Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters

On Thu, 2 Dec 2021 18:02:40 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

>On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 11:37:57 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote:
>> On Wed, 1 Dec 2021 18:21:16 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
>> <bill....@ieee.org> wrote: 
>> >On Thursday, December 2, 2021 at 9:31:13 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote: 
>> >> On Tue, 30 Nov 2021 15:56:58 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman  <bill....@ieee.org> wrote: 
>> >> >On Wednesday, December 1, 2021 at 10:24:51 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote: 
>> >> >> On Mon, 29 Nov 2021 18:03:35 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman  <bill....@ieee.org> wrote: 
>> >> >> >On Tuesday, November 30, 2021 at 5:29:08 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote: 
>> >> >> >> I just finished reading the following book, which may be of interest. 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> The Wall Street Journal reviewed this book: 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> .<https://www.wsj.com/articles/unsettled-review-theconsensus-on-climate-11619383653> 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> "&#4294967295;Unsettled&#4294967295; Review: The &#4294967295;Consensus&#4294967295; On Climate", WSJ, By Mark P. 
>> >> >> >> Mills, April 25, 2021 4:47 pm ET. 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> Which led me to buy the book on Amazon: 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> .<https://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Climate-Science-Doesnt-Matters/dp/1950665798/ref=sr_1_1> 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> "Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It 
>> >> >> >> Matters", BenBella Books, Hardcover &#4294967295; April 27, 2021, by Steve E. 
>> >> >> >> Koonin, 320 pages. 
>> >> >> >> 
>> >> >> >> The author chases various loudly-made claims back into the original 
>> >> >> >> literature cited in the IPCC reports, draining all the drama from 
>> >> >> >> those claims. 
>> >> >> > 
>> >> >> >From the Amazon reviews 
>> >> >> > 
>> >> >> >"As more scientists look at Koonin's work, it is not faring well. Global fire decreasing? Apparently he is using figures that mostly measure man-made fires set by farmers, which are decreasing. Wildfire is increasing. Greenland not melting faster than 80 years ago? Well it is melting faster than 60, 70, 90 or 100 years ago. But there was a brief heat wave 80 years ago, making the statement true but irrelevant. It goes on an on like that. His claims are a mish mash of untruths, cherry-picked facts, misrepresentative claims and some actual truth mixed in. But it should not be taken as an honest review of climate science. " 
>> >> >> > 
>> >> >> >It looks as if he has been got at by the climate change denial propaganda machine. They do seem willing to pay well. 
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> You are actually making Koonin's point. 
>> >> > 
>> >> >Far from it. 
>> >> > 
>> >> >> While it's true that some of the one-star reviews made these kinds of points, some material context has been omitted: 
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> There are 2,533 ratings so far, with 82% of them being five-star, and 
>> >> >> 2% being one-star. Few books get that high a five-star rating. 
>> >> > 
>> >> >Unless they are being hyped by the climate change denial propaganda machine. 
>> >> 
>> >> Ad hominem, a classic flaw of reasoning. 
>> > 
>> >I'm not saying anything about Koonin. I'm talking about the well known and well documented activities of the climate change denial industry, 
>> > 
>> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt>
>>
>> The original ad-hominem was directed at the bulk of the ~2500 reviewers. This is directed at Koonin. But it's all ad hominem.
>
>Clijmate change denial is well known, well documented, and entirely predictable. The logical fallacy here is to deny it's existence, and take it's predictable manifestation seriously.
>
>> >> The book is short and well written, which might help with star ratings. 
>> > 
>> >And it provides a comforting message for anybody who fancies climate change denial, which is where confirmation bias comes in.
>>
>> Even if true, irrelevant. The question is how to assess Koonin's claims.
>
>And you ignored the specific ciriticism that I pulled out of the Amazon reviews, on the basis that it was a minority opinion - not on the bais that it was wrong. That's ad hominem.

Koonin's claims are about how accurately and completely the IPCC's
summaries reflect the peer-reviewed articles cited by the IPCC. Koonin
makes no claim about the accuracy of this cited articles.


