Spencer Points Out Hypocrisy; Blogosphere & Twitterverse Explodes

November 15th, 2015 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

There I was, minding my own business, just making some sarcastic remarks on Facebook alluding to the hypocrisy of COP21 and those involved.

The next thing I know, people are claiming I want terrorists to attack COP21 (I’m not even going to advertise their craziness with links).

Here’s the entirety of what I wrote on FB:

Why ISIS Should Support COP21 in Paris…

After the horrific terror attacks in Paris last night, there is considerable speculation over the possible cancellation of the COP21 climate talks in Paris in a couple of weeks.

I will remind you that President Obama has stated that the threat of climate change is greater than the threat of terrorism. I will also remind you that many believe that ISIS would not have arisen if not for climate change, specifically, drought in Syria caused by your SUV.

It is only logical that ISIS should be supportive of COP21 in Paris, and that the conference should go on as planned. To enlightened minds, terrorism is clearly just a consequence of climate change. Fix the weather, and terrorism will go away.

If terrorism is such a minor, contained threat (as Obama just stated yesterday), and global warming is really the overriding threat facing humanity, how can we consider cancelling – or even postponing – COP21?

After all, isn’t COP21 our last, final, last chance to Save the Earth?

Just ignore centuries of history which demonstrates that the strict followers of the Koran have a holy mandate to take over the world for Islam, killing anyone who will not submit.

Yes, all of the world’s politicians who have supported a COP21 agreement should still plan on attending. And they should reach out to ISIS to join them in building a better world…a world without droughts.

In fact, in solidarity with the gun-control measures many of those politicians support (and which French law follows), any personal security personnel accompanying them should be unarmed.

Maybe it was that last line that got people all up in arms got people’s panties in a wad.

The multiple points I was making had to to with the silliness of various political positions (including taking guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens…can you imagine what would have happened if that Paris nightclub hostage ordeal was in Texas? No, you can’t, because it wouldn’t have even been tried in Texas).

Funny how the most powerful gun control advocates have no problem with using guns to protect themselves.


454 Responses to “Spencer Points Out Hypocrisy; Blogosphere & Twitterverse Explodes”

Toggle Trackbacks

  1. Bart says:

    Dr. Spencer, you are priceless. Thank you.

  2. CC Reader says:

    Dr. Spencer,
    Have you read the following. The site contains models .
    http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/david-evans/synopsis-of-basic-climate-models.pdf

    Climate Scientists Misapplied Basic Physics — A Synopsis
    A mistake in the climate model architecture changes everything—trapped energy just reroutes to space on another path
    Dr David M.W. Evans1
    15 November 2015
    Project home page: sciencespeak.com/climate-basic.html
    Summary
    The basic climate model, the application of “basic physics” to climate, is essentially why es- tablishment climate scientists believe in the carbon dioxide theory, despite considerable con- trary empirical evidence.
    Dating back to 1896, the model contains serious architectural errors. Fixing the architecture but keeping the basic physics, future warming due to carbon dioxide is a fifth to a tenth of official estimates. Less than 20% of the global warming since the 1970s was due to rising carbon dioxide.
    Increasing carbon dioxide reduces the heat radiated to space by carbon dioxide (the “thicker blanket”). In reality, the blocked heat mainly just reroutes out to space by being radiated from water vapor instead, all in the upper atmosphere. In the climate models, however, the blocked heat travels down to the Earth’s surface where it is treated like extra sunlight, and less heat is radiated to space from water vapor.
    This modeling error went unnoticed for a hundred years presumably because people focused on the values of the parameter values in the model—such as how much heat is trapped by in- creasing CO2—rather than on how the model combines them to estimate future warming.

    • I looked at it. I don’t see anything that isn’t already in the models. Of course, if CO2 increases lower atmospheric temperature, all other IR radiators (like water vapor) are going to be emitting more IR, because they are at a higher temperature. The models already include that. I really don’t know what David is advocating here.

      • Stephen Wilde says:

        AFAIK the models start from the global average lapse rate of 6.5k per km and allow for the variations around that for seasons and latitude but do not add any further lapse rate adjustment for the effects of CO2 in the vertical column since they place all the warming effect at the surface.

        Roy seems to have grasped the basic principle but not that the change in the lapse rate slope can have the required effect on emissions to space from all IR radiators without involving a rise in surface temperature overall once one takes account of the effect on surface temperature beneath both rising and falling columns.

        By reducing the speed of convective overturning the change in the lapse rate slope warms the surface a little below rising columns by reducing the rate of cooling by decompression but cools the surface a little below falling columns by reducing the rate of warming by compression as well so that both net out to zero overall.

        • Andy May says:

          Excellent summary. I’ve been following Dr. Evans posts and I think he is onto something. As the water emission layer moves up and down, the impact is huge, swamping the effect of increasing CO2. he hasn’t proven anything to be sure, but it is a solid idea.

          • Go Canucks!! says:

            If you want to understand Evans arguments I suggest:

            http://rankexploits.com/musings/2015/held-soden-without-hypothetical-partials/

          • mpainter says:

            Quite vaporous mathematical arguments about something that is intuitively obvious: The GCMs are hypothetical constructs based on unwarranted assumptions.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            @mpainer…”The GCMs are hypothetical constructs based on unwarranted assumption…”

            Not only that, the models are not validated. A model makes no sense until you can prove it’s output means something. In electronics, you can verify model output by building a circuit from real parts.

            Expert reviewer, Vincent Grey, forced the IPCC to change its reference to theoretical future climate states from predictions to projections, since unvalidated models can predict nothing.

            http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Massen/conference_Mensa/2008.07.12_Gray_Spinning_the_Climate.pdf

            The conclusion of the article is damning:

            “The disappearance of the IPCC in disgrace is not only desirable but inevitable. The reason is that the world will slowly realise that the “predictions” emanating from the IPCC will not happen. The absence of any “global warming” for the past eight years is just the beginning. Sooner or later all of us will come to realise that this organisation, and the thinking behind it, is phoney. Unfortunately severe economic damage is likely to be done by its influence before that happens”.

            Note that Grey knew about the lack of a global warming trend in 2008.

          • richard verney says:

            Gordon

            Very interesting attachment to your post, and that was written before Climategate, and before AR5 failed to properly address the implications of the ‘pause’ and the ever widening discrepancy between model projections and observational data, particularly satellite observational data.

            AR5 fails to explain why no consensus could be reached upon the most probable figure for Climate Sensitivity, and that is no doubt because the then recent papers (a couple of which were published after the closing date) were suggesting ever lowering figures for Climate Sensitivity, and that the use of the tail end of the bell curve was highly improbable and out not to be used when expressing a likely range for Climate sensitivity.

        • Doug ~ Cotton says:

          SW writes:

          “By reducing the speed of convective overturning the change in the lapse rate slope (1) warms the surface a little below rising columns by reducing the rate of cooling by decompression (2) but cools the surface a little below falling columns (3) by reducing the rate of warming by compression (4) as well so that both net out to zero overall. (5)”

          (1) The rate of “convective overturning” does not affect the temperature gradient which is brought about by the propensity for any such system to move towards maximum entropy. Weather conditions may hamper that process, but we can consider an “ideal troposphere” just as climatologists do with their models. Such an “ideal” system has no variable weather conditions and no wind of any form – just a rising and setting Sun each planetary day.

          (2) Cooling is NOT by decompression. Heat transfers (that cause warming or cooling) do NOT happen the way you think they do Stephen.

          (3) There are no “falling columns” in an ideal atmosphere because nothing would hold them together.

          (4) Warming is NOT by compression. Warming can only come about by the introduction of new thermal energy. High pressure is NOT what maintains high temperatures.

          (5) They don’t “net out” in half a day. In general there is net warming in the sunlit hemisphere and planetary surface temperatures generally rise during the day. On Venus the rise over 4 months for any location on the equator is about 5 degrees from 732K to 737K, with corresponding cooling in the Venus night. Where is your explanation of the necessary heat transfers into the Venus surface during the day? If your model all just “nets out” day and night (regardless of time) then why does Earth’s surface warm each morning even where there is extensive cloud cover? When and where do your imaginary and fictitious “columns” rise or fall, and how do they decide what to do?

          There is a AU $10,000 reward if you can prove my physics wrong Stephen.

          Your problem is that it is way above your current understanding because you haven’t read it. I have been first in the world to explain the necessary heat transfer process which, as I have also explained, is proven to exist in experiments with other forces apart from gravity. You have to pinpoint errors in that explanation and also produce a study with opposite results to mine in order to be considered for the AU $10,000 reward.

      • Will Janoschka says:

        Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. says: November 15, 2015 at 12:35 PM

        “I looked at it. I don’t see anything that isn’t already in the models. Of course, if CO2 increases lower atmospheric temperature, all other IR radiators (like water vapor) are going to be emitting more IR, because they are at a higher temperature. The models already include that. I really don’t know what David is advocating here.”

        Have you any physical evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 increases lower atmospheric temperature in any way?,

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @Will Janoschka…”Have you any physical evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 increases lower atmospheric temperature in any way?”

          No one does Will, that’s the irony…and the pseudo-science.

      • Doug ~ Cotton says:

        Roy – you can’t “include that” because radiation just doesn’t work that way and the MODELS are WRONG.

        This week’s email to over 100 politicians covers the point I am making, so I’ll copy it below …

        Roy – below is this week’s email to over 100 Australian Politicians which you should heed:

        Dear Prime Minister and other Politicians

        Early next year, if not before, I shall be contacting many law firms with a view to finding one prepared to mount a class action by large companies against the various Government initiatives and taxes that adversely affect such companies and which are based on the totally false claim that science “proves” carbon dioxide can warm Earth’s surface. This is not an idle “threat” but rather just advice in advance as to what I shall be doing and how I will be testifying at the hearings. I have copious evidence to support the correct physics that I have been first in the world to explain.

        Carbon dioxide does NOT warm Earth’s surface. The opposite is the case and, just like the far more prevalent so-called “greenhouse gas” water vapour, carbon dioxide also cools the surface, but by less than 0.1°C. It should not surprise you that rain forests are cooler than dry deserts at similar latitude and altitude. It should surprise you to learn that the carbon dioxide hoaxers have a conjecture which could only be valid if increasing water vapour levels warmed rain forests to at least 50 degrees above desert temperatures. Yes, that is an example of just how totally incorrect is the whole “greenhouse” conjecture. No planetary atmosphere works the way they describe with their fictitious, fiddled physics.

        Disciples of the infant “science” of climatology used their one year of tertiary physics (and a general lack of understanding of thermodynamics and radiation) to postulate an explanation of Earth’s surface temperature which is simply not in accord with the laws of physics. They “claimed” that radiation from the colder atmosphere somehow transfers heat to the warmer surface so as to help the Sun raise the surface temperature each morning, because they realised that the Sun’s direct radiation can’t do it. On Venus the surface receives only about 10% as much direct solar radiation as does Earth’s surface, but the Venus surface is hotter than 460°C everywhere, even at the poles. The temperature of a planet’s surface is NOT determined either by direct solar radiation or by radiation from the atmosphere.

        To find out what really happens please browse my website* and listen to the 2015 video linked therein, or read my peer-reviewed papers also linked and perhaps my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” that is available through Amazon.

        Even at this eleventh hour I am available to discuss and explain the correct physics to anyone involved in Australia’s submission to the COP 21 discussions. My phones are 029….00 and 042….1. I have studied this all extensively and applied correct physics – as I would always do because of my sound upbringing at Sydney University Physics Dept under Prof Harry Messel, Julius Sumner-Miller et al in the 1960’s Over the decades since then I have helped many students understand physics and I can help politicians also – just contact me. I’ll even talk to a group of you in Sydney or Canberra if you wish to arrange such.

        Sincerely

        DC

        * http://climate-change-theory.com

      • springer says:

        I believe Dr. Evans is advancing the idea that lapse rate feedback cancels any GHG driven increase in resistance to thermal radiation from the surface. The effect generally doesn’t work over dry or frozen land and is greatest over water where there is an infinite supply of surface water available for evaporation. I’ve been advocating the same thing for years. Greenhouse warming theory relies on back radiation slowing the cooling rate of the surface. Water CANNOT be warmed from above with thermal radiation. The absorption layer is far too shallow it merely thermalizes surface molecules into a phase change i.e. it drives evaporation rate higher. This is made evident by the fact that there is a millimeter deep skin layer on the ocean that is nearly 1C cooler than the water below it. The cool skin layer is broken by whitewater turbulence but reforms in about 10 seconds.

        Dry land of course can be heated from above by thermal radiation and the lapse rate doesn’t then change because no extra water enters the column. One would then expect the GHE to be greatest over dry or frozen land which is in fact what is observed.

        • Doug~Cotton says:

          Springer

          Dry land can only be warmed by direct solar radiation in a very small percentage of the Earth’s surface at any one time where the solar radiation is at least three times the mean approximately, that mean being about 168W/m^2. Water vapor DOES absorb significant incident solar radiation where it is cold enough to have its temperature raised – mostly at the top of high clouds. Water vapor cools as I have explained and as my study confirmed. Much of the thermal energy absorbed by ozone also makes its way to the surface by the “heat creep” process I have explained. I suggest you help Roy answer the issues raised in this comment below.

      • springer says:

        Evan’s blog here http://sciencespeak.com/climate-basic.html appears to be more or less a restatement of Ferenc Miskolczi’s saturated greenhouse effect (SGE) here http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/The_Saturated_Greenhouse_Effect.htm

        The SGE is confirmed by balloon soundings showing altered lapse rate. Attacking the reliability of balloon soundings is are the usual response by warmunists. Other recent experiments have also indicated the same thing i.e. that lapse rate feedback is much greater than expected.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        No Roy. The only radiation that could affect the temperature of the surface of the ocean would be direct solar radiation. But it has a mean of only 168W/m^2 at the surface, and that’s like a nearby iceberg at -40C which is about 233K. As you know, back radiation does not penetrate or warm the ocean surface. So we have to explain how the surface gets the required thermal energy to rise in temperature each morning in the vicinity of a mean of 288K which is 55 degrees hotter than the iceberg Sun. There’s no point in talking about slowing of the cooling rate when you haven’t got the temperature up there in the first place. What primarily controls the surface temperature is the temperature of the air adjoining it. Recently Sydney cooled 10 degrees in 10 minutes. Do you think the Sun’s radiation changed all that much – hardly. It wasn’t due to clouds but just a change in wind direction. It is the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient which determines the underlying “supporting” temperature at the base of the troposphere, not radiation of any kind. Radiating molecules reduce the temperature gradient by inter-molecular radiation. You think the lapse rate is less for water vapor because of latent heat release, but it’s mostly due to radiation, as we see also happens with other IR-active gases on other planets. Water vapor lowers the surface temperature and raises the temperature in the upper troposphere because radiative balance is maintained pretty closely with the Sun, so the thermal plot rotates about an approximately central altitude in the troposphere. ou can’t have water vapor increasing the surface temperature because you know it reduces the magnitude of the temperature gradient. And, Roy, you will see that no one will be able to respond to the points I make with valid counter-arguments based on physics.

        • Doug~Cotton says:

          Ooops – that should read “You can’t have water vapor increasing the surface temperature …” Not surprisingly my keyboard’s getting worn out and missed the “Y” in You.

  3. Erik Magnuson says:

    I think there was an attempt in Texas at the Draw Mohammed event held recently. The assailants didn’t make it into the venue, which pretty much proves your point.

  4. Massimo PORZIO says:

    Hi Dr. Spencer,
    I just read that you wrote exactly what I said yesterday night to some friends of mine about what it could happen if instead of Paris the theater was in Dallas.
    I believe that the only concrete solution to protect people against terrorist of that kind is allow people to defend themselves by their own guns.
    But it isn’t politically correct so inapplicable of course.

    Have a great day

    Massimo

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      @Massimo PORZIO “I believe that the only concrete solution to protect people against terrorist of that kind is allow people to defend themselves by their own guns”.

      Agree with you 100%, Massimo.

    • richard verney says:

      I am from the UK where we have one of the most stringent control of firearms.

      I accept the argument that had people been armed then a Paris like terrorist attack would have been rendered more difficult and would likely have claimed far less victims.

      However, one has to look at the issue as a whole, and we know that relaxed gun control has not made the US a safer place over all. Gun related deaths are far higher compared to countries like the UK.

      Further, one has to bear in mind that the easy access to guns facilitates the school/campus shootings which unfortunately are many. How many school children/students have been killed in the US in the past 10 years, and one has to offset that against the occasions when citizens would be better able to protect themselves from a Paris (or Mumbai) style terrorist atrocity. Statically (and this could change), a citizen is more likely to be caught up in a school/campus type shooting incident than in a terrorist atrocity.

      • wert says:

        Would you accept a larger number of armed police officers?

        Like, one per cent of the population?

        Too much guns and idi-ots cause accidents, too few and terrorists are the only armed persons around.

  5. stevek says:

    With regards to these terrorist attacks, I believe countries need a type of civilian protection force. This would be group of civilians that are paid a nominal amount to carry concealed guns and protect against terrorist attacks. Not police officers but everyday people. They would have to pass some basic psychological tests, be drug free, have employment history etc.

    They would work their normal jobs but would carry so that when out in public like a concert, restaurant or in a school they could defend against gunmen. They would have some basic training.

    If 10 pct of population carried guns it would make it next to impossible for these type of attacks to cause significant casualties. These folks would not have to abide by city, state gun laws and also would be immune from so called gun free zones.

    In my opinion it is just matter of time before the Islamic radicals start mass shootings at schools, concerts etc in the usa. We need protection and police alone cannot provide it. Banning guns is nit answer as guns are illegal in France and look what happened.

    • Ernest Bush says:

      We have the people you are describing in the population already in growing numbers. They are called armed citizens. Every day a number of them stop robbers, rapists, and murderers in their tracks. Most often, they don’t even need to fire their guns. Presentation often causes criminals to run.

      In Arizona schools there are armed police and sheriffs deputies on guard and high fencing funnels those seeking access through a guarded corridor. In addition, in some districts teachers are allowed to concealed carry. That said, it is hard to stop a coordinated military-style attack on any facility. Armed citizens can limit the carnage, but bad things will still happen. Police will arrive in time to tag and bag. This is no criticism of the policemen of our country. Attacks just happen that fast.

      Our President still wants Containment because our efforts need to be focused on Climate Change (his words). The President of France has declared they are at war with ISIS. You decide what is the smartest policy.

      • gbaikie says:

        —This would be group of civilians that are paid a nominal amount to carry concealed guns and protect against terrorist attacks. Not police officers but everyday people. They would have to pass some basic psychological tests, be drug free, have employment history etc.—

        Good idea, but I would include the criminals that carry guns.
        I am all for fairness.
        Of course such a program doesn’t change any law regarding any restriction about criminals having guns. But we should still pay criminals who want to registry as someone who essentially gets a welfare payment for packing a gun.

        So not saying such registration would prevent criminals who not suppose to have guns, from being arrested.
        I just saying if they packing guns anyhow, they should be likewise paid- assuming they actually wanted be part of government program.
        Or in given situation, I would rather have some criminal in general have a gun, than terrorist with a gun. And if criminal kills a terrorist, I would think wiping out his criminal record might considered a possibility, or least the crime of that instance of possessing a gun, might be forgiven.
        Of course could have stick in addition to carrot, if criminal packs a gun and are not registered and not paid to carry a gun, then if caught with a gun they could face an additional punishment.
        So in addition to incentive of money, one punishes a criminal further if not registered as part of anti-terror program and is caught with a gun.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        @Ernest Bush “You decide what is the smartest policy”.

        I think the policies of Obama have caused the US embarrassment. I regard him as the weakest president the US has ever had. Now we have a similar type leading Canada.

        It’s amazing how people can use words and ideas to avoid dealing with terrorism. It should be a no-brainer.

  6. mpainter says:

    China, Russia, India, have all signaled that they attend for the sake of diplomatic form and that they intend to go their own way insofar as their own energy needs require: meaning all the coal and oil needed for economic expansion, CO2 alarmists squawk though they may.

    The US is a mere pretender, as Obumma is a lame duck without Congress behind him.

    So with the big guys out and many of the others untrue to the faith (such as Germany), what is left? A cauldron of swill to be served up with great fanfare and swallowed by the faithful.

    • richard verney says:

      But can he get something slipped under the radar, ie., without the need for Congress approval? And is it not likely that the next President will be a Democrat, and have similar values to Obama.

      It should not be God bless America, but rather Heaven help America.

  7. Javier says:

    Dr. Spencer,

    Responding with unfortunate words about terrorism and climate change to a horrible terrorist attack is probably not your most inspired post. That you were answering to also unfortunate writings linking Syrian war to climate change is going to be lost by most. Your suggestion that ISIS should support COP21 in Paris is specially offensive. I am very skeptical of catastrophic global warming, and this is the first of your posts that I really don’t like. I think you should apologize and move over before things get worse.

    • If ISIS was caused by displacement/poverty/etc. caused by climate change, then why wouldn’t COP21 be seen as a way to alleviate those problems, thereby removing the need for terrorism?

      I’m just logically following the arguments. Maybe you can explain why that offends you, Javier? Or are you on the Missouri campus? (in which case no explanation is necessary).

      • lewis says:

        The ability of the left to take offense for the slightest of reasons is not amusing, but dangerous. They will take away your guns, and they are working on the right to free speech. If, as you noticed, you say something, write something, which doesn’t suit them, they cry foul then make every attempt to shut you up, shut you down, get you fired, anything to keep people from saying what they believe.

        There are many recent examples, some from colleges, some from business etc. My wife, bless her heart, tells stories of advocates (those special interest groups which have an interest in getting taxpayer dollars for their special interest), trying to ruin people for having the audacity to oppose their special interest.

        The list goes on.

        The problem is lack of courage to stand up to these childish whiners.

        So, thank you Dr. Spencer for being one.

        Lewis Guignard
        Crouse, NC

        • richard verney says:

          Unfortunately, the Left have already taken way the right of free speech in the UK.

          In fact in the UK, Politicians are so afraid of offending the Muslim community that they will not refer to ISIS as ISIS but rather as Daesh. Further, it is almost mandatory to accompany any comment on what we do about these terrorists by extorting that they do not follow Islam, and that Islam is the religion of peace. how can one have a sensible debate when one cannot even admit to the nature of the problem/threat?

          Today in the Daily Telegraph an MP wrote an article on why airstrikes alone will not be enough to defeat Daesh. The Taily telegraph explained “Why Daesh?”

          Quote:

          “Daesh” is an Arabic acryonym for “Al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi Iraq wa al-Sham”, Isil’s full name. It’s favoured by mainstream Muslims who say “Islamic State” gives a religious dignity to what is simply a terrorist sect.

          “Daesh” also sounds similar to the Arabic phrase “Dahes” – or “one who sows discord” – and as such is regarded as highly insulting by Isil followers

          UNQUOTE.

          It is not PC to link Islam (or Muslims) with terrorism. Because free speech is not enshrined in our Constitution, it has been lost long ago. The left have already eradicated that right.

          In fact after the Charlie Hebro attacks where world leaders attended a march in Paris proclaiming free speech, the UK government within less than a month introduced a law making Islamicphobia a specific criminal offence, and if someone seeks to link Islam with terrorism one is sailing very close to be accused of Islamicphobia.

          A sorry state of affairs indeed.

        • FTOP says:

          It is an interesting subtext surrounding Benghazi that highlights your point.

          Essentially, the POTUS and Hillary blamed a video for the violence.
          Hillary went on to tell the families of the victims that she would “bring the video maker to justice”

          Thus, she vowed to eschew the first amendment and freedom of speech vowing to pursue someone who exercised these rights.

          While the video was offensive, we should be defending to the death the right to create it.

          Beyond the lies, the message is that our government does not support nor defend the very ideals we were founded on.

      • Chad Jessup says:

        I am surprised that Javier did not accuse you of microaggression. I enjoy your sense of poignant humor Dr. Roy.

      • MikeN says:

        Well ISIS can’t support a conference that would have the effect of destroying ISIS.

      • john byatt says:

        no roy ISIS was not due to the drought, and no one claims it was, you are confusing two issues

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        @Roy…I can see your point in principle but you fail to understand that people tend to take emails and Twitter statements literally. Most people don’t seem to have the ability to read between the lines and extract humour and sarcasm unless it’s absolutely obvious.

    • mpainter says:

      Why don’t you fully identify yourself, Javier? That way, Roy and the rest of us will be able to determine whether you are sincere or whether you are just another poor-mouthing troll flinging a bunch of stuff at the wall.

    • rah says:

      No what is offensive is hearing political leaders claim that fundamentalist Islamic terror and general strife are the result of climate change. Sec. State Kerry claims that the terrorism in Nigeria is the result of drought caused by climate change when darn near that whole country has had 20% more prescip so far this year than normal!

      What is offensive is hearing the US president say only 10 hours before the attacks in Paris. “I don’t think they’re gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq, and in Syria they’ll come in, they’ll leave, but you don’t see this systemic march by ISIL across the terrain.”
      And knowing there is a snow balls chance in hell that our media will call him on that BS.

      What is offensive is reading in Slate that the “political right” did something to precipitate such cowardly acts. http://www.salon.com/2015/11/14/and_so_the_hate_speech_begins_let_paris_be_the_end_of_the_rights_violent_language_toward_activists/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

      What is offensive is that 22 times this current administration has stated that climate change is a greater threat to civilization or our own security than Islamic terrorism: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/14/22-times-obama-admin-declared-climate-change-greater-threat-terrorism/

      What is offensive is seeing the left use the tragedy for an excuse to bring up gun control here when France has long had much more restrictive gun control laws than the US.

      What is offensive is being told that the great “refugee stream” is not a threat when anyone with an ounce of sense knows it is. A flood of undocumented persons coming from an area inundated with fundamentalist Jihadists across open borders. Not only are do most of them lack documentation the very mass of them is overloading the security apparatuses which we rely on to prevent such attacks.

