Our own commenter Roger Knights has a guest post on the widely read site Watts Up With That. WUWT takes a skeptical position on anthropogenic global warming.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/

Comments

[snorkler]

Nice to see Anthonys site get a plug on Michaels blog here. I obviously choose the company I keep rather well.

[Barbara]

It seems to be written in a weird kind of pidgin English,I don't think I'll be subscribing to that blog.

[snorkler]

So, what is the source of your MMGW alarmist funding Barbara?

[Michael Prescott]

It seemed like normal English to me.

[David]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12949-chris-hedges-stand-still-for-the-apocalypse

Calculated to enrage AGW deniers.

[tsavo]

Michael,

I'm curious about your motivation for throwing this topic out there for discussion.

[Michael Prescott]

Wanted to give Roger's column some attention, since he has contributed many comments to this blog.

[Roger Knights]

Hi All,

I had no idea MP was going to start a thread on this. I just sent him the link because I know we are both climate contrarians and I thought that he might like my lighthearted take on one of the 500 fronts in the "war" on the matter.

I don't want to upset people here about the Global Warming topic, or start a discussion about it. It's so immense and detailed, and many people have such intense attitudes about it, that it's only worthwhile talking about in specialized venues where people are up to speed and have gotten thru the outer layers of the onion. (MP's site is a wonderful place because of its similar degree of specialization.)

If you're not a contrarian, please don't visit my thread, because it might make you upset and want to vent.

Anyway, I'm glad MP got a kick out of it. Praise from (or at least recognition by) Caesar is praise indeed.

[Roger Knights]

HI again,

One topic I DO wish we'd discuss is the excellent TV show MP described below. I am disappointed that very little discussion ensued last week in the thread on it, at http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2012/12/roger-knights-shared-a-link-about-a-recent-abc-telecast-called-the-sixth-sense-which-presents-a-generally-positive-case-for.html . Here is how MP introduced it:

Roger Knights shared a link about a recent ABC telecast called "The Sixth Sense," which presents a generally positive case for psi phenomena. I haven't watched it yet, but for those who are interested, the hour-long show (with some commercials) can be seen here:

http://abcnews.go.com/watch/2020/SH559026/VD55243015/2020-1026--the-sixth-sense

Among the topics discussed is Dr. Eben Alexander's NDE, the subject of his book "Proof of Heaven."

[snorkler]

@ Tsavo, Below the heading
"Michael Prescotts Blog" are the words "occasional thoughts on matters of LIFE and death".
Rogers contribution on WUWT re the MMGW scam is a subject that unfortunately intrudes on the LIVES of tens of millions, so IMO is a legitimate subject for a blog that discusses matters of life and death,otherwise Michael wouldn't have put it out there.

[Michael Prescott]

Although this blog has gradually morphed into a life-after-death blog, it was originally a general purpose blog about all sorts of topics.

In a way, the current restriction of content is unfortunate, because my interests really do extend beyond the paranormal, though you might not know it from reading my posts here!

Anyway, if a regular commenter gets a gig with an influential website, I'm happy to mention it, regardless of whether or not it pertains to Topic A around here. This would be true even if I didn't agree with the opinions being expressed, though in this case I mostly do agree.

For the record, my view of global warming is that while the climate has changed somewhat in my lifetime, I'm not convinced that industrial activity is the principal contributor to this trend. Computer models are inevitably simplistic, and specific predictions made about global warming have not panned out. More important, the climate has gone through major shifts over the last few hundred years. There was the Medieval Warm Period, which boosted food production and helped bring about the Renaissance, and then the Little Ice Age, when the River Thames would routinely freeze solid in the winter, something that never happens now. These fluctuations in climate occurred before the Industrial Revolution and can't be blamed on factory emissions of CO2.

My (layman's) guess is that variations in solar output, volcanic activity, and other natural factors play the major role in climate change, though we can't rule out the possibility that industrial CO2 emissions are a contributing factor. Even if industrial CO2 is a major cause (an unproven hypothesis), there does not seem to be much we can do about it, since major industrial powers like China and India are not likely to abide by any CO2 restrictions.

