Schooling Steve Goreham

"Refudiate, misunderestimate, wee-wee'd up. English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!" - Sarah Palin responds to criticism for inventing the word "refudiate", by proudly mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius, July 18, 2010.

Last week, I posted comments that were critical of author Steve Goreham and his definition for the term climatism; a term coined by Goreham. In my post, I called Goreham's definition a strawman, and stated that that alone was sufficient reason to dismiss without further comment his first book Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century's Hottest Topic. Goreham took issue with my characterization of his definition, so in an attempt to defend it, he stopped by this blog and left a comment. The comment wasn't much of an argument though, as it consisted of 7 quotes that Goreham had extracted from speeches made by various public figures. Presumably, Goreham hoped to demonstrate with those quotes the existence of individuals who fit his definition of climatism, which could only mean that my characterization was wrong.

But that's not how things played out.

Here is Steve's quote in it's entirety, the emphasis included is mine:

Regarding the definition of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth's climate, see the following quotes from Al Gore, James Hansen, Tim Flannery, Jonathan Overpeck, Joseph Romm, and Evo Morales. They talk about destroying the climate, the Earth, civilization, coastal cities, cultures, and nations from man-made climate change. As you can see, "destroy" is a favorite word of those supporting the theory of catastrophic man-made warming.

"We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home--Earth--is in danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings." --Al Gore, statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jan. 28, 2009

"We the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency--a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential...the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising...indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself." -- Al Gore, Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 2007

"Burning all the fossil fuels will destroy the planet we know, Creation, the planet of stable climate in which civilization developed." --Dr James Hansen, letter to Barack and Michelle Obama, Dec. 29, 2008

"One problem facing humanity is now so urgent that, unless it is resolved in the next two decades, it will destroy our global civilization: the climate crisis." --Dr Tim Flannery, Now or Never. Why We Must Act to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future, 2009, p.14

"The consequences would be catastrophic. Even with a small sea-level rise, we're going to destroy whole nations and their cultures that have existed for thousands of years." --Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, National Geographic News, Apr. 26, 2004

"Protecting dozens of major coastal cities from future flooding will be challenging enough--rebuilding major coastal cities destroyed by super-hurricanes will be an almost impossible task." --Joseph Romm, Hell and High Water: Global Warming--theSolution and the Politics--and What We Should Do, 2007, p.90

"Capitalism and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are destroying the planet...Climate change has placed all humankind before a great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life." --Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Nov. 28, 2008

Cheers!

While reading Steve's quotes, two things occurred to me:

First, all of the quotes use variations of the word destroy, but none speak to the destruction of the Earth's climate. Not a single one. Steve obviously sees things that just aren't there.

Second, Steve claims to be a full time researcher; a claim which carries with it all that is implied by those who conduct research, including the assumption that said researcher accounts for the full body of evidence, not just those things that reinforce their preconceived notions. Yet, here he is, thinking that a single quote from one speech on one specific date can be used to establish belief, even when the quote is only peripherally related. And this guy wants to sell books based on his research? Pathetic.

Obviously, Steve had taken his best shot, and he couldn't produce a solitary example of a person expressing a belief that man-made greenhouse gases would destroy the Earth's climate. So I replied to Steve's comment, explaining that his group of quotes had failed to justify his definition, to which he replied with the following:

I recommend that you re-read those quotes again. One of the quotes by Gore was in testimony to the United States Senate. The quote by Dr. James Hansen was in a letter to President Obama. I don't hink either person was kidding. One of the marks of a Climatist is that, when  evidence is presented, they are unable to admit when they are wrong.

Cheers!

