My September 23, 2019, post, Don’t Debate the ‘Climate Crisis’? (Mann, Dessler, etc. want to assume, not discuss) attracted a critical comment from Master Resource reader David Appell:
Rob, you aren’t honest about what Dessler wrote, and I think you know this. He (obviously) made his point over two tweets, and you only quoted the second of them (“3/” below), out of context.
Professor Dessler in an email added:
…… you claim that I don’t want to debate science. The tweet you quoted was one of a string where I make the OPPOSITE statement. However, by quoting it out of context of the surrounding tweets, you misrepresent my position. You also didn’t provide a link to my tweet string, so your readers couldn’t correct your erroneous interpretation. This suggests to me that you KNOW you’re misquoting me.
” … climate scientists cannot conduct controlled experiments on the Earth…. Instead they use … Global Climate Models, or GCMs–mathematical representations of the Earth that run on computers.”
“Processes operating at smaller scales [than 100 km], such as clouds, cannot be represented explicitly in the models but just instead be parameterized.”
“Parameterizations … [have] ad hoc constructions that are tuned so the model produces a realistic present-day climate. Consequently, parameterizations are one of the largest sources of uncertainly in GCMs.”
– Andrew Dessler and Edward Parson, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 19–20.
The above explanation by climate scientist Andrew Dessler (co-author Parson is a lawyer/public policy specialist) opens the door to asking the question: are climate models ready for prime time?…
“Chris Skates, a top energy advisor to Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, said he figures he helped emit millions of pounds of carbon dioxide in a 30-year electric utility career, adding ‘and I am damn proud of it.'”
– Quoted in Inside Climate News, September 26, 2019.
“Southern State Energy Officials Celebrate Fossil Fuels as World Raises Climate Alarm,” an article is titled in Inside Climate News (September 26, 2019). The subtitle adds:
The message from the industry-supported meeting: Push as much deregulation as possible while Trump is in power and never apologize for promoting oil, gas and coal.
“There was a sense of defiance in the hotel’s meeting rooms,” James Bruggers wrote. The author seems shocked that
…[Kentucky Governor Matt] Bevin, a Republican and the host of the meeting, was dismissive of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, calling the young Swede who has inspired a global climate movement and who spoke at the UN on Monday, “remarkably ill informed.”