Some people say that only climate scientists are entitled to an opinion on this matter. I disagree for three reasons: 1) it's a political issue with implications for public policy, 2) the Climategate emails and file attachments showed evidence of massaging the data, resisting FOIA requests, and conspiring to blackball dissenters, and 3) there is a quasi-religious zeal among some climate-change proponents that makes me doubt their professional objectivity.

But I admit that I'm not an expert, and I could be wrong!

[Paul]

Even experts can be wrong :)

[tsavo]

Thanks Michael. I appreciate that your blog is not exclusively about life-after-death and apologize if my question seemed provocative. It wasn't intended that way. Given the intensity of feeling of some of your commenters about climate change issues, it just seemed strange to me that you would risk throwing a lit cigarette into dry brush, so to speak, by directing us to RK's post on Anthony Watts website without more in the way of accompanying explanation. I did try Googling "Michael Prescott" and "climate change", but didn't come up with much. Subsequently (after asking you directly) I Googled "Michael Prescott" and "global warming" and found some of your previous posts stating your views on the matter. Thanks for taking the time to repeat them here.

[The Gipper]

"there does not seem to be much we can do about it, since major industrial powers like China and India are not likely to abide by any CO2 restrictions."

Unless, of course, there's something in this story...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2247063/Perpetual-motion-submarine-car-Inventor-creates-amphibious-vehicle-powered-self-sustaining-energy.html

[Barbara]

“It seemed like normal English to me.” -Michael

“Climate Audit would have been able to handle to traffic-surge in the wake of Climategate”
What does that mean?

“…paywalled articles. Instead, virtually every thread on WUWT that critiques a warmist paper laments its paywalled status and critiques only what is outside the paywall.”
What’s a paywall?

This is a topic that is so complex and filled with jargon that it desperately needs such pre-chewing to get the MSM to swallow it
You can say that again!

There’d be a centralized, regularly updated, annotated, topically divided, web-wide index of useful “ammo” skeptical or skeptic-supporting articles. If I, or anyone, were cat-herder in chief, this would be one of the top items on the agenda.
No idea what this means. What’s a “ammo” sceptical article? What’s a cat-herder?

“First, my thanks to all the prospective henchdudes and henchbabes out there, a map to my hollow volcano lair will be emailed to you as soon as I get one. Well-funded mercilessness roolz! I demand a volcano lair!”

This is normal English?
I could of course carry on through the rest of the article. But I think I’ve made my case.

[Roger Knights]

MP wrote: " if a regular commenter gets a gig with an influential website, I'm happy to mention it, . . ."

I'm afraid I unintentionally misled you in my e-mail, MP. I said, "I'm now a guest author on WUWT." I failed to explain that this meant only that one of my articles had been accepted there. That's an accomplishment, because the site rejects 90% of the submissions it receives. But I haven't achieved "columnist" status--the site has no designated columnists. There are people whose articles appear fairly regularly, though, and, now that I've broken the ice with an article that has received a good reception, maybe more of my stuff will get through. (I've had a couple of rejections in the past.) I have ideas for half a dozen more articles, although four of them are only compilations of my favorite WUWT comments by others.

It's ironic, because I'm trying to get away from the topic after having been immersed in it for years. Last month I put six cubic feet of AGW printouts in the recycling dumpster, because I want to switch to other topics.

I think MP should put up a prominent link to his other, political site in the sidebar here, to simplify access to it. (I've never visited it myself, largely because I've forgotten its link, although I'm sure I'd stick my oar in if I did.)

That done, I think threads and comments on topics likely to arouse partisan passions should be avoided here, for three reasons. 1) Most regulars commenting here do not share the right-of-center views of MP (and myself) and I don't want to drive them away. (The Boing Boing site drove me away, largely because of its leftist & AGW political views. I had been a regular to the point of having all the back issues of its 'zine from the 90s.)

2) The topic of mediumship and psychic advice has led regulars here to make deeply personal disclosures--which requires a sort of "all in the family" feeling to do. They can't all be expected to continue opening themselves up to people they believe to be, instead, close relatives of Satan.

