Tuesday
Aug162011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Climatefellas
Aug 16, 2011 Climate: Models Climate: Sceptics A climatological tiff has broken out between some members of the Italian-American community. David Castelvecchi is singularly unimpressed with Joe Bastardi's recent appearance on Fox News.
The most jarring part however came later, when Bastardi commented that he didn’t believe CO2 emissions could ever affect the climate. Unfortunately, Bastardi’s argument was based on what seemed to be poor understanding of basic physics, including thermodynamics and atmospheric physics.
I must say that if JB really did say that the greenhouse effect breaks the first law of thermodynamics then there may well be a case to answer. Not that Castelvecchi's article is much to write home about in terms of dispassionate analysis.
Reader Comments (8)
Link
I've found a link to the Davide Castelvecchi article:
http://americanpatriottoday.net/2011/08/fox-news-distorts-physics-law-of-thermodynamics/
And this is a link to the video of Joe Bastardi on Fox making the claims Castelvecchi objects to.
This seems like a battle of strawmen
The main thing is I see that Bastardi didn't categorically say he "didn’t believe CO2 emissions could ever affect the climate", but Bastardi did make a point of saying CO2 couldn't cause warming because of the first law of thermodynamics and tied that to how small the human contribution was to CO2.
Bastardi doesn't impress with any clarity and deserves to get picked up for his obscure rambling there, and since the alarmist side has the job they can spin it so he looks as bad as possible.
Come on Bishop. What's the problem with emotional bashing, specially if it's against someone saying so many ridiculous things? When Al Gore came up with "millions of degrees" we all know what was the blogosphere reaction! And it was fun all the way.
I wouldn't get too excited about this Bish. As The Leopard notes above, just the usual hand-waving and straw-men.
Bastardi is correct. Carbon dioxide is not a source of heat, therefore cannot cause a warming of the earth's surface. If the claim is that the warming is derived from the atmosphere, then it's the second law of thermodynamics which is violated. Take your pick.
Masius, that's just insanely ignorant. Please refrain of posting inane scientific judgements upon subject material that you clearly don't know anything about. That's the honest position.
C'mon on now... It's hard to find a thread on a skeptic blog that doesn't include at least one 'global warming violates basic physics' comment. These commenters, who are obviously ignorant of physics themselves, must be getting it somewhere. They've been told that the greenhouse effect violates this or that principle of physics, and they go from blog to blog parroting it back. It sounds like Bastardi is just another source feeding the knucklehead brigade.
By the way - I'm a lukewarmer and a global warming threat skeptic. I'm just not a bonehead.
Yes, that one is everywhere, along with the trace gas furphy. Both should be rubbished every time they rear their head.