DailyKos Admits It Favors Unscientific & Subjective Climate Alarm

The Daily Kos published an article  claiming climate alarmists are more scientifically credible when they make things up out of thin air – while presenting no supporting scientific facts or evidence – than when climate realists cite numerous datasets and peer-reviewed studies that support their claims.

Making stuff up out of thin air is acceptable, honorable, and compelling, according to DailyKos, if you do it in the name of climate alarmism.

Earlier this week, we published an article here at Climate Realism calling attention to dubious claims made by prominent climate alarmist Katharine Hayhoe in her public presentations to Christian groups.

We specifically noted that Hayhoe uses an apparently self-made chart in her presentations that shows global temperatures steadily and monotonously declining, with almost no variations, for nearly 6,000 years.

Hayhoe’s chart reproduced below, then shows, at the end of the 6,000 years of steady cooling, an enormous temperature spike in the 20th century that completely overwhelms the previous 6,000 years of steady cooling.

Our Climate Realism article then showed what the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) itself presented in its very first climate report – published in 1990 and confirmed by multiple studies since (see, for example, pg. 14 here) – in which scientists, the IPCC, and multiple datasets and peer-reviewed studies agreed that scientific evidence shows temperatures have varied frequently and considerably throughout the past 6,000 years.

The IPCC chart reproduced below, also showed temperatures currently remain cooler than was the case during most of the past 6,000 years.

As we pointed out in the Climate Realism article, Hayhoe provides no sources or supporting data to support her claim that the IPCC, established science, and multiple supporting studies are all wrong.

She merely shows her own chart in public presentations and then uses her highly suspicious chart to support her claim that humans are creating an unprecedented and existential climate crisis.

DailyKos published an article childishly attacking the Climate Realism article. The DailyKos article never cited any scientific evidence, data, or studies to support Hayhoe’s chart.

Instead, the article claimed,

“Not be outdumb’d, Heartland’s James Taylor thought it would be clever to contrast a chart Dr. Hayhoe uses with one from the very first IPCC report, as though a graph from 1990 is somehow more accurate than something produced with the benefit of an additional thirty years of research.”

Of course, the only presented “thirty years of research” is Katharine Hayhoe’s self-serving, self-presented chart for which she provides no documentary evidence.

So, the alarmist argument is that if a climate alarmist simply makes up a chart or an argument out of thin air, that chart or argument is more credible than factually documented, evidentiary-based science that has been well established and that has remained in effect for many, many years.

By that logic:

  • Climate alarmists can – and likely will – claim without any supporting evidence that the Sun revolves around the Earth because Copernicus’ theory is “old science” demonstrated more than 400 years ago.
  • Climate alarmists can – and likely will – claim without any supporting evidence that the Earth is flat because it has been 500 years since Magellan circumnavigated the Earth.
  • Climate alarmists can – and likely will – claim without any supporting evidence that the Moon landing never happened, because 50 years have passed since scientists and astronauts accomplished and documented the feat.

Sorry, Katharine Hayhoe and DailyKos, making stuff up out of thin air is not more scientifically compelling than long-established scientific knowledge that is well-sourced, well-cited, and confirmed multiple times since with additional scientific data and studies.

Read more at Climate Realism


PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. 

Please DONATE TODAY To Help Our Non-Profit Mission To Defend The Scientific Method.

Trackback from your site.

Comments (5)

  • Avatar

    Andy Rowlands

    |

    As climate skeptics, we see this sort of thing almost every day, touted by alarmists as proven fact.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    chris

    |

    She is following the principled science method established by Mann. Just make it up and make any changes necessary to make it look like you’re right. After all, the only people that they have to convince are alarmists, they’ll believe anything that keeps them in fear.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Tom O

    |

    So what else is new, and what would you expect? These people are not truly talking to people that are undecided and trying to make up there minds, anymore than are most “climate sceptics” when they give their talks. The vast majority of those they are presenting to are already “in house.” They already have committed to the ideas being presented. You are NOT going to present evidence to the contrary.

    As for “climate skepticism,” I think that is about as cheap a term as you can find and about as meaningless a one as well. I am not a climate sceptic, because I do not question whether or not climate exists. I would far more identify with a term like “climate truther,” regardless of whether or not some anus would try to tie the phrase to Obama’s birth certificate, because that is where my search is, for the truth. If you intend to leave the word “science” out of the phrase, then truly, what IS a “climate sceptic?” I AM a “climate science skeptic,” I suppose, but that’s just an longer way of saying “climate truther.”

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Doug Harrison

    |

    The full title of what we represent is surely “anthropogenicly caused climate change sceptic”. Of course this is too much of a mouthful for most so it gets shortened to climate sceptic with all the bad connotations that name brings. However in many circles it is best to use the full title and leave no doubt or ability to misconstrue or misquote.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Doug Harrison

    |

    Sorry! anthropogenically.

    Reply

Leave a comment

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Share via