This Is What I Do

I’m going to keep analyzing data and asking questions.  That is what I do.

If I upset your sacred cows and you can’t handle it – then adios. I respond to rational discussion, and have little tolerance for hysteria. I blocked several thousand twitter followers last year over their Never-Trump stand. They were 100% certain that Trump was a closet Democrat, and was worse than Hillary.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

  • Thomas Jefferson

Keep an open mind, and free from the propaganda you were raised with.

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57 Responses to This Is What I Do

  1. Gary Seymour says:

    Yes, there is a drive of all humans towards fame and fortune. Scientists are not excluded from that imperative. But let’s look at the paths that scientists have available to them. They can become corporate scientists, beholding to the ones that pay their rent. Or, they can become academia scientists, beholding to the ones that decide their tenure (and therefore, their rent). Inherent to both, is the principle of publish or perish.

    Let’s be honest, in both categories, there are always the showboats, the ones that don’t have any principles, the ones that will take any data and twist it towards their own benefit.

    However, I believe that scientists of either path are mostly honest, caring, and truthful. They are smart, and they assuredly could make more money in private enterprise. Tony has shown that some are dishonest. Some want fame and fortune. Some want to manipulate truth for their own benefit. But we all know that becoming a scientist is not the easiest path for selfish gain.

    It boils down to publish or perish. Magazines don’t publish failed hypotheses. Scientists know this. They publish hypotheses that are confirmed. So, if they start with a hypothesis that doesn’t pan out, they tend to change their hypotheses to match the data. Against the scientific method, but that is what actually happens.

    As a skeptic of climate change, you must understand that the scientific method works, but only slowly. There are personality quirks, there is bullshit, there are grand standers, there is mis-information, there is outright fraud, but the bottom line is that there are many, many, honest scientists that do not chase fortune. That do not chase fame at any cost. Many do not want anything but the truth to prevail. The scientific method is not perfect, (I could give you many ways to improve it) but it eventually it leads to truth.

    If you love truth, then make this bullshit on both sides go away. Let’s look honestly at the truth. Not ad hoc old news clippings, not scary predictions of doom, and certainly not what Al Gore or the media thinks is the truth.

    The truth is that the sky in not falling, the earth is not fine with excessive CO2 emissions, and we can figure out how to deal with it together, not as enemies.

    • charles nelson says:

      I always think it’s worth pointing out that CO2 makes up just 1/25th part of one percent of the atmosphere and that the dominant ‘greenhouse gas’ is Water Vapour which makes up around 4%.
      Would you suggest that we restrict say…irrigation on the grounds that it is adding a potent greenhouse gas to the atmosphere?

    • gator69 says:

      … the earth is not fine with excessive CO2 emissions…

      Sorry, but that is an opinion, and an opinion not based upon sound science but based upon flawed models. Of course one would need to define “excessive” to be clear on this point, but in my opinion which is based upon empirical observations, we are not even close to the excessive end of the scale for atmospheric concentraions of CO2.

      But I must commend you for your efforts to confuse the average visitor here, who has not yet seen you insane commentary. You leftists sure are sneaky bastards.

    • Latitude says:

      “the earth is not fine with excessive CO2 emissions,”

      Gary, are you familiar with how the word “limiting” is used?
      We are a long long long way away from excessive…..as a matter of fact, it’s impossible to add enough CO2 for it to become excessive

    • AndyG55 says:

      YOU are an IDIOT , Gary. !!

      You show absolutely ZERO understanding of anything to do with valid science.

      “Magazines don’t publish failed hypotheses. “

      Yes they do, all the time.

      You are just highlighting your scientific IGNORANCE, yet again.

      Take you mindless trolling elsewhere, fool.

    • sunsettommy says:

      Gary writes,

      “The truth is that the sky in not falling, the earth is not fine with excessive CO2 emissions, and we can figure out how to deal with it together, not as enemies.”

      Deal with what, Gary?

