Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Even a Scientist Can Be Wrong
I recently heard of a statement made by Neil deGrasse Tyson that I thought must have been a misquote. I looked into it and, sure enough, that wise man who’s quoted on tee shirts and coffee mugs said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.”
Whoa. The list of superseded scientific pronouncements is a long one, but I seem to recall a couple of real bloopers from his own field of expertise. It was once thought – as late as the early 20th century – that our own galaxy was the extent of the universe. Lo and behold, it is now accepted that there may be 100 billion galaxies comprising the universe – and counting. Now that’s a major whiff.
Not to mention the fact that luminaries such as Einstein, Shapley, Hoyle, and Gold believed that the universe was static, that is until Hubble peered through the Mt. Wilson telescope and verified the findings of that crazy Catholic priest George Lemaitre who had been trying to tell them the universe was expanding, and had been since the explosion of the primal atom (I won’t say creation).
Stay tuned for more alterations in “settled science.” It’s the nature of things.
Published in General
@caroljoy — “All four of these organizations will now be expected to explain themselves due to a writ of petition originally submitted to the Supreme Court of India in 2012, by Kalpana Mehta, Nalini Bhanot, and Dr. Rukmini Rao, which has finally been heard by the courts.”
It’s not clear if this material comes from the same 2014 article that I debunked, back in April 2020. The reference to 2012 suggests, at least, that it is of similar time frame: the Indian court system may be slow but not that slow!
That time, at least, you provided a link to the article. Why didn’t you, this time? Also, what is the date of the material you quote?
Oh, if that’s what Spencer and Lomborg (political scientist) think, they probably don’t know what they think they know. Some charts I’ve seen (WATTS Up With That) show increased CO2 concentration as lagging temperature rise over long periods like epochs. That would seem to indicate that increased temperature has had a large impact on CO2 concentrations, and not the other way around.
There’s a dearth of intellectual humility when it comes to “climate change.” It’s a lot like WuFlu from my perspective — nobody knows nuthin’. Or people think they know a lot that simply isn’t so. Climate is an extremely complex phenomena with many moving parts (variables), and any climate “science” that doesn’t take into account that giant thermonuclear reactor only 93 million miles away is probably getting a lot wrong. I believe CO2 is probably a nit in the dynamics of climate, but I could be wrong. ;-)
I’m a fan of CO2 because I’m a fan of life! And anytime one agrees with the Left on anything (CO2 is a pollutant my beige bahookie!), it’s time to reassess.
Everyone keep breathing and exhaling CO2. Feed the plants, feed the planet.
Here’s Roy Spencer in Global Warming Skepticism for Busy People: “It has been calculated that without greenhouse gases the Earth might be perpetually ice-covered, even in the tropics.”
The estimated effect is 33 degrees Centigrade, he continues. (It was CO2 buildup that rescued the Earth from its “Snowball Earth” phase, paleontologist believe: CO2 => melting ice => more CO2 => more melting ice.)
“In my opinion, the basic theory behind our 1-2% enhancement of the Earth”s greenhouse effect from CO2 emissions is reasonably sound. But this doesn’t mean increasing CO2 is going to have a dramatic affect on temperature or storminess.”
Like COVID-19, global warming exists; like COVID-19, it’s exaggerated for political effect.
“Global warming” exists is a little too inexact for me. The planet has warmed since the last ice age isn’t in dispute. Is it caused by increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration? Is human activity (burning fossil fuels) a significant contributor to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration? Is increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration dangerous to the planet? Is warming really a problem and, if so, is there anything we can do about it?
I don’t hear Spencer making claims to know with certainty any of that. But, plenty of politicians do.
Like all the other problems, we can vote for Democratic socialism.
That was the same solution for The Coming Ice Age in the 70s.
From ice age to global warming and coronavirus to zombies.
You are taking my comments out of context. Inside the context of your belief in and support of the need for Bill Gates to scatter by fleets of planes the tons and tons of iron filings he wishes to have to fertilize the oceans, it is hardly presumptive of me to think that you think that:
Part Two:
So as far as some charge you make that I am creating a straw man argument or any of the rest of it, you might consider this: if a person, such as yourself, agrees with someone else, in this case Bill Gates, that something, and in this case that “something” would be Carbon Dioxide, is a detriment via Global Catastrophic Climate Change, and then supports the activities of Bill Gates, you have signed on for Global Catastrophic Climate Change. Or else why would you even want to go through those lengths?
Do you think it is cheap to run vast fleets of planes across the entire earth? (You should be aware that Bill Gates never does anything unless there is some upside in profit to himself,
Analogy: Maybe you didn’t call the fire department, but I assume if you support Bill Gates calling them, you must believe there is a fire.
