Surface temperature reconstructions for periods
prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple
lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that
climatic warming is occurring in response to human
activities, and they are not the primary evidence.

yes, they are all scumbags! It’s so bizarre that all these youngsters are in love with right-wing politics. Where is their model for the type of country they want? The only ones I know without any social nets are like Russia or Guatemala. Are those their models?

-the doc-

Thanks for identifying Seixon. This guy is even creepier than I realized, another one of those young Republicans who is a fanatical liar, like that plagiarist-freak Ben Domenech at RedState, or that punk working in public affairs at NASA who got fired for lying on his resume.

He also is on record as thinking that Ann Coulter is fairer than Michael Moore. He said, “Moore is a disgraceful liar, deceptionist extra-ordinaire, and not to mention a hypocrit.
Bowling for Columbine was one large reel of lies, deceptions, and what we call BULLshit. Some points of the movie were funny, yes. That cartoon about slavery, “white folks”, the NRA, etc. was funny. It was mostly funny because it was utterly ridiculous.
I don’t see how that movie got any kind of award for being a “documentary”. That, is ridiculous.

“People in Canada don’t lock their doors, see?”

No shit dumbass, no one locks their doors in the middle of the day when they’re at home!

That made me laugh. That’s what was funny about his movie, Moore trying to prove something, and making himself look like a moron.

Yet, the worst thing of all, is that people actually believe in his lies. That’s the most dangerous part about it all. If there ever was a reason to abolish Freedom of Speech, that would be it.”

the ravings of a paid neo-nazi!!

-the doc-

Yes, there is a pattern, and Seixon stays relentlessly on message with it. The tactics are far too consistent for Seixon to be “certifiably insane” as some people here seem to think. It smacks of training to me.

If Seixon really did believe what he writes, he might indeed be certifiably insane. But he doesn’t believe it. Nor do the fossil fuel industry CEOs and their lawyer-libertarian-think tank minions believe their bullshit, either. Here is what they do believe: that human beings are so resourceful, and so adaptive, and free markets are so powerful, that when the time comes we will have plenty of time to innovate our way out of trouble. In the meantime, let’s make some money. These people are true elitists. They know what is right, and having been so informed by their ideology, they don’t want science or public debate or democracy to get in their way.

Oh how I wish they were just insane, or idiots, or ignorant, or mean-spirited, or whatever. Then maybe we could talk some sense into them, or get them out of power somehow. But they are much worse than that. They are clever people who have to varying degrees abandoned morality. The worst of them are full-blown psychopaths.

1. Never pass up the opportunity to make a purely semantic argument.

Example: “CO2 is not a pollutant.”

Call CO2 whatever you want. It has no bearing on how it behaves.

2. Ignore, at all costs, the context of any evidence that might support your position. Make sloppy, unsustainable arguments that require your opponents to do your research for you. Then, when they’ve done the research you should have, throw up another unsustainable argument to see if it sticks. Repeat ad nauseum.

In the process, sooner or later you will be able to make a purely semantic argument (#1), argue that an irrelevant uncertainty debunks an entire body of evidence (#3 below), or make your opponents (who are not paid) lose interest in the argument. This is a highly scientific process (NOT).

Example: “There are no scientists who would tell you that Gore’s presentation of the sea level rising 20 feet was in any way accurate.”

Again, I had to do Seixon’s research for him.

Gore’s movie states:

“Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica”

In an interview, Gore Says:

The North Polar ice cap is in grave danger now. And nearby the great ice mound of Greenland is under increasing pressure from growing temperatures also. If that were to melt, it would–or to break up and slip into the sea, it would raise sea level 20 feet worldwide. The west Antarctic ice shelf, that’s on the other end of the planet, the other pole, is the part of Antarctica propped up against islands that allow it to be affected by the warming ocean but also allow it to raise sea level by 20 feet, again, if it melts or breaks off and slides into the ocean.

And these are the three areas that many scientists point to as affecting a so-called point of no return which we need to avoid because if we cross that point of no return, then the process of a downward spiral would be irretrievable. So we have to stop short of that.

On 11/20/05, the UK Independent reported:

Research to be published in a few days’ time shows how glaciers that have been stable for centuries have started to shrink dramatically as temperatures in the Arctic have soared with global warming. On top of this, record amounts of the ice cap’s surface turned to water this summer.