    • AndyG55 says:

      “the earth is not fine with excessive CO2 emissions”

      But it is certainly LOVING the tiny amount humans are adding.

      TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY BENEFICIAL TO ALL LIFE ON EARTH.

      There is NO DOWN SIDE to increasing atmospheric CO2 to even 4 or 5 times what it currently is.

      Unfortunately, it seems that around 600 – 700ppm is about as much as we can HOPE FOR. !!

    • AndyG55 says:

      “not as enemies.””

      As far as I am concerned, ANYONE that backs the LIES and ANTI-SCIENCE of the AGW scam is backing an ideology that, by its own words, is out to destroy capitalist based western society and replace it with a totalitarian one-world government.

      They are also causing IMMENSE damage to once-stable electricity supply systems in many countries, destroying avian wild-life, destroying scenic hinterlands… etc etc..

      So yes……

      THEY VERY MUCH ARE THE ENEMY !!

    • gallopingcamel says:

      Then there is the assumption that rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are causing temperatures to rise when the assumption is obviously false. The CAGW meme died long ago to be replaced by “Climate Change” which is a bet you can’t lose. When people talk about “Climate Change” I ask them whether temperatures will rise or fall over the next 10, 20 or 50 years and by how much. I seldom get an answer that makes much sense. How do you answer the question?
      The discussion of emissions strikes me as nonsense given that there is no evidence for rising CO2 causing any warming at all much less the “Catastrophic” warming we were promised only 20 years ago. Instead we have tremendous benefits from rising CO2 that enrich us all.

      Don’t worry about stabilizing CO2 emissions, Mother Nature is already taking care of that. She is forcing us to find other energy sources since easily accessed fossil fuels are becoming harder to find. Malthusians are right to tell us that natural resources are limited. What they don’t understand is human ingenuity that replaced whale oil for lighting with kerosene, replaced kerosene with electricity and on and on to things we can barely imagine.

    • AndyG55 says:

      “There are personality quirks, there is bullshit, there are grand standers, there is mis-information, there is outright fraud”

      Gary NAILS the AGW agenda……

      WELL DONE !!

      Seems you have finally caught on.

    • okay Gary, what is excessive CO2 if the ultimate ideal rate is 2000 ppm?
      think of it this way many plants need at least 280 ppm to grow. Anything under that they are starving drastically.

  2. Ron Van Wegen says:

    “If I upset your scared cows…”
    LOL! – I hope you sort of meant that?!

  3. gator69 says:

    Jefferson is one of my heros, he was a great visionary and philosopher. One of my favorite writings of his includes this quote, by which I live my life.

    Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, He must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
    -Thomas Jefferson

  4. Nicholas Schroeder, BSME, PE says:

    “Questions, so many questions.” Joker aka Jim Carey.

    Got answers?

    The ONLY^3 reason RGHE theory even exists is to explain how the average surface (1.5 m above ground) temperature of 288 K/15 C (K-T balance 289 K/16 C) minus 255 K/-18C , the average surface (now ground) temperature w/o an atmosphere (Which is just completely BOGUS!) equals 33 C warmer w/ than w/o atmosphere.

    That Δ33 C notion is absolute rubbish and when it flies into the nearest dumpster it hauls RGHE “theory” in right behind it.

    The sooner that is realized and accepted the sooner all of us will have to find something better to do with our time and the taxpayers’ money. Maybe that’s what keeps RGHE staggering down the road.

    The genesis of RGHE theory is the incorrect notion that the atmosphere warms the surface (and that is NOT the ground). Explaining the mechanism behind this erroneous notion demands some truly contorted physics, thermo and heat transfer, i.e. energy out of nowhere, cold to hot w/o work, perpetual motion.

    Is space cold or hot? There are no molecules in space so our common definitions of hot/cold/heat/energy don’t apply.