      I could go on but you get the gist of it.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        @rah…”Kerry claims that the terrorism in Nigeria is the result of drought caused by climate change…”

        That doesn’t surprise me when people like Kerry also write off the cumulative effects in Africa of malnutrition, contaminated drinking water, and parasite infections like malaria, as AIDS.

        For decades prior to the late 70s, when AIDS began to appear among homosexuals in the steam baths of New York and San Francisco, the aforementioned affliction of Africans was known as wasting syndrome, or Slim’s Disease. The causes were known and I have listed them.

        Now it is called AIDS, with no scientific proof that a virus is behind it and all the evidence in the world that malnutrition, contaminated water, and parasites is behind it.

        Very recently, the scientist who discovered HIV, Luc Montagnier, proclaimed AIDS to be ‘oxidative stress’, that defeated an immune system, and only then did HIV have an effect. He claimed people with healthy immune systems not only do not succumb to HIV, they don’t get AIDS.

        The solution offered by Montagnier is not lethal drugs aimed at a mysterious virus but simply to feed the people, give them clean water, and find ways to deal with the parasites. He added that antioxidants would help to fight the oxidative stress and added with a smile that people tend to go for the most expensive solution, a reference to lethal antiviral drugs. For that insight alone he should have been awarded the Nobel he received for discovering HIV.

        Based on what Montagnier claimed about oxidative stress, I suppose it is OK to call it AIDS, as long as it is clearly understood what causes it in Africa, which is not sexual interaction. I think it is both insensitive and vulgar to blame an illness caused by malnutrition, contaminated water, etc. on diseases spread by sexual interaction. It’s not only vulgar, it’s insane.

        The hysteria surrounding AIDS, like the hysteria surrounding climate change, has created a huge amount of propaganda that is not supported in science, and people like Kerry are having a field day making ridiculous statements.

        It’s tough enough for people with backgrounds in science to understand this stuff and I have no hope that any layman will ever understand it. For them, it is a matter of forming an opinion based on a gut feeling.

        • rah says:

          The layman should start by visualizing all politicians as the sleaziest used car salesman in their town cleaned up and wearing a suit. And hold that impression until they prove themselves to be otherwise.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            @rah…to borrow from a joke about lawyers, what do you call a politician at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

      • richard verney says:

        There may well be a link between Climate Change and terrorism. The Arab Spring arose due to western intervention destabilising the region and the Arab Spring was at one time applauded and encouraged, but one can now see that much civil war and terrorism has arisen out of this destabilisation and uprising.

        One reason behind the Arab Spring is said to be the high price of food, and it is here where the link to Climate change comes in.

        It is not that Climate change has impacted negatively on food production, but rather the developed West’s policy response to Climate change.

        One response is switching grain and feedstuff production to growing crops for biofuel. Much farmland has been turned over to biofuel production, and this has been at the expense of producing food for human consumption.

        Now one can see the consequences of this on US wheat, grain and foodstuff exports. This has fallen dramatically over the past 8 or so years.

        So at one time, the US use to provide Africa and the Middle East with plenty of cheap, sometimes free pursuant to world food for aid programmes, wheat, grains etc, but now provides them with very little and this has hiked up food price in the region.

        So it is not that there has been real Climate Change in the area which has reduced food supply and pushed up food price, but rather an ill conceived policy response aimed at tackling perceived Climate Change, that has led to the West not providing the Middle East and Africa with as much foodstuff. The increase in local food prices is directly referable to the US biofuel policy. This policy being based in turn on a misconceived notion of fears surrounding global Climate Change, and how such should be mitigated.

    • Walt Allensworth says:

      Javier – You’re a whiner.
      This is satire.
      Put on your big-boy pants.

    • dp says:

      I need some muscle over here – Javier needs a clue bat.

    • Joe Wooten says:

      Points and laughs at the snowflake fascist Javier.

  8. Francisco says:

    In all honesty. Seeing how the average IQ of mid-North Americans is at and how they’ve demonstrated common sense. Would you really want then having guns?

    While I do agree that gun control does nothing to control those that use it for violent, illegal and les than savoury activities. Would you really trust a wide spread of guns to people that are self righteous, self absorbed and have demonstrated nothing but a lack of education?

    I might be sorely mistaken, but what I have seen in the media (taken with a grain of salt, of course), the mid-North Americans are so far off removed from reality that see threats and ghosts everywhere. Point in fact thinking that carrying guns will stop terrorist attacks. Might stop the occasional robber, but a jihadi type of self-emmolation. Hardly.

    Just look at whom is ruling the country and the hypocrisy of all this CAGW scam. Add on top of it all the other major scams that the country has been subjected to and how the majority (at least the vocal one) falls for them.

    Would you really give these people the right to carry guns?

    • Francisco, I think maybe you have seen too many Hollywood movies.

      The Midwest and Southeast US have the highest rates of gun ownership. Those same midwest states also have low rates of deaths by guns.

      The heartland of America grew up with guns. It’s been that way for 200 years.

      Now, I agree that the government education system is causing a dumbing-down of Americans everywhere, with all kinds of stupidity replacing personal responsibility and learning of skills.

      Gun ownership isn’t for everyone…it’s a big responsibility, and I favor some sort of training.

      But taking guns away is exactly the wrong solution. Our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, not for hunting, but for preservation of society against tyrants.

      And terrorists are tyrants.

      • Francisco says:

        With all due respect, Dr. Spencer,

        I have no issues with responsible people carrying guns. But an open market for them just makes it easier for the ‘baddies’ to get them. The astounding amount of shootings that have happened in your country is just but proof of this. It is quite impressive there is no travel advisory to go there… but we know why.

        While the last 200 years might have seen a lot of gun ownership, I am afraid I should point out that your people nowadays hardly resemble those people of the past. Your country (yes, I am biting my tongue but credit given where credit is due) used to be a ‘great country’. Nowadays not so much.

        Things have significantly changed for your people the last 200 years and require a whole more control…. but I am not sure the government you have is fit for doing so, seeing they are the problem to start with. So I am at an impasse here. It is said that people have the government they deserve. Sadly this is true, just look at your majorities.

        Somehow things, in my opinion, have to drastically change at a cultural/educational level, and this can only be done at home and require a few generations.

        And I will disagree with you on another thing. Terrorists are not tyrants; rather they are blind, ignorant, cowards cannon fodder for power and ideological skewed ideas. They are but merely finger puppets of the worst swine (yes, pig, swine) scum of the earth that uses others ignorance veiled as religion to perform the deeds they are too afraid to do themselves.

        I lived in the Middle East for some time and cannot relate these idiots with the muslims I lived amongst.

        • Roy W. Spencer says:

          Fair enough. I agree with everything you just said…except that there are now so many guns in circulation, I don’t think it really matters how easy it is to get them legally…they are readily available on the street, anyway.

          • Francisco says:

            Careful with the ideas you post Dr. Spencer: “they are readily available on the street, anyway.” you might give ‘them’ the idea of trading guns for bread. Given what the prospects are for your economy are…

            Somehow you (and we better start on our countries too) have to revert to the values that built the societies we so have enjoyed decades past.

            I do my part with my girls. Have seen several friends and acquaintances doing it too. Can’t say the same for many around me… particularly at school teaching levels

        • rah says:

          Francisco

          If you actually sat down and analyzed the numbers you would notice that if one removed from the total the gun violence that occurs in five urban cesspools in this country, all of which have very restrictive gun control laws, the US would be right in there with the countries that have outlawed nearly all private firearm ownership. Do you know that during the height of the war in Iraq that that deaths by gun violence in Chicago alone exceeded the US KIAs nearly every single month despite the fact that Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in this country?

          Also we all get only half the story because the numbers of crimes prevented by law abiding citizens using their own firearms in defense is just not reported let alone any consideration of the deterrent factor.

          And finally. Is there a more fundamental right than that of defense of ones life, the lives of their family, and defense of their business that is their livelihood? Like it or not, a firearm is the cheapest and most effective tool available for that purpose for most people.

          • Francisco says:

            Hello Rah,

            I might be a bit on the blind here, but other than very isolated incidents, I have yet to see how gun ownership has reduced more crimes than the increase of gun involved ones. If you can point to the numbers you cite, I’d appreciate it, as it can change my perception.

            As pointed above, the availability of guns makes it easy to acquire them on the street.

            Trying to curb the availability of guns, right now, will not make a difference on our generation, it will take a few. This is something that should have been done a while back or have addressed at a more basic level: education.

            Both failed, now what you see is the result.

            I come from a country where guns are very restricted and can tell you that there is very little of what you guys see over there (random attacks on general public). We do have another issue, though. Drug cartels. But whether people had guns or not, this would still exist. Actually, unless people had ammo on par or better than the army it would be quite a bit worse should they try to engage with the cartels.

            As I said, I do not have an issue with responsible people having guns, but it is kinda of a pipe dream to think that the majority of gun owners would be such responsible people.

          • lewis says:

            The statistics about crime and gun ownership are beside the point, which Dr. Spencer makes. Let me go farther.
            Weapons owned by the citizenry are what keeps a government in check. So long as the citizens can have weapons equal to what the government has, the government will keep a reasonable head about itself. When the government can purchase weapons the average citizen cannot, the government will, over time, become abusive of the citizenry. (Tanks, aircraft, machine guns, artillery, armored personnel carriers and the like) Freedom will diminish, government will expand. You may watch this happening in the US and other countries.

            Those who advocate a larger, more intrusive government, are usually the same people advocating gun control for the citizenry, but not the government.

            And fyi – there are about 300,000,000 guns in the possession of the citizens of this country.

          • Nate says:

            Rah,

            Most guns found on criminals in Chicago were obtained legally, or quasi-legally in neighboring states like Indiana, with much laxer gun laws. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/12/us/gun-traffickers-smuggling-state-gun-laws.html?_r=0

          • rah says:

            First off I have absolutely no faith in the NYT reporting on anything objectively having to do with 2nd amendment issues.

            Secondly, if legally purchased or not, the people that transported or conspired to transport firearms across state line in contravention of the law were criminals.

            You aren’t going to stop it. Many types of firearms are pretty easy to produce in a clandestine manner even if outlawed. In fact a fully automatic submachine gun operating on the simple blow back system is quite a simple machine that can be fabricated in a machine shop with standard machines and tooling using no signature materials or components. Thus a real war on guns would have even less success than the war on drugs has had in the absence of absolute control which is only found in a totally oppressive police state.

            And of course the NYT contention is counterbalanced by the fact that violent crime rates are lower in concealed carry states.

      • Dr No says:

        The United States has the highest rate of private gun ownership of any developed nation, at nearly 89 firearms per 100 people. It also leads overwhelmingly in the number of firearm deaths.

        For every 1 million Americans, there are 29.7 homicides by firearm each year while Australia, which saw its gun death rate plunge by more than half since 1996 when it tightened gun laws, has just 1.4 firearm homicides per million.

        Studies have shown more guns per capita in a state results in more firearm homicides.
        Of the 10 states with the strongest gun laws, seven of them also record the lowest gun death rates.

        There have been 248 US mass shootings in the 238 days of 2015.

        More than 10,000 Americans are killed every year by gun violence. By contrast, so few Americans have been killed by terrorist attacks since 9/11 that when you chart the two together, the terrorism death count approximates zero for every year except 2001. This comparison, if anything, understates the gap: Far more Americans die every year from (easily preventable) gun suicides than gun homicides.

        • jimc says:

          And what will you ban next – knives, screw drivers, any kind of sharp object, cars, pillows, hands? Maybe you should address the cultural, intellectual, legal, and spiritual rot brought on by leftist ideology. E.G. when it’s OK to destroy an unborn life, isn’t if OK to destroy any?

        • Andrew M says:

          Lets say gun control advocates get their dream of a general ban on private gun ownership. How do you expect to enforce it? How many deaths will happen in the literal civil war which will occur as you try to take people’s guns from them? “Out of my cold dead hand” is not just a catch phrase. People talk about the impossibility of deporting 11 million illegals but it would be child’s play compared to collecting all the guns in the country.

        • An Inquirer says:

          I am not a gun owner, and I really do not like them. And I would fear accidents more than I would fear the bad guys. However, Dr. No, I am not sure of your statistics. I have seen figures that reach the opposite conclusions. I notice that you said “states with the strongest gun laws” but I also know that Cities with the strongest gun laws have the most gun violence.
          Comparison with other countries is problematic. Our nation’s experience with guns is not homogeneous. Although one risks the label of racist for pointing what should be obvious, our gun problem centers on a limited number of urban centers. Restricting gun ownership is not going to solve the problem in these areas. Other countries do not face the challenges that we face in these urban centers. What to do for and about these urban centers, but proposals to limit constitutional rights across the nation will not help these problematic areas.

        • Joe Wooten says:

          Take away the cesspools of Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington DC, and New York, and the gun homicide rate of the US approaches that of Norway and Switzerland.

          BTW…all these cities have very restrictive gun laws and are run by “progressive” Democrats for over 50 years.

          Also, if someone is bent on suicide, taking away the guns will not stop them.

      • Nate says:

        So we’re gonna go down this road..Ok I’ll take the bait. France has about 140 gun homicides per year, about the same as the Paris attack. As you might guess the US has a much much higher number of homicides per year, about 10,000. On a per person basis the US has 15 times the gun homicides as France (Wikipedia). Suicides and accidental deaths by gun are 3 x higher in the US, per person.

        As horrific as the Paris attack was, you are much much more likely to get shot and killed in the US.

        Well you might say its mostly the criminals doing the shooting, not the law abiding gun owners. Perhaps. But the vast majority of the guns in the hands of criminals were bought legally or quasi legally. Take Chicago. The vast majority of guns used by apprehended criminals came from Indiana-a state with looser gun laws..

        • Bart says:

          “…you are much much more likely to get shot and killed in the US.”

          No, I am not. Gun deaths are not uniformly distributed, but tend to occur in specific areas where many challenging social problems persist.

          Denying law abiding people who live in those communities the right to protect themselves, their families, and their property, while criminals can easily purchase weapons illegally, is not the answer.

          • Nate says:

            Maybe so, but France has such problem areas as well. As do many other countries that dont have the high homicide rates we have.

            I think our current gun laws are failing miserably at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals or crazy people, while in many other countries the laws are succeeding at that.

            Do you want criminals to so easily obtain guns?

            Americans may prefer to have easy access to guns, but please don’t try to argue that more guns make us safer, when the stats show the opposite is true.

          • Bart says:

            “As do many other countries that dont have the high homicide rates we have.”

            As do many others which do have at least as high homicide rates as we have. See, e.g., Brazil. There are many factors which go into how violent a given society is, not all of which respond to the best intentions of social engineering. Gun control activists like to cherry pick particular societies and suggest we would replicate their results if we simply adopted a single measure. Tres facile, si vous me demandez.

            Of course I do not want criminals to easily obtain guns. But, I do not believe in idle, symbolic gestures which would do nothing to keep them out of the hands of criminals, but would make it harder for law abiding citizens to protect themselves against them.

            As for “crazy people”, our mental health system, or rather lack thereof, is a national disgrace. That is what needs fixing, not further papering it over so we can avert our eyes to the living hell these people and their families experience every day.

          • mpainter says:

            Nate says
            “but please don’t try to argue that more guns make us safer, when the stats show the opposite is true.”
            ###
            The latest statistical figures from Paris show that you are safer with a gun. There, as anywhere, you are a fool if you expect the authorities to save you from violent types. First you are victimized by the lawmakers who deprive you of the means to protect yourself, then you are victimized by the terrorists whom the authorities, through their negligence, set upon you.

          • Andrew M says:

            If you want to ask the question do guns cause violence the statistics about how many murders per person are not going to answer the question. You need to look at how many murders are committed per gun in which case the united states ranks pretty well.

        • Bart says:

          “The vast majority of guns used by apprehended criminals came from Indiana-a state with looser gun laws..”

          And, if it weren’t Indiana, it would be someplace else. We’ve tried interdicting alcohol. We’ve tried interdicting drugs. The former was a colossal failure, and the latter hasn’t fared much better. The idea that we can strangle the flow of guns to criminals is a pipe dream.

          It is a lesser tragedy, IMO, when criminals kill each other with guns than it is when law abiding people are held at their mercy. I would never be party to disarming the latter in favor of the former.

        • Ernest Bush says:

          In the U.S. you may never even see a gun unless you live in the big Democratic-held urban centers and are black. Those shootings make up 75 percent of gun deaths in the U.S. and are mostly gang related. Thirteen percent are caused by latinos shooting each other and also are largely gang related. So you want to take away guns from all those law abiding citizens because Democrats will not allow the police in their strongholds to take action against gang violence. If gang violence was brought under control we would have one of the lowest incidences of gun deaths in the world.

          Since 1996, when most of the guns in Australia were confiscated, gun deaths there have declined by 46 percent. In the U.S. gun deaths have dropped by 53 percent although gun ownership has increased. Violent crimes in general have declined in the same period for both countries. Those facts come from the respective governments of those two countries.

          In addition, it is not true that Australia no longer has mass shootings, nor is this true of other Western countries.

    • Joe Born says:

      There is documentary evidence from mass murderers that they chose sites for their killings that were gun-free zones and that they ruled out places where people were likely packing.

      Look, I haven’t touched a weapon since I left the service (which was way back in the Vietnam War days), and I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be any more having one in my house. But the facts are the facts. If you’re in a place where the bad guys would be afraid that people may be armed, your chances are better than if they know everyone’s unarmed and is thus a sitting duck.

    • mothcatcher says:

      Depends where you are starting from.
      Certainly there’s a pretty good statistical link between legal gun ownership and gun deaths, as you might expect. In UK, we’re an island without the same tradition of gun ownership as the USA, or even most of Europe. Even our police are, for the most part, unarmed. Only shotguns are usually permitted in private hands, and that’s no longer easy. We’ve a very low rate of gun deaths (almost invisible compared to USA) and not many here would support relaxing the rules.
      But in USA you have history behind you, and a very wide legal firearm ownership, and any attempt to reduce that is going to meet with huge opposition. The good, law-abiding guys would turn their guns in, and the bad guys wouldn’t. So the bad effects would outweigh the good effects in the short/medium term at least, and putting a lid on the explosion of crime from the emboldened gangs wouldn’t be easy

      • Ernest Bush says:

        Do not assume the good guys would turn their guns in, either. Any law requiring this is unconstitutional up front. In most states the sheriffs are the main authority in their jurisdictions. In Colorado, where an attempt to restrict magazine size is underway, most sheriffs are not bothering to enforce the ban, on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

        The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down almost any law that has come before it for a ruling if it interfered with the right of citizens to own guns. In the last decades, it has become easier to obtain a firearm as a result of its rulings.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      @Francisco “Seeing how the average IQ of mid-North Americans is at and how they’ve demonstrated common sense. Would you really want then having guns?”

      I think the reference was to specific situations in which terrorists are threatening communities. However, it’s getting to a point even in Canada, which does not have nearly the violence of the US, where home invasions and car-hijackings are becoming more regular.

      There’s little the police can do about that and the only solution is to allow people to arm themselves, at least in their homes. I am ambivalent to the notion of everyone being armed on the streets but I agree fully with Roy that training be required to get a permit.

      Here in Canada stringent requirements are in place before a firearm license can be obtained. That does not stop the criminal and gang element who can acquire almost any kind of firearm illegally. If those types are allowed to wander about in public with illegal, concealed weapons, with the law protecting them through the requirements of search and seizure, why should the rest of us be put at a disadvantage?

      I agree that it is a tough question.

  9. stevek says:

    Also I read today in astonishment that one of the terrorists was a french citizen that police and intelligence knew had come under influence of radical islam. Why was this man not stripped of his citizenship and sent on one way trip to Syria ?

    If simple trivial steps like that are not being taken God help us from the immoral idiots the run our countries.

  10. boris says:

    Roy,

    The second amendment is there to complicate the lives of tyrants as its primary reason. It takes very little reading of original sources to discover that. Provisions for hunting and sport are not some kind of substitute for that purpose. Truth is we have a citizenry that, through their service to their country, are widely familiar with weapons. That’s a good thing. Of more interest to me is the take down of one of these guys by ex US servicemen about a month ago in Belgium. That shows that the need to “do something” when confronted with these situations is still alive in the United States. In the emasculated European mind that is not the “go to” response. The result is slaughter while everyone waits for the authorities to take control.

    While I see the reasoning behind the conjoined purpose of COP21 and the Islamist loonies I think it better to console the French and keep up the good fight against the IPCC rather than get tangled in the briar patch arguments about what you meant when you said X

  11. Bret says:

    Sorry. That is easily the most tone-deaf thing you’ve ever written. How does that help your cause?

    • lewis says:

      Tone deaf. Do you have a problem with an opinion which doesn’t meet your approval?

    • mpainter says:

      Brett, are you trying to say that climate had nothing to do with the strife in Syria?
      Fine, that’s sensible position and I think that if you read the post carefully, you will come to understand that that is also Dr Spencer’s view.

  12. Dan Pangburn says:

    For every violent crime committed using a gun in the U.S. about 4 crimes are thwarted by people with a guns

    From a DOJ report that can be seen at http://bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt :
    “On average in 1987-92 about 83,000 crime victims per year used a firearm to defend themselves or their property.â€
    83,000 per year is more than 9 times per hour that get reported. A survey determined that for each occurrence that gets reported, there are about 23 occurrences that go unreported. The total crimes thwarted are then about 217.9 per hour.

    That was the last report on this issue that the DOJ prepared before further reporting activity was cancelled by then President Bill Clinton.

    From the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2013 which can be accessed at https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/violent-crime/violent-crime-topic-page/violentcrimemain_final violent crimes are committed using guns at a rate of 36.9 per hour.

    • Nate says:

      Wrong. As I read your link there are 10 x that number, 950,000 crimes per year with guns.

      • Dan Pangburn says:

        950,000 crimes per year is 108 crimes per hour (compared to the 36.9 per hour I calculated) but I can not tell where you got even that number. Perhaps you did not correctly account for the percent of crimes committed without guns. (using the factors given there for the fraction using a gun in each of the four categories of violent crimes that were attempted).

    • Nate says:

      Dan,

      What you are saying does not even make logical sense. Its like saying the defense in a football game ran 4 x more plays than the offense of the other team….

      If as you say, the defensive uses go un-repported than the offensive uses in the same instances were unrepported.

      This is pure propaganda….

      • Nate says:

        Never mind-

        I think you are including many defensive uses of suns where the offense had no gun.

        Oh yeah, like the Travon Martin case…

      • Nate says:

        More to the point-the many many instances where someone brought a gun to a fist fight are included in your count.

        • Dan Pangburn says:

          Or the intended rape victim who successfully defended herself. Or the intended victim of a strong-arm robbery, etc.

  13. Stevek says:

    Guns are needed to keep government from running a police state. However I believe far too many mentally ill people get a hold of guns in the usa. The kid that shot up the kindergarten school was nuts, so was that joker that shot the theater, also the kid that shot the congesswoman.

    There has to be a balance. You should not be able to get a gun if you are mentally unstable. I would even argue under age 30 should not be allowed to have guns.

    The controversy lies in determining who is mentally ill.

    But there is no doubt that if a large pct of responsible adults carried guns everyday that it would make these mass shootings very hard to committ.

    • Bart says:

      The plight of the mentally ill in the US is the real shame. They definitely should not be able to buy guns. But, the services available to help them are so underfunded and overwhelmed that it is difficult, if not impossible, even to identify who “they” are.

      • lewis says:

        The mentally ill – now there’s a subjective medical term. Who will decide? Actually, there is an easy out, prison for anyone who doesn’t behave according to socially acceptable norms.

        Beyond that, the argument about mass shootings often leaves out the fact that many of the shooters were taking prescription meds for mental problems. Serotonin uptake inhibitors in most cases.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @lewis “…many of the shooters were taking prescription meds for mental problems. Serotonin uptake inhibitors in most cases”.

          That’s a red-herring argument. There is no proof whatsoever that serotonin re-uptake inhibitors are behind the violence. It is far more likely that the perpetrators were seriously disturbed individuals who required medication. I’d hate to see them without the meds.

          I speak from first hand experience. A couple of decades ago I began getting serious panic attacks. A doctor recommended Prozak and I was totally reluctant due to bad reports I’d heard about it. I pointed out to the doctor that a local miscreant had killed several flamingos at the local zoo while taking Prozak.

          The doctor laughed and asked if I’d read that the guy was taking cocaine with his Prozak? The media had not reported that. That calmed me down enough to give it a try and I can tell you that the SSRIs saved my butt.

          I went from a horrible, unpredictable, and unexplained fear much of the day and night, accompanied by on-going symptoms of a heart attack (confirmed by an ER physician who suffered the same symptoms) to no symptoms within a few days of taking Prozak.

          SSRIs do not cause irritation or a propensity toward violence. That’s an absolute myth. They calmed me down so much that a friend claimed he’d never seen me so relaxed and happy.

          And what proof do we have that the murderer was taking his meds? There is a guy here in Canada who had schizophrenia and he brutally murdered a person on a bus. At the time he was not taking his meds and the courts used that to let him out on a day pass within a year.

          There’s another myth, that getting off them can cause serious problems due to withdrawal. I switched from Prozak to Paxil on the same day, and when I quit I did it without tapering off. Absolutely no adverse effect.

          After being off them for a few months I started getting a slight re-occurrence of the symptoms. I went back on to Paxil and back off just as suddenly. No adverse effects. I have needed neither for over 20 years but when I needed them, they were a lifesaver.

          I think a lot of these stories get started because people are not forthright about what they are doing while taking them. I’d go out and drink beer a couple of times a week. Not much, but sometimes several pints. No adverse effects. I could not comment on how the SSRIs might have affected me had I over-indulged.