3) The AGW topic is one that is harder than other partisan topics to "keep one's cool" about. Nearly every comment stream on the matter sees its participants talking past one another, getting personal, throwing talking points at each other, etc., etc. (A case in point is the comment stream under the article David linked to above.) It's like trying to talk calmly about L'Affaire Dreyfus in 1890's France. And even if cool is kept, the topic is too vast, too complicated, and too fraught with unknown unknowns to discuss meaningfully without writing enormously--and virtually taking over the site.

And nothing we say will matter much. The resolution of this matter will occur elsewhere--in the field of facts--over the next four years: How the global temperature fluctuates, how well renewables and green alternatives deliver on their promises, how well the world's economy performs (can it afford the cost of green energy, IOW), whether cheap oil production peaks, and how viable the shale gas revolution turns out to be.

(Hmm ... but I'd have said that four years ago, and four years before that, so this could drag on for a while.)

[Roger Knights]

MP says: "there does not seem to be much we can do about it, since major industrial powers like China and India are not likely to abide by any CO2 restrictions."

Correct. Here's what I just found:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/coal-demand-forecast-to-rise-2-6-a-year-through-2017-iea-says.html

[snorkler]

Roger, as you stated in your guest piece on WUWT, the warmist, alarmist brigade are much better organised than us contrarians, and they have a couple of decades head start and much of the main stream media supporting their BS. I personally have a wide range of interests including 4wd's, farming, hunting, gardening, architecture, politics etc, and on each specialist blog/forum I frequent, there are the resident alarmist trolls that I believe are planted by the MMGW movement.I believe we have one here too, and that shows how much better organised our opponents are.
Michaels recent article on Irrational Wiki was accompanied by the comment that he couldn't think of much else to write about at present,so I don't see much harm in expanding the range of topics to be discussed beyond the subject of the paranormal.Maybe we don't really have bloggers here suitably qualified,informed, or even interested enough to argue both points of view with any real authority. It's Michaels blog and it is up to him to make a judgement call whether or not this subject is suitable for discussion here.

[Roger Knights]

Barbara: It seems to be written in a weird kind of pidgin English,I don't think I'll be subscribing to that blog. Posted by: Barbara | December 17, 2012 at 10:09 AM ----------------------

“It seemed like normal English to me.” -Michael
------------------------

“Climate Audit would have been able to handle to traffic-surge in the wake of Climategate” 


Barbara: What does that mean?

You’re being deliberately obtuse (I trust). The boldfaced “to” above is a typo for “the.” (The remainder shouldn’t be obscure to anyone moderately familiar with the GW controversy: Climate Audit is Steve McIntyre’s (well-known and pioneering) contrarian website. It was overwhelmed by traffic from visitors in the wake of the Climategate news in November 2009.)

“…paywalled articles. Instead, virtually every thread on WUWT that critiques a warmist paper laments its paywalled status and critiques only what is outside the paywall.”


Barbara: What’s a paywall?

It’s a term all readers on WUWT (my audience) are familiar with: It’s a fee of about $30 to access papers published in scholarly journals charged by a vendor who packages such articles online.

More broadly, it’s a fee charged to view material on any topic. Here’s a link to Wikipedia’s article on the topic, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to deal with scholarly-article paywalling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paywall

I Googled for define paywall and got 500,000 hits. Here’s the link to my Google search: http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=define+paywall&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&spell=1

This is a topic that is so complex and filled with jargon that it desperately needs such pre-chewing to get the MSM to swallow it


Barbara: You can say that again!

Along with the media consultants and PR specialists hired by warmist Foundations who are doing the pre-chewing job for the warmist side, like Fenton Communications, backer of Real Climate (and others, I believe).

There’d be a centralized, regularly updated, annotated, topically divided, web-wide index of useful “ammo”[:] skeptical or skeptic-supporting articles. If I, or anyone, were cat-herder in chief, this would be one of the top items on the agenda.


Barbara: No idea what this means. What’s a “ammo” sceptical article?

I left out a colon. You could have figured that out.

Barbara: What’s a cat-herder?

One who attempts to herd cats—i.e., who attempts to organize a group of iconoclasts and contrarians—i.e., one who attempts the impossible. I Googled for define cat herder and got 1,200,000 hits, of which this was the first:

”The phrase herding cats comes from the common saying that something involving coordination of many different groups or people is as difficult as herding cats. One of the commonly encountered uses of the term in technical fields is the phrase "Managing programmers is like herding cats" or "Managing engineers is like herding cats".”

