Roger, off topic but I thought you might be interested; I am slogging my way through Project 2025 to see if it is as evil and demonic as Kamala Harris claims it to be. On page 469, the document advocates requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using RCP 8.5 for climate modeling.
When people in power do not like to hear different facts, the people in power are practicing some form of state sanctioned religion. I think the establishment clause should be against the millenarian climate cult types that are in our government, at every level.
The problem with terms such as misinformation and disinformation is that, in the final analysis, they are subjective. One person’s misinformation or disinformation is another person’s gospel truth. Any fact-checkers worth their salt can find ways to create chaos out of order in this way. For example:
“two plus two makes four”
This is obviously disinformation because there is no way that the letters in the words ‘two’ and ‘two’ can be rearranged to make the word ‘four’ Furthermore, the words ‘two’ and ‘two’ contain six letters altogether whereas the word ‘four’ contains only four letters.
The conventional representation of the numerical value two is II, so two plus two would presumably be represented as IIII, whereas four is represented as IV. Self-evidently, two plus two does not make four.
The combination of two items and a further two items depends on the nature of the items concerned. For example, two carbon atoms and two hydrogen atoms make a single acetylene molecule, not four.
"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins."
Your excerpt from your 2013 testimony includes the statement "The inability to detect and attribute changes in hurricanes, flood, tornadoes and drought doers not mean that human-caused climate change is not real or of concern".
As a relatively recent subscriber, I would welcome a future post setting out some of the ways climate is human caused, and to what extent, and why, that should be 'of concern'.
Climate change we experienced over the last 100 years is in part caused by our emissions, which alter the way the atmosphere behaves. If our eyes could detect long wave (infrared) radiation we would notice the atmosphere was a bit foggier (gas molecules would absorb a tiny bit more of infrared).
One issue nobody talks about is the fact that Earth has been cooling slightly ever since temperatures reached a peak about 9000 years ago. This cooling trend has been reversed in recent decades, and this tells me it's possible our CO2 emissions have delayed the onset of another ice age.
I realize some readers will deduce my hypothesis implies the Earth's response to CO2 concentration is on the high side, and they may be right. But I'm not worried much about it because temperature increases as a log function of CO2 concentration. I estimate that the fact that we are running out of fossil fuels means CO2 will peak at 600 to 700 ppm. And that peak will delay the glaciers for roughly 3 to 5 thousand years.
In conclusion, we need to worry more about: 1. stretching our fossil fuel resources, 2. adapting to climate change, 3. stop Washington's endless useless wars and 4. reducing the national debt.
Amazing that they exempt the government and not the opposition. Like they don't even feel the need to try very hard to justify this. You have to feel very comfortable about censorship to exempt only the ruling party
Roger, thank you for an excellent and very necessary article. However, I have a hard time reconciling your terrible experience with a (Democrat) White House advisor, who blatantly and purposefully misrepresented the findings of the IPCC, with your shockingly optimistic views of the willingness of Democratic presidents and presidential candidates to allow the oil and gas industry to continue unimpeded. Do you feel that from 2013 to present things have improved in this respect? Did you imagine in 2013 that only 11 years later many western countries would be on the verge of adopting legislation that would have made your testimony a crime?
The oil and gas industry shouldn't be allowed to "continue unimpeded". We need much stricter gas flaring and venting regulations, and key oil producing states should revive the old compact to restrain production and increase prices gradually. This will dampen the price and activity swings we experience today, help communities plan and adapt better to oil company activities, and increase state cash flow (part of which needs to be saved and invested for the time when the oil and gas are depleted).
My position has nothing to do with the Democrats' dumb opposition to the oil industry, I simply see that oil industry managers lack the ability to manage the system, and in a case like this the states should take the steering wheel, the accelerator, and the brake. Unfortunately the Republicans aren't much better when it comes to this issue.
Roger, I highly recommend Professor Jonathon Turley's book "The Indispensable Right" (subtitle; Free Speech in an Age of Rage"). Turley explains that even in the USA, First Amendment country, there are two views about the role of free speech in a democracy. The first Turley describes as "functional", the notion that free speech will produce better decisions in the body politic as long as it is bounded by rationality, and does no harm. Trouble is, the "as long as" quibbles produce loopholes for government to control, monitor and "curate" (Obama's word) information into channels of which it approves. All sorts of abuses devolve from this view. Turley excoriates Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote that free speech "stands no differently than freedom from vaccination." In the pandemic, Turley points out, free speech did become the same as vaccination-subject to the whim of the government.
The second view of free speech is as a natural, or autonomous right essential to personal liberty. Benjamin Cardozo wrote "freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." Louis Brandeis wrote that free speech is both "an end and a means."
Roger, off topic but I thought you might be interested; I am slogging my way through Project 2025 to see if it is as evil and demonic as Kamala Harris claims it to be. On page 469, the document advocates requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using RCP 8.5 for climate modeling.
And there is Malinformation. True information that is "used to mislead".
According to whom?
It’s a good thing Galileo got the word out before the “fact checkers” and consensus shut him down.
Well, remember, he ended up under house arrest because of the "fact checkers" of his day.
When people in power do not like to hear different facts, the people in power are practicing some form of state sanctioned religion. I think the establishment clause should be against the millenarian climate cult types that are in our government, at every level.
The problem with terms such as misinformation and disinformation is that, in the final analysis, they are subjective. One person’s misinformation or disinformation is another person’s gospel truth. Any fact-checkers worth their salt can find ways to create chaos out of order in this way. For example:
“two plus two makes four”
This is obviously disinformation because there is no way that the letters in the words ‘two’ and ‘two’ can be rearranged to make the word ‘four’ Furthermore, the words ‘two’ and ‘two’ contain six letters altogether whereas the word ‘four’ contains only four letters.