I'm not sure which made me laugh more; the fact that Steve considers his quotes to be convincing evidence for his claim, or his newly expanded definition for climatism that includes anyone who disagrees with him, even when he's demonstrably wrong. So I replied again with the following:

Hansen and Gore are not referring to the destruction of the Earth's climate, they are referring to the destruction of the climatic conditions that we as humans are used to, and that are hospitable to us. Those are different things Steve, re-reading the quotes doesn't change that fact. Of course, there is a way to settle this bit of disagreement. If you redefine the term climatism so that it describes the position of real flesh and blood people, I'll have no choice but to quit referring to it as a strawman. Let me know if that is a satisfactory proposal Steve.

No word back from Steve yet regarding my proposal.

Local Conservative Voice Hosts a Merchant of Doubt - Part I

"Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' [linking smoking with disease] that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."  - Statement contained in a 1969 internal memo of American tobacco company Brown and Williamson.

On December 2nd, I was tipped off by the host of The Morning Rush - a local radio show - that author Steve Goreham would be appearing on the show the following day. The radio station, Cities 92.9, which identifies itself as the "news and talk of Bloomington Normal", is one that I listen to regularly, although I prefer to call it the news and misinformation of Bloomington Normal, primarily because of the misinformation it dishes out during talk segments, particularly when those segments deal with science.

Robert Rees, the host of The Morning Rush, provided me with the tip about the interview during an email exchange we were having about global warming. Robert had made some rather dubious claims on-air a couple weeks prior, and I had contacted him via email to give him the opportunity to clarify his position prior to criticizing those claims online. Like I said, my email to Robert was about claims he had made about global warming, which had nothing to do with Steve Goreham. It was only after Robert suggested that I might be interested in the Steve Goreham interview the following day, that Steve Goreham became a topic in our discussion. Prior to Robert bringing him up, I had never heard of the guy, and had no knowledge of a prior interview with him in the past, or that he had an impending interview with him the following day. These facts are important to remember because of some statements Robert made the following day while interviewing Steve Goreham. I'll address those statements later in this piece, as they provide a glimpse into the psyche of a guy who by all reasonable standards, plays very loosely with facts.

After Robert tipped me off about the interview, I decided to see what I could find out about Steve Goreham on line. Robert had stated that Steve Goreham was the author of a book called Climatism, which sounded vaguely familiar to me. After doing a basic google search, and finding the web page for Climatism, I realized why. I had touched on this book briefly in a prior piece that was critical of Robert's resources. In fact, I had dismissed the book as rubbish based solely on the author's own definition of the term climatism, which he describes as follows:

"The belief that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying Earth's climate."

Why did I dismiss the book because of this description? Because it is a strawman. No one who knows anything about the science behind global warming believes that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying Earth's climate. What they believe is that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are changing the Earth's climate, at a rate unparalleled by historical natural means, a belief by the way that is supported by empirical evidence. Goreham's use of the term destroy, rather than change, shows he's either intellectually dishonest, or ignorant, neither of which entices me, or should entice anyone for that matter, to read his book. Call me odd, but I like my science with a heavy dose of honesty.

And of course, there's more, much more.

Steve Goreham has a M.S. in Electrical Engineering, and a MBA, both of which help in the argument that Steve Goreham is no dummy, but oddly enough, he has no credentials related to climate science. Of course, that doesn't disqualify him from having an opinion on the matter, after all, I don't have any credentials related to climate science either. But I don't publish books on the subject, and travel the countryside giving talks where I'm introduced as a climate expert, as Steve Goreham often is.

Many of Steve Goreham's speaking engagements are hosted by the Heartland Institute, an organization that receives millions from Exxon Mobile and the Koch brothers, both of whom have a financial interest in stalling or stopping regulations related to CO2. To get a feel for the type of organization that the Heartland Institute is, one need look no further than their recent billboard campaign. From the Wikipedia description:

"On May 4, 2012, the institute launched a digital billboard ad campaign in the Chicago area featuring a photo of Ted Kaczynski, (the "Unabomber" whose mail bombs killed three people and injured 23 others), and asking the question, "I still believe in global warming, do you? The institute planned for the campaign to feature murderer Charles Manson, communist leader Fidel Castro and perhaps Osama bin Laden, asking the same question."

