Gaia Exists! Here is the Proof

Gaia is neither benevolent nor merciful. She is harsh and ruthless. 

Environmentalists are sometimes defined as "Gaia worshippers," a term supposed to be an insult. That's a little strange because most people on this planet openly worship non-existing entities and that doesn't normally make them targets for insults. Maybe it is because there is an important difference: Gaia exists.

But who or what is Gaia, exactly? The name belongs to an ancient Goddess but the modern version is something different. As you probably know, the term was proposed for the first time by James Lovelock in 1972 and co-developed with Lynn Margulis. As it happens for many innovative ideas, it was the result of a simple observation: if the Sun radiative intensity increases gradually over the eons, how come that the Earth's surface temperature has remained within the boundaries necessary to keep the biosphere alive? There has to be something that keeps it like that. Lovelock proposed that the mechanism was based on regulating the concentration of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2. You understand that this idea goes at the core of the current debate on climate change: it deals with the inner mechanisms that make the Earth's climate what it is and what it may become in the future.

So, Gaia is powerful but She is not supposed to be benevolent or merciful, and not even a Goddess: we could say that She is what She is. But does She really exist? Not everyone agrees on this point. The concept is often referred to as the "Gaia hypothesis" and entire books have been written to demonstrate that there is no such a thing as a control mechanism of the Earth's temperature. Indeed, in the beginning, the idea was mostly qualitative and not proven. Lovelock proposed a clever model called "Daisyworld" that showed how a simple biosphere could control the temperature of a planet. But the Earth's biosphere is not just made out of daisies and something more than that was needed. But over time proofs have accumulated to show that Gaia is much more than a qualitative hypothesis (or an object of worship by people believing in non-existing beings).

Let me show you some data from a 2017 paper by Foster, Royer, and Lunt that can be seen as proof of the existence of Gaia even though they never mention the term. It is not about new discoveries, but it uses available data to look at how the concentration of CO2 and the sun irradiation varied over the past 400 million years, most of the eon we call the "Phanerozoic." The paper is somewhat technical, but clearly written and you can follow the argument even if you are not a specialist in atmospheric physics. Here are the main results:

The top (a) figure shows the average CO2 forcing (red line), compared to the solar forcing (yellow line). "Forcing" means the thermal effect over the Earth expressed as power per square meter (W/m2). It is called forcing because it is a change of a previous condition. A positive forcing warms the Earth, a negative forcing cools it. Values of the order of a few W/m2 may seem to be small, but they may change the Earth temperature of some degrees C.

The surprising result shown in the figure is how the two forcings, sun and CO2, balance each other nearly exactly. You can see that in the bottom panel of the figure: the net forcing is the red line. This is truly impressive. Assuming a sensitivity factor of 0.3, you can calculate that the solar forcing, alone, should have increased the Earth's average temperature of about 2-3 C (nearly 5 F) over 400 million years. The increase would have been considerably larger if feedbacks (e.g. water vapor) are taken into account. But we don't see this increase, not at all. Here are some recent data by Mills et al.

Look at the gray curve: plenty of oscillations but, on the average, the temperature has remained constant over the past 400 million years. If it had increased even of just 2-3 degrees C, the effect would be clearly detectable. If we push back the boundary to more ancient times, to the origins of life on Earth, the effect should have been much larger: the ancient Earth should have been at least 20 K colder than it is today. It should have been a ball of ice. It was not: we know that there was liquid water even in those remote times.

So, the data are clear: the increasing sun irradiance over the Earth's geological history has been compensated mainly by a declining CO2 concentration. Of course, there are other factors affecting climate: other greenhouse gases, changes of albedo, ocean currents, clouds, atmospheric particulate, orbital and axial oscillations. But they seem to play a minor role at the time scale of an eon. And would you believe that this near-perfect compensation occurred by chance? Yes, sometimes things happen by chance, but can the same thing keep happening by chance for 400 million years?

Anyone said "Gaia"? Smile! The Lady is right in front of you. She exists and we are lucky that She is what She is. Otherwise, the biosphere wouldn't have died long ago, burned or frozen.

But what mechanism causes the CO2 concentration to decline as solar irradiance increases? And where does the removed CO2 go? Lovelock had proposed that it was just the biosphere that did the job, it seems now that we need a tight coupling of biosphere and geosphere to obtain the effect we see. In part, CO2 is removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis and then transformed into the inert substance called "kerogen" (the precursor of fossil fuels), then buried into the crust. In part, CO2 reacts with silicates in the crust to form solid carbonates. It is a long story and not everything is known, but things start to make sense. Lovelock was right.