          I don’t think the effect of drinking too much alcohol would make that much of a difference. All an SSRI does is dam up the serotonin in your system so there is more available. Serotonin is a mood elevator, there’s no way it bums you out or gives you violent thoughts.

          It’s quite likely that the violent people prescribed SSRIs were misdiagnosed. I think some doctors dish them out to get the patient off their backs. I was lucky in that the doctor who prescribed mine had written two books, one on panic disorder and one on generalized anxiety disorder.

          He told me of a woman who came to him who was dying of a terminal illness. Needless to say she was totally bummed out. The normal dosage for Prozak starts at 20 mg and he had her up over 100 mg. I never exceeded 40 mg. She got to a point where she was actually happy.

          Having taken SSRIs, I have nothing but good to report about them, even though the side-effects can be disconcerting. None of the side-effects involved violence.

          • lewis says:

            from link: http://www.infowars.com/mass-murders-and-the-ssris-connection/

            SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are the pharmaceutical companies latest cash cows. Their use has skyrocketed in the last ten years. Nicknamed “Chemical Babysitters” and designated anti depressants, they are causing dozens of murders, thousands of psychoses and are altering the minds of millions of users. All but a very few of the latest “Mass Murderers” have been on these drugs. Schools encourage parents to put their children on these drugs for the smallest signs of “non conformity”. Schools receive more money for “disabled” students.

            Here is one of the most informative articles on SSRIs I’ve found by Dr. Julian Whitaker MD:

            The Scourge of Prozac

            When I first heard about the Columbine High School massacre, my initial thought was, “Lord help us, were they taking Prozac?” Nine days later, it was reported that Eric Harris, one of the shooters, was taking Luvox, which, like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil,

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            @lewis…”Nicknamed “Chemical Babysitters” and designated anti depressants, they are causing dozens of murders, thousands of psychoses and are altering the minds of millions of users”.

            Lewis…I told you I was on both Prozak and Paxil and I found the effects of both to be pleasant. They had a night and day effect on the panic disorder I had been experiencing. There is absolutely no way, IMHO, that SSRIs are causing people to go weird, or to be violent.

            Professionals who claim that have not looked into other causes of the weirdness. Please explain to me how SSRIs can cause psychoses? All they do is elevate the amount of available serotonin and the effect of that is to make you feel better.

            I would claim that people who take SSRIs and commit heinous crimes are psychotic to begin with.

        • springer says:

          robertson undoubtedly over-indulged as a child

      • Bart says:

        Yeah, that’s the bullshit that led us to the current state of affairs. People who have never encountered a truly mentally ill person, who think it’s all a personal choice, and that people can have diseases of every other vital organ, but for some reason, the brain isn’t included.

        If you ever do meet a truly mentally ill person, trust me, you will know. It really isn’t subjective. It isn’t a slight eccentricity, or quirky way. It is a very pronounced and glaring lack of contact with reality. The drugs are the only thing keeping them lucid, sometimes with great success, other times marginally so. It is when they go off the meds that they become a danger to themselves and others.

        If you haven’t experienced mentally ill people up close and personal, then don’t imagine you have any idea what it is about. You really have no idea.

        • An Inquirer says:

          Our country used to be quite aggressive in keeping the mentally ill out of mainstream America. (Of course, mental illness is not like a pregnancy – there are many shades and degrees of it.) President Kennedy was very displeased with our tendency to lock up the mentally ill, and started efforts to mainstream them. These efforts culminated under President Carter — so by 1980, the mentally ill were not so confined. That is probably the primary reason why homelessness jumped in the 1980s. If you have ever worked with the homeless, you know the prevalence of mental challenges there.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @Bart…”It is a very pronounced and glaring lack of contact with reality”.

          It certainly is. I was assailed by a mentally ill personal in a restaurant and I was at a loss as to what to do. The guy was threatening, for no apparent reason, and he was hissing at me like a cat.

          I over-reacted out of a fear for my personal safety and I have felt badly about that since. The poor soul obviously had no idea where he was.

          I don’t like the phrase mental illness. What you say is true, that certain forms of psychological distress affect the brain as an organ. They are known as psychotic disorders since the person with the affected brain has no control over it. The other form of psychological distress, which is far more prevalent, is known as a neurotic disorder. In such a disorder, the person suffers conflict between reality and their perception of reality.

          We all suffer from that to a degree, whether it involves the illusion of seeing the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, or being suspicious of a woman due to jealousy or possessiveness. In the latter case we set ourselves up for that due to our expectations and pursuit of pleasure.

          Schizophrenics also suffer from a perception of reality but for them it is not something that can be turned off or which will respond to therapy. Even with neurotic disturbances, however, the misconceptions sometimes cannot be turned off. Terrorists have such an ingrained belief system, that even though their brains work perfectly normally in many cases they become driven by thoughts and ideas which they cannot separate from reality.

          When a conflict in thought results in a violent reaction in an otherwise normal person there is an apparent neurotic condition taking place. Sadly, that applies to climate alarmists who become hostile when their dogma is questioned.

  14. rah says:

    Francisco

    Sorry for the delay in my reply. Two to three times a year it seems a power line pole along the road leading to my semi rural home jumps out into the middle of the road and gets hit by an automobile. When this happens I lose electrical power and my cable internet connection for a couple hours or more and have to reset my cable modem when I do get power.

    First off let us set the table recognizing that by far the US has the highest proportion of personal firearms ownership of any country in the world. Even The Guardian recognizes this:
    http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list

    I will in this message address two of the points I made by providing links. I will be glad to address the rest if your really interested but here I am providing links to not just the raw information but also discussion which helps clarify what the figures or statistics really mean.

    First concerning defensive firearms use. One should be curious as to why our government doesn’t keep annual stats as they do for homicides and accidents in which firearms are involved. But since that is the case the data that is available comes from either periodic one time government studies or those done by academics.

    Here are some links to them with discussion:

    How Often Are Firearms Used in Self-Defense? http://guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html

    http://www.cato.org/guns-and-self-defense

    Concerning my claim made above: “Do you know that during the height of the war in Iraq that that deaths by gun violence in Chicago alone exceeded the US KIAs nearly every single month despite the fact that Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in this country?”

    http://2ndamendmentfight.com/homicides-worse-in-gun-control-chicago-than-all-u-s-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan-or-iraq/

    • Francisco says:

      Thanks, I’ll peruse them tonight

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      @rah…”Even The Guardian recognizes this:”

      A bit of humour…the Guardian is hardly an organ of objectivity these days. Have you not read their propaganda on climate change?

      • rah says:

        Gordon they lean left so far that if someone kicked their cane out from under them they would fall on their head. That is why I said “Even the Guardian”. They are part of the reason Brits have no gun rights.

  15. rah says:

    SteveK

    As far as the problem of determining who is mentally competent to possess a fire arm. Fact is that back in the 1970s the states started closing their mental institutions and they are for the most part nonexistent today. Thus today the majority of those that in the not so distance past which would have been institutionalized now walk among us.

    I would not be opposed to a competency test or even some level of mandatory training except as even Francisco pointed out, we can’t trust our own government to not abuse such a power.

    In the end it all comes back to fact that the greatest threat to our own security and liberties sits in the Oval Office and in many of the high offices of our own government. The reason why they are our greatest threat is because they have never recognized their first responsibility is to the legal citizens and the nation. That first responsibility is expressed very well in the preamble of the Constitution.

    “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

    I have actually had idiots argue that the the preamble is not law and thus is meaningless! Well in truth they are technically correct that a preamble is not law but they are totally wrong about it’s import. What the preamble tells the reader and should be clear to government “servants” is what the purpose of the Federal laws and basis for all laws in this country are to be. It is in fact a statement of INTENT! And as such is a guide to cutting through the ambiguity and conflicts that so often manifest when one gets down to the nitty gritty details in law and when one has questions about what the role of the government should be, if any, in a given situation or set of circumstances. Our leadership has ignored the intent.

    In the military there is a thing called “commanders intent”. The concept is based on the fact that no commander or leader can possibly issue orders that will cover all contingencies. So when events or conditions arise not covered in the commanders specific orders it is incumbent upon the subordinate to govern their actions and the orders they issue based on their commanders intent. Well the Preamble of the Constitution is in fact the statement of the founders intent.

    So the leadership have failed in their most basic duty. Putting the security and protection of the citizens of the nation and the liberties we were so fortunate to be endowed with as per the plain language of the Constitution FIRST when they make decisions. And that in a nut shell is why the greatest threat to this nation and it’s citizens sits in the offices in Washington, DC.

    • Gunga Din says:

      “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

      I have actually had idiots argue that the the preamble is not law and thus is meaningless!

      Go back a bit further for “intent”.

      “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

      The first Government they formed under the Articles of Confederation was to weak to usurp those Rights but it was also to weak to defend them.
      The answer was the Government under The Constitution.
      That Government was strong enough to defend those Rights but it was also strong enough to usurp them.
      The Constitution couldn’t be ratified unless the limits of this new Government spelled out in The Bill of Rights was included.
      Things have become twisted since then. Example: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
      Congress shall make no law giving a denomination control of Government or allowing Government control of a denomination. Both had happened in Europe. “Freedom ofreligion”, has been twisted into “freedom from any public display or influence of a religious belief”. (I’m surprised they haven’t objected to the laws against murder./sarc)
      Now there are attempts to use RICO to silence those who don’t agree with the PC (Perhaps “GA” – “Government Authorized” would be better?) science of “CAGW”.

      Intent. The intent of the 2nd Amendment is to preserve the ability of The People to do exactly what they themselves were doing for the reasons expressed in the section of The Declaration of Independence I quoted.

      Guns and crime numbers, twisted or not, are a smoke screen to allow some form of Tyranny to rule the helpless.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      @rah…more humour…in the Constitution it does not refer to citizens of the US as Americans, as far as I know.

      ““We the People of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.””

      They were pretty clear that they were forming the United States “OF” America, recognizing that America is a continent, not a country.

      Canada is in America too, as is Mexico. That comes as a surprise to some people.

      Recently I was in a store in Scotland, checking out at the cashier. Hearing my accent she wanted to know where I was from and I told her Canada. She replied that she thought I might be American, and I told her I was American.

      She gave me a look like I was pulling her leg then she bit, asking how I could be both Canadian and American. I told her Canada was in America, just like the United States and Mexico. The light went on and she had a laugh, claiming she had never thought of it like that.

      I told her calling United States citizens Americans was much like calling Scottish people English. That got her blood boiling since Scottish people hate it when outsiders refer to the UK as England. She promised that from that point on she’d never again refer to a US citizen as an American.

      Can I propose Usamericans for US citizens to distinguish you from the rest of us who share the continent? I think it’s better than Yankamericans, which would insult the South.

      Remember, Hawaii is part of the United States but not in America.

      • rah says:

        I don’t disagree Gordon. Fact is the from the most southern tip Argentina to the most northern most point of Canada every person that is a citizen of which ever country can be truthfully described can be described as an American.

        But then again, our language is not perfect by any means. Let’s take for example this song from the Englishman David Bowie: I’m Afraid of Americans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPVrFIP0CMs
        Now do you really think he’s referring to Canucks or Argentinians?

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @rah… Let’s take for example this song from the Englishman David Bowie: I’m Afraid of Americans…Now do you really think he’s referring to Canucks or Argentinians?”

          Although I enjoyed some of Bowie’s stuff he’s hardly a person I’d take seriously. However, it’s common in the UK to have people refer to the US as America. It’s just as common to hear US citizens refer to the UK as England.

          I indicated that my comment to you about US citizens calling themselves American was in humour. I realize it is based largely on convention and it’s tough to find a short form of the ‘The United States of America”. Having said that, the person who wrote the national hymn, God Bless America, was really into that identity.

          I realize I am never going to see anything change in that regard in my lifetime and I am not about to become neurotic over it. In this day of political correctness and pseudo-awareness I am surprised it has not been challenged more.

          • springer says:

            glad to hear you aren’t going to have renewed panic attacks over united states of america citizens being called americans

      • David Thompson says:

        Well you could start by just where you are from. Whenever I am overseas, and people ask me where I am from I always refer to my self as a Texan. That is really where I am from. Texas is a part of the United States of America just as Russia was part of the USSR.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @David Thompson “I always refer to my self as a Texan…”

          I like that.

          Even though I have lived in Canada most of my live I still refer to myself as a Scotsman. I have reasoned it’s not possible to change one’s DNA. I was born in Scotland from Scottish parents. I don’t believe what they tried to tell me, that I was found in a cave and raised by bears.

          With a name like yours you could pass yourself off as a Scotsman as well.

          One of the principal rivers in British Columbia is the Thompson River, named after explorer David Thompson.

  16. Scott Scarborough says:

    Go get’m Roy. The one thing Liberals detest more than anything else is anyone having to lay in the bed that they make (except maybe Conservatives).

  17. FTOP says:

    Sarcasm will certainly be banned soon, since it might upset our fragile students in their “safe places”. It used to be the weapon of choice for the court jester to lay bear the folly of the Kings.

    Now the people happily shackle themselves for their tyrants.

    Strange times indeed.

  18. Dave Hogan says:

    This is marvelous, where else can you read impassioned discussions of climate change, tyrannical governments, a stupid and uninterested citizenry, gun control, colleges gone off the rails, and more, all without changing channels? Does this set a new Dr Roy record for the number of hot buttons pushed? I would think so. The only downer is that so many people take themselves way too seriously.
    One comment on gun control or lack thereof; growing up in rural NH, one of our fun things was holding our 22 rifles across the handle bars of our bakes and riding out to the town dump to shoot rats. Devoid of healhty and character building activities like that it’s little wonder that the current generation is all screwed up!!

    • Simon says:

      So you take the life of an innocent animal and you have the arrogance to pronounce todays youth screwed up. Look in the mirror.

      • mpainter says:

        Rats are not innocent. They are pests. Simon, you need to get a grip on yourself.

        • Simon says:

          I have a philosophy of killing only what I eat. I have no intention of eating a rat and it does me no harm. To kill for fun one of Gods animals is immoral.

          • lewis says:

            Simon,

            Tongue in cheek or just obtuse?

            Next you’ll be saying don’t kill the spiders in the house, or the house flies or mosquitoes or gnats or fruit flies or mice or those gray squirrels or, and the list goes on.

            So, do you eat the bugs you kill, they have a right to life too you know.

            Right to life – a human concept to protect humans from each other extended to all other beings. – May I pull the weeds? May I cut a tree for firewood? May we bulldoze the property to put up a building or a road? What dens of beings are we ruining?

            Gag

            The lack of understanding and hypocrisy is incredible. Open the asylums up and put them back.

          • mpainter says:

            Simon says: a plague on your children.
            ###

            The bubonic plague is endemic to the western US, harbored in the burrows of ground squirrels. It was introduced via San Frncisco circa 1900-04 during the last pandemic of Yersina pestis. The health authorities urged a campaign of extermination of RATS in SF area, but elected officials refused because they feared the business repercussions of quarantine. As a result, the infection spread to ground squirrels in the San Francisco area and subsequently to the whole ground squirrel population of the west. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the matter.
            The plague lingered in SF for years, breaking out afresh after the 1906 earthquake. Finally, public officials undertook a campaign to exterminate RATS, and the plague was finally extinguished there, but not before it became established amongst the chipmunk, etc. of the west. Do not feed the squirrels.

            Compare to an outbreak of the plague at about this same time in Colon’, Panama, during the construction of the canal. The health authorities reacted immediately, put a bounty on RATS, and the the infestation was suppressed. The whole of the while Simon wrung his hands saying “,Oh dear oh dear.”

          • springer says:

            rats living at the city dump aren’t harming anyone dumbass

          • springer says:

            i’d recommend removing the humans from san francisco and leaving the rats which solves two problems instead of just one

  19. John F. Hultquist says:

    Mexico has very strict gun laws.
    Switzerland mandates training and gun ownership.

    Anyone care to look up violent crime in these two?

  20. papijo says:

    “… can you imagine what would have happened if that Paris nightclub hostage ordeal was in Texas? No, you can’t, because it wouldn’t have even been tried in Texas”

    If I share your views regarding the climate science, I must say that I am sad that an “ntelligent” scientist, used to deal with numbers, can defend such a silly position.

    If we look at Wikipedia, in France, the gun murder rate is 0.22 per 100,000 inhabitants, vs 3.55 in the USA (the Texas rate is 5.0)

    The 130 victims for 66,000,000 inhabitants of the last tragedy will double the France rate this year but will stay far below the US one.

    NB: Sorry for my poor english … I’m French !

    • mpainter says:

      Papijo, if those 130 victims all had guns, they would have made short work of the terrorists. And they would have saved themselves. Please ‘scuse my French, I’m from Texas.

      • springer says:

        i’m not from texas originally but spent 20 years first in ny then twenty more in californicate before arriving in texas twenty years ago

        my experience is sum people need killin’ and more of them get it in texas

  21. papijo says:

    “… can you imagine what would have happened if that Paris nightclub hostage ordeal was in Texas? No, you can’t, because it wouldn’t have even been tried in Texas”

    If I share your views regarding the climate science, I must say that I am sad that an “ntelligent” scientist, used to deal with numbers, can defend such a silly position.

    If we look at Wikipedia, in France, the gun murder rate is 0.22 per 100,000 inhabitants, vs 3.55 in the USA (the Texas rate is 5.0)

    The 130 victims for 66,000,000 inhabitants of the last tragedy will double the France rate this year but will stay very very … far below the US or Texas ones.

    NB: Sorry for my poor English … I’m French !

    • Massimo PORZIO says:

      Hi papijo,
      My problem with your point is that most of homicides by guns have outlaw people as victims, while the 130 victims of last homicides in Paris were all innocents.
      That’s very bad for me.

      God bless France and all its citizens.

      Have a great day.

      Massimo

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Massimo PORZIO,

        Thank you for the kind words for France (liberal as they often are). Hollande appears for the moment to take the situation seriously. We will see if he follows through.

        Have a great day!

        • Massimo PORZIO says:

          Hi JohnKl,
          Hi JohnKl,
          Yes, they are our close “cousins” and everybody here with just a little intellect should be very worried for them and what happened to them last days.
          I feel ashamed for our politicians that instead of give them all the support they need (military too), seem to tend to shilly-shally, hoping that other countries do something instead.
          On Tv I heard our prime minister speaking about what to do that was careful to avoid any possible reference to a military Italian involvement. He behaved this way since, our foreign minister received a sort of fatwa of death from ISIS for having speak about the necessity of fight a war against them last spring, when ISIS for the first formally menaced to attack Rome. Coward.

          By the way, in my opinion guns are the most “democratic” weapons ever invented.
          With a dagger, a spear, an arc, a sledgehammer or at bare hands one needs to use his/her brutal force to defeat the enemy. With a gun instead, it suffice a little 500gr trigger pull to defeat the enemy.
          For an example a lightweight woman have very little probability to survive a combat against a heavier man at bare hands, while the same woman has more probability to survive the combat with guns. In few word in a society without guns the more violent subjects are surely the winners, while in a society with guns it’s more probable that the more violent subjects are taken under control.
          I don’t know what is better between die by a bullet or having been massacred by beating with a sledgehammer or strangled at bare hands. Even in my opinion, if one had to die is probably better the bullet.
          Of course I would never use a fire gun against someone.

          Have a great day too.

          Massimo

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Massimo PORZIO,

            Excellent points! Guns do democratize lethal force to a great extent. Of course, we can always rely on the marketplace to improve products and give an edge to some gun owners over others. No two individuals or even gun owners are ever completely equal, but at least even people with moderate means can have the means to protect themselves.

            Have a great day!

          • Massimo PORZIO says:

            Hi JohmKl

            “No two individuals or even gun owners are ever completely equal, but at least even people with moderate means can have the means to protect themselves.”

            Exactly what I meant to say.

            Thank you.

            Have a great day

            Massimo

    • JohnKl says:

      Hi papijo,

      Hopefully, it stays low. However, France has taken in so many Islamic types it seems doubtful. The invasion has begun and we’ll see if France has a clue what to do. Bread and circuses provided by the state will only pacify so long, eventually some kind of reckoning will likely occur.

      Btw, not too long ago two Islamic assassins attempted to attack Pam Geller’s draw Mohammed cartoon contest. The two Islamic characters lost their lives in the attempt. Apparently armed personnel DID PROTECT people at the event. The same personnel not available in time to protect France at all the attack sites. The now dead Islamic assassins obtained their arms from the Obama administrations Fast and Furious program from what I’ve heard or read some time ago.

      The question remains which side are the politicians on. The current US administration provides arms to the Syrian rebels including AlQueda and Isis while making effort to deny them to US citizens. Do you really wonder why the U.S. homicide rates seem high?

      Have a great day!

      • JohnKl says:

        Just a note the Obama administration may provide arms without unintentionally to the likes of AlQueda and Isis but they seem to get their anyways.

        Have a great day!

    • JohnKl says:

      Hi papijo,

      Hopefully, it stays low. However, France has taken in so many Islamic types it seems doubtful. The invasion has begun and we’ll see if France has a clue what to do. Bread and circuses provided by the state will only pacify so long, eventually some kind of reckoning will likely occur.

      Btw, not too long ago two Islamic assassins attempted to attack Pam Geller’s draw Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas. The two Islamic characters lost their lives in the attempt. Apparently armed personnel DID PROTECT people at the event. The same personnel not available in time to protect France at all the attack sites. The now dead Islamic assassins obtained their arms from the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious program from what I’ve heard or read some time ago. See here:

      http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-garland-gun-20150801-story.html

      The question remains which side are the politicians on. The current US administration provides arms to the Syrian rebels which end up in the hands of AlQueda and Isis while making effort to deny them to US citizens. Do you really wonder why the U.S. homicide rates seem high?

      http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/09/26/confirmed-u-s-backed-syrian-rebels-surrendered-weapons-al-qaeda/

      Have a great day!

  22. numberer says:

    Dr No says:

    “Australia saw its gun death rate plunge by more than half since 1996 when it tightened gun laws…”

    The USA ALSO saw its gun death rate “plunge by more than half” in the same period (since 1993, to be precise) WITHOUT much tightening of gun laws.

    Again, it depends on where you live. In the USA, the violent crime rate for the District of Columbia is ten times higher than that of Maine.
    Going a little further afield, the homicide rate for Honduras is twenty times that of the USA. Yet I find the people of Honduras pleasant, and do not feel threatened there. It is a strange world, in which it is best not to jump to conclusions.

  23. numberer says:

    By “gun death rate” I meant homicides.

    Suicide is a different matter, and perhaps not suitable for political discussion – if only because it seems cultural.

    Thus, per 100,000:

    Gun murder rate in USA 3.55
    Gun suicide rate in USA 6.70

    Gun murder rate in Venezuela 39.0
    Gun suicide rate in Venezuela 1.1

  24. nigel says:

    Australia already had a very low homicide gun rate. The actual further reduction is about 30 a year. The reduction in the USA (with ten times the population, of course) is more like 12,000 a year. So which country is “doing better?” Statistics!

  25. nigel says:

    The District of Columbia has strict gun-control laws!

  26. nigel says:

    Climate change and deterioration of standard of living in Syria.

    Could it POSSIBLY BE that an extra teeny-weeny factor – apart from the overwhelming catastrophe of global warming, of course – was the increase of the population between 1990 and 2008 from 13 million to 21 million?

  27. Andy May says:

    Very interesting discussion on gun laws and gun violence. Below is a comparison of Houston (near where I live) and Chicago (where my son lives). Chicago has very restrictive gun laws, Houston’s laws are pretty permissive. In Chicago it is dangerous to be law abiding, in Houston being a criminal is very dangerous:
    http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/second-amendment-2/check-out-the-amazing-difference-concealed-carry-makes-in-houston-versus-chicago-2

    Enjoy your blog Dr. Spencer and I’ve enjoyed reading the papers you and Dr. Christy have written – excellent work!

  28. MikeN says:

    Vast majority of counties in America have either 0 or one murder i a given year. These are generally the ones with the highest rate of gun ownership.

  29. Thanks, Dr. Spencer, for your sarcastic remarks.

    Please remind the UAH Webmaster to publish the Lower Troposphere Global Temperature Report for October 2015. The global map appeared on WUWT on November 3rd.

  30. Massimo PORZIO says:

    About guns and homicides, my point is well summarized by one of our most known singer & songwriter Lucio Battisti.

    In his 1978 song “Nessun dolore” (literally translated to “no pain”, but published in English as “the pain is gone”) he wrote:
    “Il vetro non è rotto dal sasso ma dal braccio esperto di un ingenuo gradasso”,
    which translates into “The glass is not broken by the stone, but by the arm of an expert naive bully”.

    I would like to live into a “love & peace world”, but since it isn’t the case, as a second choice I would like to defend me and my loved ones at least.
    Here in Italy we can’t do it, but any outlaw can get any gun he desire easily.

    Have a great day.

    Massimo

  31. aaron says:

    I think it is not unreseanable to think that without greenhouse gas warming, water stress and consequent drought in Syria would have been much worse.

  32. coturnix says:

    “gun control” should be spelled as “gun cartel” – guns in hand of The Chosen Ones.

  33. Michael Hebert says:

    Roy,

    When you state that the atrocity committed in Paris would not have even been attempted in a state like Texas because Texas is an open carry state you are wrong. It would not have been attempted in Texas due to Texan zenophobia and not to their “fear” of Texans with guns. These attackers were ready and prepared to die anyway… they did not have any notions of surviving their attack.

    The choice of France as their target is not accidental nor arbitrary. It is historical going back 1000 years before the rise of Islam. It has roots in the Crusades. The chosen date for the attack corresponds to the anniversary of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. Who got control of Syria at that time? Why, none other than France.

    So, yes I join you in your outrage at the atrocity committed in Paris. No, I don’t agree with you that it couldn’t happen in Texas because of a “few good guys with guns”. If they could have slipped into a similar venue in Texas they would just have used their suicide vests… no guns needed and the “few good guys with guns” wouldn’t prevent the carnage.