So if there is a straw man argument being made, your twisted logic is implicating you and only you in that argument’s creation.
Secondly: Amateur scientists across the US have been recording record amounts of aluminum flooding the atmosphere. The aluminum being reported in record numbers is in the air we breathe, as well as in the snow and ground water Some of these amateur scientists are in reality people who hold PhD’s in science related fields, work in either private industries or in governmental agency jobs and are quite expert in their fields.
Since this is a given, and since Bill Gates wishes to do this deed of seeding the atmosphere and oceans with the iron filings, it is important to note that when one combines aluminum with iron, the end result is thermite.
It might be intelligent for citizens and governmental officials to find out the actual size of the iron filings and to carefully examine whether this massive dispersion of iron throughout our atmosphere will be creating a totally different problem rather than the solution that Gates is telling us he is bringing about.
I know of no environmentalists on my social media who hate geo engineering. Although if it is mentioned as a possible reason for why our skies look like this
the above, even though Lake County Calif is very remote in terms of commercial or military fly overs, they refuse to enter the discussion by saying there is no way no how that geo engineering is happening. They claim it is too grand a scheme, one that even our government with it black ops budget cannot manage.
But then if a week later, someone on the same social media announce that Bill Gates is going to aerosolize sulphuric particles, they suddenly go, “Oh Bill Gates! I always knew he would be our savior.”
His idea that sulphuric oxide should be sprayed, from sometime in 2012 on, has now been replaced by an idea of dropping iron particles. Might be nice if he made up his mind. But then if you are the world’s second richest man, you can spend years touting one idea only to drop it and go on with another. Which is how, as John Ionnadis of Stanford has explained, we have arrived at the state of the nation where the man who pushed through decades of computer hardware and software mush now is into the geo engineering of the skies and vaccinating the world with a “vaccine” for an illness that has not appeared to even be isolated as of yet.)
I have had at least four premises in the writing in this one discussion. So which one do you feel has been disproved?
You debunked it at a time when I did not have access to any decent search engines. I am well equipped with them now.
The time frame of when these matters came to court in India is irrelevant, if it is in the last ten years. After all, in America, such matters never even get to go to court. The American lobbyists brought about “vaccine reform” in 1986 such that the vaccine developers, producers, manufacturers, distributors et al can never be held liable in either civil or criminal court.
Furthermore hundreds of American children are killed by vaccines each year, and the parents are told if they pursue any type of lawsuit, against the hospital and staff or clinic and staff to do so very carefully – as the hospital personnel are quite u to the task of dumbing up charges of infanticide faster than a person can say “Bob’s my vax-killed uncle.” At least in India the matter did g3t to a court room.
Also if IIRC, your rebuttal was not much of a rebuttal.
On top of that, since we last hashed things out with one another, there are African nations whose top officials are interested in the vaccine industry and its pusher man Bill Gates being taken to court, for the resulting sterilization of African young women through vaccine policies. (Many American parents who rue the day their young teens received the Gardasil vax and whose daughters are now sterile would love to take the Gardasil manufacturer to court, but again: 1986 vaccine reform.
@caroljoy — “Inside the context of your belief in and support of the need for Bill Gates to scatter by fleets of planes the tons and tons of iron filings he wishes to have to fertilize the oceans …”
This is a double-straw man argument, because I never said that, and he never said that, either. Or, if we did, then you should be able to quote us!
I am not sure what kind of bizarre and misleading sources you depend on. However, nothing has actually been done, except pilot studies to see if iron fertilization works. And I am very much in favor of carrying out such pilot studies, so we know what our options are, if global warming really does become a serious problem. Which looks unlikely, right now, but that could change.
How likely is it that all aspects are really being checked? The left is infamous for demanding that something be done/changed, RIGHT NOW, and then – upon realizing that the “cure” might be worse than the “disease” it was intended to fix – demanding just the opposite. RIGHT NOW. MTBE is just one example.
@caroljoy — “Analogy: Maybe you didn’t call the fire department, but I assume if you support Bill Gates calling them, you must believe there is a fire.”
A more accurate analogy would be, with massive forest fires being predicted, Bill Gates is building a prototype fire engine, just to see if it works; and me supporting him.
@caroljoy — “I know of no environmentalists on my social media who hate geo engineering.”
“The existence of such [geo-engineering] techniques may reduce the political and social impetus to reduce carbon emissions. … This concern causes many environmental groups and campaigners to be reluctant to advocate or discuss climate engineering for fear of reducing the imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions.” — Wikipedia, “Climate engineering”. (Emphasis mine.)