Now, are events occurring over hundreds of millions of years relevant for us? Absolutely yes. The time scale may change, but the physics remains the same. The impressive point is that there is no fiddling, here, with mysterious models. These are experimental data coupled with simple physical principles that have been known and established for at least a century. They do show that CO2 affects climate, something that many non-worshippers of Gaia refuse to accept.

Comparing the current situation with the record of the Phanerozoic, we can see that the forcing that we are creating with our CO2 emissions (at present about 3 W/m2, and rising) is of the same order of magnitude of the past forcings that caused the Earth to reach the condition of "hothouse Earth," 10-20 degrees warmer than it is today -- and that even for a smaller sun irradiation! If it has happened in the past, it may well happen again. But it would be easier today because the sun is hotter. So, we may well be in deep, deep trouble.

How fast could the transition to hothouse Earth happen? On this point, the Phanerozoic data help us little: we don't have the resolution that would be necessary to detect rapid events such as the incredible burst in atmospheric CO2 concentrations that humans have created during the past few centuries. Some people say that humans will go exctinct in a few decades because of the triggering of the release of methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, from the permafrost. That would be consistent with the several mass extinctions that took place during the Phanerozoic: we know that Gaia is neither benevolent nor merciful.

But the extinction of humankind is not necessarily Gaia's will. The damage we made may still be reversed, especially if we manage to crash the global economic system. That would stop the burning of fossil fuels and the Earth might return to the previous conditions without the utter destruction that some scenarios foresee. Eventually, it surely will, even though that may take a few million years. Gaia may not be benevolent, but she is surely patient.




You Gotta Believe from Nina Paley on Vimeo.



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A comment from my personal troll

Ancient kings hired personal advisors to remind them that they were mortal. This I know well enough by myself, but I thought I could hire a personal troll to remind me of my limits as a scientist. Here is a comment from him, Mr. Kunning-Druger). 

Glad to see this post, professor Bardi, and I see that you and your friends finally admitted what you always refused to admit: climate has always been changing. And all the data you are showing to us that humans have no effect on climate: look at all those variations in CO2 concentrations: where were the SUVs, the coal mines, the oil wells that you and the others have been telling us are the cause of "climate change"? How can that be? And the supposed "coincidence" that you are showing to us, that should "prove" that Gaia exists. Do you think we are stupid to believe that when we know that these numbers come from the same people who wrote "hide the decline" in one of their mails? And all this story of the Goddess, again, it proves what we had been saying all along: those idiotic Greens are just a bunch of adhorers of Nature, they and their little prophetess, that disturbed girl, Greta - just another scam among the many. You think you are doing science, but you do politics with just an attempt to mask it with a little New Age flavor. The reality is that the whole story is a scam to get public money for your fat research grants. We know that and I am going to write to the president of your university to tell him that you are wasting the salary that the government gives to you. You are using it to scam people and you should be fired together with all those silly scientists. (KD).

The dark side of the Internet: the "Quantum Code" scam and its implications

The alleged financial tycoon "Michael Crawford," together with his assistant, "Tasha," peddling the products of the "Quantum Code" company. You can find the whole movie at http://tqcode.com/special.php. Go ahead, click on it, it won't harm your computer. It is a fascinating trip into the depths of human gullibility. And it explains a lot about how communication really works. 

The debate on any issue is normally framed on the concept that facts matter. It is also called the "information deficit model" and it says that if you provide people with the right kind of information, say, about climate science, they will understand it and act accordingly. I don't think I have to tell you that it doesn't work like that. There are many examples of this, but some are truly luminous, such as this one by "Quantum Code." 

This clip is truly amazing: it is all based on the idea that happiness is based on conspicuous consumption. Over and over, you are shown all the perks of being filthy rich: a personal jet plane, big cars, jewels, expensive watches and, yes, a nice looking, uniformed personal assistant, Tasha, who looks totally subservient to her boss and ready to do anything for him. This clip is not just a scam, it is a work of art in its own right. Art, after all, is mostly based on some kind of make-believe process and when we watch a play by Shakespeare we don't worry about whether Hamlet is a historical character or not. 