    • geran says:

      michael, are you aspiring to be a “pseudoscientist”? Do you believe that getting history wrong is a prerequisite to getting science wrong?

      Your wording:

      ‘The choice of France as their target is not accidental nor arbitrary. It is historical going back 1000 years before the rise of Islam. It has roots in the Crusades. The chosen date for the attack corresponds to the anniversary of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. Who got control of Syria at that time? Why, none other than France?”

      How many things are wrong with your paragraph (above)?

      Because you have no clue, you may be next in line for “pseudoscientist” of the month.

  34. Bob Turner says:

    “There I was, minding my own business, just making some sarcastic remarks on Facebook alluding to the hypocrisy of COP21 and those involved.”

    There’s the core of the issue. People, friends, family members were dead or maimed. There was fear and grieving. Television images of blood in the streets. And then you decide to leverage all this to make a political point.

    You should be ashamed.

    Is this the latest variant of Godwin’s law maybe?

  35. mpainter says:

    Bob Turner,
    You are a hypocrite and a joke, accusing Dr. Spencer of your own practices.

  36. Dr No says:

    “The mentally ill – now there’s a subjective medical term. Who will decide? Actually, there is an easy out, prison for anyone who doesn’t behave according to socially acceptable norms.”

    Great idea! (not). In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 22 percent of the world’s prisoners.[

    • Dr No says:

      Another astounding fact:
      At least eleven assassination attempts with firearms have been made on U.S. presidents (over one-fifth of all presidents); four were successful, three with handguns and one with a rifle.

      One fifth!

      Is that good or bad?

      • lewis says:

        Is that good or bad? That depends. What are the criteria for judging? If you’re asking me my opinion, my criteria is probably different than yours, so my opinion, if it doesn’t meet your approval will be deemed ‘bad’ by you. But the opposite is true also – your opinion is deemed bad by others.

        We could go on, but differences of opinion are why we have a constitution protecting us from the abuses of others, especially those who would use the power of government against the people.

      • mpainter says:

        “Is that good or bad?”
        ####
        Depends on how you address the question. There are other frames of reference. For example, look at the ones who avoided such a fate. Is that good or bad?
        Think again. We can’t be so bad. Three hundred million guns in this country, and see who is still alive.
        Think one more time. What president would be so foolish as to order, say, the Department of Homeland Security to confiscate our guns.
        One more thought for ya Mr. No:
        We the people, need protection from government, and not the other way around. Have you not heard about the NSA and other organs of government?

      • Bart says:

        Yeah, French presidents are never subject to assassination attempts. Oh, wait…

    • geran says:

      US Presidents are no better than US citizens. They are NOT royalty.

      You need to understand that basic fact, Dr. No.

      • Dr No says:

        You obviously think that a good thing.
        i.e. the chances of being shot at are more than 20% for US presidents and they deserve it.

        If that is how you think, why do you bother electing presidents or politicians at all?
        What is the difference between that attitude and anarchy?

        Just look at what happens when we remove unlikeable leaders like Saddam Hussein. This has been described as the worst intervention in at least 100 years. Don’t believe me? Ask Donald trump:
        “I think it was one of the worst decisions ever made. [George W. Bush] has totally destabilized the Middle East. Had Saddam Hussein still be in charge, you wouldn’t have the problems that you have right now.”

  37. Michael Hebert says:

    geran, Sorry that I unintentionally left out the Greek and Roman occupations of the Levant. Other than that what do claim is wrong… or is you that is lacking a clue?

    • geran says:

      Michael says: “The choice of France as their target is not accidental nor arbitrary. It is historical going back 1000 years before the rise of Islam. It has roots in the Crusades.”

      The Crusades happened after the “rise of Islam”. Duh.

      But, your lack of knowledge just advanced you one notch in “pseudoscience”. Now, just proclaim that the atmosphere is “warming the planet”, and you will be next in line for the coveted “Luker’s Prize”.

      • Michael Hebert says:

        geran,

        Ah so…. now I see what’s got your knickers in a knot… the fact that in my original post I had left out the Greek and Roman empires both of which predate Islam. Yes, indeedy! The rise of Islam preceded the Crusades by about 200 years or so. Nevertheless, this does not contradict the point that I was attempting to make… simply the fact that the roots of the current animus extend back as far as 1000 years before the rise of Islam. So…. Duh! to you for not being able to comprehend such a thing.

        Oh…. and BTW, I am not part of the catastrophic anthropogenic global climate change camp. Quite the opposite. So there (pop!) goes another one of your blatantly fallacious suppositions about someone you have never met and know absolutely nothing about.

        “Oh, thank you, waitress. Yes, I will have another cup of coffee and my friend, geran, here would like a slice of pseudoscience if you please. Just add it to my tab.”

        • geran says:

          Michael admits he was wrong, then says “Nevertheless, this does not contradict the point that I was attempting to make…”

          Michael, when you are wrong, you are not right. Endless rambling cannot make you right.

        • JohnKl says:

          Hi Michael Hebert,

          Thank you for the post. You stated:

          “Nevertheless, this does not contradict the point that I was attempting to make… simply the fact that the roots of the current animus extend back as far as 1000 years before the rise of Islam. So…. Duh! to you for not being able to comprehend such a thing.”

          Human animus begins with the Fall. However, Islam adds a particular flavor to the mix since just about their entire sphere of influence was acquired by theft and slaughter. Their massacres throughout the Christian lands dwarfed the Crusader response by several orders of magnitude. Btw, their desire for conquest hasn’t ended their out for Europe and the US right now and should they obtain it later the world. If their remains any humanity left in the West ( an interesting question ) the West will resist.

          Have a great day!

  38. Kevin O'Neill says:

    Dr Spencer could just as easily have written: Just ignore centuries of history which demonstrates that the strict followers of Christianity have a holy mandate to take over the world for Christ, killing anyone who will not submit.

    As the good book says, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

    How quickly we forget an American President responding to a terrorist attack with the memorable line, “.…this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile.” Yes, do we need any more reminders of the bloody history of Christianity?

    Ask the Taino or Arawak about Christianity – oh wait, there aren’t any left to ask. Christianity killed them all off.

    In colonial America the British army intentionally spread smallpox amongst the Native Americans. This practice was continued by the nascent American army after the Revolutionary War. In God We Trust – and germ warfare too.

    The hypocrisy in Dr Spencer’s little tirade is clear to anyone with even the slightest knowledge of history. I’m sick of religious fundamentalists – including those like Dr Spencer.

    How many innocent civilians have died in the Middle East because of American military actions? And those that support these actions by and large call themselves Christians??? Do you ever, ever ask yourself – WWJD? Do you really think he’d be at the controls of a Predator drone? Apparently the teachings of Christ have no relevance to present day Christians.

    • geran says:

      Kevin, do you understand perversion?

    • Doug ~ Cotton says:

      Kevin and Roy:

      Many discoveries, inventions and scientific breakthroughs have been made by Christians and some may well be the consequence of divine revelation. IMHO Christians would do well to seek such revelation and thus a correct understanding as to what really does determine temperatures here on Earth and throughout the Solar System, for the laws of physics are universal and the concept that back radiation helps the Sun to warm the surface makes no sense in physics, especially when it is a totally different mechanism which sets the surface temperature of any planet.

      I know the flack I will receive for stating my belief in devine revelation and claiming the gift of such insight. Seek and you will find, Roy. You know where I would suggest you start reading.

      God is in control and He knew the world would industrialize. The intricate mechanism that regulates Earth’s climate (with its natural cycles) is totally dependent upon the force of gravity and the height of the atmosphere, the distance from the Sun and the percentage of cloud cover. If you are a believer in Creation you will not be surprised that God got it all just right.

      Doug (President of a local Gideons camp)

    • JohnKl says:

      Hi Kevin O’Neill,

      “The term Arawak originally applied specifically to the South American group who self-identified as Arawak or Lokono. Their language, the Arawak language, gives its name to the Arawakan language family. Arawakan speakers in the Caribbean were also historically known as the Taíno, a term meaning “good” or “noble” that some islanders used to distinguish their group from the neighboring Island Caribs.”

      The Arawak people have ceased to be a distinct population since the 16th century, but they still have many descendants living today in the general Caribbean population. You can check Wikipedia, if reliable a significant percentage of the population has DNA traced to them.

      Have a great day!

    • Gunga Din says:

      History is full of people who have done things “In the Name God” without first bothering to first find out just what is it that God wanted done.
      I Timothy 2:4 is what God wants done. No mention there of killing anyone who rejects the Christ.
      Preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. If they say “no”, shake the dust off your feet and move on.
      Does history contain accounts of those doing things in the guise of Christianity that weren’t in accord with the Good News as delivered? Yes.
      I’m not going to defend them. But that’s in the past. They were wrong. Comparing what they did to what the New Testament says, I’d condemn those actions. But that’s the past.
      Paris is the present.
      Where is the Iman that has condemned Paris? 9/11? Suicide bombers?
      Where is the Iman that says the Koran says Muslims should live in peace with those that say “no” to what they preach?
      Where is the Iman that would condemned the past murder of those who would not covert to Islam when it first spread and threatened Europe? Threatened with “conversion or death”?
      Links please.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      @Kevin O’Neil…”Just ignore centuries of history which demonstrates that the strict followers of Christianity have a holy mandate to take over the world for Christ, killing anyone who will not submit”.

      Kevin, which Christian faith would you be talking about? There’s probably 100s of them, including sub-sects, starting from Roman Catholic, to Lutheran, Latter Day Saints, Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, Calvinist, gospel hall, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

      The word catholic means universal so you need to specify Roman Catholic since the modern RC church emanates from the Roman Emperor Constantine, who forced Christianity to turn in one direction based on his interpretation of Irenaeus. Constantine had all other books on Christianity destroyed. There are other modern forms of catholicism.

      It has come to light recently that many separate Christian faiths existed before Constantine. A group of them, now lumped under the word “gnostic”, were quite enlightened, so much so, that Irenaeus wrote a book on how heretical they were. He classified anyone a heretic who did not adhere to his interpretation of God.

      As far as I know, only one denomination out of those listed persecuted anyone to the degree you suggest and not one of them proposed world domination. To claim it was done in the name of Christ is folly. Christ did not advocate action in his name, that came from human egos. Christ advocated looking inside to find your true God-like nature. You wont find that in modern Bibles, however, it comes from banned Gospels that were found recently.

      Everything that has been written about Christ since he lived has been written by people who wrote anonymously. None of the four gospels that start the New Testament were written by people who knew Christ first hand and some of the content of those gospels is about struggles between Jewish people with regard to the Jewish war with the Romans. All four Gospels were written from 20 to 60 years after his death.

      The modern Bible is based on the beliefs of Iranaeus, the Bishop of Lyon.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus

      It excludes many writings and gospels including the Gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene, who were both disciples. As with the other Gospels, no one knows who wrote them.

      Iranaeus decided which Gospels would be included in the Bible and Constantine, who enforced Christianity on the Roman world, ensured that The Bible according to Irenaeus would be enforced.

      The point is that the human ego has been responsible for any savagery committed in the name of Christianity. Jesus asked no one to worship him or to perpetrate violence on his behalf. In fact, he warned followers not to follow church elders.

      Unfortunately, little first hand knowledge is available for Jesus. The best eye-witness accounts come from a Roman who hated Christians. Early Christians did not write down their eye-witness accounts and probably for a good reason. It would have cost them their lives.

      Although I belong to no religious denomination, IMHO, Christ must have been a heck of a person to have had such a profound impact on western civilization given the totally negative forces acting against him. He taught a very different way of life that seems to have appealed to people at a deep level.

      In other words, he seemed to bring forth intelligence that we already had within us, as he suggested.

  39. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    No one should support the Paris cult …

    On Venus, the Sun’s radiation only supports temperatures less than about 400K in its upper troposphere, not the surface temperatures.

    On Uranus, the Sun’s radiation only supports temperatures less than about 60K near its TOA, not the temperatures at the base of its nominal troposphere where it’s hotter than Earth.

    On Earth, the Sun’s radiation only supports temperatures less than about 220K in its upper troposphere and stratosphere, not the surface temperatures or even that 255K temperature.

    Gravity does the rest, but you will be surprised how it does.

    The correct physics which I have presented has NEVER been proven wrong, not even with a AU $10,000 reward on offer. Absolutely NO-ONE who has read the explanation of the physics and had the knowledge and understanding of thermodynamics has ever proven it wrong – not even tried. Physicists have agreed it is correct. The evidence is there throughout the Solar System proving it is correct. Lab experiments with centrifugal force prove that forces like gravity cause temperature gradients to evolve. That’s why the Earth’s surface (and that of Venus) have far higher temperatures than could ever be explained from direct solar radiation. It’s all at climate-change-theory.com.

    • Dr No says:

      C. Daulton, I agree. Just look at the inability of bloggers here “to understand even minimally complex concepts” such as the climate system.

      • Dr No says:

        Sorry Doug, the comment above was meant for somebody else.
        Anyway, how are things?
        I retired from research some time ago and can thoroughly recommend taking on new hobbies/activities ( I still like to check out Roy’s site for entertainment). Ever thought of doing the same?

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @Dr. No…”I retired from research some time ago and can thoroughly recommend taking on new hobbies/activities ( I still like to check out Roy’s site for entertainment). Ever thought of doing the same?”

          There’s a concept, Doug. Reminds of a seminar I attended many years ago with Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert, a Harvard psychology professor who was booted out along with the Timothy Leary.

          Ram Dass gave a talk at a local facility and afterward took questions. One distraught young guy stood up, explaining how his attempts to change people were falling on deaf ears.

          Ram Dass laughed and said something to the effect of “Hey, man (he actually used the vernacular ‘man’), no matter how hard you try, you probably won’t make a difference, the point is to try”.

  40. Dennis Hlinka says:

    Dr. Spencer: “…can you imagine what would have happened if that Paris nightclub hostage ordeal was in Texas? No, you can’t, because it wouldn’t have even been tried in Texas”

    Really? I guess you don’t remember this gun fight in Waco back in May: http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/29/us/texas-biker-shootout-new-details/

    Everyone had guns. How did that fact stop them from being a**holes and basically terrorizing the public at the strip mall?

    • David Thompson says:

      Dennis,

      It was not really a strip mall. I was in front of a strip mall but a single standalone restaurant surrounded by huge parking lot. Unless you were a biker, you and your family probably would not have pulled up to a restaurant with over 200 bikes parked around it. There were also 10-15 armed Law Enforcement officers there just waiting for the inevitable to happen. Only people killed were bikers. no other patrons or staff were injured. They weren’t interested in hurting anyone other than their rival gang members.

      Maybe had there been law enforcement closer, the only people that would have been killed would have been from suicide vests being blown up. If I was carrying and someone started shooting at people around me, you better believe I am shooting back.

  41. Dennis Hlinka says:

    By the way, If you happened to be at that Waco strip mall with your family, how would you quickly determine which ones were the good guys with a gun and which ones were the bad guys with a gun? How would you protect your family? With another gun? Let me guess what the outcome of that would be if you chose to shot one of them (unknown good guy or bad guy) and their friends with a gun retaliated.

    • Massimo PORZIO says:

      Dennis,
      probably most of those bikers had irregular guns, this also happen in Italy where common people can’t defend themselves by guns from outlaws, but outlaws easily buy guns at the irregular market.
      Here it’s not rare that children died just because they were at the wrong site the wrong time.
      Again, is not the gun, but the man behind it the problem.
      If the theatre was in Texas, I’m sure that the victims were much less than those in Paris.
      Imagine how much bikers died if only one of them was really armed with a gun and he hadn’t to avoid himself the bullets from the other ones.
      But I repeat the concept expressed some messages above, I much care for the innocent victims than for outlaws that shoot each other.

      Have a great day.

      Massimo

    • David Thompson says:

      Unless you were a biker, you and your family probably would not have pulled up to a restaurant with over 200 bikes parked around it. There were also 10-15 armed Law Enforcement officers there just waiting for the inevitable to happen.

    • springer says:

      anyone stupid enough to take their family to a parking lot filled with hundreds of dirty stinking bikers and dozens of police vehicles needs killin’ before they moron children can further pollute the gene pool

  42. C Daulton says:

    The very name, Twitter,” implies shallow commentary. But far too large of a portion of the population appears unable, or unwilling (in a political sense) to understand even minimally complex concepts. Is the decline due to the ‘evolved’ education system, the end of meaningful parental discipline, or marijuana use or the replacement of the library with the internet and/or something(s) else? I don’t know, but it isn’t good!

    • Dr No says:

      C. Daulton, I agree. Just look at the inability of bloggers here “to understand even minimally complex concepts” such as the climate system.

      • mpainter says:

        Yourself being one of the bloggers here who show deficiency of understanding.
        En boca sera no entran moscas.

      • Doug ~ Cotton says:

        If the anonymous “Dr No” understood his “minimally complex concepts” then he would have no trouble explaining why it’s hotter than Earth’s surface at the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of the planet Uranus, and he would have little trouble calculating withing a few degrees what that temperature can be expected to be, as I have, because, unlike him, I do understand what is actually somewhat complex physics not yet written about in any other world literature other than that here and in my linked papers and book – all developed directly from the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

        It’s all “minimally complex” is it Dr No? Sure it is if you use fictitious fiddled physics. Let’s see you apply Stefan Boltzmann calculations to determine the mean temperature which solar radiation having a mean of 168W/m^2 could support on Earth, or a mere 20W/m^2 could support on Venus. Oh, you want to add the back radiation do you? You want it to help the surface temperature to rise each cloudy morning, as it usually does even without direct solar radiation. Smart radiation that is – doing the exact opposite of what normally happens with radiation between two bodies at different temperatures. But that’s OK isn’t it Dr No because we just have to simplify it all down to fictitious fiddled “minimally complex” physics wherein radiation just always warms anything it strikes, hot or cold. Just send some back with an atmosphere (or a mirror) and you’ll make the original source even hotter, now won’t you Dr No? /sarc

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Dr. No aka the Fonz,

        Please remove your black prosthetic hand from Ursula’s bikini long enough to explain the climate system since you claim to be an expert. Don’t worry Richie Cunningham is listening in but know one really knows who you are…ah! ha, ha! Btw, we already understand that the rate of CO2 increase rises after temperature rises. You’ve mentioned this in the past. However, how do you explain the apparent sustained increase in planetary albedo allowing for greater absorption of solar energy and temp increase? There’s much to explain but we await your answer. Of course if your answer mirrors your name it’s no!

        Have a great day!

        • Dr No says:

          “However, how do you explain the apparent sustained increase in planetary albedo allowing for greater absorption of solar energy and temp increase? There’s much to explain but we await your answer.”

          Ah ha! Your muddled question proves the point that C Daulton and I agree on.
          You seem to be confused about the term albedo.
          An INCREASE in albedo causes an INCREASE in solar reflectivity and a DECREASE in the amount of solar energy absorbed by the planet.
          Any sustained increase in planetary albedo should lead to a temperature DECREASE.
          The fact that temperatures are rising suggests something else at work.

          That was so easy. Next question please.

          You cannot trick the evil Dr NO!

  43. Steve Ta says:

    Since Texans manage to kill far more of each other every year than ISIS has managed in Paris, an extra few hundred being shot in Texas would just be noise.

    • JohnKl says:

      Since ISIS and AlQueda have pledged to attack and bring down the U.S. and other countries and actively seeks the same. AlQueda actually did attack this country quite emphatically in 2001. Why should we want them hear? Is the US now merely an insane asylum seeking entrants no matter how homicidal, destructive, treasonous and demented? Apparently, the current administration thinks so. Does it matter who we invite in? Do you care?

      Have a great day!

      • Dr No says:

        “Is the US now merely an insane asylum seeking entrants no matter how homicidal, destructive, treasonous and demented? ”

        Of course it is! That’s why I live here.
        Dr No

        • JohnKl says:

          Hi Dr. No,

          You do appear to be an American success story. Asian mad-scientist escapes Bond induced dip in acid bath despite film depiction only to emigrate to the US and after many decades spend his time promoting climate change propaganda on a blog site. We can all learn from your story.

          Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKL,

            You are too kind.
            That acid bath did cure my itchy rash.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You state:

            “That acid bath did cure my itchy rash.”

            Did it help your ego-maniacal, paranoid schizophrenia? Does the black prosthetic hand still leap to your throat when you give a Nazi salute? Their does seem to be a parallel between Dr. No and Dr. Strangelove. Hmmh! Nah! Dr. Strangelove wasn’t big on CAGW propaganda either.

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKL,

            Dr Strangelove happens to be a neighbour of mine. He has aged a bit but can still give that salute with vigour. His nurse tells me he is thinking of running for the Republican presidential nomination as he thinks the current crop of hopefuls are all crazy. I wouldn’t vote for him in a fit. He has a dog which barks all day and upsets my cats.

    • Gunga Din says:

      Motive.

  44. Scott says:

    As much as I respect your work a sarcastic comment on Paris is no better than one about the World Trade Center
    It really rubs many the wrong way

  45. Scott says:

    The Muslim invasion into Europe is what it is, the Muslim areas of Africa and Asia are much much larger than Europe, a relatively small area. It would make more sense for them to resettle there were religion, language, culture and climate are more similar to home. Of course welfare is not as good, however 80% of migrants are men, mostly in the 18-32 age group, bringing them in will create many problems and few positives, if any.
    France already has many issues with immigrants, this will only get worst, much worst.

  46. Bev says:

    There are already 30 states that say they won’t take the refugees, but the “leader” says he’s bringing them anyway and there’s nothing the states can do about it.

    Whose side is he on anyway?

    • JohnKl says:

      Hi Bev,

      “Whose side is he on anyway?”

      Please my posts, I’ve discussed the same issue many times. Remember one very important fact he did discuss his “MUSLIM” faith with George Stephanopolous and never retracted the claim. He never categorically denied being a Muslim quite the opposite. He sure has ended up providing a significant quantity of weapons to Islamic groups including Al Queda and Isis. He wants to bring in tens of thousands of Syrians he calls refugees. Although there virtually all MEN and their families back in Syria decry their loss. Meanwhile, Trump rightly calls them a Trojan Horse, the House of Representatives passed legislation demanding that Syrian refugees be vetted before entering the country as to terrorists ties and the administration and currently the Senate want to stop it. Contact your Senators now! Remember we know Obama’s Fast and Furious program gave weapons out that ended up with the two terrorists that attempted to attack Pam Geller’s draw Mohammed cartoon contest. The LA times reported the fact. I’ve also seen a press conference where an administration official admitted they no longer restrict AlQueda and Isis entry into the US. Do you really have to ask what side he’s on? Please read my other posts for links.

      Have a great day!

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Bev,

        One point. I stated:

        “I’ve also seen a press conference where an administration official admitted they no longer restrict AlQueda and Isis entry into the US.”

        This press conference happened some time ago. I’m not sure if I ever heard the likes again and wouldn’t count just on my recollection however probable in this case. You should research this claim. I will attempt to get further information myself.

        Have a great day!

  47. JohnKl says:

    Dr. No ,

    You are only half correct. I’m quite aware That albedo refers to whiteness and in this case reflectivity I simply chose the wrong word I meant to say decrease instead of increase. This has been recorded as having decreased the most in 1998 when global temps apparently peaked. If memory serves a climate analyst Dr . Evans in Australia noted this apparent fact. However, you still haven’t accounted for it.

    Have a great day!

    • Dr No says:

      JKL,

      I think you mean “I was 100% incorrect and Dr No is 100% correct!”

      Re. observed albedo: see the post by Norman above. The short record reveals little of relevance to this debate.

      Re. Dr Evans: see http://www.skepticalscience.com/David_Evans_arg.htm.
      Apparently he is an engineer. Need I say more? They are worse than geologists!

      • mpainter says:

        Dr. NoName, What’s your expertise? Do you have any science whatsoever in your background?

        • Dr No says:

          A little bit here and there. That, and a bit of common sense helps me deal with fools and charlatans.

          How about yourself?

          • mpainter says:

            A very great deal of science, myself, with a BS in Geology. From time to time there appears someone such as yourself that has imbibed their understanding from such sources as SKS. You have no science in your B/G with only a smattering of global warmer propaganda to offer here. You would do well to remember that.

          • Doug ~ Cotton says:

            http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/a-little-knowledge-is-a-dangerous-thing.html

            “deal” with … Dr No? Forgive me for laughing.

            See my comment 5:39am below.

          • Dr No says:

            Actually, I was being too modest. Dr No has a BS in Meteorology which, I believe, trumps yours.

            I have long noticed that geologists (such as yourself) are very conservative and tend to be sceptics. Think early 20th century when Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift theory. It took over 50 years before this was accepted. Just goes to show how glacial geologists can be in their thinking. Let’s face it – you will eventually accept global warming in a few more decades – long after it has hit you in the face.

            p.s. Alfred Wegener was a meteorologist !!!

          • Dr No says:

            Doug is a very different case. I think he comes from a parallel universe where the laws of physics are very different. He is obviously a genius in that universe and therefore I would never dare cast doubt on his abilities.

          • mpainter says:

            Dr. No,

            Thank you for your falsehoods, scientific and otherwise.

            Falsehood #1:”I am a meteorologist”
            Nope.You could not be a meteorologist, elsewise you would have claimed so at the first. But you claimed otherwise. How many of you are there and which one should we believe?
            ANSWER: none.

            Falsehood #2: Alfred Wegener originated the theory of continental drift.
            Nope, you are wrong again. Alfred Wegener did not originate the theory of continental drift. He coined the term, but he merely walked the path that others had previously walked. Wegener gave credit to his predecessors: Abraham Ortelius, 1596, Lilienthal, 1756, von Humboldt, Charles Lyell, many others.

