You know that feeling you get when you ask pointed questions about somebody’s goofy beliefs? The strange looks people will give? The cold shoulders and ended friendships? The life of a skeptic can be quite hard. But can also be extremely rewarding. And to celebrate life’s little ‘challenges’ that we skeptics face, a little song to remind us that we shouldn’t always…
Lord Monckton has again garnered some attention, this time due to a debate with Richard Denniss, an economist. A debate that was organised by the National Press Club and was held on the 19th of July.
This debate is already doing it’s rounds on websites like Watts Up With That and has been heralded as a victory by these so called climate sceptics. I’ve watched this one hour long debate in full and I can say it wasn’t a victory for them. It was Monckton yet again repeating his well known, and faulty, talking points.
A couple of days ago AngryWomble already retweeted a survey that is being passed around in the British homeopath circles, to give it a bit more exposure outside of that circle. And I have to say the survey itself starts in a very nice way:
Homeopathy as a profession is under attack from groups such as Sense about Science and groups such as the Nightingale Collaboration.
This Research will gauge public opinion as to the amount of information that the public and prospective patients wish to be able to access from professionally Qualified Practitioners only.
The ‘attack’ they mention is a campaign to hold complementary and alternative medicine to the same standards as advertisers of other products and services. Which means they won’t be able to make unsubstantiated and/or misleading claims that might endager the lives of patients.
Apparently people have found something new and interesting to use as evidence against global warming, albeit a bit different than a cold winter. This time it’s a potential drop in solar activity that will counteract all the warming we have seen. And will very likely, according to them, put us in a new little ice age.
It is true that during a meeting of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society an announcement was made that the sun might enter an extended period of low activity. A period similar to the Maunder minimum, which is also known as the Little Ice Age.
During the maunder minimum temperatures were lower than normal, predominantly in the northern hemisphere and most noticeable lower during the winter. And the lower solar-activity at the time has long been suspected as one of the major causes of this. Although other factors, like strong volcanic eruptions, played a role in lowering temperatures.
Most of us Europeans know Robert Llewellyn from either Scrapheap Challenge or from the science fiction series Red Dwarf. But he’s also very active on YouTube with several channels where he talks for example about politics and even has a full fledged show called Fully Charged.
In it he reviews electric cars, news and developments about them and his experience in using the cars in his day to day life. All with a very high production quality and with his trademark humour and voice. Always a joy to watch.
Potholer54 has released another excellent video researching the claims made by Monckton and why they are wrong. Although this time with an added twist. As Potholer54 is getting tired of correcting these mistakes, and correcting them all would take at least another 3 videos, he issued a challenge to Monckton fans: Find something he [Monckton] actually managed to get right. It…
Steven Crowder has released a video where he makes fun of the current petrol prices and of the policies Obama has on it. And in it he makes a case for more drilling in the United States to lower oil prices.
This does sound a lot, 163 billion barrels of oil. But lets take a look at how they got this number.
The amount of proved reserves the United States has is mostly pegged around 20.6 billion barrels of oil. Crowder got the number of 163 billion barrels from the report “U.S. Fossil Fuel Resources: Terminology, Reporting, and Summary” released by the Congressional Research Service.
Tim Minchin has produced a 9-minute poem called Storm. It tells the tale of a sceptic meeting someone who is a bit more uncritical with her opinions and evidences used for them. As I’m also a sceptic to my very core, it’s a very recognisable situation. Especially trying not to be to harsh when dealing with something that can be…
UPDATE: The Cornell paper is now available in final, published format here: “Methane and the greenhouse-gas emissions footprint of natural gas from shale formations.” I’ve written before on my doubts on the current push for natural gas drilling in the United States with hydraulic fracturing (fracking). But now there’s even research from Cornell University that will soon be published that concludes natural gas produced…
Yes, some people actually said that the earthquake in Japan is, or could be, linked to Global Warming. Which is obviously incorrect if you’ve been following the scientific literature.
But Lee doren (HowTheWorldWorks) did stumble on a grain of truth when he dealt with the subject in his video:
And I don’t want to hear any Rube Goldberg talking points on, well you see we give off carbon, and then it melts the big ice sheets up on the north pole, and those weights are pushing down on the plates, and therefore the release of the weights then leads to earthquakes. I’m sorry folks that’s not how earth quakes take place. That’s not how plate tectonics take place. I don’t want to hear any nonsense.
Now this wasn’t one of the most clear explanations, but what you can understand from this is that Lee Doren holds the opinion that the earthquake has nothing to do with global warming. And cannot be linked to any melting ice sheets and subsequent sea level rise. And he’s correct with that.