The same is true, here, for the alleged financial tycoon "Michael Crawford." He is a purely fictional character, like Hamlet or Captain America. That's clear from the very first sentence that you hear in the clip: "my name is Michael Crawford, yes that guy you might have read about on Forbes and other financial magazines." It takes less than one minute to verify that there doesn't exist anyone with that name who's described on Forbes as a financial tycoon of any kind. 

Maybe a lot of people, out there, are unable to use search engines for debunking this kind of stories. Still, anyone should be wary when hearing "Michael Crawford" telling them that he wants to make them millionaires in exchange for nothing, out of pure philanthropy. Don't they have a grandmother who told them that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"? To say nothing of the gaping holes in the whole idea. For instance, we are told that the software engineers of Quantum Code "make millions of dollars every year" using the code that they developed. If they can do that, why would they keep working for Quantum Code?

So, how would anyone believe in this so transparent scam? But for everything that exists, there has to be a reason for it to exist and this clip is a wonderful demonstration of how the messenger trumps the message in terms of effectiveness. The whole show is based on the quiet assurance of the actor playing the character of Michael Crawford. He is smooth, self-confident, a convincing fatherly figure.

Clearly, you are asked to believe the messenger, not the message. After all, it is what's normally done in politics. You vote for the candidates whom you think you can trust. And trust comes from consistency. The poor vote for the rich, as it happened for Donald Trump, not on the basis of facts or rational considerations. They do that because the personality of the chosen candidate is consistent with the fact that he (rarely she) is rich.

Note how, clearly, the fact that this clip is so easily debunked is not a bug; it is a feature (*). The script of the clip was thought from the beginning as a sucker's bait. Evidently, they want suckers and they make sure that those who fall for the trap are suckers. Later on in the clip, they ask people to pay $250 to open an account with them and I suppose that's how they make money.

But there is something strange, here. Won't they get a better success if they were a little more subtle? Why do they immediately give away the game and screen out everyone who has even a modest ability to verify facts? The trick, here, seems to be that scamming works according to special rules. Apparently, making the scam highly transparent triggers some kind of a short circuit in some people's mind. It makes them think something like, "if this guy is a scammer, why should he make the scam so obvious? Therefore, it cannot be a scam." 

Strange but true. I have seen this mechanism at play many times with the story of the alleged nuclear device called the E-Cat. The many gaping holes in the narrative of this pretended energy breakthrough are consistently interpreted by believers as part of a grand strategy by the inventor to maintain secrecy about his invention. Howlers in the narrative make it more believable, not less!

Maybe these considerations are sufficient to explain the Quantum Code story: nothing more than an average scam, although a little more transparent and aggressive than others. I don't know how much the clip may have cost to its developers, but if they manage to catch a few thousands of people who are willing to pay $250, then they can probably make a nice profit on their investment. Perhaps, just a few hundreds would be enough to get even. The site exists also in Italian and in other languages and is backed by an aggressive e-mailing campaign. I am sure they get a good number of contacts.

Yet, I keep thinking that there may be more to this story than just pulling a fast one on suckers. You know how the Internet works today. You are "profiled" and you are fed messages that you are supposed to be interested in. And that you are supposed to believe. So, my impression is that the Quantum Code scam is not so much about having some people paying a little money. Rather, the value of the whole enterprise may be in creating a list of "choice suckers" that they can sell to others. It is a list of people who are not just highly gullible, but also greedy and who have enough money to be able and willing to pay $250 for a scam. They are perfect targets for scammers everywhere. 

This list of A-grade suckers may also have a value for research purposes. How gullible are people on the average? Which fraction of the population would fall for such an obvious scam as this one? I am sure that there are government agencies who need this kind of data to calibrate their propaganda and for them it would be no problem to create this scam as a probe to launch on the Internet. The people on the list would also be a great asset for creating a political movement: they are natural born believers.

In the end, we always face the same problem: we create wonderful gadgets that we think will help us to make things better. And then we discover that, no, they are making things worse. That's the case also for the Internet. It was supposed to favor the free diffusion of information and, in some ways, it does. And that it would bring democracy by making people better informed. But we are discovering that there is a dark side to this capability: the manipulation of information that creates scams, disinformation, fake news, and all the rest. Where that will lead us remains to be seen, but the current omens are not so good (and we are still waiting for the "Internet of things" to appear!).

