tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post2539860656551969685..comments2023-09-15T04:27:57.129-04:00Comments on Commentarama: Climategate(redux): Second Verse, Same as the FirstAndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-1967752491121155492011-12-07T17:07:36.118-05:002011-12-07T17:07:36.118-05:00rla, you seem to have been blessed with at least o...rla, you seem to have been blessed with at least one intelligent professor.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-66860823174276410412011-12-07T17:06:47.684-05:002011-12-07T17:06:47.684-05:00TJ and tryanmax, of course I've heard a lot ab...TJ and tryanmax, of course I've heard a lot about the honeybee decline as well, but I didn't really know much about it. Interesting links. <br /><br />Given that the media had stopped talking about it, I figured that meant it had turned out to be overblown. <br /><br />(My mom's into some of the "green" stuff as well, TJ. I feel your pain.)T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-38258248294181098582011-12-07T16:19:43.880-05:002011-12-07T16:19:43.880-05:00Thanks for the info tyranmax. I had done a little...Thanks for the info tyranmax. I had done a little research myself, but in the limited amount of time I had I didn't really find anything that helped.<br /><br />"It is a case of reporting accurate facts but not properly explaining them." So true!TJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-43669866139452366092011-12-07T13:30:04.344-05:002011-12-07T13:30:04.344-05:00"Figures lie, and liars figure."
~my gov..."Figures lie, and liars figure."<br />~my government stats prof in collegerlaWTXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09319344164726195144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-2970703104469192702011-12-07T12:16:30.085-05:002011-12-07T12:16:30.085-05:00Ah, now I wish I had looked more before posting (b...Ah, now I wish I had looked more before posting (but the infographic was so pretty). It seems the experts have settled on the varroa mite as the leading cause of bee population declines. Although, if you look for them, you can still find some apiarists (beekeepers) willing to blame everything from cell phones to George W. Bush. <br /><br />Also, I encountered a lot of very bad reporting on the subject. Several stories I read this morning mentioned over 30% losses in population from one year to the next without mentioning that a sizable portion of that loss is seasonal and is recovered in the warm months. It is a case of reporting accurate facts but not properly explaining them.tryanmaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09881154741574720094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-30410399878649125752011-12-07T11:56:10.819-05:002011-12-07T11:56:10.819-05:00Sorry, I screwed up the LINKSorry, I screwed up the <a href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/honeybees-full.png" rel="nofollow">LINK</a>tryanmaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09881154741574720094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-31447982369278664822011-12-07T11:55:21.845-05:002011-12-07T11:55:21.845-05:00TJ, I don't follow this story, but I did just...TJ, I don't follow this story, but I did just look it up and found this infographic: <a rel="nofollow"> href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/honeybees-full.png"LINK</a><br /><br />I wouldn't show it to your mom-in-law, though, as the accompanying text leads a reading that the info does not support. The point of concern seems to be the increase in winter colony losses. It is no surprise that bee colonies should shrink in the winter, but they are shrinking more and more each year.<br /><br />The breakdown reveals that the leading causes are starvation, weather, and weak fall colonies--very wintery causes if you ask me. So, unless one wants to strain the data, it seems natural to conclude that the winters are becoming harsher (to bees, at least) which sort of goes along with the switch from "global warming" to "climate change." After all, how can you argue that global warming is freezing the bees without sounding like a fool?<br /><br />It is also worth noting that the fabled Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the smallest contributor to colony decline. But this disorder gets talked up a lot on the auspices that "no one knows what causes it, so it <i>could be</i> global warming, pesticides, pollution, GMOs, racism, Islamophobia, the 2nd Amendment or whatever. I personally think it is because we nasty humans keep stealing their honey, LOL!<br /><br />Finally, and this is probably why the topic has left the news, it looks as though the declines were slowing into 2009. They may have leveled off by now. I'll look for more current information.tryanmaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09881154741574720094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-25342105458616812011-12-07T09:51:59.027-05:002011-12-07T09:51:59.027-05:00Great article T-Rav and comments everyone, as alwa...Great article T-Rav and comments everyone, as always! <br /><br />On a slightly different note, I was wondering if anyone knew anything about honeybees becoming extinct. My mother-in-law unfortunately believes some of the hype about climate change and I have been trying to get her up to speed on everything. She read something a couple of years ago about honeybees dying out and still believes it's true. I haven't really heard anything one way or the other about it and I'm wondering if it's just another lie by the ecoweenies. Does anyone in Commentaramaland know anything about this?<br /><br />Thanks!TJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-78234356080775393532011-12-07T00:43:45.254-05:002011-12-07T00:43:45.254-05:00tryanmax, this is exactly what I'm talking abo...tryanmax, this is exactly what I'm talking about. We feel the need to put our scientists on a pedestal and pretend that they're totally disinterested and objective (and I've been guilty of this too) when the truth is, they're human and have weaknesses like the rest of us. That doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to them, but we do need to look for ourselves at what they're telling us and not just use their authority as a guide.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-81408306029112761682011-12-07T00:41:01.816-05:002011-12-07T00:41:01.816-05:00Andrew, I think it was partly the NASA thing, and ...Andrew, I think it was partly the NASA thing, and partly the realization that the climate had previously been as warm as today, if not slightly warmer, during the "Medieval Warm Period," from about 1000 to 1300. (This would also be the period during which Europe emerged from the actual Dark Ages, built the great Gothic cathedrals, and began to stabilize and flourish socially and politically. For some reason, humans do better in a warmer climate. Funny that.) Anyway, the two together kinda blew their "warming" thing to bits, so they had to repackage it. It says a lot that they could only keep their "hard science" alive by making the terminology more vague and elusive.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-53605001798302026072011-12-07T00:35:01.788-05:002011-12-07T00:35:01.788-05:00tryanmax, well said on all points.
