Dr Michael E Mann, serial litigant and Mustafa Prize winner, has a new column out, as he does every couple of days, called "Why Global Warming Will Cross a Dangerous Threshold in 2036". The lads at MSNBC summarize it thus:
One Scientist Argues 2036 Could Be Point of No Return for Climate Disaster
I think he means that, on its current pace, that's the year the DC court will deliver its verdict in Mann vs Steyn. One can understand why he's concerned:
If his calculations are accurate, we have less time than you might think.
"If his calculations are accurate"? You're not questioning his science, are you? As for having "less time than you might think", that rang a very faint and distant bell:
"Time is running out to deal with climate change," says Mr Guilbeault. "Ten years ago, we thought we had a lot of time, five years ago we thought we had a lot of time, but now science is telling us that we don't have a lot of time."
That was in 2005. And even then time had been running since time immemorial:
Really? Ten years ago, we had a lot of time? That's not the way I recall it:
"Time is running out for the climate" - Chris Rose of Greenpeace, 1997;
"Time running out for action on global warming Greenpeace claims" - Irish Times, 1994;
"Time is running out" - scientist Henry Kendall, speaking on behalf of Greenpeace, 1992.
Admirably, Mr Guilbeault's commitment to the environment extends to recycling last decade's scare-mongering press releases.
John Hinderaker writes today about "climate models". I assumed that was a reference to Jessica Alba, Campari swimsuit model and Dr Mann's co-contributor to James Cameron's forthcoming climate-change telly blockbuster (see paragraph 129 of my Amended Answer to Dr Mann's Amended Complaint here). But apparently it's something else entirely:
Climate alarmism is not based on empirical observation; rather, it is entirely predicated on computer models that are manipulated to generate predictions of significant global warming as a result of increased concentrations of CO2. But a model in itself is evidence of nothing. The model obeys the dictates of its creator. In the case of climate models, we know they are wrong: they don't accurately reproduce the past, which should be the easy part; they fail to account for many features of the Earth's present climate; and to the extent that they have generated predictions, those predictions have proven to be wrong.
That is the single most important fact about the Big Climate consensus. The world they promised in the turn-of-the-century climate hysteria has not come to pass. Honest scientists are trying to grapple with why this is so.
One problem they face is that many of their colleagues knew the models were iffy (to put it mildly). They just didn't tell the public that. Dr Tim Ball, who by sheer coincidence is also being sued by the litigious Dr Mann - if you're having trouble keeping track, Dr Ball is the accused in Mann's suit in British Columbia; I'm the accused in Mann's suit in the District of Columbia; I forget who the accused is in Mann's suit in the Republic of Colombia, but it'll come to me... At any rate, Dr Ball has a useful overview of the supermodels on the climate catwalk that includes this revealing quote from the late Stephen Schneider, Stanford professor, founding editor of Climatic Change, and advisor to multiple US presidents up to and including Obama:
The ultimate goal of climate modeling – forecasting reliably the future of key variables such as temperature and rainfall patterns – is not realizable.
This is the same Stephen Schneider who said this:
We need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
That's to say, the right balance between being honest and being ...not quite so honest. The failure of humdrum reality to live up to the turn-of-the-century IPCC models tells you a lot about how they struck that "balance".
By the way, when he's not fantasizing about me taking my clothes off, writhing across the table and removing his glasses, Barry Bickmore likes to scoff that I'm not even aware that Mann's "hockey stick" is not a climate model. Scroll down to deep in the comments:
It's the same with Steyn. He recently said that the Hockey Stick is a "climate model" whose "predictions" have failed. (Hint: It isn't a model, and made no predictions.)
Actually, the "hockey stick" is a model. It shows us global temperatures for the last millennium. But Mann does not, in fact, have any temperature readings for, say, the year 1143 - for the very good reason that neither Mr Fahrenheit nor Mr Celsius had yet been born. So he "modeled" the temperature for the 12th century. I'm afraid poor old Bickmore is spending too much time on his sad fantasies of me bumping and grinding: The "hockey stick" is a climate model. Indeed, it's a model in the sense of Pygmalion's Galatea: Dr Mann created it, and fell in love with it. Unfortunately, he can't quite bring it to life. As to how robust a model it is, see here.
As John Hinderaker says:
Someday before long, the discreditable role played by Benjamin Santer, Michael Mann and others will be universally recognized.
I hope it's "before long". As readers are aware, I'm tired of having the stench of DC "justice" on my clothes day after day, and am anxious to get to trial and put my case to twelve good men and true (yes, yes, women, transitioning, questioning, persons of gender fluidity, the more the merrier). It is greatly to be regretted that my co-defendants at National Review filed a motion on Wednesday for yet more delay. Yesterday I filed an objection which you can read here:
9 . National Review's attempt to stay discovery is also at odds with its publicly stated position in "Get Lost", its editorial of August 22nd 2012, authored by the editor Rich Lowry. In said editorial, National Review stated that the principal reason it would welcome Dr Mann's suit was the opportunity it afforded for an "investigation of Mann through discovery".
As I've observed with some restraint, National Review is now standing athwart the DC court calendar yelling "Stop!" Or, to put it in John Kerry terms, they were in favor of discovery before they were against it. I'm ready to proceed with discovery, deposition of Dr Mann, and the trial - which in civilized jurisdictions we would have had by now. I hope Dr Mann will concur with my objection. If he's serious about wanting his day in court, we need to get on with it before the anthropogenically warmed rising oceans wash over the DC Superior Court and reduce it to the Lost City of Atlantis Superior Court.
~If you'd like to help fund my Greyhound fare to Mann's deposition, I hope you'll consider a SteynOnline gift certificate.