            Falsehood #3: It was 50 years before it was accepted by geologists”
            Nope, wrong again. Continental drift was recognized by many geologists, most notably by Charles Lyell circa 1850.
            Holmes, a geologist, proposed a mechanism in 1929 that has become the accepted explanation: convection of the mantle. Paleontologists provided evidence of a former landmass that incorporated the present continents.
            Here is the truth: The separation of the Americas from Europe and Africa was proposed in 1596 by Abraham Ortelius and many others since then.It was not until circa 1961 before there was evidence presented of sea-floor spreading. Once this evidence was presented, the theory of continental drift was perfected. This does not mean that geologists universally rejected the notion, only that there was no mechanism that could satisfactorily account for the idea.

          • Dr No says:

            mpainter,

            Thank you for your responses.

            Re. falsehood accusations:
            1. Incorrect. I do have a BS in meteorology.

            2. “Alfred Wegener did not originate the theory of continental drift”
            Technically correct. But he was the first modern scientist to advocate and publish the theory.
            “It was a century ago this spring that a little-known German meteorologist named Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents had once been massed together in a single supercontinent and then gradually drifted apart.”

            3. “Continental drift was recognized by many geologists.”
            False.
            “As often happens when confronted with difficult new ideas, the establishment joined ranks and tore holes in his theories, mocked his evidence and maligned his character. It might have been the end of a lesser man, but as with the vicious battles over topics ranging from Darwinian evolution to climate change, the conflict ultimately worked to the benefit of scientific truth.”
            …..
            “By the 1920s, Chamberlin was the dean of American science and his colleagues fawned that his originality put him on a par with Newton and Galileo. But he had also become besotted with his own theory of earth’s origins, which treated the oceans and continents as fixed features. This “great love affair” with his own work ….required grinding Wegener’s grandiose theorizing underfoot.”

            “The turnabout on his theory came relatively quickly, in the mid-1960s, as older geologists died off and younger ones began to accumulate proof of seafloor spreading and vast tectonic plates grinding across one another deep within the earth.”

            Reference: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-continental-drift-was-considered-pseudoscience-90353214/#tguVm8i7QGskBpHU.99

            Alfred Wegener was a great man. Read up on his life.

          • mpainter says:

            NoName compounds his falsehoods by adding to them.
            Falsehood #5: reiterating his claim to be a meteorologist, despite his previous comment above disclaiming any such background.

            Falsehood #6 reiterating his claim that Alfred Wegener originated the continental drift theory.

            Abraham Ortellius, 1596 “Thesaurus Geographica”: “the Americas were “torn away from Europe and Africa…by earthquakes and floods” and “the vestiges reveal themselves if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of the three [continents]”

            Falsehood #7 reiterating his claim that geologists universally rejected such ideas, this falsehood maintained despite citations to the contrary.

            Conclusion: NoName thinks to take advantage of his anonymity to spread falsehoods about his background and about the origins and development of plate tectonic theory. Obviously he knows such falsehoods cannot be attributed to him personally. We get a lot of his type here from SKS. We can do without them.

          • Doug ~ Cotton says:

            Dr No’s admission of being a meteorologist confirms my suspicions that he has been indoctrinated with the fictitious fiddled physics of climatologists and meteorologists who have no understanding of maximum entropy production and probably no clue as to why it is so important. Don’t take my word for it – browse what this guy has written at http://entropylaw.com and read his section on the Second Law of Thermodynamics which you, Dr No, probably couldn’t even state from memory.

            Who the hell do you think you are Dr Whoever? Yours is the world of invalid physics in which you think back radiation helps the Sun to raise the surface temperatures of Earth and Venus, apparently supplying energy from colder regions into the warmer surface by way of radiation. Garbage, Dr No. If you and the IPCC were right, then the extra “greenhouse gas” water vapor in the more moist regions would have to be making such regions 50 to 100 degrees hotter than much drier regions at similar latitude and altitude. That epitomizes the garbage “fissics” that you have been brainwashed with in your meteorology course.

            The physics I present is backed up with copious evidence and no one has been able to even attempt to refute it, not even for $10,000.

            If you choose to criticize what I write, Dr No, then be specific and pinpoint errors you think you perceive in the physics. Then explain why the experiments with centrifugal force do not, in your pathetic opinion, prove what I say to be correct, or the evidence from every planetary troposphere for which we have temperature measurements.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You state:

            “Actually, I was being too modest. Dr No has a BS in Meteorology which, I believe, trumps yours.”

            Funny, I don’t remember the Ian Fleming character having a degree in meteorology but I suppose it’s possible. However, the person hiding behind the Dr. No persona probably does have a substantial amount of BS, but of course I’m not referring to a degree. To be fair, your quote doesn’t directly mention a degree either.

            Have a great day!

          • springer says:

            “a bit of common sense helps me deal with fools and charlatans”

            it doesn’t help anywhere near enough – more than a bit might be required – is a bit the best you can do?

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Dr. No,

        You stated:

        “That, and a bit of common sense helps me deal with fools and charlatans.”

        That would appear to require a great deal of self-examination and therapy for you.

        You irrationally claimed:

        “I think you mean “I was 100% incorrect and Dr No is 100% correct!””

        No. While I did mistakenly refer to an “increase” in albedo instead of a “decrease” because I quickly typed the post, doesn’t mean I’m at all confused. This is not exactly a new issue and I’ve dealt with it in the past.

        November 2, 2015 at 3:30 PM

        However, you stepped into a scientifically fact-free void when implicitly agreeing with my typo about an increased albedo you stated:

        “The fact that temperatures are rising suggests something else at work.
        That was so easy. Next question please.”

        No. In fact, the link to decreased albedo and warming in regards the 1998 warming peak and concomitant albedo dip, the following cooling and concomitant albedo increase, and the subsequent warming pause is well known in the scientific literature, much of it dealt with by textbook companies and the skeptical science website you selectively quote. See below:

        http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003JC001818/full

        http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr203.pdf

        http://www.skepticalscience.com/the-albedo-effect.html

        Many more sites could be listed, but these will suffice to show that you appear to be scientifically illiterate.

        All that said, you did prove me wrong in one of my conjectures. You cannot possibly be the Fonz. Fonz was never deluded enough to spout CAGW propaganda. A cooler atmosphere can reduce the rate of net cooling but never warm the surface.

        Of course, Dr. No a greater disciplined scientific focus could be achieved by reducing your auto-erotic fascination with Ursula’s bikini ware.

        Have a great day!

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Dr. No,

        Dr. Evans has a PHD in Electrical Engineering and 6 degrees in mathematics. Which only means he probably has your number.

        Have a great day!

        • Dr No says:

          Hi JohnKL,

          “a greater disciplined scientific focus could be achieved by reducing your auto-erotic fascination with Ursula’s bikini ware.”
          Please, that is a low blow – below the belt in fact. You leave Ursula out of this.
          Did you know she appeared in the film ” The 10th Victim (1965)” in which she wears a famously ballistic bra. Guess who designed that? One of my more successful evil inventions.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You stated:

            “Please, that is a low blow – below the belt in fact. You leave Ursula out of this.”

            Hmmh! Let me see…. Ursula…below the belt….low blow. You want me to keep her out of it? Why?

            Have a great day!

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            I must thank you for “The 10th Victim (1965)” referral. The trailer is hilarious!

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQ_A8Skzdg

            So much heat packed into such a small bra! I’m impresed!

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKL,

            I am glad you enjoyed the clip. She was an excellent actor – even better than myself. It is a crime we never received Oscars. Just another reason why I am committed to destroying western civilisation.

        • Dr No says:

          Hi JohnKL,

          Re Dr Evans: Why 6 degrees in mathematics? – that sounds suspiciously obsessive ( or at least something distinctly odd). I have heard of 6 degrees of separation – are you sure you are not confused?

          In any case, would not place too much faith in him. He once wrote:
          ““There are a small number of families who, over the centuries, have amassed wealth through financial rent seeking. They are leading members of the paper aristocracy. For example, the Rothschilds are the biggest banking family in Europe, and were reputed to own half of all western industry in 1900.”
          i.e. He is a believer in a world-wide conspiracy by international bankers etc etc.

          Of course, he is way off the mark since we at SPECTRE are the real conspirators. Bankers are merely greedy, we are truly evil.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            The concept of a banking axis attempting to control world finance isn’t speculation it’s all to obvious an empirical fact. Their manipulation of currency ( Fed Reserve fiat currency for example ) frequently creates financial panics & political instability (almost certainly planned), just look at Europe and the Greece debacle. Of course, the whole in my opinion dishonest excuse for funny money fractional reserve banking and later the ever increasingly worthless paper now circulating was to avoid financial instability. The fact that the world is more financially unstable than ever doesn’t seem to faze anyone. Nor does the fact that the worst financial disaster in US history, aside from the one unfolding before our eyes was the Great Depression which occurred AFTER the creation of the Federal Reserve system, which was supposed to stop that sort of thing (you can make and evil laugh at this point if you like).

            Don’t worry though Dr. No. None of what I said takes away from YOU and SPECTRE!

            Have a great day!

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            Don’t worry between you, Kevin Bacon and Ursula’s bikini there’s probably no more than two degrees of separation, if we ever discover who you really are…ah!!..ha!!…haaaaa!

            Have a great day!

  48. Hans Erren says:

    Dr. Spencer, you just made it even harder for me to prove that climate skepticism is not just conservative republican politics.

    Am I the only liberal climate skeptic in the world?

    • Gunga Din says:

      No, you’re not.
      The problem is that “climate science” is being used as a lever for political ends. There goes the actual science. Most of the hands on the lever at present are liberal.
      (Of course there are also greedy hands on the lever. Al Gore and the Solyndra profiteers come to mind.)

      • David Appell says:

        Exactly what “political ends” does climate change achieve?

        After all, you will still plug your toaster into the same outlet….

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @David Appell…”Exactly what “political ends” does climate change achieve?”

          Here’s an example from where I live in Canada, in British Columbia. The government here hijacked a Liberal Party at a leader’s convention and they are made up largely of an uber-right wing party that was badly defeated previously.

          They brought in a carbon tax a decade ago and even schools and hospitals have to pay the carbon tax on any fossil fuels they use for heating, etc. The proceeds of that tax go to a private company, to ‘encourage’ them to decrease their emissions. Nothing has changed except the company has gotten wealthier.

          That’s why this is political. Any government can use the pseudo-science behind climate change as an excuse to impose and raise taxes. That’s what drives the UN, through the IPCC. The UN has been trying to form a world government since the ’60s with the aim of raising taxes.

          A secondary motive of our right-wing government is to tax us for driving motor vehicles. We pay a 6 cent/litre carbon tax and a 20 cent/litre transit tax. Motorists are being taxed to finance transit because this government believes fossil fuels are bad and that those using them should be taxed to deter them using them.

          If you believe them that is. I think they are using the climate change scare to collect money via taxes.

      • David Appell says:

        “Al Gore and the Solyndra profiteers come to mind.”

        The program Solyndra was in made a healthy profit for US taxpayers:

        “U.S. Expects $5 Billion From Program That Funded Solyndra,” Bloomberg News, 11/12/14
        http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-11-12/u-dot-s-dot-expects-5-billion-from-program-that-funded-solyndra

    • An Inquirer says:

      Hans, you definitely are not. There are many brave individuals who share your status, and you are in good company. Tyson Freeman is a solid backer of liberal causes and a guaranteed vote for Democrats, but he has said that Obama has tragically taken the wrong side on climate issues. Obama is hurting the poor without helping the environment.

      • David Appell says:

        How, exactly, is Obama hurting the poor?

        • mpainter says:

          By stepping on their faces.

          • David Appell says:

            How is he “stepping on their faces?”

            Specifically (if you are capable of such a response.)

          • mpainter says:

            First with one foot and then the other.

          • David Appell says:

            You couldn’t answer a question with any seriousness if your life depended on it.

            Keep making jokes. Keep being a joke.

          • mpainter says:

            No joking, David. Obama takes $ from the domestic oil & gas industry. That is why he nixed the Keystone Pipeline, because domestic producers are against- it is frac production that called that shot and you and the other global warmers are duped again.

          • David Appell says:

            Good – Obama, and all of us, should hold the oil industry up until they begin to pay for the pollution costs of their product.

            Why are you so quick to get on your knees for the oil companies?

          • mpainter says:

            David, you miss the implications. Obuma is in the pocket of the oil industry. You are obviously one of the innocents that believes in Obuma as the second coming. One of the lambs led to the altar. How sad for those sheep when the truth comes out.

      • David Appell says:

        The only reason no one paid much attention to Spencer’s rant is because he is no longer of consequence to the discourse on climate change.

        That’s how much he has alienated himself.

        • mpainter says:

          Spencer exposed AGW hypocrisy but no one paid attention? You mean Twitter did not explode?
          Then why have you come here, and why do you bleat out complaints? if no one paid attention.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          @David Appell….”The only reason no one paid much attention to Spencer’s rant is because he is no longer of consequence to the discourse on climate change”.

          Have you heard Congress is investigating NOAA for scientific misconduct? Who said no one pays attention to Roy?

  49. stevek says:

    In all honesty guns are good at getting the bad characters off the street. I really don’t care if drug dealers are killing each other in the inner cities. Probably saves me tax money in long run.

    Bad part of the guns are the terrorist attacks killing innocent people. Or the gun that kills a police officer or a child gets a hold of gun and shoots himself.

    Perhaps best part gun ownership right is it makes the statement about how serious the usa takes the right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness.

    • Gunga Din says:

      A hammer is a tool. A gun is a tool.
      What are they being used for?
      Neither the hammer nor the gun determines that.
      A hammer can be used to destroy something or to build something.
      The intent of the person wielding it determines the outcome. Because a few seek to destroy we should remove hammers from those who seek to to build or rebuild what others have destroyed?
      Leave the hammers alone and nail those who seek to destroy.

    • David Appell says:

      stevek says:
      “In all honesty guns are good at getting the bad characters off the street.”

      Also, pretty good at clearing out movie theatres and community colleges.

      ;.)

      • Gunga Din says:

        “Also, pretty good at clearing out movie theatres and community colleges”….
        …When those in the theater or community college are denied the ability to shoot back.
        Ever hear of Luby’s in Texas? Some nut drove his pickup into the restaurant and started shooting people. He killed 22 or 23 people.
        One woman, a doctor, watched him kill her parents.
        She had a clear shot at him.
        But the law (at the time)said no weapons were allowed in a restaurant.
        She left her gun in the glove compartment of her car.

  50. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    To understand planetary tropospheric and surface temperatures you need a solid background in physics, in particular an accurate understanding of thermodynamics and entropy maximization, because that’s what determines what happens and which way the energy transfers take place. See http://climate-change-theory.com for a comprehensive development of the breakthrough science which really does give the right answers for all planets – a far cry from the pathetic IPCC concept that surface temperatures are determined by radiation.

    And still no one has made a submission trying to prove me wrong. Is there any post which you think does so on any blog? Link me to it (or copy it here) and I’ll explain why the author is mistaken. The $10,000 reward remains unclaimed.

  51. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    Regarding the $10,000 reward, see this comment and ones I wrote above it in that thread. Do you see anyone trying to refute the physics on that thread? Whether or not you trust me to pay such a reward, the point I make is that not one reader here can put up ANY submission once they have read and understood the physics I present. The reason is straight forward – it is correct, and most readers with an understanding of thermodynamics realize that.

    Unfortunately Roy’s “A” in thermodynamics is not quite enough for a solid understanding of entropy maximization. He could learn a lot from what I have written if he deigned so to do.

  52. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    This is where Roy got it wrong …

    He wrote in this post that the greenhouse effect creates the temperature gradient (aka lapse rate) but it doesn’t and is not needed. Neither is any rising air required, because it all happens at the molecular level over the life of a planet, with relatively small corrections each day compensating for variable weather conditions. We can calculate the tropospheric temperature gradient in the same way for all planets with significant atmospheres, and it has nothing to do with solar radiation supposedly warming a solid surface. There’s none of either at the base of the nominal troposphere of the planet Uranus where it’s hotter than Earth.

  53. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    Most people intuitively accept that gravity forms a density gradient in any troposphere. Why doesn’t it all collapse? Because it reaches a state of maximum entropy (called “thermodynamic equilibrium” in physics) which is precisely what the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us will tend to happen.

    Because molecules have a slightly greater than 50% probability of net downward motion (rather than upward) between collisions (due to gravity) there must be more of them at lower levels when maximum entropy is attained. In that state there is then no further net motion of molecules at the macro level across any internal or external boundary of an isolated system (eg a vertical column of gas) in an “ideal” troposphere.

    BUT, this state of maximum entropy must also be such that, on average, molecules moving upwards will slow down (due to gravity) to the same average speed of molecules at a (slightly) higher level with which they then collide. Since only kinetic energy affects temperature, there is thus a temperature gradient, and it is easily calculated with basic physics in just two lines, as in my paper linked from http://climate-change-theory.com which I suggest you read and also watch the 2015 linked video presentation. The calculated “dry” gradient is then understandably reduced in magnitude due to the temperature leveling effect of radiation between IR-active molecules, and that’s why carbon dioxide and water vapor reduce the temperature gradient and thus lower the surface temperature.

  54. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    Wouldn’t you think that those who claim greenhouse gases like water vapor warm the surface would have done a simple study (as I have) of real world temperature data, comparing the effect of differing levels of water vapor on surface temperatures. One or two days work is all it would take. Of course they have, but do you think anyone in the warmist or luke camps would want to publish results that in fact would show (as in my study) that water vapor cools. I challenged Roy to do such as study and, whilst he never did, there was a post of his earlier this year that did indeed indicate what I have said all along, namely that more moist inland regions are cooler (both in max and min daily temperatures) than drier regions at similar latitude and altitude. I have presented the correct physics which explains why this is the case. Roy and others should read it some time, or watch the video.

  55. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    Attention: Roy

    I quote Joseph Olsen …

    “The ONLY reason this three sided, FAKE debate has continued for the last decade is because the Luke LITTLE Warmists refuse to consider the multiple violation of Thermodynamics and Radiation Physics in the ‘back radiation warming’ hypothesis. ….

    “We have been systematically LIED to about everything, and the FAKE skeptic/denier LIARS have all been personally notified for over five years. Demand debate from Lindzen, Curry, Spencer, Singer, Michaels, Watts, Monckton, Evans and the rest of the Luke Warm Parrot chorus.”

    Wake up to what you are doing, Roy!

    • Dr No says:

      Roy,
      Please ! just tell Doug that he is right and everyone else is wrong. Give him a warm cup of milk, tuck him in, and tell him to sleep on it. Everything will be fine in the morning.

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Dr. No,

        If Roy and others told you you’re “right and everyone else is wrong”, you know darn well you wouldn’t believe them and with good reason!

        Have a great day!

        • Dr No says:

          Hi Hi JohnKL,

          My minions tell me that every day and I believe them with good reason since I am a genius.

          On the other hand I think Doug craves Roy’s seal of approval. What harm can a little lie do if it makes somebody happy?

          Hang on, I am starting to sound sympathetic. Forget the above since I am actually evil.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You state:

            “My minions tell me that every day and I believe them with good reason since I am a genius.”

            Or have you become just another slumlord running and a teenage prostitution ring of female Thai immigrants and your “minion” tenants are always behind on their rent and just tell you that to get one more month out of you? The genius part might just be your ego-maniacal, paranoid schizophrenia. Not that any of this takes away from you and SPECTRE!

            You go on:

            “On the other hand I think Doug craves Roy’s seal of approval. What harm can a little lie do if it makes somebody happy?”

            The first line seems conjectural, but the second line seems to explain your CAGW propaganda.

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKL,

            You certainly have a vivid imagination.
            When I say “my minions” I am referring to my butler and my cats.

            “The genius part might just be your ego-maniacal, paranoid schizophrenia”
            Such flattery, I am blushing.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You stated:

            “When I say “my minions” I am referring to my butler and my cats.”

            That better not be SPECTRE’S cat. He may be missing his and quite upset. Unless, Dr. No is really SPECTRE. What a let down!

            Have a great day!

    • David Appell says:

      Doug: Back radiation is just radiation from the atmosphere.

      Or do you think molecules in the atmosphere don’t radiate?

      • mpainter says:

        Net radiation is to space. The earth’s surface cools primarily by evaoration. Go read up, David.

        • David Appell says:

          We aren’t talking about net radiation, dummy, we’re talking about back radiation.

          Don’t butt in to things you can’t comprehend.

          • mpainter says:

            The earth is no black body, David. AGW assumptions are all spurious. The earth’s energy budget as presented by the AGW crowd is nothing but confusion. The temperature trend tells the tale (see UAH for October).

          • David Appell says:

            The Earth is a blackbody in the infrared, Einstein.

            Why do you insist on being so stupid?

            The temperature trend tells all:

            0-2000 m region of the ocean: +0d.65 W/m2 over the last 10.5 years.

            Very strong warming.

          • mpainter says:

            The infra red incident on the surface of the ocean is converted to latent energy, Ms. Einstein. Bet you don’t know that. Also, bet you didn’t know that S-B principles do not apply to a surface that cools evaporatively. Go read up, David, its all in non-peer-reviewed science. Textbooks. Haha.

          • springer says:

            one is tempted to say appell is all wet but that would be an insult to the water he doesn’t understand

  56. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    Roy and others:

    Please read this new comment above.

  57. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    Stephen Wilde’s wild conjectures are also refuted in this new comment above.

  58. David Appell says:

    Roy: Your “sarcastic remarks” were odious, and I’m surprised you didn’t get fired for them.

    They show your huge biases, which again raises questions about your objectivity and about the data UAH puts out every month.

    I hope your rant was worth the reprecussions.

    • JohnKl says:

      Hi David Appell,

      You state:

      “Roy: Your “sarcastic remarks” were odious, and I’m surprised you didn’t get fired for them.”

      You appear to really like the world odious. Do you get more mileage out of it if you work the word into a sentence at least 3 times in a month? You go on:

      “They show your huge biases, which again raises questions about your objectivity and about the data UAH puts out every month.”

      Are you under the impression that you’re free of bias? You ask:

      “I hope your rant was worth the reprecussions.”

      The word is actually repercussions. What do you imagine those might be?

      Have a great day!

    • David Appell says:

      John:

      Of course, none of us are free of biases.

      But I don’t make sick jokes about ISIS and climate change, like Roy Spencer.

      “Yes, all of the world’s politicians who have supported a COP21 agreement should still plan on attending. And they should reach out to ISIS to join them in building a better world…a world without droughts.”

      Instead of a Facebook rant, perhaps Spencer (who still says he is a scientist) could write a rebuttal to the PNAS paper that linked droughts in Syria to unrest there, and submit it to a peer reviewed journal.

      Of course, he won’t do that. Snark is so much easier, and Spencer shows no interest in participating in scientific debate anymore.

      • mpainter says:

        Talk about rants. Do you know what is distasteful and disgusting, Appell? Your incessant propagandist comments. Don’t need a rebuttal for propaganda. It is self-refuting. We are supposed to believe that CO2 causes 1.drought,2. floods 3.blizzards 4. civil unrest 5. poison ivy 6. miscarriages 7. sterility 8. _________?
        (choose one from earthquakes, athletes foot, flea infestations, catastrophic butterfly invasions, wahabi biserkers)

        In fact, atmospheric plant food is entirely beneficial. Isn’t it?

        • David Appell says:

          I have acquired a troll!

          Point for me.

          Planter just rants, and couldn’t provide evidence if his live depended on it.

          • mpainter says:

            Evidence? ,See UAH for October chart.
            Now, let’s see your evidence.

          • David Appell says:

            Correct me if I’m wrong, but not many people live in the troposphere, do they?

          • mpainter says:

            You’re wrong.

          • rah says:

            David Appell says:
            November 21, 2015 at 5:15 AM

            Correct me if I’m wrong, but not many people live in the troposphere, do they?
            —————————————-
            So you’ve just said that on the average globally there is a more or less perpetual temperature inversion between the troposphere and the Planetary boundary?

            BTW exactly what layer of the atmosphere lies below the troposphere because I was taught that technically we do live in the troposphere since the planetary boundary is the portion of the troposphere closest to earths surface defined in it’s upper extent by where friction from surface features cause turbulence.

            And finally I thought that the mid to upper troposphere was where the physical models of the IPCC has maintained that AGW would first present as a hot spot somewhere over the equatorial band. Have they found that there hot spot yet?

        • David Appell says:

          “In fact, atmospheric plant food is entirely beneficial. Isn’t it?”

          No, dummy.

          “For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002.”
          — “Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming,” David B Lobell and Christopher B Field 2007 Environ. Res. Lett. 2 014002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/1/014002
          http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002

          “Total protein and nitrogen concentrations in plants generally decline under elevated CO2 atmospheres…. Recently, several meta-analyses have indicated that CO2 inhibition of nitrate assimilation is the explanation most consistent with observations. Here, we present the first direct field test of this explanation….. In leaf tissue, the ratio of nitrate to total nitrogen concentration and the stable isotope ratios of organic nitrogen and free nitrate showed that nitrate assimilation was slower under elevated than ambient CO2. These findings imply that food quality will suffer under the CO2 levels anticipated during this century unless more sophisticated approaches to nitrogen fertilization are employed.”
          — “Nitrate assimilation is inhibited by elevated CO2 in field-grown wheat,” Arnold J. Bloom et al, Nature Climate Change, April 6 2014.
          http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2183.html

          “Higher CO2 tends to inhibit the ability of plants to make protein… And this explains why food quality seems to have been declining and will continue to decline as CO2 rises — because of this inhibition of nitrate conversion into protein…. “It’s going to be fairly universal that we’ll be struggling with trying to sustain food quality and it’s not just protein… it’s also micronutrients such as zinc and iron that suffer as well as protein.”-– University of California at Davis Professor Arnold J. Bloom, on Yale Climate Connections 10/7/14
          http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/10/crop-nutrition//2014

          • mpainter says:

            David says CO2 is bad for plants and he has the junk science to prove it. An ever flowing fount of junk science, that David Appell. He intends to make junk science rule the world….someday, when it starts warming…

            Terrible news David: the best informed climatologists predict a cooling trend. You see, Ma Nature does things her own way, Tsk, Tsk.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi David Appell,

            Your first link states:

            “Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002. While these impacts are small relative to the technological yield gains over the same period, the results demonstrate already occurring negative impacts of climate trends on crop yields at the global scale.”

