Climate change denier appointed head of NOAA

[JimL]

Your same source:




So, again, he is a professional climatologist (and thus well qualified for the position). He holds that humans do have an effect on climate, and predicts there will be some warming due to that. But because he doesn't embrace the teachings of the CAGWers and their doomsday predictions, he's magically a 'climate denier'. You people make me chuckle - you're literally a cult.

Legates is affilliated with the Heartland Institute, a think tank that pours money into convincing Americans that climate change is a hoax. And, according to the head of NOAA under the Obama administration, Jane Lubchenco, "over the past 20 years Legates, in his work and public statements, has rejected the overwhelming peer reviewed research that shows human activity is the main driver of a dangerously changing climate".

[Mountain Man]

climate change made more likely the conditions that have enabled the fires.

As in they made it perfect for arsonists to get a burn going.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethba...hange-n2576193

[Mountain Man]

in a way, yes. In any population you have rogue elements motivated by who knows what that just want to go their own way in spite of the fact there is no good reason to do so. Halton Arp is just such a person in the astronomical community. Did some good work in the past but has some sort of ideological objection to the idea of an expanding universe and has gone totally off any reasonable data driven conclusion to try to prove himself correct. Legates is such a person wrt climate science - though not nearly as stellar a mind as Arp. But to the point, these sorts of off the rails folks with credentials are not the sorts of people you put in charge of government science agencies.

Right, so only trust the experts that happen to agree with you, and not the ones who don't.

Sadly, this sort of bald faced hypocrisy is typical for you.

[oxmixmudd]

I'm not in a good mood right at the moment considering that I'm sitting in smoke from the fires in Cali, so just a brief note: California blew it big time in not maintaining fire breaks and doing other foresty stuff that would have mitigated the ferocity of those fires whether caused by arson, gender reveal parties, OR lightning strikes. Never mind how dry or wet we get, those management thingies environment lovers hate so much would have made a BIG difference.

I don't know about the others states, so.

I believe you are probably correct in that, though i would need to research just how much impact they would have had on fires of this magnitude. I have heard it said that the native Indians had ways of helping to control them as well. Environmental groups and big business alike are often not good at recognizing the balance between human intervention and respect for nature required to properly manage and respect the environment around us.

[oxmixmudd]

Right, so only trust the experts that happen to agree with you, and not the ones who don't.

<ad hom removed>.

Your mischaracterization of what I said belies your own lack of understanding wrt to how science itself works. If you understood those same scientific principle and had any depth of knowledge in mathematics and physics you would understand that a person that is going rogue can be identified in most cases by looking at the data itself and looking at what the existing data and experimental evidence implies wrt standard application of scientific principles. And that is what tells us legates is off course. It's what tells us Arp is off course too. But to someone like you with no real understanding of the data or the physics or the principles that drive scientific discovery, it all looks the same. That is why scientists must maintain very high standards with regard to fraud and fight against the politicalization of their work. And that is why people like legates and Donald Trump are dangerous to the progress of acience. Legates is dangerous because he is willing to abandon basic scientific principles to push a personal bias. People like Trump are dangerous because they want to control the outcome of the scientific process so that it doesn't undermine their political aspirations.

Science works because it is objective and because it is a process designed to overcome our personal biases based on superstition, 'common sense", and cultural preference. Any elements that try to force that process to conform to one of those biases are by definition anti-science. And people with obvious anti-science bias in any form are not qualified to direct science organizations at any level.

The scientific community as a whole understands these issues and works very hard to weed out bad elements that could undermine public trust in the results of scientific research. But in America especially a combination of general public ignorance and individual greed have created a stronger anti science bias than is found in most modern nations. And that has given certain rogue anti/pseudo science elements like anti vaxx, climate denial, and anti evolution a stronger voice here than in other nations.

[Mountain Man]

Your mischaracterization of what I said belies your own lack of understanding wrt to how science itself works. If you understood those same scientific principle and had any depth of knowledge in mathematics and physics you would understand that a person that is going rogue can be identified in most cases by looking at the data itself and looking at what the existing data and experimental evidence implies wrt standard application of scientific principles. And that is what tells us legates is off course. It's what tells us Arp is off course too. But to someone like you with no real understanding of the data or the physics or the principles that drive scientific discovery, it all looks the same. That is why scientists must maintain very high standards with regard to fraud and fight against the politicalization of their work. And that is why people like legates and Donald Trump are dangerous to the progress of acience. Legates is dangerous because he is willing to abandon basic scientific principles to push a personal bias. People like Trump are dangerous because they want to control the outcome of the scientific process so that it doesn't undermine their political aspirations.

