• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Interview with Judy Curry

watsup

DP Veteran
Joined
Jul 17, 2020
Messages
34,475
Reaction score
14,659
Location
Springfield MO
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Liberal

Judith Curry: Well, a lot of it comes from the UN Environmental Program. At the time, there was a push towards world government, socialistic kind of leanings, don’t like capitalism and big oil. A lot of it really comes from that kind of thinking. And the UNEP was one of the sponsoring organizations for the IPCC. And so that really engaged more climate scientists and really brought it more into the mainstream. But in the early days, a lot of scientists didn’t like this at all, they didn’t think that we should be going in this direction. And this was even the World Climate Research program and the World Meteorological Organization, they didn’t want to get involved in man-made climate change under the auspices of the IPCC.

They said, this is just a whole political thing. This is not what we do. We seek to understand all the processes and climate dynamics, we don’t want to go there. And that was really a pretty strong attitude, through, I would say the mid nineties, say 1995. We had the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at that point, they’re trying to get a big treaty going. And so defenders of the IPCC started pushing the idea that anybody who doubts us or challenges us, they are in the pay of big oil. After that, it became much more difficult to really challenge all that. And certainly by the turn of the century, anybody who was questioning the hockey stick or any of these other things were slammed as deniers and ostracized. And then after Climategate in 2010, the consensus enforcers became very militant. So it’s a combination of politics, and some mediocre scientists trying to protect their careers. And, they saw this whole thing as a way for career advancement, and it gives them a seat at the big table and political power.

All this reinforces pretty shoddy science and overconfidence in their expert judgment, which comprises the IPCC assessment reports. And then at some point you start to get second order belief. I mean, it’s such a big, complex problem. Individual scientists only look at a piece of it, and then they start accepting what the consensus says on the other topics. A scientist working on some aspect of the climate problem may know very little about carbon dioxide, the carbon budget, radiative transfer, all that fundamental science, but they will accept the climate consensus because it’s easy and good for their career. And so it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And now we have way too much confidence in some very dubious climate models and inadequate data sets. And we’re not really framing the problem broadly enough to really understand what’s going on with the climate and to make credible projections about the range of things that we could possibly see in the 21st century.”


We are supposed to see her as an unbiased expert, but she starts the interview with a right-wing biased conspiracy statement: “Judith Curry: Well, a lot of it comes from the UN Environmental Program. At the time, there was a push towards world government, socialistic kind of leanings, don’t like capitalism and big oil. A lot of it really comes from that kind of thinking.”

That sort of conspiratorial mindset casts a pall on everything else that she says and immediately lessens her credibility by making it seem like she actually has a political rather than a scientific agenda.
 
Is it a conspiracy theory when it's true?



The fossil fuel industry has funded climate change deniers for decades, even after their own internal research arrived at the same conclusions as the IPCC. They also obviously throw gobs of money at elected officials who deny climate change.

Of course, much of that funding doesn't go to actual research, because almost any research project you can fund will wind up confirming AGW (because... human activity is in fact the primary cause of global warming, what a concept). Rather, it goes to lobbying and PR efforts -- just like we saw with the efforts to deny that cigarettes are carcinogenic. In several cases, the same people were involved in both campaigns.

It doesn't help when the handful of actual scientists who deny climate change deliberately hide their funding. E.g. Willie Soon hid the fact that he received $1.25 million from fossil fuel companies in funding for his "research" -- which he referred to as "deliverables" when communicating with

Oh, and Curry herself receives funds from the fossil fuel industry.

 
Has ether of you read any of Curry's papers? She is a very real climate scientist, and has published many times.
Judith Curry publications to 2011
In this 2014 peer reviewed publication She finds a much lower ECS than many of the models.
The implications for climate sensitivity of AR5 forcing and heat uptake estimates
Using 1859–1882 for the base period and 1995–2011 for the final period, thus avoiding major volcanic activity,
median estimates are derived for ECS of 1.64 K and for TCR of 1.33 K. ECS 17–83 and 5–95 % uncertainty ranges are 1.25–2.45 and 1.05–4.05 K;
the corresponding TCR ranges are 1.05–1.80 and 0.90–2.50 K.
Wow, a 2XCO2 ECS of 1.64 C, a little lower than I was thinking, but in the same ballpark.
 