(*) Telling a lie from the very beginning may be described as the  "blue lie" strategy as described and explained in this article by Jeremy Adam Smith. Blue lies are statements that you know are false or at least very uncertain, but that you profess to believe - or maybe believe for real - in order to show that you belong to the tribe.

Saving the world, one lawsuit at a time: a new disaster for Rossi's E-Cat

I keep saying that I am not interested in the E-Cat story anymore but, in reality, I am still fascinated by this illustration of the depths that the human credulity can reach. So, I thought I could chronicle here the most recent developments of the plot, just for the fun of it. (Image from blurbrain) 

The E-cat saga continues! The energy-producing device that should have saved the world seems to be set to do that one lawsuit at a time. The latest chapter of the saga involves the "Industrial Heat" company that, apparently, provided serious money for the intellectual rights on Rossi's device. As in previous cases, however, the story ended in a bitter quarrel when the company discovered that the device couldn't generate the excess energy it claimed to be able to generate. Below, two excerpts from the Industrial Heat' answer to Rossi's complaints. More details are provided by Steven Krivit.  (also here)

But, of course, it is all a conspiracy of the PTB!

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http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/08/06/industrial-heat-responds-to-rossis-complaints/
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5ZV0oKQafY4bHhOZHlBZFZ4MG8
(highlights by UB)

7.Beyond the fact that Guaranteed Performance could not be achieved in the required time period, Leonardo and Rossi knew that the Plant could not produce a COP of 10.0 or greater (or even a COP or 4.0 or greater) for 350 out of 400 days. As a result, Leonardo and Rossi manipulated the testing process by, among other things, 1) insisting that the Plant be relocated to Miami, far away from Industrial Heat’s offices, to provide steam to a purported manufacturing “customer” that did not actually exist; 2) manipulating, along with Fabiani, the operation of the Plant and the reports of the Plant’s purported operations, to make it appear that the Plant was producing a COP far greater than 10.0; and 3) enlisting Penon to produce a false report stating that Guaranteed Performance was achieved.

31. Defendants lack sufficient knowledge or information to admit or deny the allegations concerning the number of years Rossi has purportedly spent working, or the nature of the work Rossi has purportedly performed, on the E-Cat. Defendants deny that the E-Cat produces energy substantially in excess of the amount of energy input into the reaction at a cost substantially below that of more traditional energy sources; see Ex. 1.1 technology Plaintiffs directly provided them, Industrial Heat and IPH have been unable to produce any measurable excess energy. Defendants deny that the E-Cat produces energy substantially in excess of the amount of energy input into the reaction at a cost substantially below that of more traditional energy sources; see Ex. 1.1

E-Cat: the saga continues.

Maybe this device produces energy, too?

Of course, you all know that if I am criticizing Rossi's E-Cat it is because I am part of the great conspiracy to keep hidden the fact that oil is infinite and ever recreated in the depths of the earth. I am a gatekeeper; no, really........ (UB)

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http://news.newenergytimes.net/…/convicted-fraudster-rossi…/

Convicted Fraudster Rossi Accuses Licensee Industrial Heat of Fraud

by Steven Krivit, April 6, 2016

Andrea Rossi, a convicted white-collar criminal with a string of failed energy ventures, is suing Thomas Darden, JT Vaughn, and their affiliated companies Cherokee Investment Partners LLC, Industrial Heat LLC, and IPH International B.V. for fraud. Rossi is accusing them of stealing his intellectual property, which, judging by all public facts known to New Energy Times, does not exist.

According to the complaint, Industrial Heat had paid Rossi $11 million for a license to what he calls his Energy Catalyzer, or E-Cat, an assembly of copper pipes that he says can produce 1 megawatt of commercially useful excess heat from low-energy nuclear reactions (LENRs). Attorney John Annesser, with the Silver Law Group in Islamorada, Florida, is representing Rossi. Annesser has been licensed for four years. Before that, he worked as a general contractor.

According to the license agreement, Industrial Heat was supposed to pay Rossi another $89 million after the successful completion of a one-year operating test in February 2016. Some of the accusations in the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, appear suspicious.

Rossi says that “Industrial Heat and/or IPH engaged and paid two of their representatives, Mr. Barry West and Mr. Fulvio Fabiani, to monitor, maintain, take part in, and report on the operation of the E-Cat unit being tested.”