            In other words, warming since 1981 coincided with very large gains in crop yield.

            Have a great day!

        • David Appell says:

          “In fact, atmospheric plant food is entirely beneficial. Isn’t it?”

          More for dummy:

          “Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness,” E. N. J. Brookshire & T. Weaver, Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7148, May 4, 2015.
          http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150514/ncomms8148/full/ncomms8148.html

          “We also find that the overall effect of warming on yields is negative, even after accounting for the benefits of reduced exposure to freezing temperatures.”
          — “Effect of warming temperatures on US wheat yields,” Jesse Tack et al, PNAS 4/20/15
          http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/05/06/1415181112

          Abstract: “Dietary deficiencies of zinc and iron are a substantial global public health problem. An estimated two billion people suffer these deficiencies1, causing a loss of 63 million life-years annually2, 3. Most of these people depend on C3 grains and legumes as their primary dietary source of zinc and iron. Here we report that C3 grains and legumes have lower concentrations of zinc and iron when grown under field conditions at the elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration predicted for the middle of this century. C3 crops other than legumes also have lower concentrations of protein, whereas C4 crops seem to be less affected. Differences between cultivars of a single crop suggest that breeding for decreased sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 concentration could partly address these new challenges to global health.”
          — “Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition,” Samuel S. Myers et al, Nature 510, 139–142 (05 June 2014).
          http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v510/n7503/full/nature13179.html

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi David Appell,

            Your second link has been addressed before. While I have not passed the pay-wall, you should note of the four graphs comparing nitrate concentration in normal vs elevated ambient atmospheric CO2 concentrations the first graph showed no clear difference in nitrate concentration, the second graph shows better nitrate utilization and concentration with elevated CO2 and the last two graphs show lower nitrate concentrations with elevated CO2. Given the inconsistency why do they conclude CO2 inhibits nitrate conversion? These inconsistent graphs actually provide empirical evidence that some other unidentified factor may be causing the nitrate conversion loss in only half the graphic datasets! If ambient CO2 levels proved causative the evidence should be universal across all datasets.

            The third link states:

            “Some plants benefit from more CO2, while others suffer. Scientists are now trying to cultivate crops that maintain their nutritional value despite increasing CO2, but there is much work still to be done.”

            So it’s a mixed bag, such specificity.

            Have a great day!

          • mpainter says:

            David,you have surpassed yourself with the junk science. It is not a matter of throwing as much feces on the wall as one can, it is a matter of convincing people that it is not feces, and good luck with that.

          • David Appell says:

            Papers in Nature are “junk science?”

            I don’t think so. And I’m sure you are in no way qualified to judge them.

            You are a junk person. Just a denier.

          • David Appell says:

            John, so you haven’t even read these papers, yet you’re sure they’re all wrong.

            Pardon me while I laugh.

          • mpainter says:

            You yourself have not read those papers, David. You never do, as they are usually stalled. Never do you explain the science in your links.

          • mpainter says:

            Paywalled, not stalled.

          • mpainter says:

            Yes, papers in Nature as junk science. You have not one particle of judgement in you, Davd Appell.

          • mpainter says:

            David Appell says:
            November 21, 2015 at 1:20 AM
            Papers in Nature are “junk science?”

            I don’t think so. And I’m sure you are in no way qualified to judge them.

            You are a junk person. Just a denier.
            ###

            I regard myself as very well qualified to judge the issues presented in those studies, David, as I have a solid foundation in the life sciences.

            Indeed, to be frank, I feel much better qualified than you. You display nothing but incoherence on these matters.

          • David Appell says:

            Planter: You are in no way qualified to judge these scientific papers.

            You lack credientials. It’s a simple as that.

          • mpainter says:

            Credentials? Oh, you are are quite wrong. I have those. See them at my blog site: QuackSoup. QuackScience galore, especially tailored for global warmers and their kidney. Links to hundreds of peer reviewed studies by ducks. And we know that these are genuine ducks because the peer reviewers tell us so.

            Climate sensitivity is down to 1.2 and falling, David. The next cooling trend is imminent and temperatures will drop about 0.4° over the next 30 years or so. That will push the beginning of the pause back to 1939. How about that CO2! 🙂

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Davie Appell,

            You claim:

            “John, so you haven’t even read these papers, yet you’re sure they’re all wrong.”

            Who said I’m sure they’re all wrong? Their own data-sets conflict and appear to self-refute based on the information provided. Assuming, their own data is accurate this indicates atmospheric CO2 levels likely don’t directly interfere with nitrate absorption as I mentioned already, otherwise the evidence should be universal. Their may be reasons peculiar to certain species or sub-species of flora that affect their ability or necessity to perform certain functions given environmental stimuli, but that in no way suggests a chemical calamity from a minor increase in a trace gas CO2.

            Have a great day!

          • springer says:

            appell laughing – like a bowl full of jelly

            there’s an image i didn’t need

            most people live in the troposphere, dummy, excepting ISS inhabitants who live in the thermosphere

            it may however be metaphorically stated that warmunists live in the stratosphere

            thanks for playing – there’s a consolation prize waiting as you exit stage left – a copy of “Atmospheric Physics for Dummies”

        • David Appell says:

          And still more for dummy:

          “Crop Pests Spreading North with Global Warming: Fungi and insects migrate toward the poles at up to 7 kilometers per year,”
          — Eliot Barford and Nature magazine, September 2, 2013
          http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crop-pests-spreading-north-climate-change/

          “Suitable Days for Plant Growth Disappear under Projected Climate Change: Potential Human and Biotic Vulnerability,”
          — Camilo Mora et al, PLOS Biology, June 10, 2015
          http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002167

          General Mills CEO Ken Powell told the Associated Press:

          We think that human-caused greenhouse gas causes climate change and climate volatility and that’s going to stress the agricultural supply chain, which is very important to us.

          http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-general-mills-greenhouse-gas-cuts-20150830-story.html

          • mpainter says:

            Goodness, gracious, David!
            Such alarming news!
            Crop pests migrating toward the poles! And the farmers with no bug spray!
            And now, we read that “suitable days for plant growth will disappear”. Oh, dear! Does that mean no more plants? (wrings hands).

            And now, the prez of General Mils sez that he is worried that there might not be enough corn flakes! David, what a terror you are, with all this frightful…
            Junk Science.

          • David Appell says:

            You can’t even read scientific papers, can you?

            I don’t see any reason to take anything you write seriously.

          • mpainter says:

            We have taken the measure of you and your junk science, David. Do you not understand that? Do expect to find the gullible here on Dr. Spencer’s website? You not only show yourself as a junk science devotee, but you reveal that you are devoid of any sort of balance in your mentality, imagining, as you do, to win converts with your pseudoscience propaganda at this skeptics blog.

          • David Appell says:

            Planter: Stop whining. Address the science presented here, if you can.

            (Clearly you can’t. You are not qualified to judge this science.)

          • mpainter says:

            See above comment

  59. lewis says:

    John,

    David likely expects the revolting students to rise up agin the good Dr. and ask for his resignation along with an apology for having a brain and the temerity to express an opinion they haven’t been told is acceptable.

    • David Appell says:

      Spencer’s failure is in not being decent.

      He likes to claim he is a Christian, but I see nothing Christian in what he wrote.

      • Alicia says:

        Dr. Spencer’s comments certainly qualified as Christian. He charitably pointed out logical inconsistencies among many of the statements made about climate change and its causes and consequences. He did this with humor instead of anger. That’s plenty Christian in my opinion. His humor invoked issues of life and death – and both COP21 and ISIS invoke those issues constantly.

        Those of us who agree with him appreciate that he has priorities straight – we want the preservation of Western civilization and one of its foundations, Christianity. ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, other Muslim terrorists, and those who support or tolerate them are murderously hostile to Americans who share the values that Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and secular humanism have in common. Among those values are the unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

        • David Appell says:

          Spencer’s Facebook rant wasn’t without anger.

          Frankly I wonder if he wasn’t intoxicated when he wrote it.

          There was nothing charitable about Spencer’s rant, at all.

          “Those of us who agree with him appreciate that he has priorities straight – we want the preservation of Western civilization and one of its foundations, Christianity.”

          1) Our civilization is certainly not in threat.
          2) Our civilization does not have a Christian foundations. There are tens of millions of Americans who are not Christians, including, and a significant reason why is that we see self-proclaimed “Christians” like Roy Spencer writing the kind of boorish filth he did here.

          Spencer’s rant was pure zenophobia, with an obligatory slap at those who provide climate science’s results. It was cowardly.

          Nothing Spencer writes from here on out, including monthly UAH temperature numbers, can go unquestioned any further. He has shown his true face.

          • mpainter says:

            Haha, David now preaches about Christianity. Better and better.

          • David Appell says:

            Again I notice you have no ideas in refutation. Just snark.

            You are as inconsequential as a worm.

          • mpainter says:

            A worm says David. Such an angry fellow you are, to be instructing us about Christian charity. Good for another one, that David Appell.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi David Appell,

            You opine:

            “1) Our civilization is certainly not in threat.”

            That’s an opinion not a fact. Civilization is always in peril. In fact, it might be a stretch to call the current mess a civilization at all. As Ghandi said regarding what he thought about western civilization: “I think it would be a very good idea.”

            “2) Our civilization does not have a Christian foundations. There are tens of millions of Americans who are not Christians, including, and a significant reason why is that we see self-proclaimed “Christians” like Roy Spencer writing the kind of boorish filth he did here.”

            Seriously! Most of the founders were Christians, some deists and the Constitution actually uses the phrase “our Lord.” Hmm! Who would they be speaking of? Frankly, if Roy Spencer’s sarcasm prevents you from being a Christian you never seriously considered the idea to begin with. Concern about the threat of Islamic terror and ISIS is not in my opinion xenophobia, but a realistic appraisal of over a thousand years of documented historical horror, mass murder, theft of land, continued practiced slavery, forced conversion, torture, mutilation and oppression of various ethnic groups etc., etc., etc.. Islamic propaganda notwithstanding the facts speak for themselves. Just ask the woman who survived the recent Oklahoma beheadings. This must be especially true since Islam is not a race but a set of claims to which adherents either accept or reject presented by a supposed by some prophet Mohammed.

            Please don’t employ some bromide trite response, and label me or anyone who disagrees with you as uninformed or provincial. I’ve traveled abroad including on multiple occasions to the largest Islamic country in the world. Unless, you have it seems to me uncharitable in the least to judge the opinions of others like Roy without assessing properly the claims or at least the concepts behind his sarcasm.

            Have a great day!

          • David Appell says:

            John KL wrote:
            “Civilization is always in peril.”

            No, it isn’t.

            When did conservatives start to be so afraid of everything?

            Buck up. And have a nice day!

          • rah says:

            Did you know that prior to public schools being established the best schools in this country were established and run by Christians. For example Harvard University was named for it’s primary first Benefactor, John Harvard which was a minister. Yale was established by Congregationalists to train ministers and lay people. Most of the prominent founders started their educations being taught by Christian ministers.

            Did you know that most communities in Colonial America and a majority established in the pre-industrial age there after in this country built a Christian Church as their first public building which also served as the public meeting place for governmental affairs and often as the court room also.

            This not a Christian nation but to deny it’s Christian heritage is just plain historical revisionism or IOW a LIE!

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi David Appell,

            You stated:

            “No, it isn’t.

            When did conservatives start to be so afraid of everything?

            Buck up. And have a nice day!”

            Let me just say if you keep talking about how secure and stable civilization is you will get Dr. No very upset! He’s worked so hard to undercut it. He will likely have to double-up on his meds, probably Seretonin up-take inhibitors and such. He may spend many long lonely hours with the tattered remains of Ursula’s bikini wear. Just saying….

            Have a thoughtful day!

        • springer says:

          appell you stupid fat ugly fuck shut your piehole

  60. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    As usual, implicit in everything David Appell writes is his assumption that the warming that indeed did occur late last century was due to carbon dioxide.

    Well, DA, there’s still my AU $10,000 (about US $7,000) reward on offer if you can prove my physics wrong and produce a study similar to mine but showing water vapor warming rather than cooling.

    You cannot prove with valid physics that carbon dioxide and water vapor cause warming of the Earth’s surface. Just try here!

    http://climate-change-theory.com

  61. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    To those who feel that Christianity is somehow defined by, or recognized by good works, or that people “get to Heaven” based on good works, I refer you to my website http://SavedByTheLamb.com that has been visited by over 6,800 since 2004.

  62. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    To those who are interested in finding out what really happens in planetary tropospheres, I suggest spending 43 minutes watching my video presentation of this break-through science …

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-TXYe4rJp0xmbBh51AD8jptu34LAJc-b

  63. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    mpainter thinks this is a skeptics site, by Roy is among the Lukes listed by Joseph A Olsen and called liars.

    Well I don’t go that far, because I realize Roy is just brainwashed with the concept that water vapor and carbon dioxide warm the surface. He doesn’t deliberately lie, but he does deliberately avoid studying the correct alternative explanation that I have presented. To Roy it’s just a matter of “how much” warming in his opinion, because neither he nor you, mpainter, look into the fictitious, fiddling of the “science” that climatologists and meteorologists produce to support their warped conjecture.

    No one thinks to do a simple study to see if more moist regions are hotter, as is implied. They are not.

    No one questions the claim that 168W/m^2 of direct solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface supposedly warms the surface to the observed mean temperature. It doesn’t, but that doesn’t trouble them.

    They have been persuaded to believe that it’s OK for entropy to decrease in one (independent) process provided that it increases more in some other independent process. It’s not, but that doesn’t worry the likes of Roy or mpainter so long as they feel comfortable sitting on the fence.

    To reiterate, here’s what Olsen wrote in a comment in the “46%” post at PSI …

    Joseph A Olson 2015-11-19 11:55

    “The ONLY reason this three sided, FAKE debate has continued for the last decade is because the Luke LITTLE Warmists refuse to consider the multiple violation of Thermodynamics and Radiation Physics in the ‘back radiation warming’ hypothesis. I attended the Heartland ICCC-9 Luke Love Fest in Vegas, July 2014 and have two reports on these science denying deniers. … We have been systematically LIED to about everything, and the FAKE skeptic/denier LIARS have all been personally notified for over five years. Demand debate from Lindzen, Curry, Spencer, Singer, Michaels, Watts, Monckton, Evans and the rest of the Luke Warm Parrot chorus.”

    So, Roy, if we “demand debate” as Olsen asks, are you game enough to participate? I suggest you start with an attempt to refute the physics here and maybe mpainter will try to help you. After all, there’s still that $10,000 no one has even attempted to claim. Be the first, Roy, in open public debate right here, allowing me right of reply.

    • Doug ~ Cotton says:

      Sorry – typo: mpainter thinks this is a skeptics site, but Roy is among the Lukes listed by Joseph A Olsen and called liars.

      • David Appell says:

        Doug: Why don’t you submit you work to peer reviewed journals?

        I think it’s because you’re afraid of their judgements.

        • Doug ~ Cotton says:

          My work, DA, has been peer-reviewed by physicists who know their stuff, and I have quoted their reviews in other threads here. The physics I have presented is simply based on the entropy maximization that the Second Law says will happen, and I would suggest the Second Law is correct and well peer-reviewed, as is my deduction from such. But I am not the slightest bit interested in supporting pal-reviewed journals that are of course part-and-parcel of the AGW hoax machine. You can read a peer-reviewed article about the gravity effect written in 2003 by Dr Hans Jelbring and published in “Energy and Environment” but you will predictably claim that’s not a “respected” journal. You really are naive about the whole process of pal review aren’t you?

          In contrast, you, David Appell, have no valid science which agrees with peer-reviewed physics, and you cannot refute what I have written, not even for $10,000.

          I find people like “Science of Doom” making statements about solar radiation heating the ocean layers beneath the surface (where he, like Roy, admits no back radiation reaches) and your pal-reviewed propaganda would supposedly confirm SoD to be correct.

          So Smart David, let’s have your personal explanation in response to what I wrote just now about the SoD garbage, as copied below whilst still in my clipboard:

          Your statement “Solar energy reaches down many meters heating the ocean from within” is incorrect. Energy diagrams show a mean of only 168W/m^2 of solar radiation reaching the surface. Even a black asphalt surface receiving such would only be “warmed” to something colder than 40 degrees below freezing point – as you can confirm with Stefan Boltzmann calculations. Furthermore, because the flux varies a lot, the actual mean temperature would be lower again because of the T^4 relationship in S-B. But the ocean is not a flat asphalt sheet anyway. The radiation is spread over many layers in the thermocline and what is absorbed in each layer (only a fraction of that 168W/m^2) is far to low to raise the temperature of any such layer to the observed temperatures, even the colder temperatures at the base of the thermocline. Even if some deep layer were warmed, the warming down there would not cause the surface to warm: the energy would eventually only get to the surface by following isotherms to the polar regions. The whole concept of direct radiation supposedly heating the surface to observed temperatures is wrong and a totally different paradigm involving entropy maximization and thermodynamics at the molecular level is now known to be what explains planetary surface temperatures being higher than what can be explained with radiation. You cannot count back radiation in S-B calculations and it is obviously different from solar radiation as seen by the penetration depths in water. Even if you did “count” 390W/m^2 mean flux into the surface, that comes nowhere near explaining a mean surface temperature of 288K because of the variation in the flux and the T^4 relationship in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations.

        • springer says:

          Q: What’s the difference between David Appell and a broken record?

          A: The record worked at one time in the past.

  64. David Appell says:

    Roy wrote:
    “Funny how the most powerful gun control advocates have no problem with using guns to protect themselves.”

    Roy, are you in favor of giving guns to those on the terrorist watch list?

    “People on the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list often can’t board commercial airliners, but they can walk into a gun store and legally buy pistols and powerful military-style rifles.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/guns-terror-watch-list_564fec70e4b0258edb31b652

    (Don’t worry, Roy, I don’t expect you to reply here. You avoid all direct questions.)

    • mpainter says:

      Roy pointed out the hypocrisy of the AGW position, and Twitter exploded with the the squawks of wounded ducks. If you hurt very badly, David, I would advise consulting a physician. Watch out for the quacks.

    • rah says:

      Hmm, from what I’ve seen the preferred weapons of the Islamic terrorists are AKs with full auto capability and you can’t buy them legally without licensing and large wad of cash. And as for “powerful military style rifles”? Actually a whole lot of hunting firearms in US homes today take rounds that are far more powerful than the modern post Korean war “military style rifles” because wounded troops are a lot more hassle and expensive than dealing with dead ones and lighter rounds are one heck of a lot cheaper when your making and using millions of them and one heck of a lot less weight to carry for the troops.

      So what they actually mean by “powerful” is the fact they generally have a detachable box magazine making them easy to quickly reload and providing a faster rate of fire than most larger caliber hunting rifles.

      Of course none of this would matter too much if our leaders took their Constitutional responsibility to secure this nation and protect it’s legal citizens seriously and actually did their very best to prevent ANYONE that could not be properly screened from entering this country.

    • JohnKl says:

      Hi David Appell,

      Well he might give it to Americans, who without any criminal record, or open (to all sides) inquiry/hearing have been so labeled. After all the current administration appears to have given them to terrorists:

      http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-garland-gun-20150801-story.html

      Have current administration officials been investigated? Have they been put on watch list? Fascinating, that they apparently have not when they’ve done so much to provide, inadvertantly or not, arms to ISIS.

      Have a great day!

  65. Dr No says:

    A bit off topic but- has anybody seen the movie SPECTRE ?
    With a budget around $245 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.
    I have heard from my sources that it is just a series of meaningless action scenes and no meaningful story line.

    • Steve Case says:

      Most of it was rather forgettable, and there wasn’t any humor in it.
      What’s’is face, the latest Bond actor needs to be replaced

      • Dr NoN says:

        Hi Steve,

        Thanks for that warning. I am willing to return to the big screen if they need a replacement. I would love to play James Bond – especially if he were to jump ship and join SPECTRE. Think of the havoc that would create !!
        Even better, I could give Ursula a call to see if she would like to join me. Think of the steam we could generate!

        • JohnKl says:

          Hi Dr. No,

          Maybe it’s handicap discrimination, but I haven’t seen many if any James Bond actors with prosthetic limbs. You could give Ursula a call, but remember it’s been a few years. She probably doesn’t look the same as she did in the Bond films. Then again you probably don’t either.

          How many retirees do you think would pay to see your steamy passion scenes?

          Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKl,

            I do have more than one prosthetic these days but look younger than ever due to modern technology. I know Ursula hasn’t changed much and still has a soft spot for me.
            I am sure plenty would pay to see us – even if the prosthetics are steam powered.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You said:

            “I do have more than one prosthetic these days but look younger than ever due to modern technology.”

            Yes, but the last years hip-fracture and knee replacement still must slow you down some. Those famous Bond chase scenes may not go over so well, what with you in a wheel-chair. Yes, your daughters ( Lolita and Longoria No ) spiked your green tea-bags with mescaline but positive thinking will only get you so far. It’s time to face reality. You’re no longer the Geo-political menace you used to be and trying to be something you’re not just won’t satisfy in the end. Just look at Caitlyn Jenner!

            So, go ahead give Ursula a call. Mere speculative and fictitious rumor has it ( I’m starting one now ) she just broke up a tryst with Bond villain Odd-job from the film Goldfinger. She supposedly may have found it oddly constricting and electrifying at the same time. She may still hanker for old Asian guys and that should give you an in! Let me know how it goes!

            Have a great day!

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            Just a word of advice! Don’t bring Ursula’s old bikini with you on your 1st date. She may find it creepy!

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKl,

            How dare you mention that awful Odd-job. He had a taste for cats as food, apparently acquired in Korea when food was in short supply. There is no way that Ursula would have anything to do which such low-life.

            And don’t tell me what to do on our date – I may be old but I know how to charm the ladies.
            They just love evil geniuses. Unfortunately I have a tendency to boast about my plans and have to kill them at the end of the evening. Only Ursula knows how to keep my plans secret.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You state:

            “There is no way that Ursula would have anything to do which such low-life.”

            Admittedly, consuming cats seems to be a poor habit in that they’re fairly high on the food chain, but they say once you try cat you won’t go back! Not that I would know, but you really don’t think Oddjob could turn her head? When you catch up with her see if she doesn’t have a few whiskers dangling from her lips after dinner. Just saying….

            You state:

            “And don’t tell me what to do on our date – I may be old but I know how to charm the ladies.”

            They why did Ursula leave your for Bond, James Bond? You go on:

            “Unfortunately I have a tendency to boast about my plans and have to kill them at the end of the evening.”

            That really doesn’t sound to ingenius, more like a complete waste of several women! Your infantile need to spout on about yourself and brag won’t bring you many femmes. You go on:

            “Only Ursula knows how to keep my plans secret.”

            Yeah! She just doesn’t want to end up like your dates!

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKl,

            “When you catch up with her see if she doesn’t have a few whiskers dangling from her lips after dinner.”
            Thanks for the tip. If she has been eating cats I will make sure she suffers horribly.
            Probably by forcing her to read all your blogs! heh heh heh

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You state:

            “Probably by forcing her to read all your blogs! heh heh heh”

            So what’s your excuse. Have you taken up masochism in your dotage? Heh, heh,heh!

            Have a great day!

            P.S. – Answer my question posed in my reply to your post below.

  66. Steve Case says:

    Snow ended here on the North boundary of Milwaukee county this afternoon. About 2″ of wet & slushy required shoveling.

  67. Doug ~ Cotton says:

    You’re stumped Roy.

    No one on “Science of Doom” (including DeWitt Payne) can refute what I wrote there and copied into this comment above.

    The Solar radiation is the ONLY radiation that could warm the ocean if it were strong enough, because the back radiation does not penetrate below the surface. In fact the back radiation is pseudo scattered and none of its energy is converted to thermal energy. Even if there were such a conversion all within a few nanometers of the surface, that extremely thin layer would obviously boil and evaporate, and so the warming there would not influence the rest of the water below to any measurable extent.

    So Roy, you are left with only Solar radiation of 168W/m^2 on average that could potentially raise the ocean temperature. The only problem for you Roy is that Stefan and Boltzmann would turn in their graves if you claimed that such low radiation levels could explain anything remotely close to the observed temperatures. It can’t. It would only “warm” a flat, asphalt-covered Earth to about -40C. And that’s why the entropy maximization process that I have been telling you about, and have explained with valid physics, is the ONLY possible mechanism that can, and does, keep the oceans at observed temperatures. I’ve been right all along, Roy, and that’s why no one has even attempted to refute my hypothesis, not even for AU $10,000.

    • Dr No says:

      Where do you get 168 Wm-2 at the surface?

      The amount of solar energy impinging on Earth is 1361 W m-2.

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Dr. No,

        1360-1365 wm^2 is the solar irradiance ( as we approach the Winter solstice the Earth approaches the closest distance to the sun & highest solar irradiance ). He attempts to estimate the solar radiation absorbed on average over the surface of the entire planet given spherical shape of the planet, albedo, atmospheric absorption etc.. He’s used this figure before. Feel free to debate it with him.

        Have a great day!

        • Dr No says:

          Hi JohnKl.

          I know what that number refers to and ( despite your inferior intelligence) you may also know. But does Doug know?
          I feel the need to challenge him a bit – so I would rather he provide an answer.
          Please don’t feel the need to cover for him. He is a big boy and can look after himself.

          (It would be interesting to torture Doug – only physically mind you -to make up for the tortuous rantings he inflicts on the readers of this site).

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You state:

            “I know what that number refers to and ( despite your inferior intelligence) you may also know. But does Doug know?”