    The temperatures of objects in space, e.g. the Earth, Moon, space station, Mars, Venus, etc. are determined by the radiation flowing past them. In the case of the Earth, the solar irradiance of 1,368 W/m^2 has a Stefan Boltzmann black body equilibrium temperature of 394 K, 121 C, 250 F. That’s hot. Sort of.

    https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21mar_1/

    But an object’s albedo reflects away some of that energy and reduces that temperature.

    The Earth’s albedo reflects away about 30% of the Sun’s 1,368 W/m^2 energy leaving 70% or 958 W/m^2 to “warm” the surface (1.5 m above ground) and at an S-B BB equilibrium temperature of 361 K, 33 C cooler (394-361) than the earth with no atmosphere or albedo.

    https://springerplus.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-1801-3-723

    The Earth’s albedo/atmosphere doesn’t keep the Earth warm, it keeps the Earth cool.

    Bring science, I did. (5,400 views and zero rebuttals.)

    http://writerbeat.com/articles/14306-Greenhouse—We-don-t-need-no-stinkin-greenhouse-Warning-science-ahead-

    http://writerbeat.com/articles/15582-To-be-33C-or-not-to-be-33C

    http://writerbeat.com/articles/16255-Atmospheric-Layers-and-Thermodynamic-Ping-Pong

    • gallopingcamel says:

      Thanks for pointing out that the temperature of an airless Earth could not be 255 K. I wasted almost two years on this question. The temperature of an airless Moon is 197.3 K but the Moon rotates much slower than Earth so would the rate of rotation have any effect?

      According to my calculations it would and at least one professional climate scientist (Scott Denning) agrees with me:
      https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/extending-a-new-lunar-thermal-model-part-iii-modelling-the-moon-at-various-rotation-rates/

      • Nicholas Schroeder, BSME, PE says:

        See the Springer paper linked above. They felt the rotation was not that important.

        What matters is that the lit side would approach 394 K and that would mean: from my 33C paper linked above,

        “So what would the earth be like without an atmosphere?
        The average solar constant is 1,368 W/m^2 with an S-B BB temperature of 390 K or 17 C higher than the boiling point of water under sea level atmospheric pressure, which would no longer exist. The oceans would boil away removing the giga-tons of pressure that keeps the molten core in place. The molten core would push through the floor flooding the surface with dark magma changing both emissivity and albedo. With no atmosphere a steady rain of meteorites would pulverize the surface to dust same as the moon. The earth would be much like the moon with a similar albedo (0.12) and large swings in surface temperature from lit to dark sides. No clouds, no vegetation, no snow, no ice a completely different albedo, certainly not the current 30%. No molecules means no convection, conduction, latent energy and surface absorption/radiation would be anybody’s guess. Whatever the conditions of the earth would be without an atmosphere, it is most certainly NOT 240 W/m^2 and 255K.”

        And the dark side would be really cold, but the actual temperature? who knows? depends on heat capacities. Could be modeled, I suppose.

        THE Scott Denning? He & I have crossed paths. He’s wrong. Not enough room to explain. He believes in “back” radiation keeping the ground warm. I have actual data saying he and others are mistaken.

      • richard verney says:

        I have had that argument many times. In my opinion, the speed of rotation becomes important when the planetary sphere is not a perfect black body.

        Planet Earth is anything but a perfect black body, and is never in equilibrium. Heck, it does not even absorb incoming solar irradiance at the surface. Approximately 70% of the surface is covered by water, and solar irradiance is not absorbed at the surface, but rather at a depth of a few metres extending to 100 or so metres, and where currents operating in 3 dimensions mix and carry away the incoming solar irradiance possibly not to emerge again at the surface for up to a 1000 or so years.

        People arguing that the speed of rotation is not important probably view the K&T energy cartoon as correct, and consider the planet immersed in a soup where incoming radiation (and indeed outgoing radiation) is uniform across the entire surface of the sphere 24/7. In which case, rotation becomes a non issue.

