Always good to check Open Mind blog for the most accurate take on stats. Blogger Tamino titles his piece, “Stupid is as Ted Cruz Does.”
Anyway, you can never have too many refutations of the “no warming since —” canard.
Ted Cruz denies that global warming is even happening.
Appearing on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” Cruz had this to say:
Many of the alarmists on global warming, they’ve got a problem because the science doesn’t back them up. In particular, satellite data demonstrate for the last 17 years, there’s been zero warming.”— Ted Cruz on Tuesday, March 17th, 2015 in an interview on “Late Night with Seth Meyers”
Cruz was criticized by California governor Jerry Brown for denying scientific reality. On Sunday Cruz said that “global warming alarmists” like Brown “ridicule and insult anyone who actually looks at the real data.”
Let’s look at the real data.
To get at the truth of whether or not there’s been warming, let’s look at 5-year average temperature. Satellites began monitoring the atmosphere’s “microwave brightness” since about 1979, and that information is used to infer the temperature of the atmosphere. It’s easy as pie to average the temperature over 5-year time spans, starting with 1980 to 1985, ending with the 2010-2015 interval. That’ll tell us the real story of whether there’s been warming or not — it might even inform Ted Cruz, if he’s willing to look at the real data without denying reality.Here it is, from UAH (the University of Alabama at Huntsville). [Note: I’d love to hear Ted Cruz complain about the choice of data — so I can inform well-known climate deniers Roy Spencer and John Christy that Ted Cruz might suspect them of faking the data to make it look like the globe is warming.]
One could also throw in the satellite sea level data from the University of Colorado – an irrefutable indicator of the planet gaining heat.
Well, boys & girls, I am about to test my abilities as a pitch expert. I have reopened the discussion with a close associate about climate change, who just quoted the 18-years-with-no-warming number to me (I guess he was doing Cruz one better) and sent me a ream of Watts Up With That links.
It’s been over a decade since I last tried speaking with him about climate change as the process was exhausting emotionally and took a huge amount of time. I had hoped his position might have softened with time, but clearly not; this former liberal thinks I am either conned or in on the con, I guess.
However, Peter and the posters here – even our favorite deniers – have inspired me to step up to the plate and explore how to have a useful discussion, to see if we can get away from partisan brinksmanship and over to collaboration, if only for the sake of his kids.
It’s a long shot but if I learn anything useful in the process, I will certainly let you all know.
…or stick to the economic viability of sustainable energy, because that’s what they’re really worried about: they fear government control, carbon taxing, and economic destruction secondary to radical left wing business incompetency. In this paper, you’ll find 15 studies that show wind energy reduces the cost of electricity to rate payers:
http://awea.files.cms-plus.com/AWEA%20White%20Paper-Consumer%20Benefits%20final.pdf
‘…More than a dozen studies conducted by independent grid operators, state governments, academic experts, and others have found that wind energy benefits consumers by reducing electricity prices…’
And University of Delaware’s Least Cost model regarding a 3x wind overbuild:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759
Abstract
We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW). The purpose is twofold: 1) although a single renewable generator at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And 2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs. Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data. We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse renewable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%–99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today’s—but only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.
Highlights
► We modeled wind, solar, and storage to meet demand for 1/5 of the USA electric grid. ► 28 billion combinations of wind, solar and storage were run, seeking least-cost. ► Least-cost combinations have excess generation (3× load), thus require less storage. ► 99.9% of hours of load can be met by renewables with only 9–72 h of storage. ► At 2030 technology costs, 90% of load hours are met at electric costs below today’s.
And efficiency case studies, reducing the cost of operation, and adding value to the retrofitted buildings:
http://www.rmi.org/retrofit_depot_get_connected_true_retrofit_stories
Look at the Wilson Va one: the reported numbers in the summary imply a 4 or 5 year payback and a profit of $250,000/yr. after that interval.
With the right design, efficiency is profitable. Indeed on all those levelized cost charts, it’s usually the cheapest form of ‘energy’.
How does “Stupid is as Ted Cruz Does” morph into “Seeing the Forrest for the Gump” ?????
Linda
Why not just ask your friend, if he really believes there has been an 18-year stretch with no warming, to explain to you how such a thing might occur?
Unless he is a crackpot who doesn’t believe in the CO2 greenhouse effect, he must know that the atmospheric [CO2] level has only grown, so it must be producing more heat, not less. So…. where has that heat gone to?
