TIME MARCHES ON

I FOUNDED A UNIVERSITY AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

FACTOID WINTER CHILLS HARVARD MISINFORMATION REVIEW

factoid

/făk′toid/  noun 

1. 1. A piece of unverified  information that. advertised as factual, becomes  accepted as true because of frequent repetition. 
2. 2. A brief, somewhat interesting fact. 
3. 3. An inaccurate statement or statistic believed  true because of widespread citation by the media.

Norman Mailer coined the term "factoid" in his 1973 book, Marilyn: A Biography, in which he described "factoids" as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper",^[5] and formed the word by combining fact and the ending -oid to mean "similar but not the same". The press soon described Mailer's new word as referring to "something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact".

Modern media  possess the power to generate factoids on scales that are culturally epochal, like the  " Energy Crisis"  of the 1970's. 

However, as their existence is perceptual and metaphysical rather than concrete, factoids, once created, or inflated, may swiftly become their own antitheses. After precipitating a recession, and bringing down an incumbent American President, Jimmy Carter,  the "Energy Crisis" morphed into the "Oil Glut" of the early 1980's.

By 1993 factoids had become thingy enough to merit mention in William Safire's New York Times survey of  common misconceptions and urban legends. In it, he identified several contrasting senses of factoid:

• "factoid: accusatory: misinformation purporting to be factual; or, a phony statistic."
• "factoid: neutral: seemingly though not necessarily factual"
• "factoid: (the CNN version): a little-known bit of information; trivial but interesting data."

According to the Wikipedia,

" this new sense of a factoid as a trivial but interesting fact was popularized by the CNN Headline News TV channel, which, during the 1980s and 1990s, often included such a fact under the heading "factoid" during newscasts. BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Wright used factoids extensively on his show as well."

 A few decades later, American scholars  rediscovered  the once obscure Soviet art of Dezinformatsia, and  factoids soon grew into a academic cottage industry  with specialized journals focusing on echo chamber acoustics and the dark arts of justifying behavioral engineering and social entrepreneurship.

Inevitably, one soon discovered that political interest in the subject was somewhat less than symmetrical :

Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review

July 2023, Volume 4, Issue 4

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-119

Research Article

A survey of expert views on misinformation: Definitions, determinants, solutions, and future of the field

 Sacha Altay (1), Manon Berriche (2), Hendrik Heuer (3), Johan Farkas (4), Steven Rathje (5)

We surveyed 150 academic experts on misinformation and identified areas of expert consensus. Experts defined misinformation as false and misleading information, though views diverged on the importance of Intentionality and what exactly constitutes misinformation. 

The most popular reason why people believe and share misinformation was partisanship, while lack of education was one of the least popular reasons.

Experts were optimistic about the effectiveness of interventions against misinformation and supported system-level actions against misinformation, such as platform design changes and algorithmic changes...

Experts leaned strongly toward the left of the political spectrum: 

Very right-wing (0), Fairly right-wing  fairly right-wing (0), Slightly right-of-center (7), Center (15), Slightly left-of-center (43), Fairly left-wing (62), Very left-wing (21).

The misinformation experts represent a broad range of scientific fields. Experts specialized in

psychology (39), communication and media science (32), political science (22), computational social sciences (17), computer science (9), sociology (8), journalism (8), philosophy (5), other (4), medicine/other (2), linguistics (2), history (1), physics (1).

HOW VERY INCONVENIENT !

Are Northern Hemisphere boreal forest fires

 more sensitive to future aerosol mitigation

 than to greenhouse gas–driven warming?

ROBERT J. ALLEN HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0003-1616-9719 , BJØRN H. SAMSET HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0001-8013-1833, LAURA J. WILCOX HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0001-5691-1493, AND ROSIE A. FISHER HTTPS://ORCID.ORG/0000-0003-3260-9227Authors Info & Affiliations

SCI

29 Mar 2024

Vol 10, Issue 13

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adl4007

Considerable interest exists in understanding how climate change affects wildfire activity.

