Bishop Hill Chutzpah of the day
Mar 12, 2011 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Tamino has written an article about Josh, criticising his Paul Nurse cartoon. He fully admits that Josh is correct, but apparently he's a bad man for mentioning it. I can only describe this argument as, well, Taminoesque.
Those who deny the reality, human cause, or danger of global warming, don’t always tell outright lies. One of their common tactics is to say what’s technically true, but is also irrelevant, misleading, or more often, both.
This is a remarkable thing to say, when one remembers Tamino's outrageous quoting out of context in his RealClimate article on the Hockey Stick Illusion. I'm not sure why it was OK for the Horizon programme to say incorrect things about the relative size of human and natural CO2 emissions while correcting these errors was blameworthy in some way. If the ratio is irrelevant and misleading when Josh puts it in a cartoon, why is it not equally irrelevant when Dr Bindschadler speaks about it?
Reader Comments (131)
Tamino checked my cartoon! Cool.
Tamino states this:
Although our CO2 emissions are only a small part (about 3%) of the total flow into the atmosphere, they account for ALL of the excess.
(My emphasis)
Therefore, by implication., the carbon cycle was in perfect equilibrium before we started burning fossil fuels.
The evidence for this is what, exactly?
Josh, just shows how on target your efforts are, praise indeed and a major admission that they are hurting the cause.
Put Tamino's comment about misleading truths together with the continued defence of the HOckey Stick by RC and the mainstream in general, and you have George Orwell's "Blackwhite":
“ ...this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink."
Truth is false; lies are true. How very revealing.
The lane is very dirty,
My shoes are very thin.
I've got a little pocket,
To put a meaning in.
A word from you,
If it were true,
A fit so neat;
Give me a clue.
=================
Tamino doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who has a sense of humour anyway.
The truth is misleading........... to the cause!
Just about sums it up really!
I had a look at the Tamino article. He has an absolutely wonderful hockey stick graph where he has spliced instrumental records from Mauna Kea onto ice core measurements. It's priceless!
Tamino makes the term 'Denier' an irony rather than an epithet. Josh is in excellent company, as cartoonists have very a long and proud tradition of making visual versions of truths that wound the untruthful by reducing said untruthful and their untruths to objects of general laughter and derision.
I am reminded of the terrible tactical error Sir Robert Mulddon, a former New Zealand prime minister, made some years ago when he banned Tom Scott, a nationally popular cartoonist, from the Parliamentary Press gallery, for doing what cartoonists do and doing it to maximum effect. The tactic hurt Muldoon in the eyes of the public far more than it hurt Tom Scott.
Tamino's outburst has proved again just how powerful the works of an excellent cartoonist such as Josh can be. Josh has obviously wounded Tamino!
Blimmey Josh now look what you've done! Is it too late to get it added as front cover of AR5?
Silly me it’s never too late to add anything to an IPCC Assessment Report.
Congratulations Josh! True fame!
Go Josh! Carry on the fine tradition of upsetting the establishment with a fine pen and sharp wit!
As for dishonesty, I agree with andyscrase that Tamino's claim that our emissions count for all the increase is far more dishonest.
So you can only imagine what a kick in the jewels the Romm cartoon must have been.
They don`t like it up `em Mr Mainwearing!
Josh, when will the Tamino doublespeak cartoon be ready?
i didn't understand why the quote from book was out of context. you did claim (or suggest), bish, that the absence of the MWP in the graph depended on those 2 series? and did it?
[BH adds: The claim that the absence of a MWP was due to leaving out a small subset of the database was Mann's. He identified one of these as Stahle, but later withdrew this claim. Tamino has tried to use my quotation of Mann's original incorrect claim that Stahle was "key" as evidence that I was wrong!]
There must be something about Tamino aka Grant Foster? aka Hansen's Bulldog? that causes either natural or anthropogenic mirthing, or both.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/we-can-all-retire-now-tamino-has-everything-under-control/
So I fully anticipate Josh will rise to the occasion with this new, golden, opportunity.
Tamino opines that the cartoon it is "irrelevant". So irrelevant, in fact, that he felt compelled to write a whole piece about it!
I notice he didn't reproduce the whole cartoon, either...
"Grant Foster"
If it's any help, I seem to recall that 'Foster Grants' were a much publicised brand of (poseurish) sunglasses a while back.
Josh-Tamino-Mr,Mainwearing, now there's a hot coctail brewing...
Mar 12, 2011 at 9:15 AM | andyscrase:
"...Therefore, by implication., the carbon cycle was in perfect equilibrium before we started burning fossil fuels.
The evidence for this is what, exactly?"
That's an easy one to answer Andy, viz.
There's a little gremlin up in the atmosphere who counts and checks the CO2 molecules;
mmmm let me see - CO2 from decaying leaves - that's OK
Aha - CO2 from fossil fuels - GLOBAL WARMING
Seemples!