New Energy Times does not know who West is, but Fabiani, whose expertise is in electronics and computer science, was Rossi’s right-hand man, according to journalist Mats Lewan, who writes for the Swedish technology newsweekly Ny Teknik. If Rossi’s claim is true, Industrial Heat paid Rossi’s closest technician and engineer to perform technical due diligence for Industrial Heat.

According to Rossi’s lawsuit, on or about March 29, 2016, Fabio Penon, whom Rossi called an expert responsible for validation of the test, “published his final report regarding the operation of the E-Cat.” As of today, New Energy Times is not aware of any evidence that such a report was ever published publicly. According to Rossi’s blog, Penon was paid half of his compensation by Industrial Heat and half by Rossi’s Leonardo Corp.

Penon has worked for Rossi and written at least one report about Rossi’s E-Cat since 2012. He identifies himself as “M.Eng. (Nuclear Engineering Specialist).”

Despite Rossi’s assertions in his lawsuit, no published evidence has ever described any truly independent testing of his E-Cat. Neither is there any evidence of any “major independent third-party certification institute,” as Lewan claimed.

Revealed: 9 reasons why photovoltaic energy is a scam

A little problem with photovoltaic panels (image from "The Telegraph")

by the "Save us from the Sun" committee.  

There has never been so much talk about photovoltaic energy as today, with some people touting it as the miracle solution to all our problems. Well, it is not so easy, and we show you why


1. Photovoltaic cells cannot work. They will tell you that photovoltaic energy is created by means of arcane processes created by quantum mechanics. The reality is that quantum mechanics is based on the so-called "uncertainty principle." How can any science be based on a principle that starts with uncertainty by definition? And how can any device work when based on such flimsy foundations?

2. Photovoltaic cells don't work. This is a very simple test. Take a photovoltaic cell in your hand. Expose it to the sun. Touch it anywhere, on the surface, on the contacts, wherever. Do you feel any electric shock? No. And yet, these cells are supposed to create electric power. But they don't. They are such an obvious hoax!

3. Photovoltaic panels are supposed to work catching the energy of the sun. Now, if that is true and there are so many photovoltaic panels around, how come that you can plug in your hair dryer even at night and when it is cloudy? Clearly, it must be a scam.

4. Look at the White House. Do you remember when Jimmy Carter had photovoltaic panels installed on the roof of the White House? Yes, that was in 1979 and in 1981 president Reagan had the panels removed. Don't you think there was a reason for Reagan to take this decision? Of course: he had discovered the truth about photovoltaic panels. They don't work! Recently, Obama reinstalled solar panels on the roof of the White House, but that only proves that he is not only a Kenyan-born impostor but part of the great conspiracy, too

5. Do you know about chemtrails? Yes, the terrible chemicals that pretended civilian planes spread every day on our heads have many purposes. Some of them have to do with the photovoltaic scam. We cannot give you details, this is a delicate subject and we are afraid that the gatekeepers will send their minions to silence us. But the fact that photovoltaic panels don't work is just as true as the fact that chemtrails exist. Believe us!

6. Photovoltaic panels are dangerous for the people living nearby. How can we say that? Well, first of all, it is well known that wind towers are carcinogenic (it is proven: someone wrote a book about that). And photovoltaic panels are supposed to create the same form of energy that wind towers create: electricity. There has to be a relation. Besides, some people who contract various kinds of sicknesses have photovoltaic panels on the roof of their homes: doesn't that mean something?

7. Solar panels remove the sun: do you know that they will suck-up all the solar light and there won't be any left for you? It is true. You can read about that here.

8. Solar panels kill birds. Actually, that's reported mostly for concentrating solar power plants and wind turbines. But we are sure that also the photovoltaic panels kill birds, even though the mechanisms are not clear, yet. After all, the same people build these plants, so they must have the same effects.

9. The role of the gatekeepers. Do you realize that there are individuals who spend time and effort in order to smear such a well-established concept as smear such an established concepts as "cold fusion"  and to promote the photovoltaic scam? Yes, for instance, there is this guy named Ugo Bardi who pretends to be a university professor. Even assuming that he is really a professor, why should he spend so much time denigrating Andrea Rossi and his E-Cat, were he not on the payroll of the photovoltaic lobby? Another proof that photovoltaic energy is a scam.


