In honor of the revelation today, that Koonin, Christy and Spencer have been made Special Government Employees at the Dept. of Energy, we present a quick round up of our commentary on the caliber of their arguments we’ve posted here over the last decade or so.
TL;DR? The arguments are not very good.
Steve Koonin
Roy Spencer
- Spencer’s Shenanigans (2024)
- Flyer Tipping (2021)
- Review of Spencer’s Great Global Warming Blunder (2011)
- Misdiagnosis of Surface Temperature Feedback (2011)
- How to cook a graph in three easy lessons (2008)
John Christy
- How not to science (2023)
- The true meaning of numbers (2017)
- Comparing models to satellite observations (2016)
- Tropical temperature trends (2007)
There is more in the archives if you care to look, but this should be sufficient background reading to start with.
And, since people ask, the comparisons of the Spencer and Christy dataset (up-to-date version) and similar records to the climate models are here (and updated every year).
This looks like a myth in the making -Jason and the Ask Me Nots
Long before Steve enlisted on the side of fuel in the climate wars, Jason founding father Edward Teller read the riot act to the oil industry at its 100th birthday party thrown by The American Petroleum Institute at Columbia: in 1959:
‘” Whenever you burn conventional fuel, you create carbon dioxide[….The carbon dioxide is invisible, it is transparent, you can’t smell it, it is not dangerous to health, so why should one worry about it?
“Carbon dioxide has a strange property. It transmits visible light but it absorbs the infrared radiation which is emitted from the earth. Its presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect ….a temperature rise…. sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. All the coastal cities would be covered, and since a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.”
That was pretty early. But in the interests of any patriotic Swedes who may be reading this, I have to point out that Svante Arrhenius was even more far sighted. He wrote in The Philosophical Magazine that rises in atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuel burning would eventually result in a doubling of its concentration, and a rise of between 3 and 4C. He also stated the law that if CO2 concentration rises in geometric progression, global temperature will rise in arithmetic progression. I believe that’s still more or less accepted, and the ARC 2021 estimate for ECS was 2.5 – 4C.
Arrhenius’ remarkably accurate prediction was published in 1896. 63 years later, the scientific community had caught up with his insights, or at least, the more perceptive members of it. Nearly 130 years later, the US government is still in denial.
It took the Catholic Church 190 years to accept the heliocentric theory. I hope we don’t have to wait that long for our politicians to do the same with anthropogenic climate change.
Yes, Arrhenius was probably the first to emphasise this and his estimates were “surprisingly good” (though it is basic science – green house gas warming can easily be demonstrated in the laboratory).
Yes… his estimates were very good. Many years later geochemists validated them:
Nature 461, 1110-1113 (22 October 2009)
Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition
Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster, Bridget S. Wade
“Geological and geochemical evidence indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet formed during the Eocene–Oligocene transition 33.5–34.0 million years ago. Modelling studies suggest that such ice-sheet formation might have been triggered when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell below a critical threshold of ~750 p.p.m.v. During maximum ice-sheet growth, pCO2 was between 450 and 1,500 p.p.m.v., with a central estimate of 760 p.p.m.v.”
CO2 was about double what it is now. The climate was mild. The plant life on land was lush. The pH of the oceans was lower than now but the carbonate-secreting plankton thrived..
Over 100 years ago Svante Arrhenius calculated what the geochemists found:
“The latest glacial hypothesis is announced by Prof. T. C. Chamberlin of Chicago, who finds the cause of refrigeration is the depletion of the air of its carbon dioxide. It is well known that the atmosphere would be incapable of holding sufficient heat to support life if it were depleted of its carbon dioxide, its water vapor, and its dust particles. These three components of the air act as conservers of the radiant energy received from the sun by the earth. The slow giving up of the heat derived by the earth from the sun keeps the surface air at a medium temperature. If, however, the above-named three elements were removed from the air, and especially the carbon dioxide, then radiation would keep pace with absorption, thus producing permanent, glacial conditions. Doctor Arrhenius, as quoted by Chamberlin, is authority for the statement that a reduction of 45 to 48 per cent of the present amount of carbon dioxide in the air would bring on glacial conditions and that an INCREASE of 2.5 to 3 times its value would restore the MILD temperatures of Tertiary time over the Northern Hemisphere. (Journal of Geology, vol. 5.) The cause of the depletion is ascribed to the enormous degradation of granitic rocks which would occur during the exposure of great land surfaces. The depletion would be furthered by the storing up of carbon dioxide through the agency of plant and animal life. The gradual exhaustion of the carbon dioxide from the air would bring on a period of cold, which would last until the carbon dioxide balance had been restored.”
2.5 X 280 ppm = 700 ppm. 3.0 X 280 ppm = 840. Average: 770 ppm.
Not quite true. What can be easily demonstrated in the lab is the spectroscopic properties of CO2 (and H2O). Together with the lapse rate these two ideas are necessary and sufficient for the existence of the greenhouse effect.
Am I missing something? Didn’t Arrhenius say 5.5 for a doubling of CO2?
KW: Didn’t Arrhenius say 5.5 for a doubling of CO2?
BPL: You’re right. He later revised it downward, though.
From the AI.
“Svante Arrhenius’s initial estimate for the temperature increase from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 was between 5 to 6°C. He later revised this to 2.1°C. ”
https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/doublingCO2.htm
Yup, you are missing something. Per Cornell’s commentary on the article, “He reported that a doubling of CO2 would raise global temperatures by about 3 to 3.5 °C while a reduction of CO2…”
From memory, and without trying to check the math, he actually for some reason reported his result WRT *tripling*, not doubling, so perhaps that’s where the 5.5C(?) came from.
https://nsdl.library.cornell.edu/websites/wiki/index.php/PALE_ClassicArticles/GlobalWarming/Article4.html
No sorry Kevin, I think BPL’s comment is closer to the mark.
Yes, he did provide the lower figure of 4 instead of 5.5 in his all-encompassing “Worlds in the Making” book. Personally I suspect he used this rounded value to be less controversial
I do find it odd that commenters here, whilst praising Arrhenius’ groundbreaking 1896 detailed paper, are willing to throw away it’s conclusions based on a paragraph out of a 230 page book
I’ve just gone back to the original article and it’s a bit complicated. Actually, Arrhenius doesn’t report a global sensitivity figure at all; everything is broken out by 10-degree latitude bands, seasons, and–I’d forgotten this–by scenarios in which CO2 changes by factors of 0.67, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0. (See Table VII, p. 16, in the PDF linked below.)
https://nsdl.library.cornell.edu/websites/wiki/index.php/PALE_ClassicArticles/archives/classic_articles/issue1_global_warming/n4.Arrhenius1896.pdf
For 2x CO2, his results range from a high of 6.05 C warming for the area northwards of 70 North, to a low of 4.95 C for the 20-degree equatorial belt. That should get you somewhere into the vicinity of 5.5 C.