            Actually, you don’t know what figure Doug is speaking about. He refers only to direct solar radiation. See my comments below, in my response to your post to Dave. My intelligence is inferior to God and/or Divinity, but I’ve not seen much evidence for most other people yourself likely included.

            You go on:

            “Please don’t feel the need to cover for him. He is a big boy and can look after himself.”

            No, wouldn’t want to. Please see my comments below. Doug doesn’t always phrase things they he means to I think.

            Have a great day!

      • dave says:

        Dr No says:

        “Where do you get 168 Wm-2 at the surface?

        The amount of solar energy impinging on Earth is 1361 W m-2.”

        1361 W m-2 is the solar power over the area of the cross-sectional disc, with which the earth intercepts sun shine*. The area of the surface of the earth is FOUR times greater than this cross-section; and so that brings the power down to 1361/4 = 340 W m-2 as an overall average. Of this, 31% is reflected, and 20% is absorbed in the atmosphere; and so the amount of solar radiation which directly reaches the surface, and is absorbed there**, is on average 168 W m-2, or as NASA has it in its cartoon of energy balance, 163.3 W m-2. Of course, the actual irradiance varies greatly from place to place and from time to time.

        * It varies by 7% through the course of a year, because of the shape of our orbit.

        ** There is an issue as to whether non-penetrating IR from the Sun can truly be said to be absorbed by the sea, as penetrating visible light is.

        • Dr No says:

          Hi Dave,

          Thanks for answering so correctly for Doug.

          DOUG, that (163 or 168 Wm-2) is the amount, on average, of short wave radiation you and I receive as absorbers at the surface.

          However, we also receive and absorb long wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere sitting above us.

          Now, DOUG – what is the total radiation (the sum of short wave and long wave radiation) that we receive, on average, at the surface?

          (Hint: it must be greater than 168 Wm-2)

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            Your synapses just don’t fire like they used to. Is it Mescaline? You state:

            “DOUG, that (163 or 168 Wm-2) is the amount, on average, of short wave radiation you and I receive as absorbers at the surface…
            However, we also receive and absorb long wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere sitting above us…
            Now, DOUG – what is the total radiation (the sum of short wave and long wave radiation) that we receive, on average, at the surface?”

            You see the long-wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere was not included in Doug’s 168W/m^2 figure. Please read the following from Doug’s post:

            “Your statement “Solar energy reaches down many meters heating the ocean from within” is incorrect. Energy diagrams show a mean of only 168W/m^2 of solar radiation reaching the surface.”

            Doug replies to another person’s statement referring to SOLAR ENERGY! Unfortunately, your not quite the genius you imagined you once were. Reading comprehension and science have GONE WITH THE WIND and your left with just the tattered remains of Ursula’s bikini wear.

            Btw, for the record Doug’s statement is incorrect. Visible spectrum solar radiation reaches well below the ocean surface many meters and warms ocean suspended particulate matter and possibly the ocean bottom directly. Water is largely transparent to visible light. It’s likely he meant to state INFRARED solar radiation doesn’t reach several meters below the ocean surface, but as you mentioned let him answer for himself.

            Have a great day!

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            Since you obsess over cats I thought I’d ask you, are you David Appell? Personally, I doubt it since his sentence structure and syntax seems different than your’s but that could be a ruse. Like you David Appell apparently likes cats.

            Have a great day!

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            JohnKl reiterates the old “mistake” (originally made by James Hansen and repeated in Pierrehumbert’s writings which have several other errors as well) when he writes: “However, we also receive and absorb long wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere sitting above us.”

            Yes, well the electro-magnetic energy in radiation from a colder source is NOT converted to thermal energy in a warmer target. The radiation is immediately re-emitted as part of the Planck “quota” for the target and there is no warming in the target. That is a fact well established in 21st century physics and about which I wrote in a peer-reviewed paper over 3 years ago. In any event, how could it raise a temperature that is already warmer? The heat transfer is the other way you clot!

            FURTHERMORE, as I have pointed out and as even Roy knows back radiation does NOT PENETRATE WATER and so the oceans DO only receive solar radiation which does have a mean of about 168W/m^2. The oceans are not warmed by back radiation from the colder atmosphere, or by the solar radiation they receive.

            The only place in all of world literature where you can learn how the oceans receive the required thermal energy is in my writings. There’s AU $10,000* on offer for the first to prove me wrong and produce a contrary study to mine which shows more moist regions have lower daily maximum AND MINIMUM temperatures. The IPCC wants you to believe rain forests are over 50 degrees hotter than deserts at similar latitude and altitude.

            * Write your submission as a comment on my blog.
            https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            JohnKl doesn’t even come up with any Stefan-Boltzmann calculations or quantification. Even if the back radiation is incorrectly included (as is done by the IPCC and the models) you still don’t get anything like 288K for the surface temperature because the mean flux is a mean of very variable flux. Try using five different values …

            (1) 20% of the mean
            (2) 60% of the mean
            (3) 100% of the mean
            (4) 140% of the mean
            (5) 180% of the mean

            The mean of the above (realistic) flux values for different parts of the globe is indeed the original mean. But the mean of the five temperatures derived from Stefan-Boltzmann calculations is far colder than the S-B calculation for the original mean. Try it! Thus all the energy diagrams do NOT conform with the incorrect implication that there is a net of 390W/m^2 supposedly being converted to thermal energy in the surface (though it isn’t) and supposedly producing a mean temperature of 288K because that’s the flux that would warm a perfect blackbody to 288K if the flux were constant day and night.

            Hundreds of silent readers will be watching JohnKl now unable to respond correctly. Who’s next to take me on?

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            People can read about solar radiation penetrating the oceans here …
            http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004JC002780/full

            The very fact that perhaps less than half of the 168W/m^2 (mean) is absorbed in the top one meter supports what I have been saying: there is nowhere near enough solar radiation being absorbed in the thin surface layer to explain its temperature. And there is absolutely no absorption of back radiation that has come from a colder source. I remind you that the oceans also lose energy by evaporation and conduction to the atmosphere at night, and so that half of that 168W/m^2 doesn’t even supply the energy lost by evaporation and conduction.

            It’s not hard to understand that another heat transfer mechanism must be operating to keep the ocean surface hotter than the troposphere and also hotter than the thermocline.

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            And, just to clarify, when I wrote “Solar energy reaches down many meters heating the ocean from within” is an incorrect statement, the phrase that is incorrect is “heating the ocean from within” because, of course I am aware that the radiation “reaches down many meters” having read the above linked paper a long time ago and others, and noting sunlight shining on the sand in a shallow lake or creek. My point was that the intensity of the solar radiation is insufficient to raise the existing temperature of the water, even at deeper levels.

            The intensity of solar radiation at the surface (168W/m^2) is like that from an iceberg at a temperature 40 degrees below freezing point. The back radiation is actually warmer (about twice the intensity) but still not enough to explain the surface temperature which, being already warmer than the troposphere, cannot be further warmed by radiation from a colder source. You can’t add the two lots of radiation to get a hotter temperature – no physics texts would say you could.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Doug C,

            You need help with remedial reading. The following quote wasn’t made by me it was made by Dr. No:

            “However, we also receive and absorb long wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere sitting above us…”

            Moreover, I never claimed that back radiation from gas molecules in the atmosphere penetrated the ocean surface. Instead, I claimed that direct visible spectrum solar radiation penetrates the ocean surface because water is largely transparent to visible light. Isn’t physics wonderful! Re-read the post and clear up your apparent confusion. Your points appear to have little if anything to do with what I said.

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            “Yes, well the electro-magnetic energy in radiation from a colder source is NOT converted to thermal energy in a warmer target. The radiation is immediately re-emitted as part of the Planck “quota” for the target and there is no warming in the target. That is a fact well established in 21st century physics and about which I wrote in a peer-reviewed paper over 3 years ago. In any event, how could it raise a temperature that is already warmer? The heat transfer is the other way you clot!”

            Such stupidity!
            Consider a photon in transit.
            It is associated with a specific wavelength.
            However, we do not know from where it originated.
            In particular, neither it nor we KNOW THE TEMPERATURE OF THE BODY THAT EMITTED IT!

            Therefore, when it encounters another object at some arbitrary temperature, the photon is in no position to compare the relative temperatures of its parent body nor the object body.
            Similarly, the object body knows nothing about the photon’s origins.

            Therefore, there is nothing to stop the photon being absorbed (by a black body) no matter what the temperatures of the two bodies.

            Note that, while the earth’s surface approximates a black body, the atmosphere is not. It can only emit and absorb within certain wavelength bands. However, this has nothing to do with temperature – but only on the emissivities and absorptivities at different wavelengths.

            I hope this useful to anybody who stumbles on this bit of elucidation.
            Sincerely,
            Dr No

          • numberer says:

            Dr No says:

            “DOUG, that (163 or 168 W m-2) is the amount, on average, of short [sic] wave radiation you and I receive as absorbers at the surface.”

            About half of the 168 W m-2 is INFRA-RED (wavelength 700nm – 1 mm) direct from the sun.

            A “short wave” is a radio wave of length 10-200 metres.

          • springer says:

            “we also receive and absorb long wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere sitting above us”

            sometimes but usually I’m warmer than the atmosphere so it actually receives and absorbs long wave radiation emitted by me

            thanks for playing but try to rise above the dime-a-dozen genius it takes most of the fun out of it for the high genius people like me whose attention and approval you crave

          • springer says:

            Dear Dr. No,

            we normally don’t consider single photons in transit with regard to macroscopic phenomena like solar heating. we consider them as waves and they have a distinct fingerprint which distinguishes the temperature of the source.

            write that down, dopey.

          • Dr No says:

            Hi Springer,

            Thanks for your contribution:
            “we normally don’t consider single photons in transit with regard to macroscopic phenomena like solar heating. we consider them as waves and they have a distinct fingerprint which distinguishes the temperature of the source. write that down, dopey.”

            Waves have a distinct fingerprint? other than frequency/wavelength? Tell me more about this
            distinct fingerprint. We are all waiting with bated breath to hear about this additional property.

            You obviously have encountered some physics. Whether it did any good is debatable.

        • JohnKl says:

          Hi David,

          Solar constant:

          “The solar constant includes all types of solar radiation, not just the visible light. It is measured by satellite as being 1.361 kilowatts per square meter (kW/m²) at solar minimum and approximately 0.1% greater (roughly 1.362 kW/m²) at solar maximum.[1]”

          Even these figures are generalized & the do vary as you mentioned.

          Have a great day!

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        The 168W/m^2 comes from the standard energy diagram reproduced on this page. Have you never seen such energy budget diagrams, Dr No? Do you not understand why they start with a quarter of the solar constant at TOA? It’s pretty elementary geometry: the surface area of a sphere equals four times the area of a circle with the same radius. The radiation striking Earth passes through such an orthogonal circle and is then spread over four times the area during 24 hours or one rotation.

  68. michael hart says:

    “After all, isn’t COP21 our last, final, last chance to Save the Earth?”

    I certainly hope so.

    I would hate to have to refuse yet another “last chance” to save the planet.

    • michael hart says:

      …and they really could do with improving their marketing.
      Perhaps something like offering three last chances to save the planet for the price of two.

      • michael hart says:

        …get your last chances here, at the COP21 stall. Supplies of last chances are running out.

        The BBC front page is full of it today, as the climate-tossers gather in Paris. As far as I am concerned, they are drinking in the last chance saloon.

  69. mpainter says:

    🙂

  70. Doug~Cotton says:

    All “Lukes” like Roy (as well as Warmists) miss the point because they are so gullible that they believe in the fictitious, fiddled physics pertaining to carbon dioxide supposedly warming the Earth’s surface – and they don’t even know what that “physics” is actually claiming anyway.

    I have offered a AU $10,000 reward for the first in the world to prove wrong the physics I present here and in my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” and the linked videos and papers. No one has claimed it in over a year, because when they read and understand the hypothesis they realize it is correct.

    To receive the reward you would also have to spend a day or so doing a study of real world temperature and precipitation records (similar to mine in the Appendix of my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” that has been reviewed by competent physicists and which proves that increasing water vapor lowers surface temperatures. Your study would have to show the opposite. In fact, you might like to consider “What is the sensitivity for each 1% increase in water vapor levels?” because the IPCC garbage implies it is about 20 degrees so that rain forests with 4% WV should be about 60 degrees hotter than dry deserts with 1% WV. That shows how gullible you are to believe them.

    None of you can actually explain Earth’s surface temperature from radiation calculations based on the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, now can you. You don’t even notice the glaring errors in Pierrehumbert’s writings. None of you understands the process of maximum entropy production which is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is all about, and nor have you any concept what-so-ever as to why it is so relevant to planetary tropospheric and surface temperatures.

    If you want to learn from the many thousands of hours that I’ve put into studying all this (and been first in the world to explain the required thermal energy transfers) you can start here: http://climate-change-theory.com – or you can remain gullible with your heads buried in the carbon dioxide.

  71. JohnKl says:

    Hi Roy,

    Why are my several attempts to post a reply to Doug not being allowed?

    • Doug~Cotton says:

      The place to challenge me is on my blog, but you have to read the hypothesis first and address your comments towards the physics therein, especially the process of maximization of entropy. I suggest you start by reading this other guy’s website and his page on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. http://entropylaw.com because your understanding of the significance and relevance of entropy is currently lacking, probably because you have no idea what my hypothesis says. To test your understanding of the hypothesis, draw the “heat creep” diagrams from memory with the axes correctly labelled. When you can do that, you’re on your way to understanding this breakthrough 21st century physics.

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Doug C,

        You need help with remedial reading. The following quote wasn’t made by me it was made by Dr. No:

        “However, we also receive and absorb long wave radiation emitted by the atmosphere sitting above us…”

        Moreover, I never claimed that back radiation from gas molecules in the atmosphere penetrated the ocean surface. Instead, I claimed that direct visible spectrum solar radiation penetrates the ocean surface because water is largely transparent to visible light. Isn’t physics wonderful! Re-read the post and clear up your apparent confusion. Your points appear to have little if anything to do with what I said.

        Have a great day!

        • Doug~Cotton says:

          JohnKl and Dr No

          Whoever said whatever, you are both wrong if you think the ocean surface temperature can be explained with direct Solar radiation or any radiation reaching the surface. I asked for computations – some quantification to support your claim. I get nothing but waffle from both of you. My case rests, not only because I correctly predicted that you could not quantify your case, but neither has either of you even come close to discussing my hypothesis pertaining to maximum entropy production, let alone refuting it. Read again what this guy wrote:

          “The major revolution in the last decade is the recognition of the “law of maximum entropy production” or “MEP” and with it an expanded view of thermodynamics … “

          You are out of date to say the least. I bet you had absolutely no knowledge pertaining to developments in the world of thermodynamics “in the last decade” now did you? For your information, I also developed the same breakthrough understanding of the Second Law independently before discovering others were saying the same. But that’s no surprise as it’s not the first “world-first” in physics for me – sorry to brag, but it’s about time you guys found out a bit about my background and work in this specialized field of physics. What I write is correct.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Doug C,

            You state:

            “Whoever said whatever, you are both wrong if you think the ocean surface temperature can be explained with direct Solar radiation or any radiation reaching the surface. I asked for computations – some quantification to support your claim. I get nothing but waffle from both of you.”

            In the words, whatever I said does not matter might as well try to make me answer for someone else’s claims. Not to be out done in absurdity you go on:

            “Hundreds of silent readers will be watching JohnKl now unable to respond correctly. Who’s next to take me on?”

            Watching what Doug? That you can’t be bothered to read a post and accurately convey what people state? Please know I made my self very clear in the posts above, when I responded to Dr. No and all your silent readers know it! Solar radiation in the visible light spectrum penetrates the ocean surface to regions below because WATER IS LARGELY TRANSPARENT TO VISIBLE LIGHT and does not for the most part absorb energy in this spectrum! Water media will slow or down or refract visible light as it passes through it, much like a prism. However, visible light will pass through water only to be later absorbed by particulate matter, living flora, animals or the ocean floor. The energy absorbed by matter below the ocean surface can then be conveyed by the same matter to the surrounding water media. Or how do you explain the fact witnessed by a friend of mine who scuba-dives off the Florida coast that shallow water summertime temperatures there can be upwards of 90-95% F?! Maybe you think the temperature would be the same in Europa’s oceans if they had the same atmosphere. Unfortunately for you, deeper regions of the ocean are considerably cooler, and so are regions that receive considerably less solar radiation. Please quote ME this time for any statement you disagree with and I will endeavor to provide evidence for you. You may wish to do so lest your silent readers either question your integrity, sanity for ability to read plain English!

            Have a great day!

        • Doug~Cotton says:

          You JohnKl perhaps need help in normal English punctuation. When quoting someone else it is normal to place quote marks (“) at the start of every paragraph. (It also helps to use italics.) I can see now that you were quoting Dr No, but, in that I don’t read many of his ill-informed comments, and I saw the quoted paragraph in the middle of your comment without quote marks at the start of that paragraph, that then is no doubt what led to my mistake about which you are both intolerant and, it seems, offended.

          So, if you agree with me (rather than with Dr No who thinks radiation from the atmosphere transfers thermal energy to the warmer surface) then I repeat my question (previously addressed also to yourself) as to just precisely how the ocean surface acquires the required thermal energy to maintain its observed temperature (and even rise in temperature in summer) given that radiation from the atmosphere contributes nothing where the surface is already warmer than the location from whence the atmospheric radiation was emitted. It is generally accepted that the mean solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface is about 168W/m^2 and you can search Google for “Stefan Boltzmann calculator” and use the one at tutorvista.com to ascertain that the blackbody temperature for such radiation is about 233K, that is, about 40 degrees below freezing.

    • Dr No says:

      Hi JohnKl,

      I, too, have been losing posted replies. I am not usually paranoid but…..

      In any case, in response to several issues:

      (1)” Since you obsess over cats I thought I’d ask you, are you David Appell?”
      No. He is not stupid but far inferior to me.

      (2) “Doug replies to another person’s statement referring to SOLAR ENERGY! Unfortunately, your not quite the genius you imagined you once were. Reading comprehension and science have GONE WITH THE WIND and your left with just the tattered remains of Ursula’s bikini wear.”
      Poor Doug cannot bring himself to refer to long-wave or infrared radiation. He insists on calling it “back radiation”. I suspect he is reading from one of those energy flow diagrams and is fixated by the arrows aiming “back” downwards. In any case, it is a simple student problem to solve for the long-wave or “back radiation”. There is nothing magical or fudged about it. I have even a written solution here on a bit of old fabric .

      (3) “Btw, for the record Doug’s statement is incorrect.”
      Really, I do not have time to monitor the arguments between Doug and other cretins on this site. Apart from both being wrong all of the time, you both get distracted by irrelevancies. In the big picture, what does it matter about the the penetration of radiative energy into the ocean?

      (4) Re my attractiveness to the ladies – I am currently dating an acrotomophilic.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        “What does it matter .. “ writes the unqualified “Dr” who doesn’t think it matters that he can’t explain the observed surface temperatures of Earth or Venus, or that at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus, or that at the center of our Moon etc etc. Nope. It doesn’t matter if you can’t Dr No, but why join in this discussion when you have no idea as to the relevance of the questions I ask, let alone the process of maximum entropy production which brings about the surface temperatures (ocean and land) that we are talking about?

        Go back to this comment, or, if you want to make a permanent record of your lack of understanding of all this, then write a comment on my blog which I will rubbish for the 150 to 200 visitors I get each day to see now and for years to come.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        And Dr No, you would do well to learn about the generally accepted boundaries for “short-wave” “long wave” and “infra-red” radiation. Maybe this comment will start you along the right track. I deliberately avoid using the terms because of wide-spread misunderstandings. The Planck function for the Solar radiation fully envelops that for the radiation from the surface, the latter being a subset. That’s a mathematical fact. The term “back radiation” evolved in climatology circles because it is mostly (not entirely) radiation that only exists because of the absorption of upwelling radiation from the surface which is re-emitted. The surface cools as it emits, but climatologists think that the portion of the original upwelling radiated energy that is subsequently re-emitted as downwelling “back radiation” will warm the surface back up again, and warm it more than it cooled when emitting the original radiation. In any event, whether radiation from the atmosphere to the surface originated from energy that was first emitted by the surface, or from energy transferred by conduction, convection or latent heat release, or incident solar radiation first absorbed in the upper troposphere, the main point is that the electromagnetic energy (EM) in that radiation striking a surface that is warmer than the region from whence the radiation came – that EM energy is never converted to thermal energy in the warmer surface as explained in the second paper linked from my site http://climate-change-theory.com – and that is all I have to say about radiation, because it is not what determines a planet’s surface temperature when there is a significant atmosphere. And, in any event, no reader here has been able to quantify the surface temperature based on radiation calculations using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.

        • Dr No says:

          “the main point is that the electromagnetic energy (EM) in that radiation striking a surface that is warmer than the region from whence the radiation came – that EM energy is never converted to thermal energy in the warmer surface”

          Two black bodies at different temperatures will emit and absorb at a range of frequencies.
          The photons all behave the same – they do not care where they came from nor where they are going.
          Any increase of energy takes place when one body receives, in net terms, more photons at a higher frequency than the frequency of the photons it emits.
          The point is all radiation (i.e.all the photons hitting a body) are absorbed. They all contribute to the overall vibrations/temperature. At the same time the photons that are emitted detract from the overall vibrations/temperature.

          While the net effect is a gain in energy of the cooler body at the expense of the warmer body, photons from the cooler body behave the same as photons from the warmer body. THEY ALL DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE TEMPERATURE OF THEIR SOURCE.

          • JohnKl says:

            Hi Dr. No,

            You make so many dubious statements, please allow me to as you say elucidate your claims. You state:

            “Any increase of energy takes place when one body receives, in net terms, more photons at a higher frequency than the frequency of the photons it emits.”

            Higher frequency and or greater amplitude will convey more energy because the energy density of a wave is proportional to the square of it’s amplitude. In addition, provide any empirical (i.e. obervational ) evidence of the existence of a photon and the amount of energy it conveys. You go on:

            “The point is all radiation (i.e.all the photons hitting a body) are absorbed. They all contribute to the overall vibrations/temperature. At the same time the photons that are emitted detract from the overall vibrations/temperature.”

            Pure nonsense, atoms are mostly empty space and radiation can pass through it without much affecting them. Read my post to Doug C. How much visible spectrum radiation does a clear window pane or glass of pure water absorb when light impinges upon it then passes through? How does a maser in a microwave oven heat water but not other solid material? Do you really consider the claims you make or just throw them out to see what sticks?

            Unwilling to allow Doug to surpass you in fact free comments, you instruct Doug:

            “Can’t you see the idiocy of your claims?
            You and JohnKl deserve each other.”

            Don’t confuse me with Doug, we don’t always see eye to eye. Just ask Doug!

            Have a great day!

          • Dr No says:

            Hi JohnKl,

            “Higher frequency and or greater amplitude will convey more energy because the energy density of a wave is proportional to the square of it’s amplitude.”
            So what?

            “Pure nonsense, atoms are mostly empty space and radiation can pass through it without much affecting them.”
            ?? What are you talking about? How does absorption ever occur? How do you see?
            The only thing that is mostly empty space is your skull.

            “How much visible spectrum radiation does a clear window pane or glass of pure water absorb when light impinges upon it then passes through?”
            I specifically referred to the interaction between two black bodies. Glass is not a black body since it is mainly transparent to solar radiation. Do you understand emissivities and transmissivities.? Do you understand what a black body is? It has nothing to do with a fire casualty.

            Excuse me for confusing you with Doug. I have trouble discriminating between baboons.

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            Dr No writes “The photons all behave the same – they do not care where they came from nor where they are going.”

            When it comes to physics, you are very naive, Dr No. Radiation doesn’t work that way, as has been well understood by physicists in the 21st Century. Photons possess a frequency, and the peak frequency for an ensemble of photons is proportional to the temperature of the emitting source, as per Wien’s Displacement Law.

            The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us entropy will NEVER decrease in any INDEPENDENT natural process such as a one-way pencil of radiation. Subsequent reverse radiation does not excuse a reduction in entropy in a previous independent process.

            This was the subject of a paper that I wrote nearly four years ago when I researched and reviewed the latest understanding of radiation among physicists. I coined the term “resonant scattering” and others used the term “pseudo scattering” for what is the same process.

            Radiation does not compound, Dr No the way you have been bluffed into believing in the fictitious, fiddled physics of climatology.

            Besides, the radiation from the atmosphere does not penetrate more than a few nanometers into water, unless it comes from a region where the atmosphere is warmer than the water due to an inversion.

            Funny how the water “knows” the temperature from where the radiation came, Dr No. Funny that scientists can determine the temperature of a star from its radiation.

            Funny how you still just don’t get it and probably think you could boil a large pot of water with 1,000 candles each a meter or two from the water.

            Funny, Dr No, how you know radiation from the atmosphere doesn’t penetrate the oceans, and so only the mean of 168W/m^2 of solar radiation is left to warm the oceans, but you’d need a mean of about 460W/m^2 of variable flux to “explain” a mean of 288K in a black body, which, unlike the Earth’s surface, does not lose thermal energy by any process other than radiation. So you’d need far more than 460W/m^2 because of the other simultaneous energy losses.

            Your “physics” is pathetic Dr No – you have far less understanding than just about any undergraduate I’ve helped with physics over these last five decades or so.

            Read also the copy of my reply to Jim D that I posted on Judith Curry’s blog and copied in comment here.

        • Dr No says:

          “and that is all I have to say about radiation, because it is not what determines a planet’s surface temperature when there is a significant atmosphere”

          And what, pray tell, is a “significant atmosphere”?
          What if we somehow eradicated half Earth’s atmosphere. You are saying the surface temperature would not change?
          What if we halved it again? Still no change?
          What if we kept reducing the gaseous blanket to a handful of molecules ? Would that be insignificant enough or would gravity still be the determinant?

