A candid climate scientist explains how to ‘fix’ the debate

by Larry Kummer, January 11, 2018 in WUWT


Summary: Here are brief excerpts and my comments from a speech by an eminent climate scientist. It illuminates important aspects about one of the great public policy debates of our time. He was speaking candidly to his peers, but we can also learn much from it.

“Some Thoughts from a Reluctant Participant”

Presentation by Richard Alley.

At the Forum on Transforming Communication in the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise — Focusing on Challenges Facing Our Sciences.

Given at the 2018 Annual Conference of the American Meteorological Society, 7 January 2018.

Extinction and global warming 250 million years ago

by U. of Bristol, January 10, 2018 in A Watts, WUWT


One of the key effects of the end-Permian mass extinction, 252 million years ago, was rapid heating of tropical waters and atmospheres.

How this affected life on land has been uncertain until now.

In a new study published today, Dr Massimo Bernardi and Professor Mike Benton from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol show how early reptiles were expelled from the tropics.

On Science and Nonscience

by Neil Lock, January 11, 2018 in WUWT


What is science?

According to Webster’s, science is: “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws.”

The way I see it, science is a method of discovering truths. For the idea to make any sense at all, though, we need first to agree that scientific truth is objective. Now, a particular truth or fact may of course be unknown, or poorly understood, or wrongly apprehended, at a particular time. But in science, one man’s truth must be the same as another’s. (…)