This is wonderful really. It shows someone who is unwilling to address the points made, attempt to brush them away and ignore them.
Who says it's irrelevant or misleading? Oh Tamino does so it must be true.
As an aside how long do you think the greenies will wait before using the explosion at the nuclear plant in Japan to abuse those who favour nuclear energy?
I like the way Tamino counters the Sir Paul cartoon ... with a carbon cyle cartoon.
Excellent, Josh!
So your cartoon made Tamino come out with a new argument against sceptics:
what they say is true, but it's only a technical truth, and can therefore in no way be taken seriously by believers who discern truthiness with their feelings ...
Anybody who needs to pretzel up their minds to come out with drivel like that clearly is on the run.
We just need to get Josh to draw more cartoons to show them up.
Making people laugh at mini-dictators and nano-tyrants (also at the big ones) always works!
I hate twitter
http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/11/some-respond-to-japan-earthquake-by-pointing-to-global-warming/
So Tamino thinks that being "on message" is better than technical accuracy?
Sums up Govt policy, the IPCC, Hockey Team, Real Climate etc, and explains why climate scientists withhold factual information.
Nice to see Eli Rabett and John Mashey chiming in with their support too!
Nice one Josh!
Josh's cartoon is funny, Nurse's reaction to Blinschader was further proof he doesn't know much about AGW theory but knows what he likes (the consensus narrative). And Tamino's post is ludicrous overreaction to a cartoon. But it seems to me that sceptics should be careful making too much of the 3% thing. It really does look, with only the slightest of slimmest of hints of doubt, that CO2 concentrations are rising steeply due to human emissions that introduce an imbalance into a system where emission and absorption were roughly in net balance until recently. There are more than enough other things that are far more doubt-worthy in the CAGW narrative...
Punch his lights out Josh...
Oh and before anyone accuses BH of inciting violence, "Punch his lights out" is a joke for anti-establishment cartoonists...
Person A withdraws $1.000.000 from his account every year and deposits $999.999 every year.
Person B withdraws $100 every year and deposits nothing.
Josh's cartoon compared the "withdrawals" only while ignoring the "deposits".
This is the sort misleading arguments Tamino talks about; of course it is "irrelevant" and "misleading" to mention the withdrawals only.
PS.: Notice that I deliberately put "person A" at an imbalance also.
andy @12:46
We are going to see a lot of this horse-shit about global warming and tsunamis thanks to a dreadful piece on grist by Christoper Mimms:
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-11-todays-tsunami-this-is-what-climate-change-looks-like
For a taster of how wrong Mimms is, see here:
http://www.cejournal.net/?p=5090
And Yulsman in comments responding to Mimms here:
http://www.cejournal.net/?p=5090#comment-9557
All: please copy this comment or the links to absolutely every idiot who mentions 'tsunami' and global warming in the same breath.
Then go on to remind them that using this terrible event as a platform for their CAGW hobby-horse is the vilest narcissism imaginable.
Josh You Have Arrived!
Many of you probably don't know the history of political cartoons, but they were basically invented by a German immigant about 1870's in New York City. Thomas Nast started doing cartoons about the infamous Tammy Hall political machine run by "Boss" Tweed. Only modern day politics of Chicago comes close.
Nast hated the abuse of power but saw that mere words would have no effect so he started the cartoons which soon appeared on Harpers nearly every week. This is one of his most effective and famous: "'Twas Him!"
However, this one seems the most appropriate to Tamino et al: A Group of Vultures Waiting for the Storm to "Blow Over"--"Let Us Prey."
You can read about Thomas Nast here
When you hear them scream, you are right on target!
Yeah Josh! Recognition!!!
pax
The problem STARTED with Nurse misrepresenting the numbers on a BBC documentary.
You - and Tamino - would do well to reflect on this before criticising Josh for spoof-misrepresentation in a cartoon. FFS.
BBD, yes I know what Nurse said. I just sort of understand what Tamino is saying here on this particular issue.
I got a comment and a response from Tamino on Open Mind, here it is:
Josh | March 12, 2011 at 9:43 am | Reply
Tamino, many thanks for checking the cartoon and for the additional perspective above.
The idea came from a BBC Horizon programme titled ‘Science Under Attack’ where the following exchange took place.
Bob Bindschadler: We know how much fossil fuel we take out of the ground. We know how much we sell. We know how much we burn. And that is a huge amount of carbon dioxide. It’s about seven gigatons per year right now.
Paul Nurse: And is that enough to explain…?
Bob Bindschadler: Natural causes only can produce – yes, there are volcanoes popping off and things like that, and coming out of the ocean, only about one gigaton per year. So there’s just no question that human activity is producing a massively large proportion of the carbon dioxide.
Paul Nurse: So seven times more.
Bob Bindschadler: That’s right.