>> >> What I like about Koonin is that he provides detailed cites to the 
>> >> same peer-reviewed articles that the IPCC itself cited as the source 
>> >> for this or that summary chart, while pointing out where the summary 
>> >> left much context and perspective out. 
>> > 
>> >But the Amazon review I cited pointed out where Koonin had left out context and perspective. If you concentrate on areas where text-chopping will work well, you can produce a short and ostensibly well written book. It's easier to be deceptive when you can leave out most of the detail.
>>
>> Even if true, irrelevant. Check the cites and know the answer.
>
>More work than the subject deserves.
>
>> >> Given those cites, one can go back to the underlying articles and get the rest of the story, and verify or refute Koonin's take, without resort to ad-hominem arguments. You do not need to trust him, or care about his motives, however evil. Just check the cited articles. 
>> > 
>> >A heroic task.
>>
>> Not at all. One need not read the entire literature, which is  immense, which makes such an approach impossible. 
>
>Climate scientists do have to read the entire literature, or at least a representative sample. Getting a Ph.D. in a subject involves writing a literature review, which takes a lot of work - mine certainly did,

As they may well have done.  But the issue here is how an ordinary
citizen can cross check the claims made in the IPCC summaries.


>> One need only randomly check the cited articles and decide if the  cited summaries are in fact a correct summary. And there are not all  that many to check, and these are precisely those chosen by the IPCC , as supporting various points in the big summaries that come out every 
>> five years or so.
>
>But first I'd have to read the book, and the critical Amazon review makes it fairly clear what I'd find.

What a terrible burden.


>> > Climate change has been an interesting topic for more than a century now 
>> > 
>> >https://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm 
>> > 
>> >starts off with Joseph Fourier in 1824. Voluminous collection of data didn't really get under way until computers became ubiquitous.
>> Not to mention observation satellites and weather radar networks. 
>> 
>> Arrhenius solved it: 
>> 
>> .<https://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf>
>
>And if you had  read a bit more, you'd realise that Arrhenius came up with a correct hypothesis, but not one that was supported by what was known about the infra-red absorbtion spectrum of CO2 in the gas phase at the time, which wasn't up to resolving the rotational fine structure of the spectrum - each vibrational absorbtion line can be resolved into a series of sharp lines - the P, Q and R branches - and those sharp lines have much higher extinction coefficients than the unressolved vibrational absorbtion appear s to have at lower resolution. Arrhenius's hypothesis didn't fit the data that was available at the time.

He solved the long-standing problem of why the Earth was not an ice
ball from what was then known, causing the IR transmission spectrum to
become the focus of scientific effort, and his predictions were
ultimately borne out.


>> >Climate change denial - as a reaction to the more detailed and worrying data - didn't get under way until the 1990's.
>>
>> Yeah. In the 1970s, the worry was about Global Cooling, which later  gave way to Global Warming, which gave way to Climate Change. 
>
>Global Cooling wasn't a "worry". It was just something journalists - and occasional scientists looking for attention - speculated about.

Nahh.  Global Cooling was being thundered from the rooftops in the
1970s, and the journalists echoed the thunder.  There was talk about
Great Britain being reduced to the climate of Siberia.  Opinion was
divided on if this would be a good thing or bad thing.

But, time for original sources.  The NYT published a summary on 21 May
1975 titled "Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing".  Global
Cooling was a real scientific theory, but was being superseded. 

.<https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1975/05/21/80043535.html?pageNumber=45>

Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing - Major Cooling May Be
Ahead - Scientists Ponder Why World's Climate Is Changing - a Major
Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable


>Global Warming superseded it as more data began to accumulate.  Even in the 1980's it was more a speculation than any kind of warning, but as the data built up it got to the point where Al Gore could put together the story he was getting from his scientific acquaintances and publish
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_in_the_Balance
>
>in 1992. You want to equate the occasional speculations about global cooling with what we now know about anthropogenic global warming, which is a typical denialist device to minimise the extent of our current knowledge, not to mention the seriousness of the problem.

Actually, Koonin has better scientific credentials than Al Gore, by a
country mile.

Well, we have achieved our usual cycle.

Joe Gwinn

On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 9:03:24 AM UTC-8, Joe Gwinn wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Dec 2021 18:02:40 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
> <bill....@ieee.org> wrote: 
> 
> >On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 11:37:57 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote: 

> >> Yeah. In the 1970s, the worry was about Global Cooling, which later gave way to Global Warming, which gave way to Climate Change. 
> > 
> >Global Cooling wasn't a "worry". It was just something journalists - and occasional scientists looking for attention - speculated about.
> Nahh. Global Cooling was being thundered from the rooftops in the 
> 1970s, and the journalists echoed the thunder. There was talk about ...

The 'global cooling' thunder isn't science, it's popular press.   Science comes from
observations, not journalists.

> But, time for original sources. The NYT published a summary on 21 May 
> 1975 titled "Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing". Global 
> Cooling was a real scientific theory, but was being superseded. 
> 
> .<https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1975/05/21/80043535.html?pageNumber=45> 

NY times is not 'original source' on the science, it's a source on the journalism history.