The "Save us from the Sun" is a non-profit group of concerned individuals dedicated to exposing the renewable energy scams being perpetrated on us and unmasking alien infiltrators who are diffusing them.

Nuclear fusion and the "three years law" of scientific research

  

As part of a mini-series on nuclear fusion on the Cassandra blog, here is a brief discussion on the status of the approach to fusion based on hot plasmas; the so called "tokamak" configuration. This technology is progressing at a very slow rate: the first energy producing plants are planned to appear not earlier than in several decades from now (if ever). Given the situation, we may be making a big communication mistake if we present this approach as the solution to the world's energy problems. At this rate of progress, many people have already lost their patience and are taking refuge in pseudoscience and outright scams. (image above from an article by Jean Pierre Petit). 

There is an unwritten law that rules industrial research and development. It says that you have to demonstrate that your idea can work in no more than three years. In exceptional cases, five years may be the limit but, normally, no industrial research project lasts more than that. If a project produces no useful results in five years, then there are good chances that it never will.

There are several examples of the "three years law" (or, maybe, "five years law").  Think of the Wright brothers: their first glider flew in 1900 and three years later they flew the first engine powered plane in the world. Think of nuclear fission; the Manhattan project was active from 1942 to 1946 and in less than three years it created both the first nuclear bomb and the first nuclear reactor. The law seems to hold independently of the ambition of the project: whether it is a bicycle or a spaceship, it has to show that it can work in a few years.

Conversely, consider the "War on Cancer", launched in 1971 by President Nixon. In more than 40 years, a lot of progress has been made in basic research on cancer, sure, but the war has not been won. Think of hydrogen as fuel. The idea of a "hydrogen based economy" goes back to the 1960s but, so far, nothing practical exists on the market. This kind of long range projects can generate good basic research, but it can hardly produce practical results.

So, let's examine the idea of controlled nuclear fusion in this light. We are still working, mostly, on the "tokamak" concept, proposed in the 1950s by the Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov. There is no doubt that tokamaks can produce nuclear fusions but, in more than 50 years of work, we haven't been able to reach the "breakeven" point, that is the condition when the ratio of the energy produced by fusion is the same as the energy needed to keep the plasma in steady state. The European ITER project on nuclear fusion is supposed to reach and exceed that point when it becomes fully operational in 2026, that is about 20 years after the start of the project. The whole ITER project should last until 2038. These are anomalously long times for an industrial research project. Consider also that, even if ITER attains its goals, we are orders of magnitude away from a device actually able to produce useful energy.

Now, of course, it is impossible to say that tokamaks will never produce useful energy. But look at the figure at the beginning of this post. Doesn't it make you wonder? It looks like we are just making the same machine bigger and bigger, in the hope that, eventually, it will work. Think if a 747 were to look just like the Wright plane, just bigger. It is not impossible to argue that we have taken a no way out road with tokamaks, as discussed in a recent article by Jean Pierre Petit. Other physicists, such as Luigi Sertorio, are also very skeptical about these nuclear fusion efforts.


In short, the ITER project is not an industrial research project: it is a basic research project. Of course, there is nothing wrong in studying nuclear fusion, very high temperature plasmas, and the like. It is good science performed by competent people and we can learn a lot of useful things from this work. And, in doing that, we might even find the way to obtain useful energy. But we can't think of ITER (or similar fusion research efforts) as something directly aimed at solving the world's energy problems.

The problem is that few people may know the "three years law" of scientific research, but there are limits to human patience. From the dawn of the "nuclear age," people have been told that science can solve the world's energy problems with nuclear fusion. But they haven't seen anything that works in 50 years. Now, they are being told that they have to wait for several decades more. At this point, it is not surprising that we see so many people seeking refuge in pseudoscience and in the outright scams of the recent craze on "cold fusion." That's a disaster, because people become easily convinced that there are miracle solutions to the energy problem and they tend to neglect technologies, such as renewables, that are not so glamorous but that do produce energy. But there are no miracles in science and we must do with what we have now.

Defending good science: Michael Mann speaks out

Michael Mann is the author of the "hockey stick" reconstruction that shows how the past decades have been anomalously hot as the result of global warming. In this video, he tells us of his experience, of the ordeal he has gone through, and that he is still experiencing, attacked by professionals of public relations who have unleashed a full propaganda campaign against him. Mann has been harassed and denigrated in all possible ways, including death threats to him and to his family. We need to resist against the forces who are trying to destroy climate science and science in general. Michael Mann, defined "Battle Hardened" in this clip, is doing that, and he is succeeding, but he needs all the help and support we can give to him. We all need to speak out against the forces of anti-science!