          Can’t you see the idiocy of your claims?
          You and JohnKl deserve each other.

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            There is absolutely nothing in my hypothesis which supports your assumption that I would say there would be no change in surface temperature if the height of Earth’s atmosphere changed. So that proves to silent readers that you have not read my paper linked at climate-change-theory.com and you haven’t a clue about what it says – yet you arrogantly think you can assume what it says and write a critique based on such fictitious assumptions.

            I make it very clear that Venus is hot at the base of its troposphere because of the height of its atmosphere. The height of the nominal troposphere of Uranus is about 350Km, and that’s why it’s hotter than Earth at the base thereof, despite being 30 times further from the Sun. You should know which planet has no significant atmosphere. I’m not going to spoon feed you.

            And still I see no computations using S-B to “explain” the Earth’s surface temperature, let alone the temperatures on Venus and Uranus, all of which my hypothesis correctly explains, together with an explanation of the necessary heat transfers. You’d sure have to produce such to be on your way to the AU $10,000 reward, details of which are on my blog where you still haven’t commented.

            Any hypothesis in physics needs to be supported by empirical evidence – and mine sure is – by heaps of evidence and experiments with centrifugal force.

            Go to this comment now which is also on my blog now.

          • Dr No says:

            You wrote:
            “The height of the nominal troposphere of Uranus is about 350Km, and that’s why it’s hotter than Earth at the base thereof, despite being 30 times further from the Sun.”

            HOTTER THAN EARTH ! What rubbish !
            The average temperature of the surface of Uranus is 49° Kelvin or -224° Celsius!!

            Which universe do you live in?

        • JohnKl says:

          Hi Dr. No,

          You claim:

          “I specifically referred to the interaction between two black bodies.”

          Actually, all you stated was the obvious:

          “Two black bodies at different temperatures will emit and absorb at a range of frequencies.”

          You later state:

          “The point is all radiation (i.e.all the photons hitting a body) are absorbed.”

          At this point you expand the definition to include apparently any body (could be white, grey, black etc.). You’d do well to read your own statements. Reading comprehension would again serve you very well, genius! Earlier you had asked:

          “So what?”

          I simply noted the fact lest you’d be tempted to claim that emission frequency correlated not at all to temperature. You state:

          “What are you talking about? How does absorption ever occur? How do you see?
          The only thing that is mostly empty space is your skull…
          Glass is not a black body since it is mainly transparent to solar radiation. Do you understand emissivities and transmissivities.? Do you understand what a black body is? It has nothing to do with a fire casualty.”

          Again, in the relevant sentence you used the term “body”, not “black body.” I simply provided examples of actual material bodies allowing light to pass through. Oh! I’m quite aware of emissivity and transmissivity. Are you aware of the difference between a body and a “black body” since you appear to use the terms interchangeably? You are aware that a black body is a theoretical construct while actual bodies can be empirically perceived and thus of a factual nature? You close:

          “Excuse me for confusing you with Doug. I have trouble discriminating between baboons.”

          A Kimodo Dragon Lizard is almost completely blind, has a peanut size brain and relies largely on it’s sense of smell to detect possible prey. The large amounts of harmful bacterial in it’s mouth allow it to inflict fatal wounds with a single bite. They probably can’t tell the difference between a baboon or a human from any distance.

          Have a great day!

  72. Doug~Cotton says:

    PS. When you wrote, Dr No, “the photon is in no position to compare the relative temperatures of its parent body nor the object body” you are just hand-waving and you demonstrate no knowledge what-so-ever of the 21st Century developments by myself and others in understanding of the relevant resonating processes. I’ve told you where to read about it in the paper on radiated energy linked from http://climate-change-theory.com and there you will learn why the photon doesn’t have to “know” any more than a molecule in a bridge needs to “know” that soldiers are marching in step and the bridge is about to resonate and collapse. Poor molecule. Poor you, Dr No.

  73. Doug~Cotton says:

    My comments to you all are continued with this comment and the following comments to Jan – these being also applicable for others writing on this thread. My main weekly comments (that I post on several climate blogs and many social media threads) will also be on my blog in future. By the way, comments that show no evidence of having read my hypothesis will not pass moderation on that blog.

  74. Doug~Cotton says:

    OPEN LETTER to GREG HUNT (Minister for Environment, Australia)

    Australia should seek this amendment at COP 21 climate talks next week

    Dear Greg Hunt MP and other Politicians

    I realise Australia will sign next week, but I urge you to seek an amendment to the effect that all obligations are subject to the production within 90 days of verifiable physics which shows what physical mechanism supplies the thermal energy (“heat”) required to maintain the mean surface temperature of Earth and how the increase of carbon dioxide supposedly causes that mechanism to increase the surface temperature each morning.

    If you provide me with some future “explanation” that they provide I will expose the errors in their physics, as I have done regarding their “gold standard” textbook by Pierrehumbert.

    They will try to prove that the surface temperature is determined by radiation. It is not, as I have explained at http://climate-change-theory.com

    Because the Sun’s direct radiation is not strong enough, they will claim that they can add about twice as much radiation from the colder atmosphere supposedly helping the Sun to raise the surface temperature each morning. It can’t, because heat cannot be transferred from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface.

    They will say, yes it can provided more heat comes back out. That is not correct: it is just like saying water could flow up a hillside to a lake at the top provided that it subsequently flows further down the other side.

    They will say that, when they add this radiation from the atmosphere that they then have 390 watts per square metre and that this flux produces a temperature of 15C.

    But, even though the 390 figure is wrong (because it includes radiation from the atmosphere) it still does not give anything like 15C as a mean temperature. That is because the flux is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature. Hence, if the flux varies (as it does) the effective mean temperature produced by that variable flux is always much colder than the temperature produced by uniform flux equal to the mean of the variable flux – that’s a mathematical fact.

    All their “science” is wrong and in the wrong ball park. What happens is here: http://climate-change-theory.com

    Doug~Cotton (author of the book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All”)

    PS: This will appear on several climate blogs and many social media threads

  75. JohnKl says:

    Hi Doug C,

    You state:

    “Whoever said whatever, you are both wrong if you think the ocean surface temperature can be explained with direct Solar radiation or any radiation reaching the surface. I asked for computations – some quantification to support your claim. I get nothing but waffle from both of you.”

    In the words, whatever I said does not matter and you might as well try to make me answer for someone else’s claims. Not to be out done in absurdity you go on:

    “Hundreds of silent readers will be watching JohnKl now unable to respond correctly. Who’s next to take me on?”

    Watching what Doug? That you can’t be bothered to read a post and accurately convey what people state? Please know I made my self very clear in the posts above, when I responded to Dr. No and all your silent readers know it! Solar radiation in the visible light spectrum penetrates the ocean surface to regions below because WATER IS LARGELY TRANSPARENT TO VISIBLE LIGHT and does not for the most part absorb energy in this spectrum! Water media will slow down or refract visible light as it passes through it, much like a prism. However, visible light will pass through water only to be later absorbed by particulate matter, living flora, animals or the ocean floor. The energy absorbed by matter below the ocean surface can then be conveyed by the same matter to the surrounding water media. Or how do you explain the fact witnessed by a friend of mine who scuba-dives off the Florida coast that shallow water summertime temperatures there can be upwards of 90-95% F?! Maybe you think the temperature would be the same in Europa’s oceans if they had the same atmosphere. Unfortunately for you, deeper regions of the ocean are considerably cooler, and so are regions that receive considerably less solar radiation. Please quote ME this time for any statement you disagree with and I will endeavor to provide evidence for you. You may wish to do so lest your silent readers either question your integrity, sanity or ability to read plain English!

    Have a great day!

    P.S. – I’m duplicating my comment here because I want to make sure Doug C reads it!

    • Doug~Cotton says:

      Where are your calculations showing solar radiation raising the temperature of the ocean surface?

      In that you have no idea as to what my hypothesis is all about, you don’t yet qualify for the AU $10,000 reward for proving it wrong. I suggest you read the paper* sometime or watch the 43 minute video linked at http://climate-change-theory.com because I am only really interested in discussion pertaining to what I have explained in my ground-breaking research not published anywhere else in world-literature.

      You can’t answer my question about how the oceans receive the required thermal energy, but I know the answer: it was explained here nearly three years ago …

      * http://www.climate-change-theory.com/Planetary_Core_and_Surface_Temperatures.pdf

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        First page of the above paper …

        Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures

        Douglas J Cotton, B.Sc.(Physics), B.A., Dip.Bus.Admin.

        February 15, 2013

        ABSTRACT

        The paper explains why the physics involved in atmospheric and sub-surface heat transfer appears to have been misunderstood, and incorrectly applied, when postulating that a radiative “greenhouse effect” is responsible for warming the surfaces of planets such as Venus and our own Earth.

        A detailed discussion of the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics endeavours to settle the much debated issue as to whether or not a thermal gradient evolves spontaneously in still air in a gravitational field. The author is aware of attempted rebuttals of this hypothesis, but cogent counter arguments are presented, together with reference to empirical evidence.

        The ramifications are substantial, in that they eliminate any need for any “greenhouse” explanation as to why the surface temperatures are as observed. No other valid reason appears plausible to explain how the required energy gets into the planetary surfaces, this being especially obvious in regard to the high temperatures measured at the surface of the crust of Venus.

        The paper includes some counter-intuitive concepts which sceptical readers may be tempted to reject out of hand. Physics sometimes has some surprises, and so you are encouraged to read and understand the argument step by step, for it is based on sound physics, and unlocks some mysteries of the Solar System, including core and mantle temperatures, not previously explained in this manner to the best of the author’s knowledge.

    • Doug~Cotton says:

      JohnKl:

      You wrote: “how do you explain the fact witnessed by a friend of mine who scuba-dives off the Florida coast that shallow water summertime temperatures there can be upwards of 90-95% F”

      I have explained that in the above paper published back in February 2013. I’m asking you to explain it. Asking a question like that is not explaining it. Where are your computations quantifying the temperature? Nowhere, John.

      You can’t explain ocean temperatures as being solely due to direct solar radiation or in any other way than that explained in my paper.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        PS: The vast majority of the oceans are not “shallow waters” and so I am not talking about situations where it might be argued that the Sun could heat the sand and the sand then heat the water above. The ocean depths are very dark in case you don’t know. No significant solar radiation (visible or IR) penetrates much deeper 100 meters.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        PS: About half of the solar radiation is absorbed in the first meter and about 80% is absorbed in the first 10 meters. I would suggest that, even in water that is only 10 meters deep, on a clear day in the tropics with the Sun directly overhead around noon in mid-summer, then the incident solar radiation at the surface could be at most 1000W/m^2 and thus only 200W/m^2 where it strikes the sand at a depth of 10 meters. The black body temperature for 200W/m^2 is about 244K which is about -29C. Need I say more?

      • JohnKl says:

        Hi Doug C,

        Your confusion appears to continue. You state in various posts:

        “The vast majority of the oceans are not “shallow waters” and so I am not talking about situations where it might be argued that the Sun could heat the sand and the sand then heat the water above. The ocean depths are very dark in case you don’t know. No significant solar radiation (visible or IR) penetrates much deeper 100 meters…About half of the solar radiation is absorbed in the first meter and about 80% is absorbed in the first 10 meters. I would suggest that, even in water that is only 10 meters deep, on a clear day in the tropics with the Sun directly overhead around noon in mid-summer, then the incident solar radiation at the surface could be at most 1000W/m^2 and thus only 200W/m^2 where it strikes the sand at a depth of 10 meters. The black body temperature for 200W/m^2 is about 244K which is about -29C. Need I say more?”

        If you now agree, that visible spectrum energy can warm shallow ocean surfaces, why can’t it warm particulate matter at depth in the ocean? Something has to absorb the aforementioned visible spectrum solar radiation that penetrates below the ocean surface. Once absorbed why can’t the same energy be conveyed to surrounding molecules? You have provided no evidence it cannot. As to the amount of warming, I never claimed that solar radiation penetrating the ocean surface can account for all the planet’s warming. Btw, if 1000w/m^2 reaches the ocean surface the ENTIRE 1000 W/M^2 WILL BE ABSORBED BY OCEAN PARTICULATE MATTER (AND VARIOUS SUSPENDED SOLID OCEAN BODIES), THE OCEAN FLOOR AND/OR A TINY (ALMOST INFINITESSIMAL) FRACTION BY THE WATER ITSELF! Prove otherwise if you can.

        In addition, you have several times failed to identify the precise statement that I made which you supposedly disagree with. Your silent readers will see this as a very large lapse on your part.

        Have a great day!

        • JohnKl says:

          Hi Doug C,

          Allow me a correction to my post above. It should have stated:

          Btw, if 1000w/m^2 reaches the ocean surface the ENTIRE 1000 W/M^2 THAT IS NOT REFLECTED AWAY WILL BE ABSORBED BY OCEAN PARTICULATE MATTER (AND VARIOUS SUSPENDED SOLID OCEAN BODIES), THE OCEAN FLOOR AND/OR A TINY (ALMOST INFINITESSIMAL) FRACTION BY THE WATER ITSELF! Prove otherwise if you can.

          Keep in mind the ocean behaves very much like a black body (94-95% supposedly).

          Have a great day!

    • Doug~Cotton says:

      JohnKl wrote “Unfortunately for you, deeper regions of the ocean are considerably cooler, and so are regions that receive considerably less solar radiation.”

      I have no idea why he thinks that’s unfortunate. But I’ve written about the ocean thermocline in Section 14 here so I really can’t be bothered reiterating it all.

      Maybe JohnKl would like a go at explaining why there is indeed a local temperature maximum at the ocean surface with water getting colder below and air getting colder above. Yet most solar radiation passes through the first half meter or so of the ocean surface where only about 40W/m^2 is absorbed, strongly proving my point when, if direct solar radiation were what was warming the surface of the ocean then there would need to be a mean of about 460W/m^2 and a black asphalt cover over the oceans at that – as I have shown – not a mere 40W/m^2 being absorbed.

  76. dave says:

    Dr No says:

    “The average temperature of the surface of Uranus is 49 K…”

    That is correct so far as it goes and with the conventional, arbitrary, placement of “the surface” of this ice-giant.

    However, Doug’s muddled point is that the troposphere of the atmosphere of Uranus extends from 50 km above this surface to 300 km below it, and the base of this 350 km “height” of gas is warm – it is estimated to be 320 K.

    In short, the top of the Uranian troposphere is cold and the base is warm. Which is obvious, since otherwise there would be no TROPHOS.

    • Dr No says:

      Hi Dave,

      In other words, Doug can chose any level and temperature he likes ?
      Just goes to show what a slippery character he is.

      • dave says:

        “Doug can choose any level and temperature he likes?”

        Not really. His mudddled indication of the troposphere of Uranus is pretty standard. This layer contains clouds which can intercept infra-red. That, of course, is not how Doug thinks the lapse rate in any atmosphere is determined. But it is a fact that Uranus HAS a lapse rate in this layer.

        • Doug~Cotton says:

          dave

          The methane layer on Uranus is in the upper atmosphere. Yes, that is what does indeed absorb virtually all the incident solar radiation and, as a result, the temperature near the top of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus is maintained at a temperature of about 60K which corresponds with what I calculate it should be based on the distance being about 30 times further from the Sun than Earth. That methane layer anchors the temperatures for the whole planet, right down to the core. The temperature gradient in the troposphere has been measured in the upper regions of the troposphere and is close to what I calculated should be the expected gradient based on -g/cp where cp is the weighted mean specific heat of the gases. The thermal energy from the methane layer makes its way inwards towards the core by the process of entropy maximization, which is what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will tend to happen. A similar process happens on Earth where the main warming by the Sun takes place in the stratosphere from where thermal energy makes its way to the surface, crust and mantle.

          Is there anything else you’d like to know about temperatures and energy flows on any planet?

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            Considering Earth in more detail, as I said, most of the warming (that is, the raising of existing temperatures) that is done by the incident solar radiation takes place in the ozone layer in the stratosphere, much like happens in the methane layer on Uranus where it’s cold enough and the radiation is strong enough. Yes there will be some other warming of the tops of clouds that are colder than the effective temperature of the solar radiation that reaches them. This will happen around the middle of the day in summer for those clouds not in the shadow of higher clouds. Likewise, a very small portion of the Earth’s surface will have its temperature raised by the Sun at similar times, but in general the mean solar radiation is nowhere near sufficient to explain the mean surface temperature – not even within 50 degrees. Hansen realized this and assumed it must be radiation from the atmosphere supplying the rest. Well, the 324W/m^2 from the atmosphere would still be at least 60W/m^2 too little anyway because of the T^4 relationship in S-B, as explained in my other comments. But atmospheric radiation cannot transfer thermal energy from the atmosphere to a surface that has already been warmed each morning by the process of maximization of entropy explained at http://climate-change-theory.com and https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            And just to clarify a little more, if the Earth just had its ozone layer anchoring the temperatures in the troposphere and surface, much like the methane layer does for Uranus, and if the Earth had no water vapor or carbon dioxide etc, then the temperature gradient would be close to the calculated “dry” gradient based on g/cp just as is observed on Uranus. So, in fact, Uranus gives us a good indication (from measurements made by the passing Voyager 2) of the effect of gravity on temperature gradients, none of which has anything to do with any lapsing process, or any surface warmed by solar radiation, or rising air etc.

            Now, in that “dry” state (with just an ozone layer) Earth’s mean surface temperature would be a little over 300K, but that is not determined by direct solar radiation (that would not be enough even without clouds) but by the fact that a state of thermodynamic equilibrium (that is, maximum entropy) would tend to be approached as the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us will happen. To win the AU $10,000 you have to, in effect, disprove the Second Law and produce a study similar to mine, but showing warming due to increasing water vapor.

          • Doug~Cotton says:

            Now go to this comment.

        • Doug~Cotton says:

          Dave wrote “This layer contains clouds which can intercept infra-red.”

          Not quite right, dave. The temperature of the clouds will not be raised above the effective temperature of any radiation getting down that far. Very, very little does anyway. In short, no temperature of any clouds will be raised much above 80K, allowing for the fact that the radiation on the sunlit side is higher than the mean radiation that supports the mean effective temperature of the planet at about 59K. You still have a lot of explaining for temperatures of around 300K at the base of the troposphere, and up to about 5,000K further down. Until you understand entropy maximization you will never understand the energy transfer mechanism which maintains all such tropospheric temperatures and those of any solid surface in all such planets.

          I know I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make him think. I would however, suggest you watch the 43 minute video explanation linked here and get back when you have, because all those who have watched it (over 700) or visited and read my website (over 13,000) will realize that you haven’t.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        Go back to this comment Dr No and also read my reply to Jim D (on Judith Curry’s blog) that I have copied below, because your understanding of 21st century physics is pathetic.

        In any event, none of what you write about radiation is relevant to the process of entropy maximization which, as I have explain using verifiable physics, is what determines all temperatures in all tropospheres, surfaces, crusts and mantles of all planets. I can explain these temperatures and the necessary energy flows: you can’t.

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        What Doug “does” Dr No, is summarized in this excerpt.

    • Doug~Cotton says:

      The nominal troposphere of Uranus is explained here and I deliberately do not confuse people by talking about a “surface” which is imaginary.

      “The troposphere is the lowest and densest part of the atmosphere and is characterized by a decrease in temperature with altitude.[11] The temperature falls from about 320 K at the base of the nominal troposphere at −300 km to 53 K at 50 km.[67][70] The temperatures in the coldest upper region of the troposphere (the tropopause) actually vary in the range between 49 and 57 K depending on planetary latitude.[11][64] The tropopause region is responsible for the vast majority of Uranus’s thermal far infrared emissions, thus determining its effective temperature of 59.1 ± 0.3 K.[64][65]”

      Do you have trouble with elementary arithmetic, so that you apparently can’t work out the difference 50-(-300) = 350?

      • Doug~Cotton says:

        Note that the effective temperature (~59K) is that found quite close to the top of the Uranus troposphere. That’s why I say the temperatures for the troposphere (and those further towards the core also) are all “anchored” by the layers where the effective temperature is found, that temperature being set by the need for radiative balance with the Sun – which balance is very well maintained on Uranus, with no convincing evidence of significant energy loss at TOA.

        So what you have to think about is, how does the required thermal energy get down to that base at 320K (hotter than Earth’s surface) when it is clearly not solar radiation delivering the energy down there? (Their 320K is derived by extrapolation of measured values in the upper troposphere. I calculate the base temperature to be a little cooler, more like 290K, but the difference is irrelevant.)

        This is a critical question because there is no other valid answer than the “heat creep” process I have explained here and it happens in all planetary tropospheres including ours.

  77. bev says:

    Dr Spencer!

    Your blog is again being spoiled.

    Can not you filter it, and shunt “the usual suspects” elsewhere, perhaps to a thread entitled:

    “Not for readers of a nervous disposition”?

  78. springer says:

    all kidding aside wouldn’t it be great if ISIS blew the living shit out of COP21? it wouldn’t be the end of the warmunist conspiracy of course be I’d call it a good start

  79. springer says:

    re; lapse rate caused by greenhouse gases

    That’s not the stupidest thing I ever heard but coming from a science PhD it might be. There is a lapse rate in the atmosphere for the same reason there’s a geothermal gradient in the earth. The temperature declines as distance from the source of the heat increases.

    I can only guess it takes a PhD to somehow rationalize a wrong explanation of what a dog sleeping in front of a fireplace figures out by trial and error.

    Stupid is as stupid does.

  80. Doug~Cotton says:

    Jim D replied to my comment on Judith Curry’s blog saying …

    “It’s easier than you think. The atmospheric effective emissivity is about 0.6, so for a top emitted radiation of 240 W/m2 to balance the net solar incoming radiation, you need 390 W/m2 which corresponds to 288 K at the surface. 240/390 is about 0.6. QED.”

    My reply should also be read by Roy and others …

    You still don’t get it do you Jim D: As I have shown, because of the T^4 in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, the mean radiation would have to be about 460W/m^2 to support a mean temperature of 288K. Besides, the Sun doesn’t have enough time in the day – hence, although the top of Mt Everest receives about 1000W/m^2 at noon on a clear day around June 22, it does not get up to 90C.

    The Sun’s mean radiation of 168W/m^2 is like that of a nearby iceberg at 40 degrees below freezing. The mean radiation from the atmosphere of 324W/m^2 does not penetrate the ocean surface to any extent sufficient to have any influence on ocean temperatures, and it would not support a mean temperature above freezing point either. If its energy were converted to thermal energy then the first few nanometers would just boil and evaporate before they could warm anything. Even that doesn’t happen because every independent process in nature never causes entropy to decrease, so every one-way pencil of radiation cannot transfer thermal energy to a warmer target. No subsequent non-dependent radiation can excuse an initial decrease in entropy in a previous independent process. That’s correct physics, Jim D. No physics text tells you that you can add various radiative fluxes and use the total in Stefan Boltzmann calculations. You can’t. A thousand candles won’t boil a large pot of water.

    You don’t have sufficient understanding of entropy and thermodynamics, Jim D, as I can tell from my experience in helping undergraduates for about five decades now. That’s why you are gullible enough to believe that about 1% of water vapor raises the surface temperature by over 20 degrees, even though its radiation doesn’t enter the oceans. (LOL) You should deduce that rain forests are over 50 degrees hotter than dry regions at similar latitude and altitude. Water vapor cannot raise the surface temperature and, at the same time, reduce the temperature gradient because radiative balance with the Sun would be thrown way out. A planet’s surface is warmed by the process I have explained involving maximum entropy production.

  81. JohnKl says:

    Hi Dr. No,

    Correction, to prior post. It should read Komodo Drago Lizard.

    Hsve a great day!

  82. Best WhatsApp Marketing Company in Singapore
    Bulk WhatsApp Messaging Service Provider in Singapore
    Bulk WhatsApp Reseller in Singapore
    Bulk WhatsApp Sender Software in Singapore
    Bulk WhatsApp SMS Service Provider in Singapore
    Bulk WhatsApp Software Provider in Singapore
    Business Promotion on WhatsApp in Singapore
    Business Promotion via WhatsApp in Singapore
    Cheap Reseller WhatsApp SMS Service in Singapore
    Cheap WhatsApp Messaging in Singapore
    Instant Delivery WhatsApp Marketing in Singapore
    International Whatsapp Marketing in Singapore
    Lead Generation Tool WhatsApp in Singapore
    Lowest Cost WhatsApp Reseller SMS Service in Singapore
    Lowest Price Bulk WhatsApp Marketing Service in Singapore
    Lowest Price Bulk WhatsApp SMS in Singapore
    Sales And Marketing on WhatsApp in Singapore
    Top WhatsApp Marketing Service
    Web Based Bulk WhatsApp SMS in Singapore
    WhatsApp Digital Marketing
    WhatsApp Election Plan in Singapore
    WhatsApp Election Service in Singapore
    WhatsApp Marketing Services
    WhatsApp Marketing With India Number in Singapore
    WhatsApp Messaging Gateway Provider in Singapore
    WhatsApp Messaging Reseller Service
    WhatsApp Messaging Service Provider in Singapore
    WhatsApp Messaging System in Singapore
    WhatsApp Promotion Service in Singapore
    WhatsApp SMS Marketing Company in Singapore
    WhatsApp SMS Marketing Service in Singapore
    WhatsApp Videos Promotion in Singapore
    Whitelabel WhatsApp Reseller in Singapore
    Whitelabel WhatsApp SMS in Singapore
    Best Tool For WhatsApp Marketing in Singapore

  83. pracovn obuv says:

    Excellent website you have here but I was curious about if you
    knew of any message boards that cover the same
    topics talked about here? I’d really love to be a part
    of online community where I can get opinions from other experienced people that share the same interest.
    If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Kudos!

  84. Asking questions are truly pleasant thing if you are not understanding anything fully,
    except this article gives pleasant understanding yet.

Leave a Reply