@caroljoy — “His idea that sulphuric oxide should be sprayed, from sometime in 2012 on, has now been replaced by an idea of dropping iron particles. Might be nice if he made up his mind.”
You really want to become better informed about geo-engineering before you start pontificating on the subject. The sulfur dioxide scheme seeks to imitate the way volcanic eruptions temporarily cool the climate by reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface of the Earth. Iron fertilization seeks to increase the ability of the oceans to take up carbon dioxide. There is no contradiction between the two ideas, and both could be implemented simultaneously.
@taras The problem is that just because the Left wants something done right now, supporting a program to increase carbon dioxide uptake by having tons of iron filings land on the oceans’ floor sounds like a silly idea, as carbon dioxide is not the earth’s problem.
Such massive programs actually should have many different types of people examine all aspects of the inadvertent effects of Bill Gates’ ideas. This is after all, the man who was taken to court, as MicroSoft was guilty of breaking AntiTurst protections.
Carbon Dioxide is not in existence in great enough amounts to be the cause of all the laments the Global Climate crowd puts on it.
If you take a 100 yard football field as the model, and we assigned yardage to the yard lines based on how much each element takes up, nitrogen would take up over 78 yards. Oxygen would take up about 21 yards, 0.9 yards would be argone and 0.1 percent other gases. In fact, the dread carbon dioxide gas would take up just about the width of a single line painted on the football field to mark off the yardage. (Other trace amounts are methane, water vapor, and neon.)
Those of us who are aware of many of Gates’ crimes against humanity are also no longer naive enough to believe that if he is spraying stuff out of the chem trails of fleets of planes, he probably would be adding in a whole bunch of pollutants that industry would ship to him to send away. For which he would collect a pretty penny, in addition to whatever monies he would get from pennies sent in by schoolchildren, & various entities like The Paris Accord, etc.
End Of Part One
Citations in Part Two
Part Two
Citations regarding Bill Gates and fleets of planes:
Here are 2 major news outlets that released articles re: the program:
First Article from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/07/bill-gates-funded-solar-geoengineering-could-help-stop-global-warming.html
Second Article from Daily Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7350713/Bill-Gates-wants-spray-millions-tonnes-dust-stratosphere-stop-global-warming.html
“Could dimming the sun save the Earth? Bill Gates wants to spray millions of tonnes of dust into the stratosphere to stop global warming… but critics fear it could trigger calamity”
by John Naish for the Daily Mail
Published: 20:05 EST, 12 August 2019 | Updated: 06:04 EST, 13 August 2019
The plan sounds like science fiction — but could be fact within a decade; every day more than 800 giant aircraft would lift millions of tonnes of chalk dust to a height of 12 miles above the Earth’s surface and then sprinkle the lot high around the stratosphere.
In theory, the airborne dust would create a gigantic sunshade, reflecting some of the Sun’s rays and heat back into space, dimming those that get through and so protecting Earth from the worsening ravages of climate warming.
This is not the crackpot plan of a garden-shed inventor. The project is being funded by billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates and pioneered by scientists at Harvard University.
####
My comment: so it could be that @taras has not believed that this program would involve fleets of planes, but it does seem to be a key feature of the program Gates is devising, as these fleets of planes are mentioned constantly in the media.
Remember, the Left opposes geo-engineering, because it would deal with the climate “crisis” without imposing pervasive government control of the economy.
The Left wants to panic the world now into doing things to avoid a future disaster which may never come. Geo-engineering lets the world wait until the disaster actually shows up (if it ever does) before taking action.
@caroljoy — You have to learn to distinguish between: A. the titles, which are designed to draw clicks (including “clicks from crackpots”); B. journalistic speculation (ditto*); and C. the actual, usually boring facts.
Here’s a quote from the CNBC video: “Bill Gates is among a dozen individual donors and fourteen foundations backing the first stratospheric solar engineering project, out of Harvard”.
I’m hoping you’re blushing right now. The CNBC video and the Daily Mail article go on to explain that this tiny project, which hasn’t happened yet, involves sending up a balloon over the New Mexico desert to release a puff of powder and measure its effect, if any, on the atmosphere. CNBC, which is after all a business news network, adds that solar geo-engineering offers little opportunity for profit.
*The Daily Mail click-teaser, that “Bill Gates wants to spray millions of tonnes of dust into the stratosphere to stop global warming”, would have to be considered an outright lie. A more truthful version would be, “26 donors, including Bill Gates, think spraying millions of tons of dust into the stratosphere to help control global warming is an idea worth spending a few dollars exploring.”