(See also a previous post of mine: "long live the hockey stick!"). 

Long live the hockey stick! Climate science fights back.

The new book by Michael Mann tells the story of the reconstruction of past temperatures called "the hockey stick" because of its characteristic shape. Despite the propaganda campaign against climate science, climate scientists are standing their ground and fighting back.

Repeat something a sufficient number of times and, eventually, people will believe it, no matter whether it is true or not. It is one of the most effective tricks of propaganda and it has been used more than once against science, for instance in the demonization of the "Limits to Growth" study. During the past few years, it has been applied repeatedly, even obsessively, against the "hockey stick," the reconstruction of past temperatures on which Michael Mann and coworkers had been working from the 1990s.

It is rare in the history of science that a single piece of experimental evidence has been the object of so many attempts of demolition. Yet, all the serious reviews of the original data have basically confirmed the initial results. Being unsuccessful in demolishing the science, the attacks have moved against the scientist, Michael Mann himself, who has been subjected to an unbelievable denigration campaign, defamed, insulted, and even physically threatened. Recently, the campaign against Mann has targeted his new book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars", with a large number of negative reviews and derogatory remarks which appeared in the reviews of the book on the Amazon site. Most of these seem to be the work of web identities created expressly for this purpose, i.e. "sock puppets".

What is amazing in this story is how people are fighting back! If you look at the comments on the Amazon site, you see how the derogatory comments have been overwhelmed by favorable comments written by real people who signed with their names. Climate science is still under heavy attack but, clearly, there is a core of concerned people who care about the future. Science is standing its ground and refuses to be overwhelmed by propaganda. It is a difficult battle but we need to fight it for everybody's future.

At this point, it seems appropriate to me to publish on this blog the interview that Michael Mann had granted to Italian version of the "Cassandra" blog in 2010. Here it is, in English.


From "Effetto Cassandra", Sep 05, 2010

1. First of all, can you tell us something of your scientific career? How did you arrive to study tree rings and paleoclimate?
 
It was a long and circuitous route. I started out as a physicist and had passed my exams and was ready to go on and do Ph.D. research in theoretical physics. But my heart was elsewhere. I wanted to work on something that had more obvious world-world implications. I saw that there were other faculty at the university I was studying at (Yale University) who worked on applications of physics to the geosciences. In particular, there was a professor (Barry Saltzman) who was working on the problem of modeling Earth's climate. that sounded fascinating to me. I went and talked with him, and he agreed to take my on as a student for the summer. That worked out well, and I ended up doing my Ph.D. with him, in the department of geology & geophysics. My Ph.D. involved studying the natural variability of the climate system (i.e. the natural long-term oscillations of the climate) using theoretical climate models and analysis of available observations. The historical record wasn't long enough to study possible century-scale oscillations. That's what originally led me to turn to climate proxy data, such as tree-rings, corals, ice cores, etc. they could provide a longer-term, if more uncertain, perspective on the evolution of Earth's climate over the centuries. Ironically, my original foray into climate proxy data had nothing to do with climate change per se!

2. At some point, you must have realized that the discussion about the validity of the paleoclimate studies had turned from a scientific one to a political one. Can you tell us how and when you discovered that the dispute had stepped outside the limits of the scientific debate?

Well, after our temperature reconstruction (the so-called "Hockey Stick") was featured in the very prominent IPCC summary for policy makers in 2001, we suspected we would be subject to attack by climate change deniers. And they haven't disappointed. Their strategy has always been to attack the messenger, discredit the science and scientists, and fool the public. We've seen this for decades. Its the same playbook that for example the tobacco industry, the chemical industry, and the pharmaceutical industry have all used to try to discredit science demonstrating potential adverse effects from the use of their product. The fossil fuel industry has taken it to a whole other level however. We literally have the most powerful industry that ever existed on earth using much of their resources to smear the science and confuse the public about the adverse effects to our world of fossil fuel burning. History will look back most unkindly on industry-funded individuals and groups  who sought to intentionally mislead the public about the reality and threat of human-caused climate change.