Didn't read far before I found that... there was no agreement, dozens of things that might
be changing climate, in any and all directions, without any clear trend or prediction.

That's not a prediction scenario, it's the familiar 'we need more research' open question
discussion.

So, "global cooling" at that time wasn't a rational worry; it wasn't a prediction on a trusted base of knowledge.

Idiot...

-- 
whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com> wrote:

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> Subject: Re: Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters
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> 
> On Thursday, December 2, 2021 at 4:37:57 PM UTC-8, Joe Gwinn wrote:
>> On Wed, 1 Dec 2021 18:21:16 -0800 (PST), Anthony William Sloman
>> <bill....@ieee.org> wrote: 
> 
>> >I'm not saying anything about Koonin. I'm talking about the well known and well documented activities of the climate change denial industry, 
>> > 
>> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
>> The original ad-hominem was directed at the bulk of the ~2500 
>> reviewers. This is directed at Koonin. But it's all ad hominem.
> 
> Oh, no, that's an unacceptable slur; the  '2500 reviewers' claim is clearly snake-oil,
> on a par with the famous 'Hundred Authors Against Einstein'; if the
> book's claims were really sound, it'd convince experts rather than volunteer reviewers.
> Some deep pockets are involved if 2500 reviewers write for the record.
> 
>> >> The book is short and well written, which might help with star ratings. 
>> > 
>> >And it provides a comforting message for anybody who fancies climate change denial, which is where confirmation bias comes in.
>> Even if true, irrelevant. The question is how to assess Koonin's 
>> claims.
> 
> Not at all.   Koonin didn't do any of the research, he just collected it.
> 
>> >> What I like about Koonin is that he provides detailed cites to the 
>> >> same peer-reviewed articles that the IPCC itself cited 
> 
> while not coming to the conclusions that IPCC reached?   Then either a large international
> conclave, or a lonely individual,  has missed something.   I'd distrust the individual first.
> 
>> >Climate change denial - as a reaction to the more detailed and worrying data - didn't get under way until the 1990's.
> 
>> Yeah. In the 1970s, the worry was about Global Cooling, which later 
>> gave way to Global Warming, which gave way to Climate Change. 
> 
> False claim, there.   In the 1970's, cooling was an hypothesis, not trusted nor a prediction, just
> a reasonable place to put some prove-or-disprove resources.   By the early 90s, climate change
> basically stopped having any scientific holes, was a solid prediction.   Warming versus Change are
> just distinction in labels, not differences.
> 
> 

Tom Gardner <spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: 

> whit3rd wrote: 
>> Joe Gwinn wrote: 

>>> The original ad-hominem was directed at the bulk of the ~2500 
>>> reviewers. This is directed at Koonin. But it's all ad hominem. 
>> 
>> Some deep pockets are involved if 2500 reviewers write for the record. 

> Of course they won't convince someone whose beliefs are base on emotions 
> and/or their pay packet. 

Or someone who makes money from "global warming" while flying around in a 
MONSTROUSLY POLLUTING private jet... 

Then there are your Globalist Propaganda Masters, like this one spewing
the climate change garbage and hiding behind staffers while exiting her
private jet, to fool you. Some people are so easily duped. Others are just
trolls... 

whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com> wrote:

> jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> 
>> The great thing about climatology is that you can be all wrong but 
>> still have a lucrative career for 20 years or so, sometimes a lot 
>> more. 
> 
> Lucrative?   In Earth sciences, other than prospecting, nothing
> of the sort is seen on this planet.   Where are you from?

Sure. Lots of political careers based on spewing such garbage. Half of 
California politicians depend on that.

The nym-shifting stalker Corvid/Edward/others is upset because it will 
never again troll USENET without its nyms being exposed.

Corvid perpetually proves why it must nym-shift.
Its mission, as always... annoy everybody.

see also...
=?UTF-8?Q?C=c3=b6rvid?= <bl@ckbirds.org>
=?UTF-8?B?8J+QriBDb3dzIGFyZSBOaWNlIPCfkK4=?= <nice@cows.moo>
Banders <snap@mailchute.com>
Covid-19 <always.look@message.header>
Corvid <bl@ckbirds.net>
Corvid <bl@ckbirds.org>
Cows Are Nice <cows@nice.moo>
Cows are nice <moo@cows.org>
Cows are Nice <nice@cows.moo>
dogs <dogs@home.com>
Edward H. <dtgamer99@gmail.com>
Edward Hernandez <dtgamer99@gmail.com>
Great Pumpkin <pumpkin@patch.net>
Jose Curvo <jcurvo@mymail.com>
Local Favorite <how2recycle@palomar.info>
Peter Weiner <dtgamer99@gmail.com>
Sea <freshness@coast.org>
Standard Poodle <standard@poodle.com>
triangles <build@home.com>
and others...