There was a silver lining to the billboard campaign however, because of it, Heartland lost a significant number of corporate donors, and with that, significant funding. What they didn't lose was a guy named Steve Goreham, who appeared later that same month to speak at the Heartland Institute's 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). That alone speaks volumes about Steve Goreham.

So there I sat with the knowledge that Steve Goreham, the author of Climatism, and good friend of the Heartland Institute, was going to be sitting down to an interview the following day with our own local science denier, Robert Rees. I wanted badly to ask Steve Goreham a question, but I knew I'd be at work during the interview, and Robert probably wouldn't take calls anyway, as I'd never heard him take calls during an interview before. So, I sat down, and I composed a question that I wanted to hear Steve answer, and I emailed it to Robert. To my surprise, Robert asked my question. The question and answer are interesting, and I will address those soon enough, but what I want to address now is how Robert presented my question.

As I pointed out in the second paragraph above, I had never heard of Steve Goreham prior to Robert's email, and my question was composed and emailed back that same night, which was the night before the interview. Here's how Robert introduced my question:

Well, let me uh, let me start right off here because you are the, I said you're the director of Climate Science Coalition of America, and I had uh some people email me after the last time I had you on, and I want to kind of go back to some of their, some of their stuff, cause I had some, I don't know I'd call them attacks or whatever. I figured hey, let's go ahead and put it out here so I'm not being totally biased, even though I, I think these are a bunch of crazy whackos, I call them Earth lickers by the way, I think I told you that before, the uh, climate alarmists.

Did you catch that? Robert started the interview by lying to his guest.

He insinuated that my question was the result of a previous interview with Steve Goreham, and that he'd been hanging onto it ever since. He could have told Mr. Goreham that he and I were discussing climate change the night before, that Mr. Goreham's interview the following day came up, and that I had requested that he ask Mr. Goreham a question, after all, that would have been truthful. But he didn't do that, instead he chose to lie. Why lying came easier than telling the truth is anyone's guess, although, it could be that the inhabitants of Planet Robert just don't care much about the truth.

In Part II of this series, I'll post the question I emailed to Robert, along with Steve Goreham's answer. I think you'll find as I did that Steve does a wonderful job in the interview of exposing himself, not as an expert in the science of climate, but as an expert in the art of obfuscation.

Steve Goreham is no dummy, he knows that his craft is very profitable when put into the service of peddling doubt.

Oh look, there goes Steve now.

Yes You Did!

Hey Mitt, see that smoldering debris field that was once your campaign?

 You built that!

Very well done sir. Now, please go stand behind Miss Palin in the losers bracket. She's been holding your spot for about 4 years now.



And to you Barack Hussein Obama...

Congratulations!!!!

Today's GOP

Ummm, Nevermind

Tea Party Wisdom with Rand Paul

On this historic day in which the Supreme Court affirmed that Obamacare is in fact constitutional, we get this gem from the Department of the Dumbest Politicians Ever to be Elected to Public Office:

"Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'Constitutional' does not make it so" -Rand Paul

Local Conservative Voice, Questionable Conservative Resources

"I disagree with these experts, somebody has got to stand up to experts"
- Don Mcleroy, Republican Chair of the Texas State Board of Education

Robert Rees

In my last post, I was critical of Cities 92.9 Morning Rush host Robert Rees, for making some pretty silly claims about global warming, and for passing off as fact a Daily Mail headline which was intentionally written to misinform people about climate science. That tabloid article, which used to be located at this link, has since been deleted from the Daily Mail's website, which belies Robert's claim that it would be liberals who would be guilty of covering that story up.

