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[Edited January 2 2019 -- to remove or replace dead visual-links] Long ago Jonathan and I got some good traction out of a tangle of issues related to Global Warming slash Climate Change. I think we are slated to renew or refresh our earlier exchanges. I am going to poke in links to some he-said/he-saids from a few different threads at different times. One feature of the updated software is an automated 'sampling' of a link posted raw. See below. So this blog entry will be kind of administrative-technical while being built and edited. I haven't figured out if Jonathan and I should impose some 'rules' going in, so your comment may be subject to arbitrary deletion before the field is ready for play. Fan notes included. Adam, see what you think of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, especially the revealing map-based representations of opinion. You can drill and zoom down to state, county, district level to track data across a number of survey questions, where some of the answers are surprising. On some measures at least, the thing it is not found only in the UK, Quebec, Canada: Here's a snapshot of several maps which do not always show an expected Red State/Blue State pattern; [images updated January 2 2019; click and go images] [Deleted image-link] Edited 4 May 2015 by william.scherk Plug my How To Get Where I Got book of books, Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming. Insert link to Amazon, Library link, and to the intro chapter of Weart's companion website to the book. Make sure you include a link to Ellen's mention of a book review. Bob Kolker's June 3 comment is a good hinge. What do we (J and I) think we know about the mechanism Bob sketches? What can we 'stipulate' or what can we agree on, for the sake of argument?

Peer Reviewed -- Penises Cause Climate Change You can't make this up. A couple of hoaxers got a gobbledygook article published in a peer reviewed science publication called Cogent Social Sciences using the Postmodern Generator (a gibberish randomizer program) and editing to make sure they used pro-feminist anti-male academic jargon. ( Apropos, just keep refreshing the page of the Postmodern Generator and a new randomized BS article pops up each time. ) The name of the study is: “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct.” Here's a Breitbart article by James Delingpole about the hoax (May 20, 2017). DELINGPOLE: ‘Penises Cause Climate Change’; Progressives Fooled by Peer-Reviewed Hoax Study From the article: Here is the original article Delingpole is reporting on: The Conceptual Penis As A Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies by Peter Boghossian, Ed.D. (aka Peter Boyle, Ed.D.) and James Lindsay, Ph.D. (aka, Jamie Lindsay, Ph.D.). I swear, I'm holding back a belly-laugh... LOLOLOLOL... Michael

In case people haven't been paying attention, Michael Mann, the guy with the global warming hockey stick end-of-the-world graph has been suing all of his critics in order to try to shut them up. Anyway, there is an interesting and as always funny column by Mark Steyn about the lawsuits. There is also an interesting column by Robert Tracinski about how global warming is turning into a pseudo science. I also found it interesting that one of my favorite conservative authors was quoting one of my favorite Objectivist authors. It's probably happened before, but this is the first time I've seen it. Darrell

Now you just knew that they would come up with this "explanation, didn't you! 1/7/2014 |By Eric Holthaus, The Atlantic Cities How global warming can make cold snaps even worseThe cold air pushing toward America's heartland is of a duration and magnitude rarely seen since record-keeping began in the 1870s. In Minneapolis, forecasters warned that all-time wind chill records could be broken, with a stunning -65ºF predicted for Monday morning. MSN Weather: Check your local forecastAs the record-setting cold spreads across the US, brace yourself for this conversation: Your friend: "Sure is cold outside, amirite? Minneapolis is as cold as Mars right now. Crazy, huh? So much for that whole global warming thing, eh?" You: "Well..." In fact, despite the trolling of Donald Trump and other climate change deniers, global warming is probably contributing to the record cold, as counter-intuitive as that may seem. The key factor is a feedback mechanism of climate change known as Arctic amplification. Here's how to explain the nuts and bolts of it to your under-informed family and friends: Snow and ice are disappearing from the Arctic region at unprecedented rates, leaving behind relatively warmer open water, which is much less reflective to incoming sunlight than ice. That, among other factors, is causing the northern polar region of our planet to warm at a faster rate than the rest of the northern hemisphere. (And, just to state the obvious, global warming describes a global trend toward warmer temperatures, which doesn't preclude occasional cold-weather extremes.) Since the difference in temperature between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes helps drive the jet stream (which, in turn, drives most US weather patterns), if that temperature difference decreases, it stands to reason that the jet stream's winds will slow down. Why does this matter? Well, atmospheric theory predicts that a slower jet stream will produce wavier and more sluggish weather patterns, in turn leading to more frequent extreme weather. And, turns out, that's exactly what we've been seeing in recent years. Superstorm Sandy's uncharacteristic left hook into the New Jersey coast in 2012 was one such example of an extremely anomalous jet stream blocking pattern. When these exceptionally wavy jet stream patterns occur mid-winter, it's a recipe for cold air to get sucked southwards. This week, that's Climate scientiest Jennifer A. Francis of Rutgers University explains this process in a short video (h/t Climate Progress). This effect has already been measured with mid-level atmospheric winds in the northern hemisphere decreasing by around 10% since 1990. Not-so-coincidentally, that's about the same time when Arctic sea ice extent really started to crash. The solid line is average west-to-east wind speeds midway up the atmosphere; the dashed line is Arctic sea ice extent. The solid line is average west-to-east wind speeds midway up the atmosphere; the dashed line is Arctic sea ice extent. Skeptical Science (the 'Snopes' of climate science) has a comprehensive explainer on Arctic amplification and the jet stream, for those that want to dig deeper on the subject. And, as a PSA, is a great-go to resource when situations like this arise.

Is Dr. Robert Stadler alive and working, - no, shilling,- for NASA?? In a hurry to justify their grants and their resultant jobs, NASA "scientists" have issued the following report. (total ignoring their - or other global warming alarmists' - earlier near-hysterical reports that the "Antarctic Ice Shelf is thinning due to global warming, - and could break-off at any minute! ).featured on AOL and probably the Huffington Report (seeing that they are the same people): http://www.aol.com/article/2014/10/08/antarctic-sea-ice-hits-an-all-time-high-nasa-blames-global-warming/20974708/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl7|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D542513 No, really!

From an MSNBC summary of Obama's second inaugural address: Earlier in the address he reiterated a theme from his 2009 inaugural address, urging Congress to take steps to remedy the effects of catastrophic weather events and global climate change. “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” he said. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.” Applauding this part of the speech, Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “This is a call to action against the climate chaos that is sweeping our nation and threatening our future. Now it's time to act. Power plants are our single largest source of carbon pollution. We must cut that pollution.” As I said, Get out your candles.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/19/professor-fired-after-expressing-climate-change-skepticism/ As I am opposed to government funded education and government funded science - with the possible exception of military related education and science - I can only express no surprise that someone might be fired over expressing Climate Change skepticism. We can't be sure what this was all about since the side that knows for sure isn't talking. There are lots of politics in academia. One thing we can sure of - had the topic been politically correct from the other side the hounds of the PC media would be all over it. Dennis