-- 
Edward Hernandez <dtgamer99@gmail.com> wrote:

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> From: Edward Hernandez <dtgamer99@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters
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> 
> The John Doe troll stated the following in message-id 
> <sdhn7c$pkp$4@dont-email.me>:
> 
>> The troll doesn't even know how to format a USENET post...
> 
> And the John Doe troll stated the following in message-id 
> <sg3kr7$qt5$1@dont-email.me>:
> 
>> The reason Bozo cannot figure out how to get Google to keep from 
>> breaking its lines in inappropriate places is because Bozo is 
>> CLUELESS...
> 
> And yet, the clueless John Doe troll has itself posted yet another
> incorrectly formatted USENET posting on Thu, 2 Dec 2021 05:20:49 -0000
> (UTC) in message-id <so9l3g$ve9$4@dont-email.me>.
> 
> gHxlyeyWQOEW
> 
> 
> 

On Saturday, December 4, 2021 at 10:48:05 AM UTC+11, John Doe wrote:
> Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> > whit3rd wrote: 
> >> Joe Gwinn wrote: 
> 
> >>> The original ad-hominem was directed at the bulk of the ~2500 
> >>> reviewers. This is directed at Koonin. But it's all ad hominem. 
> >>
> >> Some deep pockets are involved if 2500 reviewers write for the record.
> > Of course they won't convince someone whose beliefs are base on emotions 
> > and/or their pay packet.
>
> Or someone who makes money from "global warming" while flying around in a 
> MONSTROUSLY POLLUTING private jet... 

Strictly speaking, CO2 emissions aren't pollution - CO2 is a perfectly normal components of the atmosphere, though the current level is higher than we'd like
 
> Then there are your Globalist Propaganda Masters, like this one spewing 
> the climate change garbage and hiding behind staffers while exiting her 
> private jet, to fool you. Some people are so easily duped. Others are just 
> trolls...

Sadly for creeps like John Doe, climate change is real and progressing inconveniently rapidly. There are politicians who exploit it - like every other issue, but that doesn't alter the facts of the matter. Right wing lunatics do see m to be easily duped by climate change denial - their basic idea is that change is bad, which makes it difficult for them to deal with real change which is actually happening, and sympathetic to all those people who have made a lot of money out of digging up fossil carbon and selling it as fuel, and want to keep on doing for as long as possible despite the unfortunate consequences.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

The John Doe troll stated the following in message-id 
<sdhn7c$pkp$4@dont-email.me>:

> The troll doesn't even know how to format a USENET post...

And the John Doe troll stated the following in message-id 
<sg3kr7$qt5$1@dont-email.me>:

> The reason Bozo cannot figure out how to get Google to keep from 
> breaking its lines in inappropriate places is because Bozo is 
> CLUELESS...

And yet, the clueless John Doe troll has itself posted yet another
incorrectly formatted USENET posting on Fri, 3 Dec 2021 23:33:13 -0000
(UTC) in message-id <soe9fp$rv6$1@dont-email.me>.

kg99FjHm0Be5

The John Doe troll stated the following in message-id 
<sdhn7c$pkp$4@dont-email.me>:

> The troll doesn't even know how to format a USENET post...

And the John Doe troll stated the following in message-id 
<sg3kr7$qt5$1@dont-email.me>:

> The reason Bozo cannot figure out how to get Google to keep from 
> breaking its lines in inappropriate places is because Bozo is 
> CLUELESS...

And yet, the clueless John Doe troll has itself posted yet another
incorrectly formatted USENET posting on Fri, 3 Dec 2021 23:53:13 -0000
(UTC) in message-id <soeal9$rv6$4@dont-email.me>.

This posting is a public service announcement for any google groups
readers who happen by to point out that the John Doe troll does not even
follow it's own rules that it uses to troll other posters.

LKcEjgCejT6j

On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 3:51:46 PM UTC-8, John Doe wrote:

> Sure. Lots of political careers based on spewing such garbage. Half of 
> California politicians depend on that.

Oh, yeah, that'll fly on a newsgroup that isn't followed by California politicians.
You could have filled in Newfoundland fishers, or Mississippi Baptists, or
Detroit beer-drinkers, with just as little thought.

The 'such garbage' is equally generic, vague, dismissive.

Scorn for others is a sentiment that has many expressions, but no positive
value.