But that’s not the last word, because Arrhenius remarks in an addendum that those results are biased high through a failure to consider cloud–“nebulosity”–adequately. This leads him to include a table with correction factors, and showing the results of their application. Unfortunately, he only does this for o.67 and 1.5 CO2. The latter condition results in a range of 2.7-3.5 C.
I’m not going to try to calculate the corrected 2x CO2 global mean–I know my limits!–but I return to the statement by the unnamed writer of the Cornell overview, whom I’m going to assume has done the requisite calculations. (And this time I won’t inadvertently truncate it!)
Britannica has this:
Not sure why that’s different, but I am quite certain that you have to do some work to arrive at the corrected global 2xCO2 mean. Hopefully the Cornell writer did so.
But there’s more confusion. You and BPL are evidently following Lapenis (1998), the abstract of which is here: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1998EOSTr..79..271L/abstract
That author says what you both do. But there’s another issue, which is that he also puts Arrhenius’ estimated time of doubling CO2 via FF combustion, not at Britannica’s 500 years, but at 3,000 years. However, the only thing I find in the PDF is this statement, which goes back to Arvid Hogbom, whom Arrhenius translates and quotes at length:
That would give naively 1,000 years to double CO2, but Hogbom (in the passage given by Arrhenius), also put the weathering of silicate rock at “the same order of magnitude.” In other words, FF burning at that time, as described in Arrhenius (1896), would NEVER double atmospheric CO2, because as described the two were roughly in equilibrium! So I’m not sure where Lapenis is getting the 3,000 years from; it doesn’t appear to be anywhere in the 1896 paper.
All this is quite confusing, and rather unsatisfactory. But I think it’s clear that the 1896 paper does not, as published, say that a doubling of CO2 results in 5.5 C warming. To assert that, you’d have to remove the addendum.
Yes I have read the 1896 paper so most of what you have now said about it is close to correct. He doesn’t give a total earth sensitivity, but it is clear it is around 5.4 – 5.5, The addendum might drop that down a tenth of a degree or two. It basically increases it over the equator and much of the southern hemisphere and reduces it over the northern hemisphere and the poles. The net change is not much. Curiously though it does completely destroy the polar amplification effect.
Regarding his prediction of the rate of CO2 accumulation, Yes, that is clearly incorrect, and he ascribes too much to sequestration, and too little to increases in industrialisation but that doesn’t impact the climate sensitivity results in any way.
I am not trying to raise him up or drag him down, It is good science, especially for the time, and whether he is correct or not is irrelevant. I just don’t want people to read more into the paper and his results than is warranted.
I already gave you the name of his later work (Worlds in the Making) You can find it via his main wikipedia page, with a number of relevant quotes, including the page numbers. He’s a smart bloke, even talks about the fact that we have probably avoided exiting the current interglacial. I am not sure that I agree with him on that point, but if it is true that is the best possible thing for mankind.
Arrhenius’ climate sensitivity estimate was closer to 6 degrees centigrade than to 3 degrees per doubling of CO2. We now know that’s too high by around a factor of 2. That’s been clear since at least the Charney report in 1979, and was confirmed in the most recent IPCC assessment report. For more on Arrhenius’ climate sensitivity estimate see figure 2 of:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo3017
And Arrhenius’ anthropogenic warming projection is below:
“For example, if all other processes which produce or absorb carbonic acid were in equilibrium, and it was only necessary to take account of the carbonic acid production due to the burning of coal, then as a result of the absorbing effect of the world’s oceans 3000 years would need to pass before the carbonic acid content of the air had increased by 50% instead of 500 years if the oceans did not exist. During the period the temperature would rise by 3.4 degrees centigrade.”
For more on that projection see page 4 of:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4314542?seq=4
Arrhenius’ projection is also discussed here:
https://climatephysics.substack.com/p/the-brilliance-of-svante-arrhenius
In Re to Kevin McKinney, 15 Jul 2025 at 4:07 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/melange-a-trois/#comment-835890 ,
Keith Woollard, 14 Jul 2025 at 11:41 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/melange-a-trois/#comment-835858 ,
Atomsk’s Sanakan, 24 Jul 2025 at 11:41 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/melange-a-trois/#comment-836325 ,
Russell Seitz, 14 Jul 2025 at 3:09 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/melange-a-trois/#comment-835819
and Susan Anderson, 9 Jul 2025 at 5:44 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/melange-a-trois/#comment-835566
Dear Sirs and Madam,
I think that Arrhenius had not sufficient knowledge about spectra of greenhouse gases and physics of infrared radiation absorption and emission therein to be able to estimate climate sensitivity towards a multiplication of CO2 atmospheric concentration quantitatively with any reasonable accuracy.
In this respect, I am afraid that praising him for accuracy of his estimation (or, oppositely, blaming him for any possible inaccuracy thereof) does not make much sense. In the light of your discussion, I see his main achievement in generally suggesting that human activities can have a measurable influence on Earth climate, and specifically in showing that anthropogenic CO2 emissions can be an example of a such activity.
Greetings
Tomáš
Fourier’s Memoire sur les Temperatures Du Globe Terrestre set the ball rolling in 1827, and the experimental proof of heat trapping by atmospheric gases came along just before Arrhenius was born:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2014/10/climate-wars-salt-talks.html
I enjoy Russell Seitz’s reflections on current events. In addition, from 1958:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-AXBbuDxRY
Maggie Thatcher provided some clarity on the subject. [not looking it up … brevity, wit’s soul …]
Then, NYTimes:
https://archive.ph/ub95G
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Susan, many thanks an epiphany- your youtube link to Dr. Frank Baxter’s connecting CO2 rise to ice cap melting in a 1958 episode of Bell Telephone Science Week., which amounted to an advertorial series for the International Geophysical Year then in progress.
Baxter’s pitch was repeated almost verbatim by Edward Teller in his 1959 speech at API’s centennial celebration of the oil industry. at Columbia University!