The two developments – the most alarming manifestations of climate change to date – suggest that the ice cap is melting far more rapidly than scientists had thought, with immense consequences for civilisation and the planet. Its complete disappearance would raise the levels of the world’s seas by 20 feet, spelling inundation for London and other coastal cities around the globe, along with much of low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1120-03.htm

Seixon’s endless capacity to ignore context allows him to make statements like “IPCC and the national science academies of 11 nations stands on my side” and have no sense of the irony of that statement.

3. Any uncertainty, no matter how irrelevant or tangential, always debunks the entire body of evidence no matter how voluminous or rigorously reviewed that evidence is.

This is a species of both 1 and 2 above. This is reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s campaign against the scientific consensus against smoking. It’s an easy rhetorical tactic. It’s very easy to say there’s some sort of raging debate somewhere and therefore the whole thing’s uncertain. It’s a strategy designed to confuse, not clarify things for the public. Maximum doubt, maximum uncertainty, maximum debate. It doesn’t matter how sloppy your arguments, just keep giving the situation this kind of appearance.

Example: Seixon says of Mann’s study “Basically everything from before 1600 and especially 900 was seen as unreliable.”

Mann drew attention to the limitations of his own study, and in spite of those limitations, still drew conclusions that the NAS found “plausible”. But most importantly, as Realclimate reports:

The key conclusions reached… (i.e., that hemispheric-scale warmth in recent decades is likely unprecedented over at last the past millennium) have been substantiated by many other studies, and the confidence in those conclusions appears greater, not lesser, after nearly an additional decade of research

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/06/national-academies-synthesis-report

But Seixon runs roughshod over all of this, saying misleadingly, “Basically everything from before 1600 and especially 900 was seen as unreliable.” As if small uncertainties in a seven year old study were the only thing that mattered. As I said before, the hockey stick is a red herring. Uncertainties present in a 1999 study do not put a dent in the larger body of evidence we now have. But Seixon wants you to think that those uncertainties are momentous, epic, paradigm-shifting, etc.

But in the end, Seixon doesn’t want you to think too much about science. The most imporant thing is everyone not take any action on this issue. Go back to sleep.

“So I guess you couldn’t prove your claim that Gray doesn’t understand computers. What a shame. Yet another Think Progress lie bites the dust.”

Seixon, I am not here to prove anything to anybody. I am here to tell people who you are, and what you are about.

I know also something about computers and ~91,000 visits in 9 1/2 months (since 09/12/2005) and 3-4 comments per article is really pityful. I had a friend who dessinged an amateur fan page about a local singer, from Spain and had at least 2x visitors in the first year… And Seixon, having a potential market seven times greater (the USA), only manages to have some visits… I bet that a great % are posters at TP too who want to see with his own eyes the page of such a shill. I bet that Seixon is using TP because is free and gets a lot clicks on his page. Even if they are from people who won’t return any more.

And mantaining a busy web site is very time consuming… If Seixon has so much time to post here, is a good indicator that he hasn’t so much work in his own blog…

No reason I can think of NOT too.

I second your remarks about seixon. He simply lies and lies then lies some more. No amount of data or reason would ever satisfy him, because he is a zealot for a cause and blind to anything but his twisted point of view. Just so readers understand, I too have a Ph.D., mine is in Earth Sciences with 25 years experience. I work closely with many of the climatologists at prestigious universities and know what is going on. Seixon, as I’ve stated in earlier posts, really hasn’t got a clue.

-the doc-

you might want to read this recent article in the LA Times. It’s a good summary and also discusses the possibility of 20 foot sea level rise. I’m sure that you’ll once again attempt to diminish the possibility and continue with your nonsensical rant, but neverthess I offer it to those who are truly interested in learning more.

You’ll want to pay attention to this “From cores of ancient Greenland ice extracted by the National Science Foundation, researchers have identified at least 20 sudden climate changes in the last 110,000 years, in which average temperatures fluctuated as much as 15 degrees in a single decade.” With temperature changes this large, ice melting could easily be extreme and raise sea levels 20 feet. These are abrupt climate changes, my friend. Again, I urge you to buy the book, Abrupt Climate Changes, and read it. I know that ytou prefer to quickly scan summary articles on the web to get soundbites that bolster your anti-environmental (read Gore) cause, but sitting down and reading a book gives you the opportunity to think, reflect and digest the information.

also: By 2005, Greenland was beginning to lose more ice volume than anyone expected — an annual loss of up to 52 cubic miles a year — according to more recent satellite gravity measurements released by JPL.