        The K&T energy budget is about as far removed from real world conditions as it is possible to get, and it is very dangerous to start considering matters with that perspective in mind..

  5. Ken Allen says:

    Excuse me, but the iconoclastic approach is just fine ’till you veer off into JFK-land!

    • tonyheller says:

      You appear to have completely missed the point of this blog post.

      If you don’t like the JFK stuff – then too bad. And the more resistance I get to discussing it, the more it needs to be discussed.

      • AndyG55 says:

        No resistance from here down under. Your blog, your topics. :-)

        But I know nothing about guns, presidents etc etc.. so I don’t join in those discussions. :-)

        I do like what I see about way your present POTUS is going about trying to find the way out of the putrid swamp that the USA seems to be in. It cannot be easy. !

        I only wish we had someone down here in Australia who had the guts and the wherewithal to do the same thing and to start at least trying to cut down this anti-science, anti-life, anti-CO2 agenda.

    • richard verney says:

      Its Tony’s blog and he can discuss what he likes. No one has to read it, and there is no need to click on any article/post unless it interests you. It just means that you may have to scroll more.

      Obviously, most of us come for the climate stuff, on which Tony is doing an excellent job, but obviously current affairs is usually also of interest, and with the further release of material the JFK stuff is topical, so too its tie in with the deep state problems that President Trump faces in draining the swamp.

      Personally, I am no fan of conspiracy theories, but there are a heck of a lot of inconsistencies and unanswered questions with respect to JFK, and if the deep state are truly implicated in that affair, it is extremely frightening the depths to which they would go in a democratic country (and leader of the free world).

      We all need to be extremely vigilant, as liberty is being eroded in front of our eyes, and we need to have an open mind on all matters.

      • gallopingcamel says:

        If Trump keeps going on his present path his image will end up on Mount Rushmore. Personally I could not care less.

        We need to be thinking about what happens after Trump’s second term. How do we find someone who can fill his shoes?

        • menicholas says:

          Trump has been President for under one year, and has 3-7+ years to go…and who the hell knows what will happen in the intervening time.
          No one had any idea what was going to happen in 2016 all the way back in 2009.
          One think I am sure of…WE will not find anyone to replace him, we will choose from those who self select for the job.
          In the meantime, we have the here and now to be concerned with.
          Next year is the midterm elections…critically important, And before then, other stuff.

          • gallopingcamel says:

            What a blessing to have a president who has not been bought by the special interests.

            He is doing his best to represent the people who voted for him………..when did that last happen?

            Not a rhetorical question. Can you cite anyone since Reagan who was not owned by the “Donor Class”?

          • menicholas says:

            No, no one.
            It is one of the reasons I voted and advocated for him.

      • Robertv says:

        “as liberty is being eroded in front of our eyes”

        If you have direct taxation you live in a Big Brother state. Form 1040 tells you what you are, A Slave. Liberty is a thing of the past.
        You want to drain the swamp abolish the not Federal Reserve.

  6. Gary Seymour says:

    Jefferson thought that CO2 was our worst problem. He said, “I think the CO2 is the worst problem that we ever have faced”. That is a direct quote from your most cherished beloved news network [Fox News, Inc.]

  7. Gary Seymour says:

    Heat island effects were not really important in 1799.

    • tonyheller says:

      Obviously they were, as Noah Webster pointed out to Thomas Jefferson.

    • kyle_fouro says:

      Funny how they didn’t really become important until they started accounting for quite a bit of the “anomalous” warming

    • RW says:

      Deforestation along the american west coast has changed the local climate there. There was a paper published on that topic relatively recently. Although i am not convinced co2 is a significant control knob of temperature, the effects of urbanization are undeniable to anyone who has lived in a city and ventured out numerous times into the surrounding rural and undeveloped countryside.

  8. richard says:

    I respond to rational discussion, and have little tolerance for hysteria.

    No you cried bullshit when i sent links illustrated ballistic reports.

    Now you are lying.

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