The conventional representation of the numerical value two is II, so two plus two would presumably be represented as IIII, whereas four is represented as IV. Self-evidently, two plus two does not make four.
The combination of two items and a further two items depends on the nature of the items concerned. For example, two carbon atoms and two hydrogen atoms make a single acetylene molecule, not four.
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
Be careful when you travel to Europe, they have already slouched halfway to 1984.
Ben Franklin:
"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins."
This is just a step, Roger. What they are really aiming for is “malinformation”, which is true facts that do not support the governing narrative.
Basically, everything you do here.
Whether you want to admit it or not, voting for these current USA democrats is a vote against what you do here.
I wish you the best because they truly hate you.
Every time I post a link to one of your fact based commentaries (malinformation) I get back a torrent of abuse regarding you, your provenance.
Not to mention how stupid I am to believe anything a denier like you posts.
I can’t imagine how abuse much you must see daily.
And yet you will vote for more of the same.
It’s all very strange to me.
Your excerpt from your 2013 testimony includes the statement "The inability to detect and attribute changes in hurricanes, flood, tornadoes and drought doers not mean that human-caused climate change is not real or of concern".
As a relatively recent subscriber, I would welcome a future post setting out some of the ways climate is human caused, and to what extent, and why, that should be 'of concern'.
Thanks and welcome! You can see how I make this case in Chapter 1 of The Climate Fix, which you can download here: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/thb-pro
Climate change we experienced over the last 100 years is in part caused by our emissions, which alter the way the atmosphere behaves. If our eyes could detect long wave (infrared) radiation we would notice the atmosphere was a bit foggier (gas molecules would absorb a tiny bit more of infrared).
One issue nobody talks about is the fact that Earth has been cooling slightly ever since temperatures reached a peak about 9000 years ago. This cooling trend has been reversed in recent decades, and this tells me it's possible our CO2 emissions have delayed the onset of another ice age.
I realize some readers will deduce my hypothesis implies the Earth's response to CO2 concentration is on the high side, and they may be right. But I'm not worried much about it because temperature increases as a log function of CO2 concentration. I estimate that the fact that we are running out of fossil fuels means CO2 will peak at 600 to 700 ppm. And that peak will delay the glaciers for roughly 3 to 5 thousand years.
In conclusion, we need to worry more about: 1. stretching our fossil fuel resources, 2. adapting to climate change, 3. stop Washington's endless useless wars and 4. reducing the national debt.
Amazing that they exempt the government and not the opposition. Like they don't even feel the need to try very hard to justify this. You have to feel very comfortable about censorship to exempt only the ruling party
Roger, thank you for an excellent and very necessary article. However, I have a hard time reconciling your terrible experience with a (Democrat) White House advisor, who blatantly and purposefully misrepresented the findings of the IPCC, with your shockingly optimistic views of the willingness of Democratic presidents and presidential candidates to allow the oil and gas industry to continue unimpeded. Do you feel that from 2013 to present things have improved in this respect? Did you imagine in 2013 that only 11 years later many western countries would be on the verge of adopting legislation that would have made your testimony a crime?
The oil and gas industry shouldn't be allowed to "continue unimpeded". We need much stricter gas flaring and venting regulations, and key oil producing states should revive the old compact to restrain production and increase prices gradually. This will dampen the price and activity swings we experience today, help communities plan and adapt better to oil company activities, and increase state cash flow (part of which needs to be saved and invested for the time when the oil and gas are depleted).
My position has nothing to do with the Democrats' dumb opposition to the oil industry, I simply see that oil industry managers lack the ability to manage the system, and in a case like this the states should take the steering wheel, the accelerator, and the brake. Unfortunately the Republicans aren't much better when it comes to this issue.
This
🎯
Ah, the left...
Similar things occuring in Canada. Turning the screws, bit by bit by bit. The same way as China slowly turned the screws in Hong Kong.
That will change with the next federal election when the Conservatives revoked that legislation and others.
They better
We need more brave people like you, Roger.
That's very kind
Synonyms might be dumb/stubborn ;-)
No. You have that rare conditiion called integrity. That is the one reason I follow you.
Roger, I highly recommend Professor Jonathon Turley's book "The Indispensable Right" (subtitle; Free Speech in an Age of Rage"). Turley explains that even in the USA, First Amendment country, there are two views about the role of free speech in a democracy. The first Turley describes as "functional", the notion that free speech will produce better decisions in the body politic as long as it is bounded by rationality, and does no harm. Trouble is, the "as long as" quibbles produce loopholes for government to control, monitor and "curate" (Obama's word) information into channels of which it approves. All sorts of abuses devolve from this view. Turley excoriates Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote that free speech "stands no differently than freedom from vaccination." In the pandemic, Turley points out, free speech did become the same as vaccination-subject to the whim of the government.
The second view of free speech is as a natural, or autonomous right essential to personal liberty. Benjamin Cardozo wrote "freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." Louis Brandeis wrote that free speech is both "an end and a means."
Personally, I vote for the latter.
Interesting, I will add to my list. Thank you!
Where is Dr Holdren today?
He is still at Harvard.
We hosted him at CU Boulder in 2012.
Of all the science advisors I hosted (from Kennedy through Obama - and later Trump), he is the only one who refused to do a public interview with me.
I'll resist the temptation to make any gratuitous comments about Harvard!
Holdren is a self-made enemy of humanity along with his mentor Ehrlich.