Judith Curry: Well, a lot of it comes from the UN Environmental Program. At the time, there was a push towards world government, socialistic kind of leanings, don’t like capitalism and big oil. A lot of it really comes from that kind of thinking. And the UNEP was one of the sponsoring organizations for the IPCC. And so that really engaged more climate scientists and really brought it more into the mainstream. But in the early days, a lot of scientists didn’t like this at all, they didn’t think that we should be going in this direction. And this was even the World Climate Research program and the World Meteorological Organization, they didn’t want to get involved in man-made climate change under the auspices of the IPCC.

They said, this is just a whole political thing. This is not what we do. We seek to understand all the processes and climate dynamics, we don’t want to go there. And that was really a pretty strong attitude, through, I would say the mid nineties, say 1995. We had the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at that point, they’re trying to get a big treaty going. And so defenders of the IPCC started pushing the idea that anybody who doubts us or challenges us, they are in the pay of big oil. After that, it became much more difficult to really challenge all that. And certainly by the turn of the century, anybody who was questioning the hockey stick or any of these other things were slammed as deniers and ostracized. And then after Climategate in 2010, the consensus enforcers became very militant. So it’s a combination of politics, and some mediocre scientists trying to protect their careers. And, they saw this whole thing as a way for career advancement, and it gives them a seat at the big table and political power.

All this reinforces pretty shoddy science and overconfidence in their expert judgment, which comprises the IPCC assessment reports. And then at some point you start to get second order belief. I mean, it’s such a big, complex problem. Individual scientists only look at a piece of it, and then they start accepting what the consensus says on the other topics. A scientist working on some aspect of the climate problem may know very little about carbon dioxide, the carbon budget, radiative transfer, all that fundamental science, but they will accept the climate consensus because it’s easy and good for their career. And so it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And now we have way too much confidence in some very dubious climate models and inadequate data sets. And we’re not really framing the problem broadly enough to really understand what’s going on with the climate and to make credible projections about the range of things that we could possibly see in the 21st century.”


We are supposed to see her as an unbiased expert, but she starts the interview with a right-wing biased conspiracy statement: “Judith Curry: Well, a lot of it comes from the UN Environmental Program. At the time, there was a push towards world government, socialistic kind of leanings, don’t like capitalism and big oil. A lot of it really comes from that kind of thinking.”

That sort of conspiratorial mindset casts a pall on everything else that she says and immediately lessens her credibility by making it seem like she actually has a political rather than a scientific agenda.
Thanks for the link.

Excellent interview. I'm sorry your bias keeps you from hearing the message. You should try to understand her viewpoint, instead of immediately dismissing it. You should understand those you disagree with, instead of ignoring what might be valid.
 
Has ether of you read any of Curry's papers? She is a very real climate scientist, and has published many times.
Judith Curry publications to 2011
In this 2014 peer reviewed publication She finds a much lower ECS than many of the models.
The implications for climate sensitivity of AR5 forcing and heat uptake estimates

Wow, a 2XCO2 ECS of 1.64 C, a little lower than I was thinking, but in the same ballpark.
Yep. It's hard to determine the size of that ballpark too. 1.64 C is pretty high in my opinion. About half that feels better to me.
 
Thanks for the link.

Excellent interview. I'm sorry your bias keeps you from hearing the message. You should try to understand her viewpoint, instead of immediately dismissing it. You should understand those you disagree with, instead of ignoring what might be valid.

I've read through some of it, and she just keeps touching on HER political bias. That she almost immediately turns it into a political rant (" At the time, there was a push towards world government, socialistic kind of leanings, don’t like capitalism and big oil. A lot of it really comes from that kind of thinking.") degrades any potemtial science that she might mention. If she really wants to be taken seriously, she needs to talk science and not conspiracy theories.
 
I've read through some of it, and she just keeps touching on HER political bias. That she almost immediately turns it into a political rant (" At the time, there was a push towards world government, socialistic kind of leanings, don’t like capitalism and big oil. A lot of it really comes from that kind of thinking.") degrades any potemtial science that she might mention. If she really wants to be taken seriously, she needs to talk science and not conspiracy theories.
You should ask yourself if her recount of the early UN involvement in the early years might be valid or not. She effectively said they started the agenda to blame big oil, just like you are now. Looks like their propaganda worked!
 