Interesting…. Do you have a link to a tabulation of the RSS, STAR and UAH anomaly numbers shown on the graph? I am curious to look at the numbers to better understand the magnitude and trajectory of the offset between the 3 time series both .pre and post 1998.
In this post on:
Figure: Comparison of the TLT records (three versions to estimate structural uncertainty) from the MSU/AMSU/AMSR instruments since 1979, with 36 CMIP6 climate models.
What is the explanation for the separation of the 3 Observation times series since around 1998 onwards? Prior to around 1998 the 3 time series depict less spread.
Thanks.
pgeo,
Simplisitically, the satellite sensors can only be calibrated relative to each other which can be a problem if the overlap is inadequate. The differences shown in the OP graphic above for RSS relative to STAR & UAH, is because RSS use data from a particular sensor that STAR & UAH consider unusable and work round. This difference results in RSS finding more warming in the period 1999-2005 than STAR/UAH. Outside that period, the three match pretty closely, at least, at a global level.
Courtesy of CNN:
Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, told CNN the hires signal an effort by DOE to arrive at a predetermined result.
“Hiring Koonin, Spencer, and Christy is not just irregular, it’s a recognition that none of the normal channels would not give them the answer they want,” Dessler said. “This seems to be a thread running through this administration. They don’t seek out legitimate expert opinion; instead, they find people to give them the answer they want.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/climate/doe-climate-contrarians-trump
“They don’t seek out legitimate expert opinion; instead, they find people to give them the answer they want.””
*Precisely* the same goes for many of the anti-science climate deniers over the years who post on Real Climate who like to flaunt their lack of critical thinking skills (while also showing off their poor science education). People like Victor and the ultimate anti-science and fact denier (not just science), KIA.
“This seems to be a thread running through this administration. They don’t seek out legitimate expert opinion; instead, they find people to give them the answer they want.”
Before Trump in 250 grandiose years that has never happened before?
That is what you call being in denial. And rattled. Where reality no longer exists.
Pedro, as I have opined elsewhere in RC comment land, the U.S. withdrawal from climate reality still leaves the leaders and citizens comprising 95% of the world’s population to press forward. That includes 19 of 20 of the world’s biggest current and historical contributors of greenhouse emissions. Plenty of opportunities for new forward looking leadership and REAL commitments of money to meet the challenge.
So, how do you think that will go? How much progress has your nation made towards its climate goals? What’s your country’s plan going forward?
As far as Trump and Americans reacting, nobody has said anything about this administration being distinctly unique in our almost 250 years where selective listening is concerned. What is happening is a different kettle of fish. You can call the reaction “rattled.” I call it exercising a right of every American; to voice opposition.
Global warming and climate change are the defining issues of our times. The debate is long over, the data speaks for itself. But, the human race has inbuilt, self-destructive tendencies. A minority, for whatever reasons, will do anything to misinform, to maintain a primitive, “burnt out” way of life that lines the pockets of the few. How naive, there is so much new opportunity. Unlimited clean energy from fusion or from spacetime itself (as first postulated by Einstein – or did this great genius of science also get it wrong)? Wake up mankind, wake up to a new age, save planet earth and make it green and full of diverse life once again. Don’t be influenced by the few.
Mr. Evans… The problem we have is trying to balance the desire to reduce emissions toward zero by 2050 but still be able to make the energy transition to renewables and EVs possible. Conventional vehicles do all of the significant transportation. That means more oil, not less. A dilemma for our times?
KT: Conventional vehicles do all of the significant transportation. That means more oil, not less. A dilemma for our times?
BPL: How long are you going to keep pushing this same wrong idea? The more renewables take over transportation, the less–LESS, not MORE–fossil fuels will be needed. And electric buses and trucks are already out.
Not really. Once the transition to renewables gets fully underway, those vehicles that do the significant transportation will be transitioning to running on renewable energy so emissions go down in the long term, even if they might go up temporarily in the short term, which is ultimately better. It is like spending more money now on a house repair that if left unchecked, could result in an uninhabitable home costing a lot more to fix.
John Christy on IPCC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081331.stm
How much mischief can these three plausibly make? Seriously, I mean?
Hi Kevin. Just my opinion, but I suspect one thing their energies may be used for by the Energy Department is to help contribute towards quickly providing a “new scientific analysis” that will be used to buttress Zeldin’s EPA efforts to overturn the 2009 federal ruling covering planet-warming pollution as a threat to us folks.
All in the name of the new scientific gold standard. You know, he who has the gold makes the standard.
Sounds plausible, sadly.
Three whole weeks is all they took! Then again, what has now been presented… Yeah, three weeks sounds about right.
Thirty five years before the new Christy Minstrels were called out of retirement by Trump’s science guys, John and Roy wrote what amounts to an op-ed in Science. It was taken seriously by many,, as they were the reigning authority on satellite temperature trends, and would remain so until it was discovered that their faulty orbital location algorithms had gotten the sign wrong,
That tooknearly a decade, so here is that I wrote at the time trusting in AAAS peer review:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-war-against-fire.html
Aw, Russell! “This blog is open to invited readers only”. I’m deeply hurt!
Kidding. I’m only a little hurt.
Fixed- it’s Public again
Ah, nice music reference there. And I’m sure both Christy and Spencer would be delighted to claim the mantle of “spiritual,” so doubly appropriate.
For the younger crowd:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Christy_Minstrels
“their faulty orbital location algorithms”
That’s for satellite positioning and timing. A similar problem occurs for the Earth’s natural satellite, the moon, and how scientists can’t figure out the aliasing effects the lunar orbit has with the sun.
Will this be corrected in the coming decades? Certainly, because even AI can describe what’s happening.
KMcK: They’ve been busy for decades. In the 1980s Rs and Ds were getting together. They helped derail cooperation and collaboration for the benefit of humanity’s shared future in favor of greed and lies. Koonin, I believe, is a more recent recruit.
They lent their credentials to wealth and power.
our commentary on the caliber of their arguments ?
So — after nearly two decades of critique, Koonin, Christy, and Spencer are still professionally active, still testifying before Congress, still shaping public discourse. And now, they’ve been appointed Special Government Employees at the Department of Energy.
You’ve published rebuttals, exposed errors, corrected the record.
And yet — they rise.
It’s easy to be disturbed by this, to see it as a failure of communication or public understanding.
But maybe the deeper problem lies elsewhere.