“First, my thanks to all the prospective henchdudes and henchbabes out there, a map to my hollow volcano lair will be emailed to you as soon as I get one. Well-funded mercilessness roolz! I demand a volcano lair!”

Barbara: This is normal English? 


It was a quotation “from Willis,” as my lead-in indicated, as well as my quotation marks. It amounted to 38 words out of 2039, or 2% of the total. Hardly a representative sample.

I grant that it would be fair to characterize that quotation as “written in a weird kind of pidgin English.” It would NOT be fair to characterize the entire article that way—which is what you did, and which MP objected to—quite properly.

FWIW, here’s an explication of its content. Willis’s comment had been posted a day or two before my original version of my article (as another WUWT comment), so readers would have been aware of the context. He was mocking warmists who view skeptics as morally equivalent to cartoonish well-funded villains living in a hollowed-out volcano on a remote island hideout where they are supported by a cadre of henchmen and wenches (here called henchbabes) who manipulate the media and mislead the populace with fiendish and merciless underground tactics.

He was saying that if Big Oil wanted his services, they’d have to do right by him—i.e., fulfill what warmists’ images had led him to expect would be his due. This warmist image of contrarians as well-paid scoundrels Is something that is regularly mocked on WUWT. I was addressing WUWTers in my article, not outsiders. It was clear to them that I didn’t have to explicate it.

“roolz” has been a “cool” term among kids throughtout the 21st century, so it’s not “off the map.” Google lists 212,00 hits. Its meaning is clear: “rules.” “Henchdudes” and “henchbabes” are clever neologisms whose meaning is obvious.

I could of course carry on through the rest of the article.

Please do—I’m having fun.

But I think I’ve made my case.

You’ve demonstrated something--but not what you had in mind.

[Ray]

"It's Michaels blog and it is up to him to make a judgement call whether or not this subject is suitable for discussion here."

I agree Snorkler, it is his blog and he is exchanging his free thoughts and ideas to all of us and free of charge no less. I get a little irritated when I see people expecting a certain topic to be covered like they are entitled to it. This particular topic doesn't interest me all that much but it's always great to learn about things I don't know much about. You know what they say, if you don't like it you can start your own blog! Thanks for the countless hours of engaging topics Michael and posters. I wish we could see how many lurkers are out there, I used to be one for about 2 years!

[Roger Knights]

Snorkler: “ . . . on each specialist blog/forum I frequent, there are the resident alarmist trolls that I believe are planted by the MMGW movement.I believe we have one here too, and that shows how much better organised our opponents are.”

Not likely. Barbara would have known about Climate Audit if she'd been a plant. The warmist posters I've seen strike me as the same sort of enthusiastic amateurs that we are. However, there was well-publicized encouragement given by Al Gore about six (?) months back to get warmist lurkers to speak out whenever they encounter contrarian heresy online. But I'm sure similar encouragement has been proffered by bigshots on our side too.

About a month ago one of Gore's organizations came up with a scheme called “reality drop” to motivate such lurkers by offering them points in an online game if they accessed their website (based on "Skeptical Science's" (warmist) database) for backup information. I wouldn't fault them for doing that. I think our side should copy them. It would have the effect of elevating the knowledge-level of discourse. Here's a link to a WUWT thread describing this scheme: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/30/al-gores-reality-drop-is-a-bomb-so-lets-give-him-a-hockey-stick/

BTW, the WUWT thread below, posted today, attacks the part of the recently leaked AR5 IPCC report dealing with global temperature trends. The top post, and about half the comments, are excellent; and the IPCC’s chart of the IPCC's past upward temperature projections vs. the recent flat observed temperatures is worth a million words.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/18/dr-david-whitehouse-on-the-ar5-figure-1-4/

[Michael]

I'm not sure what a "contrarian" view on global warming means, and I'm not sure I want to ruin my respect for this forum by going to find out.

I mean, you take several billion humans, and totally remake the face of the planet, just about every surface inch on whole continents. How on earth could something like that have any effect whatsoever?

Mike, tell me you're not an idiot, man. I really want to believe it.