You should ask yourself if her recount of the early UN involvement in the early years might be valid or not. She effectively said they started the agenda to blame big oil, just like you are now. Looks like their propaganda worked!

See Visbek's post #2 which shows the early involvement and vast funding of big oil for deniers. "Blame" is a loaded word. They did what they did and Visbek identifies it.
 
See Visbek's post #2 which shows the early involvement and vast funding of big oil for deniers. "Blame" is a loaded word. They did what they did and Visbek identifies it.
Good spinnakers writing. What facts were actually in that narrative that mattered?
 
Yep. It's hard to determine the size of that ballpark too. 1.64 C is pretty high in my opinion. About half that feels better to me.
I too am an Engineer of sorts, and always leave a wide margin.
There are several unknowns, like how much of the warming in the last century was from the clearing of aerosols?
It looks like the energy reaching the ground decreased by 10 W m-2, and then increased by a little more than that since just 1950.
We do not know how long it have been decreasing, but a swing of 10 W m-2 down and up in 65 years,
is enormous compared to the supposed forcing increase of about 2 W m-2 from the increase in greenhouse gasses.
If the net effect of the swings in energy from aerosols is near zero, then the 1.64C could be accurate.
If on the other hand the energy reaching the ground today is 3 or 4 W m-2 greater than in 1900,
The increase in greenhouse gasses would account for almost none of the observed warming.
To me it looks like the aerosol clearing could account for about .2C of the observed warming,
Natural warming, another .3C, so .5 C out of about 1.1C of total observed warming.
the remaining .6C would line up well with the the supposed CO2 forcing for an increase from 280 ppm to 415 ppm.
5.35 X ln(415/280) X .3= .63C.
What this would mean is that CO2 forcing has no net feedback!
 

I too am an Engineer of sorts, and always leave a wide margin.

Do you think the "margins" are just based on how the researcher "feels"?

There are several unknowns, like how much of the warming in the last century was from the clearing of aerosols?

We have a reasonable idea of that from the Mid Century Cooling which was likely due to sulfate aerosols.
The increase in greenhouse gasses would account for almost none of the observed warming.

It must be very frustrating when the vast majority of the earth's experts disagree.

 
You should ask yourself if her recount of the early UN involvement in the early years might be valid or not. She effectively said they started the agenda to blame big oil, just like you are now. Looks like their propaganda worked!

If one ignores the actual history of the AGW hypothesis it would be easy to spin up all manner of conspiracy theories.

The reason big oil is a key focus is precisely because big oil = big CO2. If I insisted on playing with rabid dogs and I kept getting rabies would it be an agenda against rabid dogs to deal with my rabies problem?

And why not have a go at big oil and big fossil fuel? They ARE some of the major sources of CO2. It is wrong to "demonize" them for their business because we buy their product willfully and happily! It's not their fault that we have a hunger for petroleum and fossil fuels.

Maybe the ACTUAL conversation is that we want to make petroleum and fossil fuels an unappealing source for transportation and energy sources. That's not a bad thing. In fact it is about the best thing we can put our efforts into at this time.

It will eliminate an exceptionally dirty set of energy sources (and save them for the stuff that may have higher value such as plastics and organic feedstock) and it will help with climate change issues. Win-win.

So what's the harm at attempting to set aside "big oil" and "big coal"?
 
