...CO2 has an effect, but it’s about a fifth or tenth of what the IPCC says it is. CO2 is not driving the climate; it caused less than 20 per cent of the global warming in the last few decades.And what makes him think the climatology community is going to care about this? Does he think they're all going to say, "Oh, crap, look at that, we were wrong!"
Does he think, in other words, that they are actual scientists?
Because they're not. If they were, none of them would take Mann seriously any longer. If they were, the complete lack of evidence supporting their theories would not have resulted in the needed warming being adjustered and fiddleated into existence by changing the temperature records.
What's going to happen instead is, the climatology community will bend its every effort to quietly ignoring this guy's discovery of the "errors" in the model. And if they can't do that, they'll do their damnedest to discredit him.
Climatology is big bucks--various governments spend a lot of money on climate "science"--and none of the beneficiaries of that largesse are going to be happy about its raison d'etre being proven wrong.
The problem with CO2 as major driver of warming is that we know its properties very well, and people who understood its properties were able to explain why it was not capable of producing the kind of warming the warmistas were warning us about. Its infrared absorption cross-section, for example; the CO2 concentration at pre-industrial levels was enough to absorb all IR in the environment at those specific wavelengths. Even when the sun was at a maximum, pre-industrial CO2 levels sopped up all the energy to be had; adding CO2 did not increase the capacity because there was nothing else to absorb. It's like mopping up a few drops of water with a napkin; increasing the size of the napkin doesn't increase the amount of water absorbed because there's only so much to begin with.
The other problem being that while CO2 has a certain greenhouse cross-section (a scientificy term I just made up, I think, basically combining "specific heat capacity" with "radiation absorption capability") there are plenty of other things in the atmosphere with much larger cross-sections. Methane's cross-section is huge compared to CO2's, but there isn't a lot of methane in our atmosphere. Water, on the other hand--water is anywhere from 2 to 5% of the total atmosphere, and its cross-section dwarfs methane's and CO2's combined. Of course, when you have a lot of water in the air you also have clouds, which tend to limit the amount of energy reaching the Earth's surface. Clouds tend to reflect more energy than they absorb so their net effect is to cool things off.
People who know some actual science have understood almost all along that CO2 can't do what the climatologists desperately want it to do. This story is, I think, the final nail in the coffin, at least for people in general. I expect that once they learn about this, that will be it for "man-made global warming".
Well, I suppose we were about due for a switch to "man-made global cooling", anyway, and in fact the eco-nazis are already laying the groundwork for that with bullshit about "aerosols" and similar nonsense...even though one good volcanic eruption (like Mount Pinatubo in 1991) spews more particulates and aerosols into the atmosphere than all human activity ever.
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I can't really squeeze this comment into the above, but: the whole problem with the "runaway global warming" doomsayers is that they don't seem to understand that if it could have happened, it would have already. There's been a lot more CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere than there is now, and some of those time periods were ones with cooler temperatures than now. Regardless the Earth's climate is actually very stable.
The problem is, it's metastable. If you look at the whole climate record as we currently understand it, Earth is actually an ice world with occasional warm periods. This planet spent a lot of its history covered in glaciers.
Keep an eye on that sunspot count, folks.
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Idiots sue an ammunition manufacturer because a nutjob shot their daughter, and they cry when they lose the suit. Here's the thing: as the article points out, unless you are suing everyone who contributed to your daughter's death, you're engaging in activism. Which means yeah, you should also sue the manufacturer of the car the maniac took to the theater, you should sue the gas station that sold the psycho the gasoline he burned in the car--heck, you should sue the theater, too, for not taking enough precautions against stupid nutjobs shooting up the joint.
The judge rightly ruled the lawsuit frivolous. The ammunition manufacturer cannot keep someone from using its products to kill someone, no more than Shell Oil can stop an arsonist from using its gasoline to start a fire.
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Yet another socialized medicine success story! General practitioners (GPs) are leaving Britain for Australia, because the working conditions, pay, and cost of living are so much better there.
Ah, the inevitable failure of socialized medicine. How predictable it is.
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Today, I did not go to work.
The combination of factors that led to my decision to take the point and stay home: my entire body has been aching, particularly my abdomen...also, the computer interview scheduled for this afternoon.
I had gone to bed with the intention of going to work and asking to be allowed to leave early--perhaps noon or one PM--but upon waking this morning I thought it might be better to sleep in and be well-rested for my interview, instead of rushing home and possibly ending up not having time to clean up and look a little GQ. Ending up frazzled and in a bad mood because I had to deal with a miggim who would simply not accept that his bill was fifty cents higher per month after he got his new phone....
Besides, Mrs. Fungus has today off, and it seems like I've hardly seen her in months.
Perhaps not the wisest choice, but it seems like most of my cohort have taken at least one day off each since we started; I can count the number of people who've been there every day on my thumbs, and I must include myself to use them up.
Well, that's how it goes.
But considering how my abdomen feels--well, I think it's for the best that I stayed home today. I have this heavy sensation in my bladder like it's full, but it's not, and so far today I've needed to hit the can twice for number twos that were much larger than normal. I think the yakisoba is clearing out my gut (it's good for that) and each time the discomfort and pressure have decreased.
Interview's in about 2.5 hours. Wish me luck.