(Answers involving the digestive tract of Al Gore or Rush Limbaugh are not acceptable)
Gingerbaker, thank goodness I wasn’t drinking coffee when I read your final sentence, or it would have been sprayed everywhere – thanks for the laugh.
He’s got degrees in physics and materials science (as do I), so it’s kind of a mystery as to why he chooses to prioritize cherry-picked data over physics. When last I asked him about the CO2 increase, his opinion was that, while the amount of atm CO2 has grown, it’s absolute concentration is too low to make a difference. His wife has a PhD in pharmacology, so I have sometimes thought about asking about the impact of tiny percentages of drugs in someone’s body, but that would just get her back up and convince him not one bit.
Your approach is a good one, but I’m afraid the response would be whatever the canned response is from WUWT or Fox or whomever as even the phraseology from these sources tend to creep into his language.
I think anything that approaches confrontation is going to be met with a stone wall. I think that trying to disprove his beliefs – even getting him to do so – will only increase resistance. I’d be asking him to admit he’d been wrong for well over a decade on this topic. That is even tougher to accomplish than getting someone to renounce the source of their income.
Instead, I can try to identify a problem about which he feels passionate and try to find common ground on a possible solution or at least approach. I know he’s smart and a loving family man. I know he wants the best for his kids. I know he thinks that virtually everything I stand for is harming the US (possibly excepting the fact that I help with job creation and entrepreneurship), but I believe he cares about me and knows that I want the best for him and, for that matter, the country and the world.
It’s a long shot, but I believe in the approach, which is why I have invited omnologos and bartholomewtali in a separate post to try it. Wish me luck! And thanks for your ideas.
“it’s absolute concentration is too low” Ask your friend to put 400ppm of black dye into his swimming pool. If he no longer can see the bottom then he’s seeing, in the visible light range, what CO2 is doing to our atmosphere in the infrared light range. It says in this ‘pool supplies’ website (http://www.poolcenter.com/p/party-pool-swimming-pool-color-dye) that “one 8-oz. bottle [of dye] treats an average 20,000-gallon pool twice!”. So that’s (0.0625 gal)/20,000 gal /2 = 1.5 ppm.
Linda, If pool dye destabilizes your friend’s conclusion, then he should read a textbook. “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation” by Grant Petty is a good one. If the dye doesn’t work, then feel comforted knowing that we all have friends like that.
I said on another thread “satisfy your inner needs—we all do it”, and you are obviously “needy” or you wouldn’t be taking this path with your so-called “colleague”, Bart, and Omno. I meet my personal “needs” by beating up on them—-IMO they are hopeless cases whose only value is to serve as bad examples and whipping boys for those of us who have functioning brains. It relieves my anger at the state of the world and the denial of AGW that is going to cause much hardship to humans and all living things on Earth. And that will probably happen after I’m gone, which causes me some angst because I won’t be here to see it and can’t do much to stop it now. Reading comments on Crock and responding is also good anti-Alzheimer’s therapy—more interesting than doing crossword puzzles.
You say “I know he’s smart and a loving family man. (“smart” can be disputed). I know he wants the best for his kids”. Everything else you say indicates that he is hopeless and getting worse. IMO, the ONLY chance you have of reaching him is through his kids and his concern for them. Don’t mention anyone else’s kids, though—-he is unlikely to care about them, especially if they’re poor, immigrants, or non-Caucasian.
Latest news about Cruz is that he’s planning to sign up for Obamacare.
I’m not joking. The same Ted Cruz who wanted to repeal every last word & provision of the bill.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/obamacare-super-foe-ted-cruz-may-soon-enroll-n329981
Unbelievable! The typical libertarian hypocrite who is against all government intrusion until it benefits him—-then he’s at the head of the line “mooching”.
It never ceases to amaze me the way ‘Merkin politicians can tell absolute porkies without the crucifixion that would be inevitable for poli’s in other (civilised) countries. I guess Madison Ave’s casual attitude to the truth on any subject has infiltrated all of their psyche.
Even the companion site for Watts Up With That, Judith Curry’s Climate etc. expresses criticism of Mr Edward Cruz in her article “The Stupid Party” and expresses an offer to educate him and his party on the climate system (presumable on her famous stadium wave theory and how everything is natural variability, even when it is clearly trending upwards).
Anyway credence to her for her criticism of Cruz’s cherry picking.