[no one]

"It's Michaels blog and it is up to him to make a judgement call whether or not this subject is suitable for discussion here."

Yep.

I, for one am always happy to read intelligent opinions concerning global warming.

I did some fairly heavy research into the science of the topic a few years back. I came away a skeptic regarding the anthropomorphic theories, but do think there is a natural trend toward warming.

Good? Bad? Doesn't matter since there's nothing we can do about it. However, like most most of these things it is neither good nor bad and value will depend on where your sitting as it happens. There will be winners and losers.

I've been hoping for some lively discussion here.

[Roger Knights]

Michael says: I'm not sure what a "contrarian" view on global warming means, . . .

FYI, here's what the #1 item of a google search define contrarian yields: "a person who takes an opposing view, especially one who rejects the majority opinion, as in economic matters." So a climate contrarian rejects the majority, or consensus, view that an increasing level of CO2 poses a major thread to the world.

. . . and I'm not sure I want to ruin my respect for this forum by going to find out.

I mean, you take several billion humans, and totally remake the face of the planet, just about every surface inch on whole continents. How on earth could something like that have any effect whatsoever?

No climate contrarian disputes the view that land use changes have a significant effect on the climate system. In fact, it is the consensus group that seeks to minimize the importance of the impact of such land use effects as the Urban Heat Island. One notable instance of a change in land use affecting the environment occurred after land was cleared for agriculture near Mt. Kilimanjaro, resulting in decreased evaporation and then lowered rainfall on the mountain, whose icecap then suffered a net loss (subsequently partly reversed) as the ice lost to sublimation was not replenished by falling snow. It was the consensus group that refused for years to acknowledge that interpretation. It's one of the errors that a UK judge found in Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie. Here's a link to the most recent WUWT thread on the topic of Kilimanjaro: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/23/34609/

Contrarians such as Roger Pielke Sr. have argued for a strong effect from such changes as deforestation and irrigation. Here's just one thread where his claims are discussed: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/24/pielke-sr-defends-judith-curry-in-sa-heretic-characterization/ (Land use changes ignored by IPCC.) Another recent Pielke-related thread is this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/

Other WUWT threads tagged with "land use" or "land cover" can be found by looking through the list here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/land-use-land-cover-change/ But you should read the thumbnail descriptions first to select the one most relevant to the topic.

BTW, a WUWT commenter named Dave Springer made this interesting claim a couple of years ago:

Land use changes [mean] primarily taking out old growth forests. Remember how the Kyoto protocol was originally supposed to credit countries for reforestation efforts until it was discovered that the US had planted so many trees it would get a huge credit then the Europeans balked at giving a credit for reforestation and then Clinton and Bush both decided not to sign it when the reforestation credits were removed.

[Roger Knights]

@Barbara. Here is a comment from a journalist on the difference in professionalism between consensus and contrarian blogs, and on the need to make things easy for the media by professionally presenting, or pre-masticating, one's message:

Tom Fuller [on Climate Audit]
Posted Apr 3, 2010 at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Reply

I don’t think there is much understanding of journalism on this particular [CA] thread, or in the skeptic community as a whole (not necessarily claiming that this is part of the skeptic community, btw).

How many reporters do you think decide what they will write about, as opposed to saying ‘Yes ma’am’ as they respond to the editor?

How do you think editors decide what stories to cover and which reporters they will use? By checking out what the competition is doing and assessing the institutional information they have in house, certainly. But also by assessing the holes they have to fill in their paper or broadcast. This is most easily done by maintaining a calendar of upcoming events. The events on this calendar are by nature going to support organisations large enough to schedule events in advance.

The climate change consensus controls much more than the data, and influences much more than academic publishing. They schedule events, seminars, press releases in advance of events–they make life easier for understaffed news organisations that face real problems due to lack of profitability, staff turnover, libel concerns and incredible competition from new news sources–e.g., this weblog. Climate Progress and Joe Romm (hiss, boo) [warmist] make life easier for news organisations. This weblog (and my much more humble column) make life more difficult for them. Where do you think instinctive predispositions will fall?

