Gore's Climate Sequel Is A Snoozer

From an article in August 4, 2017 issue of The Week magazine, Jordan Hoffman said in TheGuardian.com, "barely finds a way to keep viewers awake.  It's more a portrait of Gore than a call to arms."

Emjily Atkin in the NewRepublic.com said, "The former vice president is, of course, the most polarizing figure in climate politics -- disputed on the Left, and widely loathed on the Right."

The Week summarizes the movie as a middling sequel to the 2006 An Inconvenient Truth.

In July 27, 2017 Wall Street Journal, Bjorn Lomborg said,

     They say the sequel is always worse than the original, but Al Gore’s first film set the bar pretty low. Eleven years ago, “An Inconvenient Truth” hyped global warming by relying more on scare tactics than science. This weekend Mr. Gore is back with “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” If the trailer is any indication, it promises to be more of the same.
     The former vice president has a poor record. Over the past 11 years Mr. Gore has suggested that global warming had caused an increase in tornadoes, that Mount Kilimanjaro’s glacier would disappear by 2016, and that the Arctic summers could be ice-free as soon as 2014. These predictions and claims all proved wrong.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-gores-climate-sequel-misses-a-few-inconvenient-facts-1501193349

New York Times Is Engaged in Climate Fraud

The New York Times said yesterday that heatwaves in the past were “virtually unheard of in the 1950s”, temperatures approaching 130 degrees didn’t used to occur, and summer temperatures have shifted towards more extreme heat.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1 

Every single claim in the article is patently false, and the exact opposite of reality. The authors intentionally started their study in a cold period, after the extreme heat of the 1930’s.

https://realclimatescience.com/2017/07/new-york-times-shifts-towards-extreme-climate-fraud/

Oren Cass in City-Journal.org reporting of this kind of hyperventilating said, "What hysterical nonsense."

Jonah Goldberg in NationalReview.com said, "The public remembers past doomsday predictions about environmental catastrophies that didn't happen."

In fact even atmospheric scientist Michael Mann said in WashingtonPost.com, "Climate doomism in fact can be just as destructive as climate-change denial"

In US, Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low

The percentage of U.S. adults who believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so -- the strict creationist view -- has reached a new low. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults now accept creationism, while 57% believe in some form of evolution -- either God-guided or not -- saying man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

• 38% say God created man in present form, lowest in 35 years
• Same percentage say humans evolved, but God guided the process
• Less-educated Americans more likely to believe in creationism

http://www.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx 

Nearly Everyone Will Develop a Psychological Disorder

According to a July 14, 2017 article in Scientific American mental illnesses are so common that almost everyone will suffer at least one diagnosable mental disorder at some point in their lives. Most of these people will never receive treatment. At any time, approximately a quarter of the population experience psychological distress severe enough to impair functioning at work, school or in their relationships. Recent National surveys suggested that close to half the population, would experience a mental illness at some point in their lives.

In a new study, published earlier this year in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that if they follow people and screen them regularly using simple, evidence-based tools, the percentage of people who develop a diagnosable mental illness at any point in their lives jumps to well over 80 percent.

The latest research suggests, for the most common psychological complaints, the disorder is often short-lived, of lesser severity or self-limiting. It is not a livelong ailment.

Even short-lived or self-limiting individuals with mental illness need support.

Three years ago Mental Health America launched a Web-based tool (click here) to allow individuals to discreetly screen themselves for possible psychological disorders. Since then over two million people have used the tool, with over 3,000 people a day now logging on to determine if they may have a condition that could benefit from treatment.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/mental-illness-is-far-more-common-than-we-knew/?WT.mc_id=SA_MB_20170719 

Dr Novella Gives Skeptical Opinion of Low Cal Drinks

According to Dr Steven Novella in his blog post, New Review of Artificial Sweeteners, July 19, 2017,

If you are trying to lose weight replacing sugary drinks with low calorie drinks can be a helpful part of your overall strategy. It will not be a panacea, or make weight loss easy. The research shows the most effective strategies involve making permanent changes to your lifestyle regarding food consumption and exercise. Avoiding sugary drinks can be part of those lifestyle changes, and you should not fear drinking LES because of an alleged backfire effect. The research, including this recent review, does not show such an effect in humans.

He clarifies this conclusion as follows:

I think the bottom line is that weight loss is difficult and complex. . . There are many variables, and no study will ever be able to control for all of them. The net effect of consuming LES vs sugary drinks or water is likely dependent on the individual and the situation. But I do think we can draw a couple of conclusions from all the available research. 

The first question is this – is there a health or weight disadvantage to consuming sugar? I think the answer here is a clear yes. Sugary drinks contain many calories that add to total calorie consumption and are counterproductive if your goal is calorie control for weight management. Replacing high calorie sugary drinks with low calorie drinks is therefore advantageous.