The good news regarding this bit of dishonesty - by a conservative resource no less - is that it provides Robert with an opportunity to prove he was being sincere when he voiced concern over the handling of that story. The story was clearly handled dishonestly, albeit not from the people Robert preemptively accused, and if the presumption of dishonesty warranted mentioning on his show, then I would think that actual dishonesty would warrant a mention. I haven't heard Robert issue a correction to this story yet, but I'm holding out hope that Robert believes in correcting misinformation that he's been duped into passing along to the general public, even if it comes from a conservative resource.

To Robert's credit, he has responded to my criticism. In his response, Robert insisted that he never tries to deceive anyone, and honestly, I believe him. However, his audience has been deceived, and Robert played a role in that deception. This could very easily have been avoided had Robert been more discerning with his choice of resources, after all, evidence of dishonesty was right there in the article, and this wouldn't be the first time the Daily Mail was involved in deception over global warming.

And speaking of deceptive resources, I've reviewed the web sites that Robert provided in his response to me; web sites that Robert claims support some of his commentary. And after reviewing them, I've come to the conclusion that the term support takes on a completely different meaning to Robert than it does to me. When I claim that my arguments are supported, I generally mean that they are supported by primary sources. By primary sources, I mean that if I talk about NASA data, or NASA studies, I ought to be able to refer someone directly to information provided by NASA, such as on NASA's website. I certainly wouldn't dream of referring anyone to a website called globalwarminglies, and then think that I've provided an unbiased, reliable resource for anything. But that's exactly what Robert did, and I'm not kidding, one of the web sites he referred me to is actually called globalwarminglies. I didn't know I could type while facepalming (TWF), but this paragraph is proof that I can.

What follows is a critique of each of the sources provided by Robert:

The first of Robert's links I looked at is to a site called C3 Headlines. The linked page contains the following heading and sub heading:

Greenhouse Gas Facts: Official NASA Temp Data Indicates Less Than A 1 Degree Increase By End of Century

The actual greenhouse gas facts are considered to be weak evidence of catastrophic global warming hypothesis by the vast majority of scientists - latest NASA-GISS empirical information confirms why

And it includes the following graph:

The graph combines both temperature and CO2 levels over a 15 year period starting in April, 1997, through March, 2012, using data from NASA GISS and NOAA. In the yellow box at the base of the graph is the following claim:

"Over the last 15 years, the facts indicate CO2 has little impact on global temperatures."

So the basic argument here, is that since CO2 trends upward over the 15 years, but temperatures seem to be leveling off, and possibly decreasing somewhat in the same period, then we can conclude that the two are not trending together, and therefore CO2 has nothing to do with atmospheric temperature. Seems somewhat convincing at first glance, but then, not so much after looking at the bigger picture.

If you look at the raw data, which I linked to above, you'll notice that the temperature data goes back to 1880, which begs the question; why did the authors of C3 Headlines only graph and display the last 15 years? And the answer to that is simple; graphing the temperature all the way back to 1880 paints a completely different picture than the one being presented here. Take a look and see for yourself, that same temperature data graphed back to 1880 looks like this:

This graph is presented courtesy of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is one of the primary sources for the data used by C3 Headlines to make their graph. What this graph shows is the global mean temperature for the period 1880, through 2011. Keep in mind that the C3 Headlines graph only covers the very rightmost portion of this graph, which shows that temperatures have been on the increase since 1880. Yes there are short term fluctuations that trend toward cooling, but the overall trend is one of temperatures increasing, just as the volume of atmospheric CO2 has increased over that same time period. What C3 Headlines did was select only that data from the sample that makes it look like CO2 and temperature are not trending together, when a complete graphing of the data would have shown that they do. This tactic is called cherry picking, which is the act of selectively using data to misrepresent what the data really says. It's a dishonest tactic, and it's sole purpose is to mislead.

There's another section on the C3 Headlines page that deserves attention, and a facepalm. At the bottom of the page is what appears to be two predictions based on the 15 year graph:

Conclusion: Greenhouse gas facts continue to be very weak empirical evidence of catastrophic CO2-induced global warming as hypothesized by the UN's IPCC and its assocated "scientists."

