ClimateSanity by Tom Moriarty
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The views expressed in this blog are the personal views of Tom Moriarty.
Tom Moriarty is a Senior Scientist at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He has extensive experience in testing photovoltaic devices of all varieties, from basic silicon to the highest efficiency multi-junction devices and newly emerging organic technologies.
He has a masters degree in Physics and previous experience in two other national laboratories, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Additionally, he worked for several years in the Gates Rubber Company Advanced Materials Analysis Lab in Denver, Colorado.
Google Moriarty and Photovoltaics
Climate Sanity 
A wonderful blog! Very good content!
(Since i didn’t find an e-mail address let me here give a blog design “advise”: I think it would be nice if you show many posts at a time on the homepage and in the archive view.)
Tom, I followed your link from a comment posted in AWG netherland….thanks for being a sane skeptic. I got in 2 bits right behind you.
Cheers
Thanks for your comment Tom. I really like your blog and have already created a link for it on my site. I am glad that some one has decided to take on Al Gore and present a different argument. The more we know about the environment the better we can help it… that is it it needs help at all.
Tom
Good blog, good work you are doing. My ideas are not about hysteria, but about planning ahead, whether things get hot or cold……shouldn’t we be prepared?
Danny
Here is a news item you might find funny, or it might make you angry. But it’s a wake up call for those who are still sleepwalking, and who knows, things might get hot or cold. you are right. But let’s plan for the future, no?…
POLAR CITIES BLUEPRINTS:
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com
DANNY
Hi Tom. Great site.
I’ve heard that cutting down a single tree can make as big a change to the microclimate for a hundred yards around it as the climate change warming we’ve experienced.
A physicist of my aquaintance has rubbished this on the grounds that transpiration couldn’t have that much cooling effect and shade doesn’t come into the equation according to him.
As this would appear to come within your sphere of expertise, what are your thoughts on this?
Great to have discovered your blog, Tom. I usually inhabit Climate Audit, and contribute there, mainly on the topic of abrupt climate change, which is my particular interest. Currently trying to find the /data/ not the plot, for sea ice areas for as long a period as possible. I once found some but now lack up-to-date information. Does anyone here have an appropriate link, please?
Robin
Dear ClimateSanity Readers,
I have created a new page, called “Off Topic.” This page will be used to transfer interesting, but off-topic comments to a different location for further discussion.
Click here for Off-Topic.
I have transferred a series of comments and replies between Colono and myself to Off-Topic and encourage interested readers to check there for new comments.
Best Regards,
Tom
ClimateSanity
Tom, Your logic is wonderful to read. Bless you for taking this on. I want to look at the larger picture.
This climate change hysteria has reached the level of Jones Towwn ideology. I was an undergraduate at Harvard in the Geology Department when the concept of anthropogenic climate change was advanced by the political science students who had to take Steven Goulds Nat Sci. 10. Steven did a great section on glaciology. We ran them all around in vans looking at the scratches in the ledges and glacial features. They got “gentlement c’s.” AND THEY WERE PRACTICING THEIR ACTIVISM WHILE BURNING DOWN THE ROTC BUILDING.
Do you ever wonder why all of the data in the world is simply ignored as if it doesn’t exist? We tried a scientfic based criticism of the concept in the 1970’s, we could chase them into the dorms, but one on one when they had to concede that it was not true they finally used what I call the “Thermistoclese justification”. Ie ” big political misrepresentation to get the population to “do the right thing” It started as “just take care of the environment.” Now I think it has evolved like slowly boiling the frog to “drinking the Cool-Aid together.”
The process of protecting this ideology to the extreme so it doesn’t unravel is why Gore made the movie, the devistation to our economy and quality of life is close to unrepairable. He got a Nobel Prize!!! The ideolofgy has been used to justify the stupidest most destructive policies. The justification is simply an Ad Hominem attack.
There is a similarity of suicidal mind set across the whole political spectrum. Whether it is energy policy, fisheries, or the manipulation of the finalcial markets, policies grounded in falicies result in make believe decisons with real world consequences.
I appreciate your concise objection to Al Gores “Inconvienient Truth”. To the few it is a reinforcement. But to the indoctrinated your points fall on deaf ears. What has to happen is a wake up call to understand the psycology of why they are doing this to our civilization and turn the ideology around learn from it before it is too late.
That is the challenge. I don’t know if we are up to it because we are wired to think in terms of SCIENCE.
Cheers! Phin Sprague
[…] Oh, by the way, thanks for inventing solar PV, I guess without you I wouldn’t have a job. […]
Damn!! Was just put onto this blog by Watts. Looks good. Something else that I have to read daily. Damn!!
You are welcome to repost the article below as long as you post it entirely and without edits. Also, you must credit the author and include the folowing link:
http://gregoryfegel.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/10/how-an-ice-age-begins.htm
“How an Ice Age Begins”
— Gregory F. Fegel
test??