Oh God... not this denialist BS again!
There are several unknowns, like how much of the warming in the last century was from the clearing of aerosols?
It looks like the energy reaching the ground decreased by 10 W m-2, and then increased by a little more than that since just 1950.
We do not know how long it have been decreasing, but a swing of 10 W m-2 down and up in 65 years,
is enormous compared to the supposed forcing increase of about 2 W m-2 from the increase in greenhouse gasses.
The study that long got the 10 W m-2 was a study of just one data set from Germany and is in no way representative of the entire planet. Actually, the study states that it, at most, may be representative of Europe. The study also does not say that the increase was more than that.
If the net effect of the swings in energy from aerosols is near zero, then the 1.64C could be accurate.
As far as I am aware there are no serious climate scientists who think that the net effect of aerosols is anywhere near zero.
If on the other hand the energy reaching the ground today is 3 or 4 W m-2 greater than in 1900,
The increase in greenhouse gasses would account for almost none of the observed warming.
This is nothing but speculation as there is very little data to say what aerosols levels were in 1900.
To me it looks like the aerosol clearing could account for about .2C of the observed warming,
And this is where long dishonestly turns a negative forcing into a positive forcing.
Natural warming, another .3C, so .5 C out of about 1.1C of total observed warming.
the remaining .6C would line up well with the the supposed CO2 forcing for an increase from 280 ppm to 415 ppm.
5.35 X ln(415/280) X .3= .63C.
.3C from natural warming is just another longview exaggeration.
What this would mean is that CO2 forcing has no net feedback!
And this is total BS that goes against most of climate science.
 
Do you think the "margins" are just based on how the researcher "feels"?
The "margin", is your own risk margin, and yes it is quite a bit based of how the researcher feels about the reliability of the data.

We have a reasonable idea of that from the Mid Century Cooling which was likely due to sulfate aerosols.
We do not know how long it had been dimming, or what the actual levels of insolation were before we were emitting massive aerosols.
What we do know is that insolation levels fell by about 10 W m-2 from 1950 to 1985, and then rose by roughly the same amount between 1985 and 2015.

It must be very frustrating when the vast majority of the earth's experts disagree.
Sorry, the entire sentence read,
"If on the other hand the energy reaching the ground today is 3 or 4 W m-2 greater than in 1900,
The increase in greenhouse gasses would account for almost none of the observed warming."
If that condition existed (and we do not know that it does not) almost none of the experts would disagree.
The reason is, again that CO2 attribution is a subtractive methodology, counting only what cannot be accounted for elsewhere,
If the insolation today is 3 or 4 W m-2 greater than in 1900, it would already account for all the observed warming,
leaving nothing to be attributed to CO2!
 
Oh God... not this denialist BS again!

The study that long got the 10 W m-2 was a study of just one data set from Germany and is in no way representative of the entire planet. Actually, the study states that it, at most, may be representative of Europe. The study also does not say that the increase was more than that.




And this is total BS that goes against most of climate science.
There are quite a few studies and they show the aerosol dimming and brightening, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere.
As for global changes Wild 2005 had the following.
Over the period covered so far by BSRN (1992 to 2001), the decrease in earth reflectance corresponds to an increase of 6 W m-2
in absorbed solar radiation by the globe (22)
And we know the brightening began in 1985, and was still happening in 2015.

As far as I am aware there are no serious climate scientists who think that the net effect of aerosols is anywhere near zero.
This is nothing but speculation as there is very little data to say what aerosols levels were in 1900.
And this is where long dishonestly turns a negative forcing into a positive forcing.

I do not think the net effect of the aerosols is near zero ether, and because of the very little data
on aerosol levels in 1900, we do not know if the dimming was already well under way.
This leave room for the current aerosol dimming to be less than the 1900 aerosol dimming, so an increase in insolation
relative to 1900.

.3C from natural warming is just another longview exaggeration.
NASA Earthoberrvatory
Many researchers believe the steady rise in sunspots and faculae since the late seventeenth century may be responsible for as
much as half of the 0.6 degrees of global warming over the last 110 years
(IPCC, 2001).
Half of .6C sure sound like .3C to me!

And this is total BS that goes against most of climate science.
Well, let's look at my entire statement,
"To me it looks like the aerosol clearing could account for about .2C of the observed warming,
natural warming, another .3C, so .5 C out of about 1.1C of total observed warming.
the remaining .6C would line up well with the the supposed CO2 forcing for an increase from 280 ppm to 415 ppm.
5.35 X ln(415/280) X .3= .63C.
What this would mean is that CO2 forcing has no net feedback!"
This statement is directly in line with climate science,
If the total warming that cannot be attributed to other sources is .6C,
and CO2 forcing is .63C, then CO2 would have a nearly zero net feedback.
 