I’m not blushing because as I have already explained, & first of all, from a scientific perspective: our sun is about to enter into a solar minimum. This means the usual amount of solar UV & thermal energy hitting the earth will be diminished, all on its own, without the help of either Bill Gates or his consortium of like minded despots. (You do realize the connection existing between Harvard and Wuhan, do you not?)
End of Part One
Part Two
Secondly, as I pointed out by my football field metaphor, carbon dioxide is an eensy weensy teeny tiny amount of a substance that is not significant. I do not believe that carbon dioxide poses any kind of a threat. Especially if it is only being driven by normal human activities. However any war-like activities, like the months of Saddam Hussein’s going and setting the hundreds of oil reserves on fire can be problematic.
Also let’s address this: you stated the following:
You have to learn to distinguish between: A. the titles, which are designed to draw clicks (including “clicks from crackpots”); B. journalistic speculation (ditto*); and C. the actual, usually boring facts.
Anyone like yourself who feels that the good people at the Mainstream Media outlet known as CNBC are going to actually report anything other than the Corporate Fluff they are known for happens to be as guilty as what you are accusing me of, for not seriously considering the source.
But I do consider the sources. I do not doubt for a second planes will be used. Regardless of whatever Bill Gates friendly news source you happen to find “reliable.” Take a gander at the August issue of the Columbia Journalism Review and that institution’s report on how Bill Gates has used his vast fortune to hold hostage most media sources.
I also do not doubt for a moment that the planes will do double duty distributing the crap that his business partners such as Monsanto need to get rid of. After all, the curtain is falling on the toxins used in RoundUp. So those items will need to be distributed somewhere. (Monsanto & Bill Gates have long been known to be business buddies.) If using the idea of “environmentally helping Ma Earth” will allow that stuff to be sprayed out here & there, from the planes, or some ships, or from Bill Gates personally using environmentally friendly pea shooters to individually distribute each molecule of “dust,” then “our environment is all I care” about mantra of this reiteration of Bill Gates will continue to be chanted.
I think at this point we should simply settle the issue by considering that as far as I am concerned, you are dogmatically pro-Bill Gates, and nothing I say is going to change your mind. Likewise I am dogmatically anti-Bill Gates. Nothing you say is going to change my mind.
Whether you are overly naive or I am overly cynical, only time will tell. I really feel that continuing the conversation between us serves no purpose. I have agreed with you quite often on many issues that do not involve Mr Gates. I respect your skills as a writer.
Would it be nice if we agreed with each other on everything? Yes it would. (So come over to my side ;-) )
Since that is unlikely, I think we should just let go of the idea that either one of us could change the mind of the other.
To be precise, from the perspective of a few scientists, who think that a sunspot minimum could cancel out anthropogenic global warming. It would be nice if they turned out to be right. However, the scientific consensus is that the cooling effect will be pretty insignificant.
See, for example, https://www.sciencealert.com/we-re-about-to-experience-solar-minimum-here-s-what-that-really-means
@caroljoy — “I do not doubt for a second planes will be used.” On the basis of what, chicken entrails? “I also do not doubt for a moment that the planes will do double duty distributing the crap that his business partners such as Monsanto need to get rid of.” Now, this one is so far fetched, for reasons I already explained, that I find it hard to believe you can find any source, even a nutty conspiracy site, to support this. Maybe you misread something.
@caroljoy — “Bill Gates has used his vast fortune to hold hostage most media sources.” Well, Jeff Bezos has an even vaster fortune, yet he is constantly criticized, especially by conservative media. Just about every night, Tucker Carlson of Fox News beats Big Tech like a drum, frequently accusing Bezos of not paying Amazon employees enough.
@caroljoy — “carbon dioxide is an eensy weensy teeny tiny amount of a substance that is not significant.”
Here’s Prof. Spencer again: “Sometimes I’m asked how something occupying such a small fraction of the atmosphere (0.04%) can have such a significant effect. It’s because each CO2 molecule undergoes billions of collisions with other atmospheric molecules every second, which allows CO2 to warm (or cool) all of the other molecules.”
@caroljoy — “Anyone like yourself who feels that the good people at the Mainstream Media outlet known as CNBC are going to actually report anything other than the Corporate Fluff they are known for happens to be as guilty as what you are accusing me of, for not seriously considering the source.”
Carol, evidently you forget that it was you who presented the link to that CNBC video, not me. If you consider that CNBC story untrue, a. why did you link to it; and b. what part of its story do you now disbelieve? There aren’t 26 donors? It isn’t a tiny project using a balloon?
