As part of its Earth studies, NASA also conducts extensive research into global climate change. That includes collecting data on carbon-dioxide emissions, temperatures, ice melt, and more. Perhaps most famously, the agency maintains this historical index of Earth’s average temperature.

To them, all that matters is this “temperature” – they don’t care how they get the required “science-wash” so long as it’s there. But even when they get a quote from the infamous Schmidt, it’s not talking about the science specifically, but instead it refers in nebulous ideas which amount to “how much science”:

Gavin Schmidt, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, argues here: “Chopping off science just to prevent people from talking about climate change won’t work.

Thus Science here, isn’t being used to mean the information about the universe that we call science. Instead, it is being used for a group of people or even the organisation. And as Schmidt admits, there are two other programs doing the same as NASA – so we still get the real “science”, instead what we don’t have is the people who manufacture the data who the oMSM use to science-wash political views and broadcast them as “science”.
But wait … further down we get to the insults:

Here’s Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), an devoted climate denier, speaking at a Senate hearing in March 2015: “Almost any American would agree that the core function of NASA is to explore space. That’s what inspires little boys and little girls across this country … and you know that I am concerned that NASA in the current environment has lost its full focus on that core mission.”

And it gets to be a total joke when even in this piece presumably done at the request of Schmidt or someone like him, it says:

Other agencies may not be able to replace what NASA does

I’M LAUGHING OUT VERY LOUD!!!

“May not be able” – which really means, that they know full well that NASA is just doing the same work as other organisations, but they have to try to say they’re needed.

I’ve done looking.

Conclusion

I’m quite astonished. Firstly that the main stories on “Climate change” have nothing at all to do with science, and secondly that even when I eventually find an alarmist wittering on about NASA – it’s not the real science they are interested in, but instead “science” is being used to refer to a group of people. A group of people who by their own admission are doing work that can be easily replaced.
What did I expect?
I suppose in my naivety, I expected something akin to: “this high quality research will disappear leaving a massive hole”. At the very least I expected a “this means we won’t know … ” kind of argument.
I can only conclude that the oMSM have no real interest in the science at all. And NASA and all the idiot academics who play the oMSM game – are really just “science-wash” for their political attacks against engineering, industry and even (real) science itself.

Over the years I’ve regularly done a google search on their news reports for “Global warming”. When I started, you could measure the delay in minutes. When I stopped doing regular monitoring it was down to a handful an hour.  Usually the stories from the current day would fill the first page
Tonight, on the spur of the moment, I did another search and as I scanned down the first page, I was surprised because I thought I’d seen the same stories a few days ago. And then I checked, and rather than being all today’s stories as I had assumed, they were up to 8DAYS old.
That’s an eight fold decrease in interest in global warming. Part of that may be a change to “Climate change” (a term which also brings up stories on things such as “economic climate change”). But there is no doubt the level of interest has plummeted (assuming Google haven’t changed their monitoring).

Google Trends

Continue reading →

In the Falkland’s war, we found out that the Argentinians had been using bombs which just went straight through the British aluminium war ships without exploding.
And that is now what it looks like for the alarmists. Take e.g. DeSmugBlog:

Koch-​Funded Former Lobbyist Replaces Koch Lobbyist on Trump’s Energy Trans­ition Team

What they don’t seem to realise, is that Trump couldn’t care less whether the best advisers have or have not had any dealing with Koch. These attacks are totally failing to do any damage whatsoever – because those that hate Trump – still hate him, and those who voted for him, have given up listening to the unfounded insults from the haters.

Indeed, Trump would probably say: “if these guys are attacking me – I must be doing something right”.

This month, we’ve finally seen the large-scale predicted cooling after the El Nino (in the only remaining credible temperature from UAH – all others now being UPjusted).
I’ve been saying that temperatures could well drop before Trump becomes president – although to be absolutely honest – I thought he became president immediately when elected. So, I was predicting this perhaps Aug/Sept.
However, one snowflake doesn’t make global cooling – so I’d want to see 3-4 months at the present level or 2-3months falling further to confirm temperatures are firmly down.
Indeed, we probably need to wait for 6 months so we can see a 12/13 month average and compare 2016 with 1998. That will be the really interesting result.
We should have seen a minimum of 0.14C/decade warming. There’s been 18 years between the El ninos, so it should be 0.25C warmer. I’ve previously said that <0.05C/decade is still “pause”. So if the highest 12/13 month average of 2016 is not 0.1C warmer than 1998, then not only are we clearly still in a pause but I’d also say the theory is well and truly busted. (or is it?)

Is it busted?

In 2001, the IPCC predicting a minimum of  0.14C/decade. The absence of this warming tells us that for the predicted warming to be true natural variation is at least 0.14C/decade. So, the question then becomes: how likely is it that natural variation explains the lack of predicted cooling (bearing in mind the warming should have been much much higher).
One decade without the predicted warming would happen ~50% of the time – that is the supposed warming is wiped out by a random addition that happens to be cooling. Two decades with the right adverse natural cooling to counter supposed warming would happen perhaps ~25% of the time. Three decades perhaps ~12.5% – which is close enough to the 10:1 level that I would definitely call it busted.
So, if we get no net warming for another decade it will be busted as a theory.
But we can bust it earlier. Because if temperatures now cooled an equivalent amount to a decade of cooling (-0.14C) – so that even with the minimum supposed warming it would still be cooler than now, and this happened for a reasonable period, then I think we can likewise say it’s busted.
For the last 18 years temperature has been hovering around 0.3C on the UAH graph. If we assume 0.15C to account for La nina, then basically if 2017 comes out substantially below 0C, then … it’s gone! It’s busted. Allowing time to get out of La Nina – if yearly average doesn’t get up above 0.15C by 2020 – likewise it’s busted.
That really means that if we see temperatures settling below what they are now at anytime beyond 2019 … it’s busted.
Continue reading →