I read while ...tryanmax, well said on all points. <br /><br />I read while putting this together that the hockey stick graph (which has been completely busted by Steve McIntyre and others) was rigged so that practically any data you put into it would depict a warming trend. I don't understand all the dynamics of it, but for all the actual data points Mann got, he added in additional data points to "average them out"--and by that, of course, I mean he buried the actual numbers within a manufactured upward curve. It's layers of falsehood, but it does have actual information, so it looks okay to most readers. Truly mendacious behavior.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-53023416132991860682011-12-07T00:27:39.434-05:002011-12-07T00:27:39.434-05:00Don't forget that for some folks, just having ...Don't forget that for some folks, just having a seat at the popular table is enough. You'd think that scientists would be above that, but I used to work for a chemist with a PhD that was one of the pettiest people I have ever known. And he was not unique!tryanmaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09881154741574720094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-17191065711997551282011-12-07T00:05:03.715-05:002011-12-07T00:05:03.715-05:00tryanmax, I think they started making the change w...tryanmax, I think they started making the change when NASA got its temperature satellite into orbit (the one that would prove global warming) and it found no warming. That freaked them out.<br /><br />That's when people started pointing out how this same crowd was talking about a new ice age only two decades before.<br /><br />That's the point they started switching to climate change so that anything could suddenly be counted as bad -- not just warming. In fact, even "no change" was suddenly considered a proof of change. It was a no-matter-what-it's-bad scenario.AndrewPricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-86844669790490987172011-12-07T00:00:39.941-05:002011-12-07T00:00:39.941-05:00Indi, I suspect there are two kinds of people push...Indi, I suspect there are two kinds of people pushing this -- the Algores who see it as a chance to get rich, and the guys who see it as a chance to "save the world" by telling the world how to it should be run.<br /><br />And then they get all the fools lined up behind them.AndrewPricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-51179646203512868052011-12-06T23:50:46.713-05:002011-12-06T23:50:46.713-05:00Lot o' thoughts, so I'll run through '...Lot o' thoughts, so I'll run through 'em:<br /><br />RE: "I think this sort of thing gradually filters down" -- The good thing about a story like this is that there is no deadline to get the truth out, at least not like there is with an election cycle. This will filter into the general psyche and eventually people will just roll their eyes at "climate change." <br /><br />RE: "correlation does not mean causation" -- Yeah, but we are dealing with people who reject the notion of cause and effect. Just like Reagan's fat man next to the thin one, liberals sum up the situation at a glance and assume they are correct.<br /><br />RE: global warming vs. climate change -- I can't help but notice that the literature graph resembles a hockey-stick. Could all the writing about global warming and climate change have actually caused it?<br /><br />I first noticed the media making the switch a couple of years ago and put my thoughts down then. <a href="http://cogiteria.blogspot.com/2009/10/defining-change.html" rel="nofollow">LINK 1</a> <a href="http://cogiteria.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-on-defining-change.html" rel="nofollow">LINK 2</a><br /><br />Also speaking of the hockey stick graph, I read a piece on WattsUpWithThat describing how someone fed what was essentially white noise into the program and it too produced a hockey stick. In other words, their program so massages the data they input that virtually any data set will result in a hockey stick.tryanmaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09881154741574720094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-57941168710696307592011-12-06T22:47:08.519-05:002011-12-06T22:47:08.519-05:00Thanks Indi. Yeah, it is very scary to think of wh...Thanks Indi. Yeah, it is very scary to think of what might have happened if they'd pushed Cap & Trade through. Dodged a bullet there, sure enough.<br /><br />I really can't claim to know the scientists' motivations here. I don't know whether they're true believers or they just want the money/power; either way, they've totally corrupted themselves.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-55831898550092544402011-12-06T21:40:33.186-05:002011-12-06T21:40:33.186-05:00T-Rav
Very good article.