Science works because it is objective and because it is a process designed to overcome our personal biases based on superstition, 'common sense", and cultural preference. Any elements that try to force that process to conform to one of those biases is by definition anti-science

You can dress it up all you want, but at the end of the day, all you're saying is, "Only trust the experts that happen to agree with me, and not the ones who don't."

[oxmixmudd]

You can dress it up all you want, but at the end of the day, all you're saying is, "Only trust the experts that happen to agree with me, and not the ones who don't."

To see such intellectual laziness and ignorance is truly sad, but this is in fact why anti vax, Climate denial, and anti evolution have such a strong voice in America. There are too many people here that lack the education and respect for knowledge to try to understand how science works and what the data actually implies when analyzed in a scientific manner. MM, and others of you inclined to 'amen' a post like this, you need to try to understand rather than dismiss based on your own personal bias. Study, learn, be humble enough to recognize when you don't know enough to be able to tell what is right.

If you study and try to learn, it will help you to have respect for those that are operating at the highest levels of science, just like getting out on a bike and trying to ride 10 miles at 20mph will give you much more respect for tour de france riders that can ride for five hours or more at 27 or 28 mph, and where portions of a race might exceed 30mph for an entire hour.

Why? because most of us even giving it our all will fail to make even a modest goal. And in that failure most of us find respect for those that actually can succeed.

[Gondwanaland]

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....2/2016GL072027

Source: above

The recent multiyear drought over California was characterized by large precipitation deficits and abnormally high temperatures during both wet and dry seasons. This study investigates and quantifies the contributions of precipitation and temperature anomalies to the development of the multiyear drought with a set of modeling experiments where the anomalies are either removed or randomly replaced with other historical observations. The study reveals that precipitation deficits have been largely responsible for producing the extreme agricultural drought (i.e., large soil moisture deficits) while warmer temperatures have only marginally intensified the drought. However, the warmer temperatures over the high‐elevation areas during the wet season have contributed equally or more than the precipitation deficits to the reduction of snowpack. The interplay between temperature and precipitation anomalies in space and time also appears to be important for the drought development

© Copyright Original Source

For a more detailed discussion of the specific impacts of climate change on california:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...KtycDDGKSOWwo7

3 million acres have burned in California in these 'historic/record' (as they've been called by the media) fires. Before settlers came to the west and started screwing with putting out fires that do not need to be put out, and banning controlled burns and preventing removal of deadfalls and brush, between 4 and 12 million acres burned in the West every single year.

[Gondwanaland]

That would be a 'lets support Trump at any cost to science' characterization of Legates. He is not following the data but is clearly driven ideologically (or perhaps financially) to play down the consensus on climate change. As such he is not qualified to head NOAA.

Rather, he does not bow to the whackjob CAGWers, therefore you do not find him worthy. Too bad for you, he's a professional climatologist, who accepts humans cause changes to the climate and accepts warming will happen. He simply doesn't accept the doomsday cult claims of some loons in the community.

[Gondwanaland]

Legates is affilliated with the Heartland Institute, a think tank that pours money into convincing Americans that climate change is a hoax. And, according to the head of NOAA under the Obama administration, Jane Lubchenco, "over the past 20 years Legates, in his work and public statements, has rejected the overwhelming peer reviewed research that shows human activity is the main driver of a dangerously changing climate".

Yes, he rejects doomsday catastrophic claims (and rightly so, as we've been hearing them the last two decades and not a one has panned out), and uses his brain.

[Sparko]

Federal Regulations Have Made Western Wildfires Worse
Controlled, prescribed burns can stop wildfires from spreading. Too bad they are effectively prohibited by rules like the Clean Air Act.

...But the regulatory requirements one must meet before starting a controlled burn are complex and lengthy. According to Jonathan Wood, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation and an adjunct fellow with the Property and Environment Research Center, the National Environmental Policy Act requires "a couple-thousand-page document analyzing every single conceivable impact to the environment that the plan might have." This is a public process, Wood adds, that "often results in litigation." There's even more paperwork when the controlled burn might overlap with areas designated as critical habitat for an endangered species.