@taras, I don’t want to keep debating you.
I explained why. We’re not connecting on the issue at hand, that is the geo engineering that Bill Gates has proposed.
Now you are moving the goal posts, talking about Jeff Bezos – who I could do a riff on for weeks, if I didn’t want to live my life and not spend time debating people.
Here is a concise article written for students summarizing the Harvard scientists. It ends with the observation that states that as things unfold, planes will probably be used, not the whacky “chalk dust cannons” the Harvard crowd is saying will happen:
https://breakingnewsenglish.com/1811/181127-sun-dimming.html
Scientists have come up with a revolutionary new idea to save us from global warming. Geo-engineers from Harvard University believe spraying “sun-dimming” chemicals into the stratosphere high above Earth could slow down global warming. They also say the technique would be “remarkably inexpensive,” costing in the region of $2.25 billion a year over a 15-year period. The technique is known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). It is still in its infancy and is yet to be proven. It would involve the use of gigantic hoses or high-powered chemical cannons to spray chemicals into the stratosphere to act as a reflective barrier against sunlight and harmful UV rays.
The scientists have admitted that their idea is currently still in the planning stages. They said: “We make no judgment about the desirability of SAI. We simply show a hypothetical deployment program commencing 15 years hence, while both highly uncertain and ambitious, would indeed be technically possible from an engineering perspective.” Not all scientists approve this idea. Some think it is somewhat pie in the sky. They say it would require a fleet of 100 specially-designed planes to make 4,000 missions a year, crossing most of the globe’s airspace. This requires permission from over 100 governments. There are concerns it could increase droughts and extreme weather.
***************
I ‘ve been around scientists for a large part of my life: it’s worth noting that 9 times out of 10, how a scientist goes and explains a policy involving the environment or public health will days, weeks, months or years later will totally forget how they explained it would happen and go some other route.
@taras
In yr reply # 114, you mention my statements as far as Monsanto needing planes to ditch all the glyphosate and other toxins they’ re needing to divest themselves of.
You replied: Now, this one is so far fetched, for reasons I already explained, that I find it hard to believe you can find any source, even a nutty conspiracy site, to support this. Maybe you misread something.
I know how industry works, I have known since being a teenager that Corporate America knows no bounds and obeys no rules – especially relating to environmental rules. Like a friend of mine – his dad owned an engineering firm that designed and supplied materials for nuclear power plants. This man would be screaming about the necessity of nuke power, and since all his teenager and older children were very environmentally concerned hippies, they would pester the father about “So where is the nuke waste going to go?”
Finally one day one of the “children” said something to him so rude that he got red in the face and screamed: “Don’t worry about where we will put it – there are millions of acres of Indian reservation land and no one there to patrol most of the roads in and out at night. No problem just dumping it there.”
So yes on my part my Gates would end up using the planes to spray about unwanted toxins is speculation. But it makes sense, as I can really think of no reason why Bill Gates would do something to help the environment. In fact, people I know back in the MidWest are sure that he was the main “business partner” that has arranged with various agencies and officials for the Chinese to come down the St Lawrence Seaway and pump thousands of millions of gallons of pristine Great Lakes water into their super barges and then head on back to China.
@caroljoy — “Here is a concise article written for students summarizing the Harvard scientists. It ends with the observation that states that as things unfold, planes will probably be used, not the whacky “chalk dust cannons” the Harvard crowd is saying will happen …”
To be precise, this is an article intended for use in English language instruction. Also, it doesn’t say that “planes will probably be used”, but that critics of the idea say that planes will probably be used: “Not all scientists approve this idea. Some think it is somewhat pie in the sky. They say it would require a fleet of 100 specially-designed planes to make 4,000 missions a year …”
@caroljoy — “@taras, I don’t want to keep debating you.” Then why do you keep debating me?
“We’re not connecting on the issue at hand, that is the geo engineering that Bill Gates has proposed.” If Bill Gates has in fact “proposed” geo-engineering, then you should be able to quote him doing so.
“Now you are moving the goal posts, talking about Jeff Bezos …” If Bezos, who is more powerful than Gates, can’t keep people from criticizing him, why do you think Gates can?
So then, the critics are not mentioned in the article? As they clearly are mentioned in the article. You even quoted that section of the article: “Not all scientists approve this idea. Some think it is somewhat pie in the sky. They say it would require a fleet of 100 specially-designed planes to make 4,000 missions a year …”
If the critics are mentioned in the article and their ideas are, then I have every right to explain that the article ends with the observation of the critics.
Maybe because Gates won’t let them use Windows if they criticize him?