27 Comments

Mr. Pielke,

I not only subscribe to THB but also to Irrational Fear by Mr. Wielicki. One of his recent posts states “If natural variability and cloud feedbacks remain poorly understood, can we justify radical shifts in energy policy and economic structure based on models that may be oversimplifying or misrepresenting complex climate dynamics?” It would be interesting if you would address this and other ideas and inferences in that post. Thank you.

https://irrationalfear.substack.com/p/unsettled-science-are-we-really-measuring

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Roger, although not part of the class agenda, I would like to see a discussion on the effectiveness of proposed forms of CO2 mitigation: carbon tax/tax credits, carbon sequestration (biologic--forests/plants and geologic, and carbon capture and storage (CCS). I recently saw an article about direct air capture of CO2 by factories and the article makes some detailed claims of efficiency (157 factories equals CO2 capture of 3 billion trees). I had not even heard of this capability before, so I wonder if this is more smoke and mirrors: https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/Images/Climate/Unit-4/Vacuum-the-Sky?share=embed&fromlesson=true

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Paul, A nice idea. On direct air capture see my early paper on the economics:

https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2716-2009.03.pdf

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I like the idea of on line lectures/discussions but they need to be recorded to a medium like YouTube to enable viewing in one’s own time particularly for those in different time zones.

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Agreed

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Over at THB Chat (found on header bar of THB home page). I'm hosting an office hours right now on Module 1. Head over if interested.

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Thank you Roger for providing this opportunity!

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I just wanted to share a humble statement from Ryan Maue on his weather trader Substack today and remark on how refreshing it is to read something so honest.

“I am not complaining about the outcome, but our inability to forecast tropical cyclogenesis out of Atlantic monsoon trough is quite concerning. We have much work to do to understand what/why went wrong.”

If even one “settled science” individual (Piltdown?) could read this and have an epiphany it would be a miracle.

It reminded me of when I once referred to Roy Spencer and a typical alarmist suggested he wasn’t much of a scientist and posted a link to an interview where Spencer re-iterated what he thought the science showed but then he went ahead and admitted that he could be wrong.

So admitting he could be wrong was a clear sign he wasn’t a real scientist, because we all know real scientists are never wrong!!!

I sprained my eyes rolling them at such a ridiculous comment.

🙄

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Roger, great idea and please compile a précis of the listeners comments during such an undertaking and post that précis, for each and all such episodes.

The aim of such an exercise must be to again re-direct the MSM to cease and desist from their scaremongering support of all those pessimistic Climate Alarmists doomster utterances that spread nothing but anxiety and fear, and to have five précis' to hand, would be such great data to help this to happen

.

For this has to happen before we might even start to be able to return to some sensibility to all this divisive, fearmongering propaganda concerning the fluctuations in the weather of the planet whose climate does indeed change and has done so over millennia, all-be-it in a normal and unpredictable but cyclical pattern. 😐

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Fantastic idea Roger - looking forward to it!

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Well done Professor!

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Comment just received by email:

"welcome (indeed, invite) experts who think I have gotten things wrong or incomplete" -- doesn't mean much when one must pay to comment, eh?

--

Dr. A. Cannara

Menlo Park, CA

-------------------------------------------------------------

My response:

Hi Dr. Cannara,

If you’d like to share some comments with me I will be happy to post them at THB and also publicly on my Twitter feed.

Please have at it, thanks,

Roger

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No reply to my response, for the record.

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I remember being introduced to the concept of climate as a "wicked problem" by Judith Curry many years ago. Curry was, in part, pushing back on the "settled science" narrative of Al Gore and others. The mainstream media promoted the settled science narrative, and has used it to justify their rejection of analysis or interpretation that departs from the settled science "CO2 is the control knob" and "climate crises" memes. I truly hope that Roger's invitation to "experts who think I have gotten things wrong or incomplete" results in some thoughtful back and forth.

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I too hope to see some back and forth from many different perspectives. The written word gives those setting forth ideas or arguments more time to build constructive statements than we would see on cables news, Twitter, etc.

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Roger, what a great resource you’ve put together, thank you. I recently retired from a 40 yr broadcast career and decided to audit a climate class at nearby University to see what students are being taught. Your insights should provide much fodder for debate. Thanks !

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....see comment above.

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Great idea, and good luck.

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Thanks Roger - great idea. How about a more in-depth view of the US governments "social cost of carbon" along with any analysis that is out there that estimates the "social benefit of carbon". More generally, what does the cost-benefit ratio look like for various climate policies when applied holistically across environmental, economic, reliability & national security lenses?

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And what the point of calculating it is said to be...

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Will there be quizzes? homework? final class paper? can we use this as "continuing ed" credits for PE registration?

This is an old man's dream!!! The chance to go back to school and learn something useful! Thank you.

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Thank you Roger. Some exploration of how climate change is taught K-12 would be welcome.

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That’s easy

“We’re all going to die”.

And that is one of the more nuanced positions.

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