As to why these "s...T-Rav<br /><br />Very good article.<br /><br />As to why these "scientists" could engage in this behavior it is simple. Money. <br /><br />How much moneyh is there put into universities in the form of grants to fund studies by the government. Can we not understand that when Blowhards like Al Gore make deals to prop up Solyndras and try to use Cap and Trade to get tax money to pay for this that part of this equation might be to have scientists acquiesce to supporting this. After all is the government regulating this going to call them on it for what they are doing.<br /><br />You know what the really scary thing to me is....<br /><br />Had Cap and Trade passed Solyndra might have been able to survive by selling the eco credits the government would have credited them with.Individualisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11005025873042230314noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-44002528450006537672011-12-06T21:15:23.484-05:002011-12-06T21:15:23.484-05:00Andrew, thanks a lot. I have to leave for a while ...Andrew, thanks a lot. I have to leave for a while now; I need to find out what part of my brain creates mental images, and then go buy a screwdriver.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-86500552645784972442011-12-06T21:14:03.801-05:002011-12-06T21:14:03.801-05:00Andrew and Koshcat, that's called "coveri...Andrew and Koshcat, that's called "covering your bases." (Well, it could be covering something else, but I don't want to get crude.)T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-34820484790714851052011-12-06T21:13:01.293-05:002011-12-06T21:13:01.293-05:00Thanks, Stan. Keep in mind, though, the MSM doesn&...Thanks, Stan. Keep in mind, though, the MSM doesn't actually support "our way of life," and would like to trade it for directives from Brussels or Beijing, whichever's easiest. <br /><br />Good point about Al Gore. Maybe global warming has nothing to do with CO2, maybe Gore's just gotten so huge he's begun internal combustion like the Sun and giving off lots of heat? :-)T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-29746955815889686122011-12-06T20:33:50.151-05:002011-12-06T20:33:50.151-05:00T-Rav, I was actually thinking of doing that for C...T-Rav, I was actually thinking of doing that for Commentarama... we could use more articles about Lindsey Lohan sneaking out her crypt or Kristen Stewart getting addicted to laxatives. :(AndrewPricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-18652115847565371592011-12-06T20:32:37.665-05:002011-12-06T20:32:37.665-05:00Koshcat, Ah! Now I get it. Interesting research ...Koshcat, Ah! Now I get it. Interesting research tool. And it's interesting that they had to give up on global warming and shift to the generic "climate change" -- which really could mean anything.AndrewPricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-83825605431490733462011-12-06T20:32:00.793-05:002011-12-06T20:32:00.793-05:00Does this mean we can throw Owlgore into a volcano...Does this mean we can throw Owlgore into a volcano? Though it was pointed out on another blog that he might stop up the volcano…I think it’s worth the risk?<br /><br />Great read. Like so many things of vital importance to our country, our way of life, it’s woefully underreported by Barry’s boys over at the MSM.StanHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07395708786509590321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-68206035006332990472011-12-06T20:21:24.489-05:002011-12-06T20:21:24.489-05:00Terry, I think that's probably it. They may ve...Terry, I think that's probably it. They may very well believe global warming is happening, but they have to know a lot of what they're claiming isn't adding up. Admitting that, though, would mean losing attention and the power to control public opinion and policy, and all the benefits that come with that. So they feel compelled to destroy anyone who opposes them. <br /><br />I've looked at a number of the emails, and many of them have titles like "Global warming is global opportunity," and so on. That should tell you all you need to know about these guys.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425587034622601550.post-6289390130863149042011-12-06T20:16:56.998-05:002011-12-06T20:16:56.998-05:00Koshcat, I've never heard of Ngram, but then I...Koshcat, I've never heard of Ngram, but then I don't grasp a lot of computer stuff, so it doesn't surprise me. <br /><br />Gore and Mann will never go to prison. Because that would be a stifling of the voices of truth, whereas Madoff was an evil capitalist who got what he deserved.T-Ravhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10861218035729479354noreply@blogger.com