Potential ways to change this:

1. Calendar or post forward publishing schedules

2. Organise semi-formal events (online conferences, Web debates between bloggers, etc.)

3. Press friendly archive and structured links to previously published material relevant to fresh stories.

4. Outgoing communications directed at editors and reporters

Consensus weblogs do some of this. If we want to be more than just marginal critics, we would have to do it as well.

[snorkler]

Whilst I have recommended WUWT a couple of times on this blog, and I still occasionally visit that site, when I have a clear mind that is willing to digest the often technical jargon by posters and respondents alike, from an interested laymans perspective I do prefer 'Jonovas' and her regular contributors efforts to make the science a little easier to understand.An electrical engineer who goes by the pseudonem (SP?)of 'Tony From OZ'is particularly good at explaining the technicalities of why renewable energy from solar and wind is such a gross waste of the developed worlds financial and material resources.Resources that should have been spent on worthwhile and productive enterprises to feed and aid the millions of hungry people desperately trying to keep themselves and their families alive on this planet.
JoNova is Australian and Anthony Watts American, are friends and occasionally share articles and cross link to each others sites.

[Roger Knights]

Snorkler says: I do prefer 'Jonovas' and her regular contributors efforts to make the science a little easier to understand.

Here's the link to her site: http://joannenova.com.au/ Her sidebar says she's the author of the Skeptic's Handbook, downloaded 200,000 times.

[The Gipper]

"Resources that should have been spent on worthwhile and productive enterprises to feed and aid the millions of hungry people desperately trying to keep themselves and their families alive on this planet."

So this is what oil money is spent on? Sheesh!

If renewables currently seem inefficient, it's because so little has been spent on their development. If you spent real oil money on them, they'd be powering the world by now.

[Michael Prescott]

Interesting discussion. I actually think it's possible for the commenters here to have a civil and courteous exchange of views on this subject. With the exception of "Michael," who was a tad belligerent, the contributions have been polite and to-the-point.

I also think it's useful to cultivate the skill of disagreeing without vehemence. It gets easier with practice. I find myself generally being less overreactive than I used to be, although certain issues are still hot buttons for me. (I'm working on that.)

One reason for the political polarization of our society is that people tend to overreact to opinions they disagree with. The Internet encourages this tendency by allowing anonymous comments and by providing forums where only one point of view is tolerated. Admittedly, that can happen here too, as when a skeptic shows up in the comments and generates a hostile reaction.

We all have a predisposition to defend our viewpoint, much like defending physical territory. Sometimes I think we make the mistake of feeling that we really *are* defending physical territory, and that repelling the enemy is a matter of personal survival, rather than just an intellectual dispute. That's when it can be good to step back and realize that we are only dealing in "mental positions," as onetime commenter Matthew Cromer used to say.

[Alexander Zlotnik]

Michael and others...
Folks,sorry for the offtop, and I know that I sound like a broken record, but I would really get your opinion on one pro-ESp/anti-survival book of F.dommeyer(1965)
No I uploaded it here,so it is easy to rad.To my opinion htere is a good deal of 'ad hoc' there,but I'd like to know what others think:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/117386058/Body-Mind-and-Ddeath

[snorkler]

@ The Gipper."So this is what oil money is spent on. Sheesh.
So Gip, you made this comment without even trying to educate yourself on the subject?
You are confusing an energy source that works (oil /gas), is cost effective and produced mainly by private enterprise, with so called renewables that don't work for base load requirements, require enormous amounts of Government, read taxpayer subsidies,that consume huge quantities of material resources and energy to manufacture, more energy than these monstrosities will ever produce in their working lifetimes, and they still need to be backed up 24/7 with conventional power generating systems running at full capacity.
My laptop has a habit of shutting down before I post, otherwise I would continue, so I will leave it to Roger who is eminently more knowledgable than I to continue responding to you if he so wishes.

[snorkler]

The debate re MMGW vs Natural variation can be and is gradually being won by the Climate Realists side with real science based evidence vs a kind of religeous dogma.I feel a certain irony in that as a climate change sceptic/realist,I am also a wannabe believer in the paranormal/survival hypothesis, relying on hearsay anecdotes from strangers, some claiming that hypothesis as an absolute truism, much like the MMGWarmist brigade do.