Here, we use the Community Earth System Model version 2 to show that future anthropogenic aerosol mitigation yields larger increases in fire activity in the Northern Hemisphere boreal forests, relative to a base simulation that lacks climate policy and has large increases in greenhouse gases. 

The enhanced fire response is related to a deeper layer of summertime soil drying, consistent with increased downwelling surface shortwave radiation and enhanced surface evapotranspiration. In contrast, soil column drying is muted under increasing greenhouse gases due to plant physiological responses to increased carbon dioxide and by enhanced melting of soil ice at a depth that increases soil liquid water. 

Although considerable uncertainty remains in the representation of fire processes in models, our results suggest that boreal forest fires may be more sensitive to future aerosol mitigation than to greenhouse gas–driven warming. 

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NORK DEAR LEADER SENDS COPROSOL CHEMTRAILS SOUTH

 

TO OFFSET THE EVERDAY SHITSTORMS ARISING FROM HIS KIDNAPPING, GUN RUNNING AND ASSASSINATION CAMPAIGNS, NORTH KOREA'S DEAR LEADER, GENERAL SECRETARY KIM JONG UN,  HAS TURNED TO SUSTAINABLE GEOENGINEERING, FILLING SKIES  OVER SOUTH KOREA AND THE SEA OF JAPAN WITH  BAGS OF FECES AND USED TOILET PAPER.

This approach to climate statecraft has a long history indeed :

THE IRIS EFFECT COMES IN FROM THE COLD

 The  CO2 Coalition " What Warming " tweetstorm  suggests the coalition's JASON emeriti  have enlisted their old friend and neighbor John Clauser to relaunch Dick Lindzen's "Iris Effect" theory of  limited global warming. 

Their transmission & endorsement of Lindzen's recent, and oddly published DIY review of his own work recalls  Carl Sagan and his co-authors efforts to outflank critics of the apocalyptically framed 1983 "nuclear winter" paper in Science , with a  DIY review of subsequent publications:  "Climate and Smoke: an Appraisal of Nuclear Winter"  that ranks as a masterpiece of selective citation.

Here we go again : the tweetstorm's debt to  Lindzen becomes fairly obvious if you compare his 2021 paper with what Clausen has said, especially while  pointing to Steve Koonin's Unsettled  during his Competitive Enterprise Institute presentation 

Full disclosure:

 In 1986, I was invited to lunch with CEI Founder Fred Smith after I criticized the science of 'nuclear winter' in the peer reviewed pages of Nature, and the politics of its PR campaign in The National Interest,  Foreign Affairs, Il Tempo , The Wall Street Journal, and The Bangkok Post

Earlier that year , the Editor of the NAS magazine Science Technology and Human Values  had observed that, in terms of pop culture,

"Science is whatever  Carl Sagan says on the  Johnny Carson show."

The meal was not memorable but after it, Smith  asked me: 

 "Do you believe in global warming ?"

And I replied 

"Of course!" 

adding that the same radiative forcing science that led to the meltdown of Sagan's  much publicized TTAPS model showed CO2 would warm the Earth as surely as darkening the atmosphere could cool it

 He seemed puzzled , but inquired :

"Would you like to be the next Carl Sagan?"

Though taken aback, I recalled Steve Schneider's experience with Carl, and replied:

"One is one too many."

I was not asked back, and not much has changed at CEI since: 

JOHN CLAUSER , 2022 PHYSICS NOBEL PRIZE WINNER:

"I can very confidently assert, there is NO climate emergency." “As much as it may upset many people, my message is the planet is NOT in peril. … atmospheric CO2 and methane have negligible effect on the climate. The policies government have been implementing are total unnecessary and should be eliminated.

So far, [we] have totally misidentified what is the dominant process in controlling the climate, and all of the various models are based on incomplete and incorrect physics.

The dominant process, is “the cloud-sunlight-reflexivity thermostat mechanism. Clouds are all bright white, and they reflected 90% of the sunlight back into space making them the most crucial yet most overlooked aspect of the climate system. Two-thirds of the Earth are ocean. The Pacific Ocean alone is half the Earth. The average cloud cover for the Earth is 67%; about 50% over land and 75% over oceans. I claim that the above conspicuous properties of clouds are the missing part of the puzzle.

