Do denialists hate Michael Mann for desecrating one of their idols?

Question

Denialists love to claim, without evidence, that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm as or warmer than today. To back up that claim, they use a diagram from the Great Satan, from the global conspiracy to force people to drive cars that get more than five miles to the gallon, the IPCC.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_07.pdf

This diagram has become an icon of the denialist movement, or more accurately, an idol of the denialist religion, like oil, coal and SUV's. Then along came Michael Mann, who reconstructed past climate from climate proxies from around the world.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/research/ONLINE-PREPRINTS/Millennium/mbh99.pdf

He produced what came to be known as the Hockey-Stick graph, which allegedly airbrushed out the Medieval Warm Period. Denialists were furious. How dare he blaspheme the MWP god?

And yes, Greenland and Northern Europe were warm for a while, but that was a regional and not a global phenomenon.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf

Please note: If you are a skeptic, you are skeptical of claims that the Medieval Warm Period was as warm or warmer than today.

Answer 1

People try really hard to debunk it, but they can't.



They write scientists off as if they're some sort of Harold Camping party or something.



This isn't religion folks. It's Science. It's based on facts and you can't form legit arguments against Man Made Global Warming. It's happening and we're running out of time to fix it.

Answer 2

For starters, if people do think that the IPCC is the 'Great Satan' as you say, using stuff that they may have published to refute arguments (whether it be what they've previously made or others make) isn't 'wrong'. Just as an example, think of a religious discussion. Say there is a person using religious text to make various claims and debate another person. Now take that other person who hates the religion, but uses that same text to point out something like contradictions. Quoting something and pointing out the inconsistencies isn't a bad thing to do. In fact, it is a great strategy.



Now I'll move on to your next point. Perhaps the Medieval Warm Period wasn't global. Maybe it was. I've heard interesting arguments from various viewpoints. Personally, I don't truly know because I'm lacking knowledge on all the details. Regardless, Michael Mann not including that period isn't the only argument I've heard against the 'Hockey Stick'. There were apparently many other issues people have discussed. The proxies themselves is one example.

Answer 3

Your rants are getting tiresome. As Jim Zs link shows it was not a regional event. Out of context in context, stollen or not, emails show that the goal wasn't scientific discovery but making sure that the MWP was downplayed to upplay the warming we have today. Please define a little while, I understand on a geological scale 150 to 250 years is a little while but it's much longer than 1934 don't you think?



There's also a good correlation between warmer tempertures and the increase in human population, so maybe human body heat, while not the initial cause of the warming, maybe it starts driving the temperature increase?



I think I've seen you mention God (careful you are bordering on denial, there is no scientific evidence that there is a God) and you seem to acknowledge some uncertainty in what most alarmist claim is undeniable. I think you are a few active brain cells away from seeing the real world and acknowledging that the alarmist belief system is flat out ridiculous.

Answer 4

I'm a denier, and I have never idolized that graph. I am kind of confused about how much you seem to talk about the hockey stick graph, do you think it's accurate? I agree that the evidence of the medieval warming period is evident in many different civilizations. In Europe for example, in Europe temperatures were warmer, so people grew more food (and grapes for wine). Since there was plenty of food, they were able to concentrate on other things like build tons of cathedrals. Also, not only do deniers "worship" the graph that shows the medieval warming period, they also worship the graph that shows the mini ice age (which is the exact same graph).

Answer 5

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.



Do I hate Mann because he desecrated one my idols? No of course not! And the suggestion is pathetic and childish.



I “hate” Mann, because he’s a crook. (There you go jyushchyshyn, you can childishly report me to Y!A again – but make sure it’s for libel this time; slander is the spoken word.)



The issue of Mann is actually a very good litmus test for honesty (or the lack thereof) in Global Warming-Land. In any other area of science, Mann would have been ostracised for what he did. But you Warmists support him. Why? Why is he so important to you?



You are never going to be able to convince intelligent and honest people unless and until you can behave in a proper scientific manner – i.e. condemning people on *both* sides for their shoddy and unscientific work – Mann included.



But you can’t bring yourself to do it, can you?



Let’s be clear about this - it’s the Global Warming equivalent of the Catholic faithful turning a blind eye to their priests fiddling with little boys.



You sit there and preach to us that “It’s all about the science”, but then continue to support someone whose “science” was so bad it bordered on the fraudulent.



Let’s look at the entire MWP story, shall we?



1) Before the whole Global Warming hysteria kicked off, it was a generally accepted fact (incorrect or otherwise) that the MWP was warmer than today.



2) Indeed, as your first link shows, even the IPCC accepted it.



3) We then get the infamous quote “We have to get rid of the MWP.”



4) As if by magic the MBH 98/99 Hockey-stick arrives. Bingo! MWP got rid of.



5) But wait! M&M (despite the many obstacles put in their way) manage to show that it was all dodgy science.



6) Far from being ostracised Mann & co are continuously supported by the Global Warming faithful.



7) More recently, in the Climategate e-mails, we hear about the infamous “Hide the decline” – the “trick” used to conceal the fact that the tree-ring proxy data is *not* a good proxy for temperature.



Now, ignoring for the moment the actual issue of whether or not the MWP was warmer than today, I defy any honest person to look at the series of events above and not be left with the feeling that they’re being “had”. While this doesn’t *prove* anything, there’s no smoke without fire, as they say.