[Roger Knights]

"If renewables currently seem inefficient, it's because so little has been spent on their development. If you spent real oil money on them, they'd be powering the world by now."

Posted by: The Gipper | December 19, 2012 at 07:12 AM

I think that the money that was spent on a premature rush into renewables would have been much better spent on research into improving them--and also critically thinking about ALL their real-world costs and benefits. These hidden and indirect costs, and inflated assumptions (such as that bad weather in one region can be balanced by good weather (for wind or solar) in another), have emerged to "bite" the countries that leapt before they looked hard--namely, Spain and Germany.

Pilot projects would have been a good idea before "leaping" too--along with a thorough examination of the results. For example, mandating that military bases go renewable, as far as they can. That would have provided a good indication of whether renewables' potential was being over-hyped.

The results are coming in now from the US military's first year of experience of complying with such a mandate--and they aren't pretty. They're "worse than we thought," to coin a phrase.

One area where a modest infusion of cash might have a breakthrough payoff is cold fusion, or LENR, its current alias. A little governmental booty could have sped things along remarkably. (Or falsified it much sooner.)

If a breakthrough occurs there (there are some hopeful signs) despite such penury, it will be a real cockle-warmer to me, since the scoftics who have scorned cold fusion as a scam and embraced the CACA Cult (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism) will be doubly embarrassed. They won't live it down for 1000 years--not if I have anything to say about it!

[snorkler]

"If renewable currently seem inefficient, it's because so little has been spent on their development'' From the Gipster again.

Until such a time as renewables are developed to a cost effective degree of efficiency, the continued manufacture and installation many thousands of provenly innefficient systems should cease.
Doing the same thing over and over again whilst expecting a different result is an example of absolute lunacy, or in this example, a money rorting scam.

[The Gipper]

"You are confusing an energy source that works (oil /gas), is cost effective and produced mainly by private enterprise, with so called renewables that don't work" snorkler

Your source that works is running out and getting more expensive every year. haven't you noticed? Doubtless you're very keen on fracking (ie wrecking everything underground) too.

"One area where a modest infusion of cash might have a breakthrough payoff is cold fusion, or LENR, its current alias." -Roger

On this I am in full agreement with you, sir. In fact, I think it's on the very point of coming into being, the problem only being resistance from the Oil industry and the scientific establishment (funded by oil money).

[Bruce Siegel]

Since this thread started as a link to a contribution on another blog by a frequent commenter here, I thought it might be appropriate to mention a conversation I myself am now participating in at Skeptiko.

Or to word that differently--I'd like to take this opportunity to draw attention to myself as gracefully as possible.

But seriously, folks.

As Michael and others know, I often participate at Skeptiko. Though to be honest, I can go weeks without finding a conversation there that really draws me in.

But someone just started a thread, asking essentially this question: If we're here for a purpose, aren't we wasting our time by speculating on, and fantasizing about, the afterlife?

Actually, the "we" is not really accurate. The questioner is one of the big skeptics there.

At any rate, the question is getting a bunch of us thinking and talking, and I thought some of you might be interested.

http://forum.mind-energy.net/skeptiko-podcast/4561-if-were-here-purpose-shouldnt-we-ignore-topics-related-afterlife.html

[snorkler]

Gipper. Oil is an energy source that is very rarely employed for electricity generation.The fossil fuel favored for that purpose is coal, and the known reserves of that won't run out for several hundred years at present rates of consumption.
That you believe oil reserves are running low also suggests that you have swallowed the Warmist Mantra hook line and sinker.Oil corporations also have a vested interest in having you believe the myth so that they can keep prices atificially high.
At the current state of the art, wind and solar power can never provide base load electricity requirements for domestic and industry consumption, never mind the extra capacity required for pie in the sky all electric transport that eco warriors are dreaming of.

[The Gipper]

"Oil corporations also have a vested interest in having you believe the myth so that they can keep prices atificially high."

Well, yes!

Oil, coal and gas are fossil fuels. They are being used up. If you are right, they will last a bit longer than I say. But not that much longer if the current rate of use continues. Meanwhile, they add CO2 to the air and the oceans. The CO2 levels are getting higher every year. At what level will you think the level too high? (I'm talking here about whether we want the world to be pleasantly habitable for our grandchildren).