"What you'll often find," Wood says, "is that there are projects which have been extremely well-vetted, which have been years in the work, there will be a 5,000-page document, which no one could conceivably ever read because it's so long and complicated, but then the project will still get put on hold for an indefinite period of time, because some special interest group filed a lawsuit." So much time is spent considering the ramifications of an action; little is spent considering the impact of doing nothing.

The Clean Air Act of 1990 creates another obstacle. The law treat the smoke from a controlled, prescribed burn as a pollutant that must be analyzed and permitted before the burn can be done. The smoke from a wildfire is not similarly scrutinized. But needless to say, the environmental impact of a multi-state wildfire is much larger than that of a smaller controlled burn.

https://reason.com/2020/09/14/wester...ent-are-eased/

[oxmixmudd]

3 million acres have burned in California in these 'historic/record' (as they've been called by the media) fires. Before settlers came to the west and started screwing with putting out fires that do not need to be put out, and banning controlled burns and preventing removal of deadfalls and brush, between 4 and 12 million acres burned in the West every single year.

well then, what are you complaining about?

[oxmixmudd]

Yes, he rejects doomsday catastrophic claims (and rightly so, as we've been hearing them the last two decades and not a one has panned out), and uses his brain.

The actual predictions of the actual scientist are well within the error bounds of the studies that created them. The melting of the ice sheets in greenland and parts of antarctica have exceeded the predictions. That you are not aware of these basic facts is telling of how much an ideology and/or personal incredulity is driving your response.

[oxmixmudd]

Federal Regulations Have Made Western Wildfires Worse
Controlled, prescribed burns can stop wildfires from spreading. Too bad they are effectively prohibited by rules like the Clean Air Act.

...But the regulatory requirements one must meet before starting a controlled burn are complex and lengthy. According to Jonathan Wood, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation and an adjunct fellow with the Property and Environment Research Center, the National Environmental Policy Act requires "a couple-thousand-page document analyzing every single conceivable impact to the environment that the plan might have." This is a public process, Wood adds, that "often results in litigation." There's even more paperwork when the controlled burn might overlap with areas designated as critical habitat for an endangered species.

"What you'll often find," Wood says, "is that there are projects which have been extremely well-vetted, which have been years in the work, there will be a 5,000-page document, which no one could conceivably ever read because it's so long and complicated, but then the project will still get put on hold for an indefinite period of time, because some special interest group filed a lawsuit." So much time is spent considering the ramifications of an action; little is spent considering the impact of doing nothing.

The Clean Air Act of 1990 creates another obstacle. The law treat the smoke from a controlled, prescribed burn as a pollutant that must be analyzed and permitted before the burn can be done. The smoke from a wildfire is not similarly scrutinized. But needless to say, the environmental impact of a multi-state wildfire is much larger than that of a smaller controlled burn.

https://reason.com/2020/09/14/wester...ent-are-eased/

There is a valid issue here in terms of controlled burns and the policies that make them difficult to execute. But don't let that muddle your thinking in terms of the clean air act or in terms of global warming and the reality of it. A correction to the laws governing controlled burns is what is required, not the elimination of the clean air act itself or denial of the effect of global warming on the California climate wrt drought and higher temperatures.

[Mountain Man]

To see such intellectual laziness and ignorance is truly sad, but this is in fact why anti vax, Climate denial, and anti evolution have such a strong voice in America. There are too many people here that lack the education and respect for knowledge to try to understand how science works and what the data actually implies when analyzed in a scientific manner. MM, and others of you inclined to 'amen' a post like this, you need to try to understand rather than dismiss based on your own personal bias. Study, learn, be humble enough to recognize when you don't know enough to be able to tell what is right.

If you study and try to learn, it will help you to have respect for those that are operating at the highest levels of science, just like getting out on a bike and trying to ride 10 miles at 20mph will give you much more respect for tour de france riders that can ride for five hours or more at 27 or 28 mph, and where portions of a race might exceed 30mph for an entire hour.

Why? because most of us even giving it our all will fail to make even a modest goal. And in that failure most of us find respect for those that actually can succeed.

At the end of the day, all you're saying is, "Only trust the experts that happen to agree with me, and not the ones who don't."