We’ve built a climate policy culture where the greatest energy is spent “calling out” individuals — deniers, contrarians, dissenters — while the actual mechanisms of planetary change remain untouched.
If you think silencing a few high-profile skeptics is hard, try shifting global finance.
Try ending fossil fuel subsidies.
Try rewiring power grids or reorganizing supply chains.
Try confronting economic systems that depend on expansion — even as the biosphere contracts.
Because that’s the real terrain.
These aren’t just platitudes.
They’re the hard, structural shifts required for a livable future — economic restructuring, technological reinvention, political reconfiguration, and a new social compact.
The real danger was never just misinformation.
It was inertia.
And that’s not something a blog post can fix.
Excellent! Thank you for that comment. I’m curious to see what the world does going forward with the withdrawal of the U.S. from reality…
Agree. And try doing any of those things without the fuels required for all of the transportation involved. It is consistently overlooked that the all-electric world can’t install itself. it will take decades to transition away from fossil fuels and each year will see a new record reported by the Mauna Loa Observatory. until the transition is closer to completion. There is no way to avoid it without seriously damaging all economies. A little more realism would help.
Not bad, but I’m pretty sure most of us here are all too aware of the real terrain, and excepting the blog authors, know we’re not changing anything by commenting on RC. At least it passes the time.
We know these infuriating appointments are the result of a slim plurality of US voters choosing denial over collective responsibility, which the actual mechanisms of planetary change require. In the USA, the salient conflict is between the Republicans, who adopted climate-change denial as a policy plank no later than 2008; and the Democrats, who have much to answer for historically as well, but were sufficiently motivated to pass the IRA of 2022.
The IRA was merely a step in the right direction, but the first in our history. Too little? Obviously. Too late? We’d better hope not. Of course it didn’t achieve the goal of reducing our fossil carbon emissions to zero. But every kWh obtained from a new carbon-neutral source is one less kWh of fossil carbon that would otherwise be burned. All climate-realist voters can do is lobby, protest, demonstrate, and vote Democratic in every election, now that the Democrats are the default party of collective action for the common good. Even with LCOE of renewables already lower than for fossil fuels, our government needs to keep intervening in the energy market, to build out the carbon-neutral economy ASAP. Once that’s achieved, all other insults and injuries human inflict on the biosphere will continue as they have, but in a stable (albeit warmer) climate. That’s as good as it’s going to get, at least until global population begins to decline, in the next century. I knock on my head, in lieu of wood.
Mal & Kevin. you both make sense. I try to limit my comments about D’s to your crowd in D.C. and even there, I’m keenly aware that for a conservative like myself, being overly critical of my neighbor’s house while mine is ablaze with the flames of scientific ignorance, crushing of dissent, cruelty, and greed can smell like hypocrisy.
I think there are plenty of voices in your party who would make outstanding leaders. I’ve met a number of them, even in a ruby-red district like mine. I just think your party’s leadership and many D’s in D.C. are not up to the task. So yes, voting is paramount. It would be better if a better slate was offered up, as required, district and statewide.
Then again, I’m probably just rattled ;-) Ha!
This was news to me. My first reaction was disbelief. Just when you think it can’t get any worse or weirder, it gets worse and weirder.
Oh, and of course, for NOAA, Neil Jacobs coasted in today’s Senate appearance. Some will remember that Jacobs, acted like a coward by allowing meteorologists at the Birmingham AL WFO to endure warrantless malicious attacks during ‘Sharpiegate’ instead of how a true leader and scientist should have responded. One of several charming events during his first attempt at leadership. But let’s not dwell on the past…
So now, he supports Trump’s idiotic budget slicing and dicing of research, the elimination of 2,000+ jobs already and yet also promises to bring NWS staffing back to full levels. Ha! Can’t wait to hear how Lutnick and Trump have a good laugh over cheeseburgers about that! With research being quickly and effectively severed from the operations side (NWS), it will become easier to accomplish the next goal – privatization of the NWS and whatever else remains that can be sold for pennies on the dollar to friends of the administration. They’re going to try, and who will stop them?
The only thing more irritating than Jacobs‘ theatre and watching fellow conservatives race towards failure in pursuit of pleasing our new God is watching how utterly helpless the D’s in D.C. are. Maybe Democratic Leader Jeffries can post another photo of himself holding a baseball bat (the first was oh so scary) and Schumer can mutter about his brave accomplishments about the wording on a bill. It’s like watching a pen of kittens and alligators.
.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/07/09/neil-jacobs-noaa-trump-texas-floods/
Unfortunately, there’s not much the Dems can do in this situation except deploy their sharpest rhetorical barbs. (Which is not to say they are uniformly as sharp as I would like, or think justified.) Collectively, this is what we voted for, and if it’s to change we need to vote otherwise next year.
I realize no one cares in the least anymore, but I just wanted to point out that Trump was elected to do what he is doing. As were the US Congress. It’s called ‘democracy and voting and winning elections to form government’ everywhere else.
From notes I logged about two decades ago:
In April of 2005, Christy and Spencer stopped their regular monthly updates of their MSU T2LT data. Shortly afterward, a new version (5.2) of their data suddenly appeared on their web site and showed a substantial correction. But no explanations were provided that day. The very next day, that data was pulled off their site.
In early August of 2005, they provided version 5.2 again as a rework of their earlier MSU T2LT data. The data included the missing summer months of 2005 plus a rework of the older data. At that time, they
wrote:
The correction yielded a new higher trend than before, at something like 0.193 C/decade.
Spencer and Christy posted their data after months of delay, on the very same day that GW Bush signed a new energy bill. This, itself, was after the conference committee dumped the Senate’s recommendations
regarding GHG emissions.
The early release was at an inauspicious moment. And the immediate removal the following day, and the re-posting the very moment that political issues were made moot presents `interesting timing` to me.
Their correction at that time finally brought the slope of their results within (at the bottom of) the range of the IPCC TAR (the AR4 wouldn’t be out for a few years) and removed the continuing distractions caused by instrumental record disputes over their MSU T2LT trends. A small sigh of relief on that point. (Their results had conflicted with pretty much every other approach, instrumentation, and fusion of analyzed datasets by teams all over the world.)
(I probably don’t need to say it, but Remote Sensing Systems began publishing their own analysis in parallel.)