[snorkler]

Forgot to include a reference to 'Abiotic' oil. Russia and Ukraine are the worlds largest producers of oil and gas.Their scientists are of the opinion that oil is not a fossil fuel at all, but is continually produced very deep within the earths crust where oils from dead animal and plant life could not seep down to.
Google it for more research, but it would appear that the majority of regulars on this blog are simply not interested in discussing anything other than the Paranormal/survival hypothesis.

[The Gipper]

Snorkler, you can have two theories that are wrong if you like (not just one -hell, why not say the earth going round the sun is wrong as well like Natalie Sudman), but if you want to tell me that we're not using up fossil fuels faster than they're being formed or that CO2 levels are not rising every year, then I'm afraid you won't convince too many folk here on planet Earth.

[snorkler]

Gipper, Co2 levels have been many times higher in the past and life on earth thrived and was just as diverse or more than it is now. If you are that frightened of CO2 you might want to steer clear of beer or fizzy drinks otherwise one swallow might just be the end of you.
I don't have the numbers at hand, Maybe Roger knows, but I believe US Navy tests revealed that maximum safe CO2 concentrations for divers is in the couple of thousand ppm range. Current atmospheric CO2 levels are what, 300-350PPM?
Anyway if you want to have a proper debate to defend your points of view, go on to one of the sites Roger has linked to and take on the folk that really know their stuff.
I am just a hack auto mechanic and interested layman who is just attempting to steer misinformed folk such as you in the direction where you may learn the truth, as opposed to the BS that the Goracle and his fellow scamming snake oil salesmen will have us all believe.

[snorkler]

Bruce, for the umpteenth time this year I am going through a dissillusioned phase re the afterlife, and Although i triedI just couldn't get into the discussion you liked to. Personally I don't see the point in spirits coming to the physical dimension to learn life skills and experience love, seperation,evil etc, or how these experiences could be applied to give a better afterlife experience.

[tsavo]

@Bruce
Ah, a most excellent question, one that I've been wondering about myself recently. It also bears on Michael's post of 9/15/12 "An End to Hedging". I'd phrase it a little differently, though. Assuming one becomes convinced that consciousness survives death, well, so what? Are we then obliged obliged to make a judgment about which version of the afterlife is most convincing in order to properly direct our current life? OTOH, maybe the idea of an implied responsibility to "properly direct our current life" is itself in error. Maybe everything works out in the end anyway and it doesn't really matter (ie "we're just here to learn" type of thinking). Heavy pondering no matter where you turn with this.

Haven't read the thread yet, but thanks for the heads up. I'll definitely take a look.

[snorkler]

Sorry Bruce, I intended to type "linked to" not "liked to"

[Roger Knights]

I forgot to mention the book's title! It's Prescription for the Planet.

[Roger Knights]

Hey, what happened to my (long) comment? It was here a minute ago. (Fortunately, I saved it to my Word file on AGW. (7777 pages long and growing like topsy.))

[snorkler]

@Gipper. "if you want to tell me that we are not using up fossil fuels faster than they're being formed etc etc."
Forget coal and Nuclear. These will not reach emergency low levels for hundreds of years.Similarly with gas. US, UK,Russia have recentlu discovered vast quantities on their own soil and could become energy self sufficient. transport can be operated on gas, but there is no way it can on be on windmills or solar panels.

[snorkler]

Roger, do you get the message that your session has expired if you attempt to post after typing out a long comment? I occasionally get it and the comment cannot be saved, and requires that it be retyped more quickly.It only happens to me here and not on other forums.

[Roger Knights]

Snorkler said: "Roger, do you get the message that your session has expired if you attempt to post after typing out a long comment?"

Thanks for your tip, but I did refresh prior to posting, and my comment did appear here as though it had been posted. What I suspect is that a comment that is long and has a couple of links will be put into a spam bin for moderators to approve or ignore. I don't want to re-post it and add another entry to the spam bin. Oh, what the heck, I'll try to below.

[snorkler]

Try and get that post in soon Roger. Another branch of the Alarmist brigade reckon we will all find out if there really is an afterlife in a little over 6 hours going by my clock.