The second question is this – is there an unintended backfire effect to consuming LES, because it tricks the brain into being more hungry or some other hormonal or metabolic effect? Here I think the answer is probably no,. . . Randomized controlled trials in humans supersede cohort studies and animal studies in addressing this question. Those studies find, if anything, a modest benefit to consuming LES.. . The randomized trials clearly do not show any disadvantage – no backfire effect.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/new-review-of-artificial-sweeteners/

Conciousness

In late April, an editor of Slashdot raved about a TED talk that he had just watched. We tried to find that talk, but it was never posted by people at TED.  Finally, we received notice that it was available. Alhough we are a TED talk junkies but we agree with the editor at Slashdot, this presentation is thought provoking.

https://www.ted.com/talks/anil_seth_how_your_brain_hallucinates_your_conscious_reality#t-896523 

Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience -- and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we're all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it "reality." Join Seth for a delightfully disorienting talk that may leave you questioning the very nature of your existence.

The Climate Wackos Are Doubling Down

      Governor Brown isn't the only hysteric on the Climate Alarmist wacko bench.  According to Dr Judith Curry, American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the New York Magazine in its article the Uninhabitable Earth has even the proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming crying "this guy is nuts.".  

     According to Curry, 
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/17/alarm-about-alarmism/

The climate change debate has entered what we might call the “Campfire Phase”, in which the goal is to tell the scariest story. – Oren Cass (twitter)

She adds, "What is technically wrong with the NYMag article? Andy Revkin pretty much sums it up perfectly with this tweet"

Scariest stuff isn’t worst-case science; it’s bad fit of @deepuncertainty & time scales with indiv. & collective human risk/response traits.

Apart from the predictable takedowns by the AGW ‘unconvinced,’ there has been substantial resistance to the NYMag article from elements of what is usually regarded as the ‘alarmed’ contingent:

Governor Brown Is Clueless Regarding Climate Change

      California Governor Brown and Senate Leader Kevin de Leon have demanded and Californian’s have paid billions of dollars in Cap and Trade taxes (over $5 billion to date) and higher cost renewable energy mandated use (state electric rates 50% higher than U.S. average)  to meet globally irrelevant and meaningless state greenhouse gas reduction targets.
      Brown recently proclaimed that China is “leading” the way in fighting global climate change and made a recent trip to China to discuss climate change issues demonstrate how completely clueless and disconnected he is from reality.
      China is planning to build more than twice as many coal plants in the next decade as the U.S. has in operation today. According to the Global Coal Plant Tracker these 1,600 coal plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.”
      Under the absurd Paris Climate Accord Agreement provisions China and India, two of the largest CO2 emitters are allowed to increase future CO2 emissions by as much as they want until year 2030 and even in that year no commitment to any future reduction is provided.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/13/new-york-times-worlds-nations-building-huge-numbers-of-new-coal-plants-despite-emissions-growth/

      The Carbon Majors Report report found that more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities. Chinese coal was 4x more than the next contributor. The report says if fossil fuels continue to be extracted at the same rate over the next 28 years as they were between 1988 and 2017, says the report, global average temperatures would be on course to rise by 8-def F by the end of the century. 

Why you THINK you See a Ghost

Surviving the Misinformation Age

David Helfhand talks the problem, but not the solution.  I guess you have to read his book


He discusses the seriousness of the Misinformation problem of the Internet. Helfhand says,

"The internet misinformation damages our thinking and our beliefs. Even skeptics aren't immune from believing falsehoods they read online."

David J. Helfand, a faculty member at Columbia University,is the author of nearly 200 scientific publications and has trained 22 PhD students, He served as President & Vice-Chancellor from 2008-2015.of Quest University Canada. He is also recent completed a four-year term as President of the American Astronomical Society. His first book, A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age appeared earlier in 2016. He is a Fellow of CSI.

This talk took place at CSICon on Saturday, October 29th, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Paris Accord Hypocrisy

When China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, it seemed to confirm Beijing’s new role as a leader in the fight against climate change. However, new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants indicates a different situation. China’s energy companies will build almost half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.

Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Global Coal Plant Tracker. These new plants expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent and make it nearly impossible to meet the goals set in the Paris Climate Accord whose target is to limit the increase in global temperatures below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.from pre-industrial levels. Coal fired plants are the biggest single contributor globally to the rise in carbon emissions.

Certainly Trump Has Dangerous Mental Problems

Surely, no one who has seen Trump's recent Tweet with him beating CNN person, can ignore this behavior as not dangerous.  The question is how long should the country tolerate this man?  However, his supporter seem oblivious.  

Adam Roberts says in his July 2, 2018 WIRED article,  The President Does Not Lie Like You and Me, 
https://www.wired.com/story/president-trumps-lies-and-untruths/?mbid=nl_7217_p1&CNDID=48648177 

To Trump and his followers, it doesn’t matter if we can’t believe the President as long as they ensure we can’t believe anyone else, either. Sure, the apotheosis of all this will make traditional governance—passing laws, making treaties, regulating in the public interest—impossible. But the people in charge will be able to do all kinds of other stuff while no one’s watching, or while no one can see. They can change regulations to make them more favorable to allies and donors. They can figure out how to suppress their opponents’ voters. They can embed moneymaking enterprises into governance. The tsunami of lies will recede, leaving behind only the swamp.

Trump has become such an international embarrassment that almost everyone is just trying to ignore him.  What is scary is how Putin is going to play Trump like a fiddle.  Trump's ego is so far out in front of him, Putin only needs to know one tune. Who knows what lullaby Trump responds in return.