Ah, works now…
Enjoyable blog posts, like the ice sheet satire!
“Moriarty” must have an Irish connection – at least with the humour 🙂
In my view, whether or not CO2 emissions are relevant, electricity and transport sectors should be made more efficient and competitive (which also happens to lower 4/5 of all current CO2 emissions, but also for all else the emissions contain).
Energy efficiency regulations, like bans on light bulbs, are unjustified and unnecessary,
as explained on Ceolas.Net
Hi,
I love the website and would like to use some of your material on our site. Is this OK?
Mike,
Yes, it is OK.
Best Regards,
Tom
[…] best regards, ClimateSanity […]
Tom
I have to ask this, why did you not take the ClimateSanity.com domain, I have taken it to use for “Climate Realists” Conference’s, and only noticed you when I checked out Google, Seems silly for me to have this when you have the wordpress version
Drop me a line when you can at ClimateRealists.com and use the contact area
Climate change is a global problem, and yet each one of us has the power to make a difference. Even small changes in our daily behaviour can help greenhouse gas emissions without affecting our quality of life. In fact, they can help save us money!
Is it a global problem?
How big of a problem?
Do the things that you may propose to deal with this assumed problem have unintended consequences? For example, will some people be forced back into energy poverty? Will some people be trapped in energy poverty? Is that OK with you as long as you have a good feeling about yourself?
As a scientist who has spent the last decade and half working on renewable energy, I challenge your assertion (in most cases) that proposed CO2 mitigation techniques “help us save money.” Most of them are quite expensive and will remain so into the foreseeable future. Subsidies may make some techniques appear to “help us save money,” but they simply shift the burden somewhere else.
Other than these nagging questions, your comment gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Thank you.
Best Regards,
ClimateSanity
Very enjoyable site. Great job. I wonder if I could coax a rough prediction out of you, for the next decade?
I would like to extend to you personal invitation to check my feature length documentary on the “cold facts” of Global Warming entitled “The Boy Who Cried Warming,” available in full at http://www.theboywhocriedwarming.com. The virtual premier has been enjoyed by over 12,000 viewers due to a grassroots campaign effort of handing out flyers and emailing people just like you! We are independent filmmakers without corporate sponsorship, every view counts to us, and we would truly appreciate if you would take a look and (if you enjoy the film) encourage others to check it out. The list of websites mentioning our film growing, and we would be honored if you would join the growing list distinguished sites below:
“The Boy Who Cried Warming” has enjoyed recommendations from:
Watts Up With That?
Examiner.com
Digging in the Clay
Bishop Hill
Junk Science
Climate Depot
No Trick Zone
Before it’s News
Climate Change Dispatch
Climate Ponderings
Jammie Wearing Fools
Oh What Now
SCEF.org.uk
Tom Nelson
And the list keeps on growing… PLEASE feel free to Google the name to check out the comments, and as always, enjoy the show!
Jesse Jones
Producer/Writer “The Boy Who Cried Warming”
Hi, I’m new here. Spent 30 minutes browsing around this blog…. but I haven’t been able to come to a conclusion of your (Tom Moriarty) actual position on this issue. Just debunking of selected and specific arguments from the left side of the debate.
Do you completely deny Global climate change being caused by human activity? Or do you simply counter the hyperbole used by AGW believers, for a more center mass position?
Like any politically charged topic… there is a wide spectrum of opinion.
If you do believe in moderate climate change from human activity, just not on the scale portrayed in media or taught in schools… as I do… I applaud your effort to bring sanity and use skepticism and logic to fend off the nonsense from the extremes from that side.
By why is there not any ridicule and skepticism against the propaganda and hyperbole coming from the other side? There are just as much anti-science rhetoric coming from those who deny even the most moderate and well researched science. Or are you leaving that debunking for another web blog to address?
Thank you.
Joe:
I’m not Tom, but I’ll give you my response to your comment.
You mentioned “the left side of the debate.” In discussions of AGW or CO2-caused Climate Change, I prefer to stick to the science, because the pertinent question of AGW or CO2-caused Climate Change, yea or nay, is a science question, and any political ramifications are a separate issue. Contrary to the ideological stereotypes that are promoted on both sides of the Climate Change debate, many people, including myself, are left of center politically and are also CO2-caused Climate Change skeptics.
There is a large body of scientific data which does not support the CO2-caused Climate Change theory. During the past 600 million years of earth history, CO2 levels, and also temperature levels, have been much higher than today, and there is no clear indication that higher CO2 levels caused, or can cause, higher temperatures. Nor is it proved that high CO2 levels or high temperatures caused global Extinction Events. There is a higher correlation between Ice Ages and Extinction Events than Hothouse Earth periods and Extinction Events.