• I assert that the IPCC's computer models have all misidentified the dominant process that controls the earth's climate. They are based on incomplete and incorrect physics. 

• My contribution here is to introduce the "cloud-sunlight-reflectivity thermostat mechanism". theot tat mechanist song canals the ideas mage and temperavitre. 

• This thermostat provides nature's own Solar Radiation Management System. It is built-in to nature. It works. It is very effective. And, it is free! 

• I further show here that my cloud-sunlight-reflectivity thermostat mechanism constitutes the overwhelmingly dominant process that controls and stabilizes the earth's temperature and climate.

I show here that the effect of CO2 is totally negligible by a factor of more than 100

with respect to that provided by my cloud reflectivity thermostat mechanism

• (Pardon the metaphor) I claim that my model is an elephant in the room hiding in plain sight. (I earlier discovered two similar elephants-in-the-room in quantum mechanics.) 

• Finally, I show that NOAA's own data disprove their claims that the frequency of "extreme weather events" is recently increasing at an alarming rate as a result of global warming.

Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences

The Iris Effect: A Review

Lindzen, Richard S; Choi, Yong-Sang

Volume 58, pages 159–168, Seoul (2022)

This study reviews the research of the past 20-years on the role of anvil cirrus in the Earth’s climate – research initiated by Lindzen et al. (Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 82:417-432, 2001).

 The original study suggested that the anvil cirrus would shrink with warming, which was estimated to induce longwave cooling for the Earth. This is referred to as the iris effect since the areal change hypothetically resembles the light control by the human eye’s iris. If the effect is strong enough, it exerts a significant negative climate feedback which stabilizes tropical temperatures and limits climate sensitivity. 

Initial responses to Lindzen et al. (Bull. Am. Meteor. Soc. 82:417-432, 2001) denied the existence and effectiveness of the iris effect. Assessment of the debatable issues in these responses will be presented later in this review paper. At this point, the strong areal reduction of cirrus with warming appears very clearly in both climate models and satellite observations. Current studies found that the iris effect may not only come from the decreased cirrus outflow due to increased precipitation efficiency, but also from concentration of cumulus cores over warmer areas (the so-called aggregation effect). Yet, different opinions remain as to the radiative effect of cirrus clouds participating in the iris effect

. For the iris effect to be most important, it must involve cirrus clouds that are not as opaque for visible radiation as they are for infrared radiation. However, current climate models often simulate cirrus clouds that are opaque in both visible and infrared radiation. This issue requires thorough examination as it seems to be opposed to conventional wisdom based on explicit observations. This paper was written in the hope of stimulating more effort to carefully evaluate these important issues.

FIVE WATTS OF BACH: A LOW CARBON TOCCATA & FUGUE

The Skinner pipe organ in the National Cathedral has been blasting out Bach for over a century. The instrument took a decade  to complete  ( The cathedral's cornerstone was laid on September 29, 1907 in a ceremony presided over by Theodore Roosevelt) and its bellows drew power from an electric motor that produced as much as 23 horsepower  (17 Kilowatts !) if the work performed literally required the organist to pull out all the stops.

Today, the organ sits disassembled, undergoing what may be its last overhaul, as plans are underway to replace it with a digital organ sometime after 2025. That will doubtless cut the power bill down mightily, because modern loudspeaker transducers  produce vastly more acoustic wattage than blowers pressurizing wooden  wind boxes.  

Still, the designers will be hard pressed to beat the acoustic fuel economy of this system, seen and heard playing  Bach's Dorian Toccata at an energy cost of roughly a pint of ale:

IF THE CLIMATE WARS DON'T GETCHA, THE CD WARS WILL

 

It includes a hand-carved nickel box and a leather-bound manuscript containing lyrics and a certificate of authenticity - and a legal condition that the owner cannot release the 31 tracks for 88 years.

Producer RZA likened it to a Picasso artwork, or an ancient Egyptian artefact.

"It's a unique original rather than a master copy of an album," 

he said when the album went on sale in 2015.

As a result, only a handful of people on the planet have heard snippets of the 31 tracks.