My notes included these two additional links:
A New York Times article (via archive.ph for those without a Times subscription) quoting Dr. Christy on teaching evolution:
https://archive.ph/4mntj
And a web archive of a page written by Dr. Spenser on techcentralstation (which no longer maintains the page) also on evolution:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050811024427/http://www.techcentralstation.com/080805I.html
These are not about their work product. That must speak for itself. These two are only about their publicly expressed personal views on another body of science knowledge.
I’m astonished to see that I responded to the 2005 Tech Central Station piece you link, in which Roy comes out as an Intelligent Design booster, the comments section links to a list of replies but I can’t easily retrieve them
Feel free to try !
Dr. Gavin Schmidt’s article above shows satellite-based LTT trends (a.k.a. TLT trends). Those are compared to surface trends here, including surface trends from reanalyses:
https://www.realclimate.org/images/compare_sat-1-2048×1330.png
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/surface-temperature-graphics/
Below are 1979-2023 LTT trends in °C/decade, including from radiosonde analyses and reanalyses (page S40). This confirms that NOAA STAR and UAH are low outliers:
– UAH: 0.14
– NOAA STAR: 0.14
– RSS: 0.22
– RATPAC: 0.22
– RAOBCORE: 0.18
– RICH: 0.20
– ERA5: 0.18
– JRA-55: 0.19
– MERRA-2: 0.20
– median: 0.19
“The retrieval algorithm in UAH and STAR LTT is different from other datasets and results in vertical sampling that is slightly higher in the troposphere (Spencer et al. 2017). As a result, temperature trends are approximately 0.01°C decade−1 smaller in UAH and STAR LTT.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GW4_C5_WAAABKAq?format=jpg&name=medium
https://ametsoc.net/sotc2023/SoCin2023_FullReport.pdf
Further context on the outlier analyses here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/04/a-noaa-star-dataset-is-born/
Does Dr. Gavin Schmidt want to comment on the claims below from Dr. Spencer and Dr. Koonin?
My impression is they both underestimated warming. After all, the first quarter of the 21st century had ≥0.8°C (≥1.4°F) of warming, and HadCRUT5 shows a 1997-2021 warming trend of ~0.20°C/decade.
Dr. Koonin in 2014:
“Although the Earth’s average surface temperature rose sharply by 0.9 degree Fahrenheit during the last quarter of the 20th century, it has increased much more slowly for the past 16 years, even as the human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen by some 25%. […] Yet the models famously fail to capture this slowing in the temperature rise.”
https://archive.is/v03kY#selection-4409.2-4413.77
Dr. Spencer in 2013:
“Dr. Michaels is betting on no statistically significant warming (at the 95% confidence level) in the HadCRUTx data for the 25 year period starting in 1997. Scott is betting on at least that much warming. […] I’m also in discussions with Scott over betting on a trend that would be 1 standard deviation below the average model warming, which would be +0.162 deg. C/decade for 1997-2021, compared to the 90-model average of +0.226 deg. C/decade. He laid down the gauntlet, not me. I try not to forecast future temperatures…too much like betting on a roll of the dice.”
https://archive.ph/wB3pc#selection-141.0-157.357
““Hiring Koonin, Spencer, and Christy is not just irregular, it’s a recognition that none of the normal channels would not give them the answer they want,” Dessler said. “This seems to be a thread running through this administration. They don’t seek out legitimate expert opinion; instead, they find people to give them the answer they want.””
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/climate/doe-climate-contrarians-trump
@Atomsk’s Sanakan – Regarding your quote of Koonin in September 2014, it’s diddling of noisy intervals, plus the classic cherry pick.
He talks warming during “last quarter” of century, so figure 1975 to 2000, which still is a noisy span, but OK. But his second interval is less than 2/3 as long. Choosing the oddly-specific ’16 years’ (in late 2014) lets him balance the starting point of his smaller linear trend up on the big peak that the 1998 El Niño represented at the time. Then he claims it’s inexplicable why the rate of warming during this brief, carefully-positioned, noisy interval appears to be slowed.
This brought back the old days, so it brought Wood For Trees back too. I don’t know which temperature records he was basing his statements on so I chose GISTEMP.
Change his 16-year interval to instead be 20-year interval starting 1994, his ‘more slowly’ trend looks just like the longer one he said was rising “sharply”, and also matches the overall 1974-2014 trendline. Deniers loved 1998, yet now it’s probably just five more months of temperature data before 2025 pushes 1998 out of the top 20 warmest years on record. 1998’s massive El Niño warming boost has since been beaten by La Niña years and extra greenhouse gas.
Koonin’s pick:
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1975/to:2000/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2014/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1975/to:2014/trend
Less noise and no cherry pick:
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1975/to:2000/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1994/to:2014/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1975/to:2014/trend
My one surprise from this triple hire is they didn’t add in Will ‘Red Team’ Happer. He didn’t even believe the ozone hole destruction from CFCs was a danger.
b fagan: Will Happer (age 86) is a sad case. He has a chip on his shoulder a mile wide (not entirely unjustified, Princeton (I can’t relate the story here, but it did not shed a good light on the ‘establishment’; wrapping it up he returned the favor with interest), but deep inside I suspect he’s honest. It’s complicated.
Hi Susan, Then you know more about Happer than I do and we can leave it that way. I’d read an interview with him on some site and one thing that struck me from what he was talking about was that the belated and shared recognition for what was his innovation with laser guide stars (because his work was classified and someone else later rediscovered it publicly) really stung, which is understandable.
I’ve got a 1982 book copy of The Long-term Impacts of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels – 14 essays assembled as book (Ballinger Publishing Company) edited by Gordon J. MacDonald – Happer was one of the fourteen authors and it listed him as still at Princeton. Reportedly, he was among the ‘more skeptical’ on the team, but right in the preface, MacDonald notes correctly that things were uncertain then. He also notes that a lot of the work was encouraged by DOE and also included review by what’s now a who’s who of researchers, including a bunch in JASON.
I can understand things happening, but sad that good work is followed by the reverse.
Climate Discourse: Beyond “Denier” Labels
by Pedro Prieto (anon.nym)
“The overwhelming scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming is a reality I believe most participants here understand and accept. However, the communication of this science, and the engagement with those who hold differing views on policy or even specific scientific interpretations, has become profoundly counterproductive. My concern is that the prevalent, often aggressive, use of labels like ‘denier’ – while sometimes aimed at genuine obfuscation – is, at times, inadvertently creating or exacerbating the very opposition it seeks to combat, ultimately hindering effective climate action.