- Last 15 years (thru March) global temperature trend: +0.77 degree increase by 2100

- Last 10 years (thru March) global temperature trend: +0.07 degree increase by 2100

 Yes, you read that correctly. C3 Headlines found their 15 years of cherry picked data compelling enough to use it as the sole predictor for global temperatures some 88 years into the future. And this is a site the Local Conservative voice recommends for information regarding climate science? Ouch.

The second of Robert's links was to a site called Personal Liberty Digest. The linked page contains the following headline:

NASA data proves global warming computer models wrong

The article references a science paper called "On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance" that was published in July of 2011, by science journal, Remote Sensing.

So what was the gist of this paper? Well, it brought into question the accuracy of climate modeling, by claiming the models get the energy balance wrong, and make predictions that lean too warm. What you don't get from reading the article that Robert linked to though, is what the late great Paul Harvey used to refer to as "the rest of the story".

You see, it turns out that about 2 months after that paper was published, another paper appeared in the very same journal with the following title "Taking Responsibility on Publishing the Controversial Paper - On the Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedbacks from Variations in Earth's Radiant Energy Balance." This paper was published by the journal's editor, Wolfgang Wagner, who acknowledged that the climate paper had not been properly peer reviewed, and that it should not have been published in the first place. He then resigned his position.

Here are some key quotes that come from his editorial.

About exaggerations made in the media:

With this step, I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements, e.g., in a press release of the University of Alabama in Huntsville from 27 July 2011, the main author's personal homepage, the story "New NASA data blow gaping hole in global warming alarmism" published by Forbes, and the story "Does NASA data show global warming lost in space?" published by Fox News, to name just a few.

Why the paper was flawed:

So Why, after a more careful study of the pro and contra arguments, have I changed my initial view? The problem is that comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted in open discussions and to some extend also in the literature, a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers.

So while Robert likes to refer to this particular resource to claim that climate models are wrong, it's very clear that the resource doesn't have any substance behind it.

The next link I looked at was to a site I referenced previously called Global Warming Lies. The linked page contains the following statement across the top:

"There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere or disruption of the Earth's climate"

Which is followed by a reference to the Oregon Petition Project, which is a document that boasts signatures from over 32,000 scientists who agree with a statement similar to the one on the top of the web site.

I wasn't at all surprised to see a reference to the Oregon Petition on one of Robert's resource pages. I'm familiar with it, as I've looked into it before. It's basically a petition that climate skeptics can put there name on if they agree with the statement, and if they qualify as a scientist. And with 32,000 signatures, it does seem very impressive, that is, until you look at the big picture. It turns out that there are around  13 million people who fit the qualification, so in that context, 32,000 is a very small number. Scientific American wrote about the petition back in 2006. Here's a small taste:

Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold Ph.D. in a climate - related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition - one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers - a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.

And here's a terrific video about the petition:

So, I've barely looked at this resource and already I'm unimpressed.

The rest of the page doesn't get much better, as it's dedicated almost entirely to the idea that CO2 is good, no matter the concentration. In fact, Robert makes that argument on his show all the time, claiming that CO2 isn't harmful because it's good for plants. Nobody denies this, so that particular argument is a complete waste of energy. The issue is how concentrations of CO2 effect temperature, and that link is well established in the scientific literature.

The last of Robert's links is to a web site that promotes a book called Climatism. The term is defined on the web site as "the belief that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are destroying Earth's climate".

I spend a lot of time reading about various scientific topics, including climate change, and I've never heard or read of a climate change believer who thinks that man-made greenhouse gas emissions would or could destroy Earth's climate. If that's the starting point of this book, then it appears to be one giant strawman argument. There are plenty of those on the internet, I wouldn't dream of wasting my time with one in book form.

That's all the time I'm going to spend on these sources. Support for Robert's rant was nowhere to be found, but then, that's what I expected.