A group of potential buyers and media heard a 13-minute section in 2015, and 

disgraced drug firm executive Martin Shkreli - who bought the album for $2m (£1.6m, A$3m) - streamed clips of the music on YouTube to celebrate Donald Trump's 2016 election victory.

YOUR CLIMATE COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS SOLVED !

THE TRUTH THAT SETS MEN FRee OFTEN costs ONLY TWICE AS MUCH AS ITS OPPOSITE

GENESIS CLIMATE DENIAL BOT SELF-DESTRUCTS ON X

 

ELECTORAL CLIMATE MODELING HOW WOULD THEY HAVE VOTED HAD THEY BUT KNOWN?

The Independent INSIDE WASHINGTON Will Joe Biden drag down the rest of the Democrats? At this point, President Joe Biden’s dismal polling numbers aren’t anything new. A new Emerson College poll released Friday spelled even more bad news for the commander-in-chief, with former president Donald Trump taking a narrow, two-point lead.   That comes after a New York Times/Siena College poll showed Biden losing to Trump in five of the six swing states, leading only in Wisconsin. Other polls show that even as Biden wins so-called “double-haters” — voters who do not want either candidate — he still trails Trump.   His weak numbers don’t just pose a threat to him: They could also drag down other Democrats.   At the moment, Democrats have held onto a razor-thin majority in the Senate, with just 51 seats. Republicans are all but guaranteed to flip retiring Senator Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia, where Trump won every county.

 

MISTRIAL DECLARED IN VERMONT CLIMATE SUIT AFTER INCOMPREHENSIBLE FLAG SCARES JURY

  COLONIAL FLAG DEPICTING BLUE BEAVER attackING A  PALM TREE  IS DENOUNCED AS RACIST, REACTIONARY &  INSURRECTIONARY INCITEMENT TO ARBOR DAY DENIAL AND TROPICAL DEFORESTATION

 

NEVER TAKE A TURBINE BLADE TO A TORNADO FIGHT

THE TUCKER CARLSON CLIMATE ZOMBIE CHALLENGE

CITING WATER ON BOTH SIDES OF MAR A LAGO, TRUMP DEMANDS OFFSHORE WIND FARM TAX BREAK

WHAT SEA LEVEL RISE ?

Here's what Trump told the Times about climate change on the eve of his inauguration in 2016:

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, opinion columnist: Mr. President-elect, can I ask a question? One of the issues that you actually were very careful not to speak about during the campaign, and haven’t spoken about yet, is one very near and dear to my heart, the whole issue of climate change, the Paris agreement, how you’ll approach it. You own some of the most beautiful links golf courses in the world …

[laughter, cross talk]

TRUMP: [laughing] I read your article. Some will be even better because actually like Doral is a little bit off … so it’ll be perfect. [inaudible] He doesn’t say that. He just says that the ones that are near the water will be gone, but Doral will be in great shape.

It is interesting  in the light of his recent civil suit claim that Mar A Lago should be appraised as a billion dollar property, to revisit what the London Review of Books discerned in 2017:Post left the estate to the US government, in the hope it would be used for cultural activities, but in 1981 the government returned it to the Post Foundation, which put it on the market for $20 million. After seeing it in 1985, Trump offered (he claims) $15 million, which the family rejected. He then put in a $2 million offer for the land between the estate and the ocean, and threatened to build a house on it that would block Mar-a-Lago’s ocean view. They sold him the estate for the knock-down price of $7 million. Trump restored the house and grounds, doing little damage – since it’s a listed building, he was limited to restoring the original décor – and adding the ballroom. In the 1990s, beset by the financial woes that have been the hallmark of his business career, he negotiated with the banks to subdivide Mar-a-Lago, to the alarm of the citizens of Palm Beach; the city council vetoed it.

Instead, Trump turned the place into a private members’ club: joining fee $200,000, annual subscription $14,000, overnight hotel charges up to $2000. If it seems weird that the official winter residence of an American president should be a private club, the neighbours appear to agree. The old-money crowd made the exodus to Jupiter and Hobe Sound