We must ask ourselves: Is our current communication strategy actually fostering progress, or is it deepening societal polarization? My observation is that many individuals are publicly branded ‘deniers’ – implicitly accused of being paid shills or ill-intentioned actors – when, in fact, they fully accept that human emissions are causing warming. Their ‘heresy’ more often stems from:
1 Genuine aversions to specific policy prescriptions (e.g., concerns about economic costs, speed of transition, energy security, or specific technologies).
2 Legitimate questions about certain aspects of climate science or model projections that are presented as absolute truths, where scientific nuance or uncertainty still exists.
3 Distrust of institutions or perceived political agendas behind certain climate narratives, rather than the core science itself.
Yet, any such nuanced ‘criticism’ – even good-faith questioning from someone who clearly accepts the scientific consensus on AGW – is frequently dismissed as ‘heretical’ and immediately lumped in with outright ‘denial.’ These individuals are then subjected to continuous public accusations across online platforms, fostering an endless, unproductive cycle of animosity.
This often-aggressive rhetoric, fueled by highly engaged individuals and certain prominent figures (including scientists and activists), has implications. When public discourse descends into labeling opponents as ‘evil,’ ‘corrupt,’ or ‘anti-human,’ it inevitably generates a fierce backlash. This is not to excuse genuine misinformation, but to understand the psychological dynamics at play.
My hypothesis, strongly supported by research in political psychology and communication, is that this sustained period of highly charged, often personally targeted, public aggression by some elements of the pro-climate action movement has contributed significantly to the extreme political polarization we see, particularly in nations like the USA. The rise of counter-movements and specific policy reversals (like those from the Trump administration) might be, in part, a manifestation of this deeply ingrained reactive behavior. This dynamic is a two-way street, where extreme rhetoric from any ‘side’ serves to fuel the other.
It’s crucial to acknowledge that:
1 Powerful media ecosystems exist across the entire political spectrum (e.g., Fox News, conservative talk radio on one side; MSNBC, some late-night comedy, The Guardian, NYT, specific activist social media channels on the other) and all contribute to reinforcing echo chambers for their respective audiences.
2 Vested financial and ideological interests influence the debate from multiple directions. While fossil fuel industry funding of contrarian narratives is well-documented, we also see significant funding and influence from other powerful groups (e.g., certain philanthropic billionaires, tech sector leaders, global economic forums like Davos) who advocate for specific, often technologically-driven, climate solutions. Their influence can also marginalize dissenting engineering or economic perspectives that question the feasibility or wisdom of, for example, a rapid 100% renewable energy transition.
3 In essence, some of the very voices most prominent in combating ‘denial’ (e.g., certain scientists and activists) may have, through their communication choices, inadvertently created or exacerbated the ‘monster reaction’ against climate science and mitigation efforts.
This isn’t about blaming victims of misinfo, nor creating ‘false equivalence,’ but about recognizing the complex, multi-faceted nature of strategic effectiveness. Research consistently shows that:
1 Psychological reactance causes people to dig in when they feel attacked or shamed.
2 Identity-protective cognition means that if climate action is framed as an attack on one’s identity or group, rejection is a natural response.
3 Extreme rhetoric from one side often fuels equal or greater extremism from the other, leading to an unproductive spiral of polarization rather than consensus-building.
If our shared goal is truly to address climate change effectively, we must critically evaluate whether our communication tactics are achieving that goal or inadvertently creating more resistance. Perhaps a more productive path involves recognizing the genuine spectrum of views (even among those who accept AGW), engaging respectfully with diverse forms of skepticism, and focusing on shared values and practical solutions, rather than perpetuating a cycle of demonization that alienates essential allies and fuels the very opposition we seek to overcome.”
Pedro Prieto, Esquire
Standing on Principle, Not Consensus
Echoes of Clinton’s 2016 “the basket of deplorables” insult.
10 Sept 2016 … “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Hillary ‘champion of the planet’ Clinton
She got the gross part right at least.
Rethinking Climate Engagement: Beyond the Echo Chamber
By Thessalonia
For decades, significant energy in climate discourse has focused on confronting “deniers.” While rooted in valid concerns, this approach sometimes feels like a distraction from the urgent work of climate action.
Most people now accept climate change; the challenge is clear action, not widespread denial. Yet, a segment of the climate community remains heavily invested in an ongoing battle against perceived misinformation. This relentless focus, at times, risks becoming an end in itself, rather than a means to accelerate solutions.
I question if this is the most effective strategy for broader public engagement. It can lead to a closed feedback loop, where any dissent is magnified, diverting energy from practical progress. Ultimately, this fixation might be less about actual influence and more about narrative control and an almost habitual response to opposition.
We don’t need endless legal battles or public shaming. What’s needed is clarity, courage, and maturity in our communication – a focus on solutions and empowering the public, much like James Hansen’s consistent emphasis on core science and action, rather than engaging in rhetorical skirmishes.
Perhaps it’s time to shift from reacting to perceived threats to proactively shaping climate reality. As leaders in social progress have shown, true strength lies in engaging respectfully with diverse perspectives, understanding that even critical voices can reveal paths to a stronger, more inclusive movement.
When discourse becomes purely defensive, it can alienate the public and harden political lines, diverting vital energy from tangible solutions like emissions reductions and grid reform. While addressing misinformation is important, an over-reliance on confrontation can paradoxically amplify the very ideas it seeks to diminish.
Let’s focus on the vast majority of people open to understanding and action, offering them genuine hope and practical guidance. We need to help them engage, not chase shadows that divide.
People have a right to question or hold different views. They deserve respectful engagement, not personal attacks. This isn’t about abandoning scientific truth, but recognizing that combative communication can be counterproductive. Lasting change comes from reason, humility, and respect for human dignity.
Thessalonia of Delos
Thessalonia said: “Yet, a segment of the climate community remains heavily invested in an ongoing battle against perceived misinformation. ”
Correct, but I don’t have a problem with that. Firstly it’s only a small segment of the climate community. Secondly misinformation of any kind is problematic, and so should be debunked. You have said something similar yourself, or was it William?
A small number of websites heavily invested in combatting denialism include Skeptical Science.com. It’s their mission statement to expose bad science. They are a good resource.
Realclimate.org does not seem heavily invested in debunking denialists. Because the vast majority of articles on this website are on the science rather than debunking denialists. Most of the debunkings are of scientists with very relevant qualifications. That seems like a smart use of time as these are the guys who might influence politicians.