I agree that, in theory, human activity might eventually influence climate, and there are various ways that could happen — by massive radioactive contamination, by poisoning of the oceans, by massive particulate air pollution, by the global destruction of natural landscapes, or by other means. However, I don’t see human activity as having had any significant influence on the Earth’s Climate so far, and I don’t see any firm proof that CO2 by itself could cause a Climate Catastrophe.
As for environmentalism, I am personally opposed to further destruction of habitats, and I favor restoration of many habitats. I favor protection of edangered species. I oppose consumerism, shoddy products, and energy and resource inefficiency. I oppose nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. I oppose geo-engineering schemes. I favor human population limitation.
If you define environmentalism as “left” and anything-goes Capitalism as “right”, I am very much “left” of center.
Joe,
Thank you for the thoughful comment.
CO2 is greenhouse gas. So if everything else is equal, more CO2 will likely yeild higher temperatures. But the math and physics say that if everything else is equal increasing CO2 above the current amount will have a diminishing effect (because the effect is logarithmic). That diminishing effect form the simplest model (where everything else is kept the same) is considerably smaller than the loudest claims from the “alarmist” camp. The scary scenarios require feedbacks that are so poorly understood with magnitudes, and sometimes signs (+ vs -), that are not necessarily known.
You can find plenty of evidence that the warming of the last century is well within the limits of natural variation. For example, for the arctic…
Do I have “a more center mass position?” Frankly, no. I come down mostly on the side of the skeptics, but not always.
Here are some examples where I have taken various skeptics to task…
Arctic temperature data DOES show increases during the last decade or two:
Arctic melting cannot be attributed to heating from below due to underwater volcanos…
Fossil fuels ARE responsible to increasing atmospheric sea levels and dominate the effect of human and livestock respiration…
Again, thank you for the comment. This blog is intended for thougtful people.
Tom Moriarty
ClimateSanity
As I’m on a never-ending journey to better understand those who claim skeptic scientists are crooks, I surfed across your 2009 “Reply to John Mashey”. Prior to just a couple of weeks ago, I’d only known of him as a guy at Desmog who regurgitated a tired-out comparison back in February of skeptics to tobacco industry ‘shill experts’. Now that I know more about him via a par of his own speeches, I suspect he’d never agree to face-to-face debates with those he criticizes.
A sentence from last year’s Science magazine said “His critics say Mashey is more interested in destroying his foes than in debating the issues.” Considering this is the way most of the whole AGW side operates, and more specifically, those pushing the ‘big coal & oil’ corruption accusation against skeptic climate scientists, Mashey would appear to understand his marching orders perfectly.
Russell,
John Mashey slinked away with his tail between his legs after his encounter with me.
I’m still hoping for Johny to come back around and scold me again, but I have heard nary a peep.
ClimateSanity
Typo in my first comment, I watched a “pair” of Mashey’s videos speeches. I may not know a thing about climate science, but I can point to numerous errors in his assertions about skeptics’ “corruption”. Meanwhile, you emphasize a point AGW promoters fear – we welcome debate, they run from it. That is one thing, along with their enslavement to character assassination rather than open scientific debate, that leads me to think IPCC assessments cannot stand on their own merits.
Mashey has claimed more than once that skeptic conclusions ‘break laws of physics’, but if an idiot like me asked him which specific laws those were, I suspect he’d accuse me of scientific ignorance and close-mindedness, but then would fail to answer my question. No doubt his loyal followers would congratulate him on his brilliance, but otherwise disinterested-but-astute watchers would say, “Wait a minute…….”
New Anthony Watts Interview Just Published: Climate Change without Catastrophe (News Tip)
Dear Editor,
I just wanted to send you a quick mail to let you know that we have just conducted a very interesting interview with the well known figure in the climate debate Anthony Watts.
It’s a very interesting chat and whether you agree or disagree with his comments I thought you and your readers would find some value in taking a look
A few of the topics we discussed are:
• The difference between “global warming” and “climate change”
• Why CO2 is partially responsible but oversold
• Why recent major weather events cannot be linked to CO2
• Why we should be more worried about another ice age
• Why carbon taxes won’t have any effect on the whims of Mother Nature
• How the climate debate has taken on religious proportions
• Why the Keystone protests are all for show
• Why Mother Nature will be the final arbiter of truth
• What we should and shouldn’t be doing to address global warming
• Why “climate change” has become a favorite bogeyman
• Why scientifically we’ve only scratched the surface of climate change
You can read the full interview at: http://oilprice.com/Interviews/Climate-Change-without-Catastrophe-Interview-with-Anthony-Watts.html
I hope you find the interview interesting.
Best regards,
James Stafford
[…] It is hard to argue with the Union of Concerned Scientists because they’re, well, scientists. Not just anybody can be a Concerned Scientist. You have to send a check first. My wife used to send a check years ago, but it was from our joint account so I figure I was only half a Concerned Scientist then. Now I guess I am just a wholly unconcerned scientist. […]