The "margin", is your own risk margin, and yes it is quite a bit based of how the researcher feels about the reliability of the data.

That isn't how statistical analysis of data works.

 
"Throughout the video, Stossel focuses the climate change debate around the impacts, asking “is [climate change] dangerous? Is it gonna harm people?” He argues that “a few degrees [of] warming might be good.” and that “cold waves kill many more people than heat waves.” Michaels, an established climate denier with longstanding financial ties to fossil fuel interests, supports Stossel in this line of argument. He ties the warming climate to the increasing life expectancy in certain parts of the world; “[w]e don’t really care whether it warms a degree in the next 60 years. It warmed a degree in the last hundred years. Life expectancy doubled!”

Michaels goes on to portray the “climate alarmists” as people pushing issues to “compete with each other… for your money.” He argues that in contrast to previous “environmental catastrophes” like the population bomb or global cooling, “the global warming scare has longer legs ‘cause it’s got more money.”

Gee, have you ever heard any of his before????? *L*


 
"
Throughout the video, Stossel focuses the climate change debate around the impacts, asking “is [climate change] dangerous? Is it gonna harm people?” He argues that “a few degrees [of] warming might be good.” and that “cold waves kill many more people than heat waves.” Michaels, an established climate denier with longstanding financial ties to fossil fuel interests, supports Stossel in this line of argument. He ties the warming climate to the increasing life expectancy in certain parts of the world; “[w]e don’t really care whether it warms a degree in the next 60 years. It warmed a degree in the last hundred years. Life expectancy doubled!”

Michaels goes on to portray the “climate alarmists” as people pushing issues to “compete with each other… for your money.” He argues that in contrast to previous “environmental catastrophes” like the population bomb or global cooling, “the global warming scare has longer legs ‘cause it’s got more money.”

Gee, have you ever heard any of his before????? *L*



Any time you have John Stossel "investigating" the topic you know it's no longer really science. Outrage generation, yes, but science? Not so much.
 
John Stossel videos about climate change:

"Are We Doomed?"
"The Climate Censors"
"The Truth About Climate Change"
"The Climate Hustlers"

How hilarious is it that he terms OTHERS as "hustlers" when he has made a career of doing so.
And this is the person whom Longview inserts into the climate discussion. *L*

P.S. I just realized that I made these posts in the wrong thread, but the narrative remains the same.
 
That isn't how statistical analysis of data works.
I am guessing that you do not do these type of risks assessments in what you do for a living.
I do, and quite a bit of it comes down to decades of experience looking at the available data.
It is always safer to leave a wide margin!
 
I am guessing that you do not do these type of risks assessments in what you do for a living.

I have done plenty of statistical analyses of data in my time. And, no, it isn't based on your "feels". The distribution drives the confidence intervals.

I do, and quite a bit of it comes down to decades of experience looking at the available data.
It is always safer to leave a wide margin!

You don't get to decide where the 95% CI on the mean is. That's driven by the data. Not you.
 
John Stossel videos about climate change:

"Are We Doomed?"
"The Climate Censors"
"The Truth About Climate Change"
"The Climate Hustlers"

How hilarious is it that he terms OTHERS as "hustlers" when he has made a career of doing so.
And this is the person whom Longview inserts into the climate discussion. *L*

P.S. I just realized that I made these posts in the wrong thread, but the narrative remains the same.

I remember back in the 80's watching JS on "20/20" and he was actually interesting. But, yeah, he's definitely drifted Rightwards and now seems to hustle outrage in one direction.
 
I have done plenty of statistical analyses of data in my time. And, no, it isn't based on your "feels". The distribution drives the confidence intervals.



You don't get to decide where the 95% CI on the mean is. That's driven by the data. Not you.
I have to be a lot more careful than that! I personally set the margins much wider.
I attempt to eliminate all possibilities of failure.
They are never completely gone, but you can get the mean time between failures to be greater than
the equipment upgrade schedule.
Engineers do it all the time, pad the numbers to account for something that might increase in the future.
Say an aircraft has a published range of 500 miles, but the engineers know it is actually 600 miles,
but because of headwinds, poor conditions, ect, it might drop to 550 miles, with an extra 50 miles just for good measure.
 
Back
Top Bottom