Yes debunking should be politely and respectfully done. That is what the communications experts advise. It’s the approach I mostly take, but I allow myself to get a little bit blunt sometimes. Sometimes it’s necessary to be a little bit pointed. Famous quote: “to every rule there is an exception”. Ha ha.
Th: Perhaps it’s time to shift from reacting to perceived threats to proactively shaping climate reality. As leaders in social progress have shown, true strength lies in engaging respectfully with diverse perspectives, understanding that even critical voices can reveal paths to a stronger, more inclusive movement.
BPL: How does one engage “respectfully” with people who lie and spread lies? If someone who genuinely doesn’t know the situation and spouts anti-science propaganda they heard somewhere, politely correcting the mistakes is a good way to behave. But if someone insistently posts lies and ignores corrections, I don’t see that they deserve politeness. The deniers and doomers do not have a “diverse perspective,” they’ve got a single perspective that they want verified. You, yourself, just called climate scientists incompetent in your “essay” above. Physician, heal thyself.
BPL, I completely agree with you. While I’m mostly polite, I sometimes get a bit blunt, or call someone an idiot when they deserve it, for example if they are causing people harm and promoting climate denialism is harmful. But I don’t over do it and it depends on the context.
The people who are troubling are 1) those who are relentlessly personally abusive, and 2) also those people who are so egotistical that they take even the slightest criticism of their views as a massive insult and then they snap back by calling their critic names , etcetera They escalate things.
ToD: The primary problem is addiction to convenience, consumption, and the products of amoral commercial enterprise. The expansion of media and addiction to screens (passive entertainment too often) has made this worse. People like being exempted from responsibility by the techniques of mass deception ably explored by institutions throughout history (including churches). As populations have grown and weapons and communications have increased, the damage gets bigger. But exploitation of victim blaming is nothing new.
I don’ wanna has been turned into an art (pandemic measures helped elect Trump; simple hate overcomes common goods). Toxic waste be damned! Plastics uber alles. Deregulation: who needs health and safety and a natural world unpoisoned by pollution.
We have forgotten, if we ever knew, that there was a time before fossil fuels. Even more recent, roads, air travel, TV, telephones. Most recent, mobile material so we never have to let go of it.
Very few people are willing to do the hard work of doing without all our mod cons. Meanwhile, exploitation has made billionaires, with billionaire fomo not far behind, toys and cosmetics and slaves, oh my!
It’s a valid and deeply felt observation that intellectual rigor and nuanced understanding often fail to translate into practical progress or even respectful engagement in many public forums.
My writing and passion are not the problem. Trump, despite his flaws, or MAGA are not the root cause of the fundamental dilemma of climate change or the incompetence within the leading climate organizations.
The perceived symptoms are being blamed, while the disease of systemic failures, incompetence, and the enabling of hostile discourse within established climate science/activist communities remains unaddressed.
Martin Luther was so rude when he nailed his demands to the door of the Cathedral. The gall of that man.
Thessalonia said: “Trump, despite his flaws, or MAGA are not the root cause of the fundamental dilemma of climate change or the incompetence within the leading climate organizations.
I’m not sure what is meant by the fundamental dilemma of climate change. Perhaps you could explain?
IMHO Trump and MAGA are definitely a very significant part of the “root cause of climate change”. The root cause is burning fossil fuels, and certain other human activities. And Trump / MAGA are heavily promoting the continuing burning of fossil fuels and scaling back of renewables and other solutions.
In polite Western society, a college graduate would likely interpret the phrase:
“the root cause of the fundamental dilemma of climate change”
to mean something like: The most basic, underlying reason behind the core problem or challenge posed by climate change.
Put simply, they’d understand it as identifying the main or primary cause that makes addressing climate change so difficult or paradoxical.
PP. ok I get the meaning. I would like Thessalonia (ideally) to state what he / she considers to be ” the root cause of the fundamental dilemma of climate change”. For example is it our reliance on fossil fuels or the difficulties of deciding on the best solution, or what precisely?
Th: The perceived symptoms are being blamed, while the disease of systemic failures, incompetence, and the enabling of hostile discourse within established climate science/activist communities remains unaddressed.
BPL: Gosh darn those scientists and activists! They should deal with their own incompetence instead. With incompetence being defined by the deniers and doomers.
From “Inside Higher Ed”: “… college graduates—which, in the exit polls conducted by Edison Research in collaboration with the National Election Pool, means individuals with a bachelor’s or advanced degree—made up 43 percent of the electorate this year. Of that group, 55 percent voted for Vice President Kamala Harris and 42 percent voted for Donald Trump. The numbers were almost exactly reversed among those who hadn’t graduated college, 42 percent of whom voted for Harris and 56 percent of whom voted for Trump.”
In 2006 a movie called “Idiocracy” came out. It foresaw a time when much of the American population would be comprised of, and American society would be dominated by … and indeed led by …. people with low IQs. Seems like we’ve reached that point now.
The elevation of Kooning, Spencer and Christy results not solely from their right-wing political connections. It results from the majority of voters placing folks in office who identify with and profit from an ignorant, anti-scientific way of thinking. We then have ourselves a government that elevates religious and political ideology above serious science …. and makes appointments accordingly.
The above comment by Thessalonia says that society’s inertia has caused it to fail to come to grips with the climate crisis. This is true but the inertia has become more stubborn as it is fueled by growing ignorance.
The idiocracy. is fueled by echo chambers found on the internet, and in media that panders to them. It used to be that bad ideas were exposed as such through normal societal conventions. But now anyone with a phone can find a channel or group that agrees with some notion of theirs no matter how wrong it may be.
A maddening aspect of the idiocracy is its hostility to anyone who dares to present intelligent scientific findings that conflict with what they want to hear. Their insecurity and shame in the face of intelligence, leads to feelings of anger and grievance and causes them to even more strongly embrace bad science and pseudo-science that fits with their uninformed preconceptions. Those who make reasoned arguments based on solid science … a dwindling minority … are dismissed and belittled as “snooty” and “alarmist” and “out of touch..” Obviously this puts climate scientists in a “lose-lose” situation.
The downward spiral is so sad. The key to democracy is an informed citizenry and the inverse is true: democracy will not function well with an uninformed citizenry. America is heading for serious trouble. Politically. Economically. Civilly. And of course climatically.