The amount of freshwater ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has almost tripled in a decade.

You can also visit some of JPL’s sites to learn more about these measurements are done. here and here.

You need to be aware that the science is moving quickly whereas the results posted in government reports and international working groups are often clouded with politics and take years to publish. Almost by definition they don’t contain “cutting edge” science because you have a huge group of politicians from many countries that need to be mollified. Thus, when you read those reports you must understand that things are typically much graver than stated because the real scientific results were modified under great political pressure from a wide variety of sources.

-the doc-

“Sorry, but as someone who actually has a degree in computers, that’s horseshit.”

But experts on computer modeling in the physical sciences don’t have their degrees in “computers”. They have degrees in physical sciences. But this doesn’t stop Seixon from putting up his degree in “computers” against thousands of professional scientists with Ph.D.s in relevant disciplines (including me, since I have a Ph.D. in engineering and am an expert in large-scale computer simulations in computational fluid dynamics with 20 years experience).

Commenters at this site should understand that Seixon has not come to this discussion to engage in meaningful debate, and that attempting to convince him of anything is futile. Instead he is putting on a show for casual visitors who might read a few postings, but who won’t follow the thread of his writings or verify what has been written in the various articles he cites. This is obvious from the fact that he repeatedly lies, then lies about having lied, ad infinitum, even though these lies are easily verified by simply referring to the articles or to what he has previously written. At first glance the lying seems sociopathic, but sociopathic liars usually aren’t quite as calm and coherent as Seixon, and they lie to everyone about everything all the time. I doubt Seixon lies to his mother, for example. All evidence points to the likelihood that Seixon is a professional liar, a liar for a cause.

So I guess you couldn’t prove your claim that Gray doesn’t understand computers. What a shame. Yet another Think Progress lie bites the dust.

“Now you’ll just have to point out where Gray admits that he doesn’t understand computers”

Funny thing, Richard Lindzen is quoted in the same article saying that Gray doesn’t even understand theory, much less computer modeling. Here is my favorite quote from the article, though, this one from Bill Gray:

“My feeling is some of us older guys who’ve been around have not been asked about this. It’s sort of a baby boomer, yuppie thing.”

Sounds like Grandpa is upset and frustrated that the grandkids don’t want to listen to his fireside stories anymore. What an embarrassment.

“Their disagreement with Mann is over definitive statements like 1998 was the warmest year as the sensitivity of all the proxies cannot capture individual years in all cases.”

THANK YOU! That is exactly what I have been trying to explain to these folks…You mean managed to convince Brian Coughlan that the NAS said it disagreed with this conclusion of Mann’s.

I am impressed Coughlan finally acknowledged that fact…It must have been tough for him to have to finally admit what I said was accurate and he was incorrect. Congrats, Brian..It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong.

I also find it funny that these are the same people who are fine with pre-emptive war on the flimsiest grounds. Are Ok with the government listening to your phone calls, going through your finacial records, searching your bags, torturing people–all in the name of hopefully catching that one bad guy—so they are willing to pre-emptively do all these things to stave off a future event that may affect a small number of people—but global warming there is no reason to do somthing unless there is 100% definitive proof flown down by Jesus himself before you will act–shouldn’t we pre-empt this–i mean it only affects everyone.

like others have said, it is obvious that you despise Gore and you are using the GW issue to attack him. First of all, Gore is far more truthful than Bush, who has done nothing but lie to the American people, destroy our middle class, kill over 2500 of our fine soldiers, and murder over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. Bush’s grandfather was a known Nazi sypathizer and his father a criminal, so he is toeing the family line. You claim not to be a conservative but that’s clearly a lie as anyone who reads your pseudo-fascist web site can learn for themselves. You talk a big line but clearly moved to a socio-capitalist country to enjoy the fruits of socialism while railing on decent people here in the US for wanting more of it here as well. Your morals and ethics are despicable. Based on the number of Google ads and buttons for donation on your amatuerish web site, it is obvious that you will do about anything for money…I truly think that you are being paid by the right-wing to disrupt these boards and discussions. There’s really no other answer that makes any sense.

-the doc-