[Response: The contribution from volcanoes is quite a bit less than a Gt/yr. The flow into and out of the oceans is far more -- but if Bindschadler was was referring to the net (not the gross) contribution (the oceans are a net absorber, not a net emitter) his claim is actually an understatement.
Nothing can justify your implying that the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is negligible (not the only technically correct, but misleading, statement in your cartoon). Which is exactly what you did. Human activity is responsible for a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial times.
Did you know this or not? It's a yes-or-no question.]
"One of their common tactics is to say what’s technically true, but is also irrelevant"
Tamino has just proved he is 100% irrelevant . . . plumbing new depths of desperate drive by smears, drivel level analysis and honesty as deep as parking lot puddle on a hot summer's day.
He is well past his best before date.
@ Josh, Mar 12, 2011 at 2:59 PM:
So according to Tamino, Bindschadler was not only not wrong, but understating 'the problem' ... oh dear ...
And one's just got to love his direct 'yes-or-no' question to you, Josh: are you, as member of the human race, guilty?
Well, he like all the other High Priests of cAGW need to show us personally that they're as guilty as we, to whom they preach from a great height. So why don't they move into caves and live off locusts and honey, clad in sack and ashes?
Perhaps that might make a nice cartoon: The Team and their hangers-on like Tamino - clad in sack and ashes, flagellating themselves with ripped-out fuel hoses ...
Josh, when will the Tamino doublespeak cartoon be ready?
A two-headed duck, or canard?
I would REALLY like to see Tamino's response to that! :)
Josh you forgot to put your cartoon past the censors mate... anyone would think you were a satirical cartoonist or something.
He has been watching too much Perry Mason...
I suggest you go out and shoot yourself, it is the only honourable thing to do... How DARE you...
Josh
So, Tamino has no sense of humour. Gosh.
Nurse and Bindschadler make a pig's breakfast out of their exchange. Facts are misrepresented. Misleading impressions are created. Apologies are not forthcoming.
There's a bit of a kerfuffle on the interweb.
Josh the cartoonist draws a cartoon satirising misleading misrepresentations of fact. It's very clever given the way it satirises the very essence of Nurse and Bindschadler's gaffe.
Tamino goes po-faced and starts trying to nail Josh with 'yes-or-nos'.
Josh goes to the pub.
"Human activity is responsible for a 40% increase in atmospheric CO2 since pre-industrial times"
So what caused it in pre-human times..?
Josh
May I suggest you send a framed original to Sir Paul ... he might even appreciate it!
Well done Josh. As the corp' said above, they don't like it up 'em. They have no sense of humour. What a boring lot of nonentities.
A major question raised by Gavin's Pussy Cat is its versus its'. Its is already possessive. So its' is possessive squared. It is singular with their its proper plural. By using its', Gavin's pussy cat is misrepresenting the quantity it. It's a Freudian grammatical slip showing the lengths they will got to misrepresent any quantity remotely related to global warming. Which shows liberal progress, they have moved past what the meaning of is is to what the meaning of its' is.
Probably just a ploy - Tamino obviously craves the recognition that would go with being in the next Josh cartoon.
Josh -- Thanks for posting the comment/reply. It appears that Tamino doesn't want to admit that the programme was attempting to be sensationalist regarding the human contribution to CO2. This was *in the excerpt you posted* so while I wouldn't expect him to have listened to the whole thing, he certainly has been made aware of the context in which the erroneous "seven times' the natural amount statement was made. And the tone. But he doesn't wish to admit that the editing played up this admittedly inaccurate statement.
Tamino talks of "technically correct but misleading" statements. I would agree that it's easy to overstate the importance of the 3% figure (approx. fraction of CO2 emitted due to fossil fuel burning). In this regard, I find myself in the position of agreeing with Romm -- inconceivable! -- that the modern CO2 increase is predominantly anthropogenic. Romm also mentions, but doesn't discuss the importance of, a figure which I think is more relevant -- that half of the human emissions are taken up by naturally-occurring carbon sinks. *This* is where the 3% is important -- that compared to the annual ebb-and-flow in CO2, uptake of fully half of the emissions are absorbed by Nature in her stride. And that's exactly where the Nurse programme went OTT.
BBD @ 2-10
Meanwhile the mainsteam media continues unchecked with AGW propaganda. On their coverage of the Japanese disaster, both the BBC and ITV News included the line, "and the tsunami is expected to hit low-lying Pacific islands which have already been affected by climate change".
Now it could be that I haven't been paying attention and have missed new evidence that shows that rising sea levels have indeed affected these islands. Equally, it could be that those who bring us our nightly news can no longer distinguish between 'An Inconvenient Truth' and reality
Good to see that thanks to Tamino, mankinds mere 3% contribution is getting so much extra publicity.
Josh, how about a cartoon, portraying some AGW advocate as King Canute trying to hold back a rising sea? If you drew in a caveman in the background fighting with a dinosaur, it would then give said advocate a reason to attack you, and your cartoon, and hence generate more publicity