3. With the great noise about the "hockey stick" and about "Climategate", many people became convinced - in many cases, I think, in good faith - that you are a liar, a criminal and worse. How does that affect your everyday life? For instance, how about your students?

Well, I like to think that individuals engaged in good faith would think no such thing, as even a cursory examination of the facts demonstrates otherwise. But I do think that there has been such a concerted, well-funded smear campaign against climate science and climate scientists by  industry front groups and the far right, that even some reasonable people may be rather confused now about the facts. That of course is the intent of the industry-funded disinformation campaign. Fortunately, I have had much support from my students and colleagues at the University, and scientists around the world, who recognize the smear campaign against me and other climate scientists, for what it is. Of course, there are some ill-informed individuals out there who have engaged in some rather nasty activities, including hateful note and emails, and the like. Unfortunately, its now a fact of life if you're a prominent climate change researcher that you will be subject to these tactics.

4. I think that we - as scientists - must have made some serious mistakes in our communication strategy if deniers have been so successful in attacking climate science. Of course, one of the reasons is that they are led by professional PR people, very good at this kind of campaigns. Yet, I think that the scientific community has neglected communication - would you agree with me on this point? And what do you think we should do in the future to improve our strategy of communication and avoid seeing again such things as Climategate?

Well, I do agree that the scientific community at times has been slow to recognize the concerted, well-funded smear campaign against us and to do something to fight back. In the wake of the manufactured 'climategate' campaign and the attacks against the IPCC, many of my colleagues have now awakened to what we're up against. So perhaps that is the silver lining in all of this. I think in the future you will see far more resources devoted to outreach and communication, including a rapid response strategy to concerted efforts to smear our science and scientists.

5. Scientists often tend to seek public anonymity. They seem to believe that "facts should speak for themselves". Instead, deniers promote themselves as public figures. They may not be nice people, but they know that the message and the messenger cannot be separated and this tactic has been successful. Personally, I believe that this is one of the (very few) things we should learn from them. Do you agree with me? Do you think we should all acquire a better personal visibility?

I do agree. I think we need to humanize the image of the scientist to the public. Too often, scientists are viewed as cold, disconnected, antisocial beings. There are always a few bad apples. But in the vast majority of cases, nothing could be further from the truth. The professional climate change denial campaign has recruited and trained a cadre of charismatic individuals who, though thorough charlatans, are versed in presenting a public face of affability and are quite skilled rhetorically. Scientists are often out-matched when going up against them in debates and other public forums, even though we have objective reality and truthfulness on our side. This problem is now well recognized, and there are many individuals and groups that are trying to deal with it. So I expect much serious efforts to address this problem in the months ahead.

6. Paleoclimatology is a fascinating subject, too bad that it has been so clouded by silly controversies about the "hockey stick". Apart from that; paleoclimatology goes to explore a fundamental point: the relation of human beings with their environment. So, climate change affects humans but also humans change climate. We have plenty of examples in which the collapse of a civilization has been linked to climate change; from the Maya to the Romans, but we still are not able to establish a relation of cause and effect. According to Ruddiman, humans have been affecting climate from the starting of agriculture, but it is also possible that external factors have been at play as well, for instance small changes in the solar output. Of course, this is a field that is still in its infancy, but you are at the forefront of these studies and you could tell us - perhaps - your opinion: do we find a relation between human activity and climate change in the past? Are civilizations brought down by climate change, or do civilizations create the change that destroys them?

Great questions, and I wish I had all of the answers. I think Jared Diamond has perhaps addressed best some of the larger questions here in his book "Collapse". There are many examples we can look to in the past where human's had the ability to exploit and degrade their environment to the point of unsustainability. The destruction of Easter Island through uncontrolled deforestation is one of the great cautionary tales to humanity in this regard. Bill Ruddiman has made a compelling argument that human activity (e.g. rice cultivation and deforestation) might have begun to influence the concentrations of greenhouse gases to the point of having some climate impact several thousand years back. The claim remains rather controversial. What is not controversial is that only within the past century to we have the means at our disposal to change global climate in a dramatic fashion over such a short timescale. It is really the rate at which humans are influencing the climate which poses the greatest threat. Humans and natural ecosystems can adapt to slow change in climate. There is no analog we know of in the past where global climate has been altered as rapidly as we are changing it today. So we are in unchartered waters, engaged in an uncontrolled experiment with the future of civilization and the environment potentially hanging in the balance.