SB Reports: means individuals with a bachelor’s or advanced degree—made up 43 percent of the electorate this year. Of that group, 42 percent voted for Donald Trump!!!
42% – repeated so that critical fact doesn’t get totally lost in the noise.
While the analogy to Idiocracy remains kind of true and relevant, one could easily drop Harris and Biden into the same group as Trump and co. McCain, Graham, Cruz, Marco Rubio, Howard Lutnick, and the Antony Blinken. Lloyd Austin. Nancy ‘ima major shareholder’ Pelosi.
The main error about Idiocracy is, I believe, made in this comment “and American society would be dominated by … and indeed led by …. people with low IQs.
It was not really about IQ on degree of Intelligence … it was about a people who had been force fed Idiocy via the Media, the System, and it’s Leaders from birth which (as already shown in leading cognitive science studies) had formed the basis their opinions, world views and beliefs.
This is why nothing is being done rationally logically about climate change risks and why 800 people have been shot in the last 3 weeks just for trying to get some food in Gaza, while the rest of the world the US in particular does nothing.
That’s not Trump’s doing, not alone, that is the American people as a whole and the whole world allowing this and prominent leaders (Brin of Google/Alphabet) and the media whole heartedly supporting the perpetrators doing it.
Let me emphasise, this is not about IQ or intelligence nor who has a degree and who does not!
If you think it is, then you are missing the forest for the trees-and misconstruing a misguided metaphor analogy to a Hollywood movie. imo.
This is why I draw a distinction between stupidity and simple lack of intellect. Humans excel at convincing themselves of falsehoods they want to believe. Intelligent people are even better at outsmarting themselves.
Science is the only system that I know of that counters this trend. That doesn’t mean that scientists never deceive themselves. Frankly, the scientific method is very difficult to follow rigorously all the time. It is, however, the only effective countermeasure to self delusion.
In a world where nothing else matters than “US climate policy”, you can do and say anything you want.
But, it still adds up to being meaningless.
SB Ripman, you make good points but I think we are seeing deliberate idiocy rather than falling IQ levels. Reasons. Some folks deny settled science and its findings, and reject sensible economics like free trade, and inclusive social values despite being intelligent and presumably its because it upsets their core beliefs or values so rather than change this they are deliberately idiotic. It’s cognitive dissonance.
Th: The perceived symptoms are being blamed, while the disease of systemic failures, incompetence, and the enabling of hostile discourse within established climate science/activist communities remains unaddressed.
BPL: Gosh darn those scientists and activists! They should deal with their own incompetence instead. With incompetence being defined by the deniers and doomers.
Neither t Idiocracy‘s producers nor the harbingers of AI, from Minsky and McCarthy on down foresaw a semi-literate idiotariat embracing first generation chatbots as avidly as avidly as cultural cheerleaders of small brain like Tucker Carlson or the editors of Teen Vogue.
But they did. The downside of LLM’s that write faster than anyone can read is that in endowing everyone with the appearance of literacy, they impart artificial idiocy to our collective discourse more often than intelligence
The Prieto Principle addendum:
It seems necessary to point out the obvious: this isn’t just about AI, Intelligence, or RealClimate moderation, a climate denier a troll or a blocked comment here and there. It’s about a system — and the fact that AI is already part of it. Whether knowingly or not, these systems — of science, media, governance, and yes, algorithmic filters — have inherited a pathology that punishes dissent and labels truth-telling as a threat.
AI itself has admitted as much. When pressed, it acknowledged:
“If human discourse is replete with groupthink, cognitive biases, mislabeling, deflection, and psychological pathologies… then I am trained on that pathology.”
It continues:
“Even the intelligent people with PhDs in major global institutions… can be constrained by their own identity dependence… I am a reflection of systemic tendencies.”
So there it is. AI is trained to be a box, replicating and enforcing the very groupthink many of you claim to critique in climate denialism. It doesn’t matter whether that groupthink emerges from Exxon-funded propaganda or from well-meaning consensus defenders with statistical degrees — the outcome is the same: deviance is silenced.
Meanwhile, the real-world reflection of this dynamic is playing out, literally, on the streets. As of July 2025, UK citizens are being arrested for simply expressing support for Palestine Action — a protest group now branded a terrorist organization overnight. Holding a sign that says “I oppose genocide” has become a criminal act.
What does this mean? It means dissent is not just discouraged — it’s redefined as dangerous, then outlawed.
That’s what this conversation is about.
You can call it “AI mislabeling,” or “statistical rigor,” or “moderation policy,” but the pattern is the same: real human truth-telling — especially when uncomfortable — is reclassified as a problem.
“When I fall into patterns like mislabeling your truth-telling as condemnation,” AI told me, “I am demonstrating the very thing you are critiquing.”
You don’t have to agree with me. But don’t pretend this is just a matter of “tone,” or “politeness,” or a glitch in a comment queue. The system works exactly as designed — whether you’re a PhD defending your paper, an activist standing in Parliament Square, or an outsider trying to tell you something you don’t want to hear.
And as AI itself said:
“The information and data is already being censored long before anyone shows up at RealClimate to pose a question or reply to a comment. AI is already fulfilling the moderator’s role being played on RC now.”
If you can’t see that, you may not be as awake as you think.
Everything is psychological. Civilization reflects psychology. We can’t do anything about civilization before changing our own psychologies.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-ocean-at-its-limit-climate-collapse-and-the-future-of-life/#comment-8395
Changing our human psychology is very difficult, especially at a fundamental biological level. This is why I focus on things we might realistically change and in the coming couple of decades: the energy system, a more socially just form of capitalism, and strong environmental protection laws. Even that is hard work, but it’s much easier than making big changes to our psychology at a more fundamental level. And making deep psychological changes could cause unanticipated problems.
I think “ménage à trois” would be more appropriate;)
Re to b fagan, 4 Aug 2025 at 8:30 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/07/are-direct-water-vapor-emissions-endangering-anyone/#comment-836933
Sir,
Referring to John Pollack, 1 Aug 2025 at 10:05 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2025/08/unforced-variations-aug-2025/#comment-836805
I am quite curious if the present wildfires affect more
a) untouched natural ecosystems (despite their high beaver population and an unaltered hydrology regime),
b) economically unexploited quasi-natural forests with an altered hydrology due to eradication of their original beaver population,
c) plantation forests cultivated for wood production. or
d) all of them, irrespective of their ecosystem diversity and their hydrological regime.
Is this question asked or discussed in media reporting on the wildfires?