BTW, are you aware of CO2 Science’s MWP Project?



http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php



Lastly, I see that your “evidence that humans are causing global warming” link is back. Hasn’t changed though, has it? So it’s actually *still* only evidence that mankind has pumped extra CO2 into the atmosphere. *Not* that that CO2 is actually causing any *significant* warming, or that we’re heading for any kind of catastrophe.



Um? Didn’t I point that out to you in your previous (now deleted) question? Oh well, don’t let a little thing like reality get in the way of a good fantasy.



(Oh, BTW, if you abbreviate my username to five characters, it’s “amanc” not “amana”. Also, given that my username is “aMANcalledchuda” do you think you could possibly refer to me in the masculine, not the feminine? Thank you.)





::EDIT::



Sorry, I missed this quote in your comments: “the "Hockey Stick" is empirical”



WHAT?!!!



This is some new definition of the word empirical that I know nothing about, is it?



While the data he started out with may have been empirical, once you start giving one dataset 390 times more weight than any other data set, it is no longer empirical. He must have had a reason to do that, and that reason was his own theory. Therefore his results were not theory-free, and were not, therefore, empirical. So who actually has their head up their hinny here?

Answer 6

>>Will Michael Mann's defamation fit rigidity the denialists to be civil?<< it could examine them slightly, yet I doubt that throughout the time of boards like this one there will be any lessening of the fake accusations against scientists. As for Mann being a Nobel Prize recipient, reckoning on how the declare is worded, i've got faith that as a member of the IPCC, he can accurately be defined as such. of path the prize became into provided to others together with Al Gore, so he did no longer win the prize in my opinion. i'm surprisingly specific that there would not be a mistake interior the way this prize became into referenced in criminal archives till the criminal expert became into an entire hack. of path the appropriate way connection with the prize became into made is being misinterpreted by capacity of finished hacks that desire to call themselves 'skeptics'... _

Answer 7

Regional event huh? I realize your belief system doesn't allow you to look at contradictory evidence but here goes. Who knows maybe you will peek at it before you scream "Blasphemy".

http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwpchina.php

It also encompassed China.

It encompassed everywhere where we have historic records. The only place it didn't is some of Mann's cherry picked proxies. Interestingly, Mann truncated his tree ring proxies in modern times because they didn't fit measured data. You would think a scientists would look at real data and discount his own theories when they didn't fit real world observations. Instead, Mann hid the decline. We got you to admit that Greenland was warm for a while. I wonder if you look at the shoddy work that Mann conducted if you might have a little healthy skepticism for it. Instead of believing something because you want it to be true, you should look at the evidence, evaluate its merits and make your conclusions based on ALL the available evidence, not just the evidence that points to things you like.



Note: I don't know if Bacheus is stupid or a liar or both. I wonder what part of this you don't understand:

<>



After you take some English lessons, try to bother and take a couple science lessons as well.



<>>

Albert Einstein

Answer 8

You're the one that seems obsessed with this graph. It has nothing to do with attributing CO2 to recent warming and it does a poor job of convincing that recent warming is "unprecedented".



It's simply a PR gimmick to convince the average person who doesn't understand correlation and causation of temperature/CO2.



All you have for evidence of CO2 attribution is lab test of CO2 properties and global warming scientists inputting climate sensitivity and estimating several climate parameters to come up with models that seem to match historic temperature and CO2 trends.



The Hockey Stick is a side attraction and it's not even a convincing one.

Answer 9

past climates are not as important as understanding that climate responds to whatever forces are put against it. Climate responds to a lot of things, including how much greenhouse gases we have.



Lets not try to forget the physics and lessons of the Tobacco industry fighting any science that linked smoking with cancer. Today the fight is from the fossil fuel industry, the same tactics.

Answer 10

JimZ didn't bother to read his own link. His own link describes a few centuries during which it was warm at different place at different times. That is profoundly different from a global warming event. Personally I don't think it matters much, relative to what is happening now. But it is one more clear example that those who keep denying the physics of global warming are those who have limited capabilities or interest in science, or those who never read anything. You'll also find that they are angry conservatives who resent those with education. If people like this would actually read what they claim to read, they would not still be so ignorant of physics and statistics.



*******

Read it again Jim, as many times and and slowly as you need to ...



"The degree of warmth and associated changes in precipitation, however, VARIED from REGION TO REGION and from TIME TO TIME." Nowhere does your own source claim that the MWP existed as a global event. Read it again.



The topic is global heat retention, not heat movement. I'm neither defending nor criticizing your source, merely pointing out the importance of reading for comprehension. Saying that different places were as warm or warmer than now at different times throughout several centuries is a far different thing than saying that in any single decade the atmosphere was retaining more heat than it is now. You want it to be the same thing, but it is not.

Answer 11

"Greenland and Northern Europe were warm for a while". Vastly understated.



Like any alarmist, you can't seem to get your facts straight. Tropical forests were growing as far north as Devon Island in the high Arctic. If you're ever there you can check out the fossilized remains.



There is no indiction that this hot zone was regional, as you claim, and it's impossible to accurately answer a question like this that's so misleading in its wording.

Answer 12

I think the history is backwards here. e.g., deniers discovered the "Medieval Warming Period" only after the hockey stick reconstruction. Back at the time of the first IPCC, today's deniers (the senior and savvy ones) were busy denying other things, such as nicotine causing cancer or the White House covering up Iran-Contra). The junior wannabes (on YA here now) were busy flunking high school science and English.

Answer 13

Denialists are uneducated idiots, they have hid it for so long, they don't like being exposed for what they are

Answer 14

warm