It’s August! It’s August! Yes, today is August 1, 2025, and Homemade Pie Day. But I’ll take any pie: homemade or commercial. The only pie I abide eat is strawberry-rhubarb pie because they put sour, gritty VEGETABLES in it! Oy! Here’s one of these toxic desserts from Wikipedia (I also learned that pure rhubarb pie is common in the UK, but I can’t believe that the human palate could stomach such a thing.)
It’s also International Albariño Day, International Beer Day, National Raspberry Cream Pie Day, National Spritz Day, and Yorkshire Day. Here are four Yorkshiremen:
Since it’s August, here’s the depiction of August in the wonderful manuscript Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. It shows falconry taking place at the Château d’Étampes.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*A professor of Constitutional law at Harvard Law School, Adrian Vermeule, reports that there’s a revolt among lower courts against the Supreme Courts. His op-ed in the NYT is called “Someone is defying the Supreme Court, but it isn’t Trump” (article archived here).
The issue of defying court orders is still with us — but it has taken a twist. Now the defiance is coming from inside the judicial branch itself, in the form of a lower-court mutiny against the Supreme Court. District Court judges, and in some cases even appellate courts, have either defied orders of the court outright or engaged in malicious compliance and evasion of those orders, in transparent bad faith.
In the past decade or so, increasing judicial overreach has caused harm to our constitutional order by limiting the ability of the executive branch to implement the program it was elected by the American people to pursue. It has been a scourge for both recent Republican and Democratic presidents, and it may provoke extreme measures to restore order. The recent defiance goes even further, threatening to damage the internal integrity of the judiciary, which ultimately relies on lower courts to follow the Supreme Court’s direction.
Consider Judge Brian Murphy of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts. Judge Murphy issued a preliminary injunction against the transfer of removable aliens to third countries, in cases in which the transfer was expressly permitted by federal law. So far, this was just an ordinary example of judicial overreach.
But after the Supreme Court issued an order to stay — that is, to stop — the preliminary injunction while litigation proceeded (over a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor), Judge Murphy went beyond overreach. He decided that his order enforcing the injunction that the court had stayed nonetheless remained in effect — a proposition for which his only cited authority was the dissent from Justice Sotomayor. This seemed to be malicious, whether or not it counts as “compliance” at all. The Supreme Court, with the notable concurrence of Justice Elena Kagan, then had to stay this second order and explain that Judge Murphy’s renewed effort was also illicit.
Lots of similar examples are given; read the article.
Several factors conspire to produce these episodes. The plaintiffs, often activist organizations, who bring the cases carefully select the districts in which to proceed, maximizing their chances of having the case heard by ideologically aligned judges. Under President Joe Biden, liberals harshly criticized this tactic, known as forum or judge shopping.
This year, it is no accident that the incidents of lower-court defiance have taken place in a few areas of the country — the Federal District Courts in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Northern California, Maryland and other blue areas. Under President Biden, Texas and other red states served the same purpose.
District Court judges have almost no accountability; they are like feudal lords who lay down the law in their local courts. If they are reversed, at least they will have stymied for some time the implementation of presidential policies they find objectionable.
Vermeule’s suggestion is an obscure procedure called “departmentalism”:
The final recourse in the system — a controversial and rarely used fallback — is what is described in constitutional theory as “departmentalism”: The president may ignore a judicial order that, on the president’s independent interpretation of the law, exceeds the scope of judicial power, as when a District Court were to purport to bar the president from granting a pardon or vetoing a bill. As my Harvard colleague Jack Goldsmith recently wrote, the theory has “a long pedigree in American history.”
“The basic theory of departmentalism is that while the Supreme Court has the authority to exercise its Article III ‘judicial Power’ in cases or controversies before it,” Mr. Goldsmith wrote, “the President’s Article II duty to ‘take care that the law be faithfully executed’ gives him an independent power to determine what ‘the law,’ including the Constitution, means, for purposes of exercising executive power.”
This doesn’t sound like much of a solution to me, for it gives the President the right to overrule the Supreme Court, and we know how what is construed as “the law” can be stretched.
*The Trump administration is trying to water down the scientific consensus on global warming (article archived here):
Sea level rise is not accelerating. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be good for plant growth. The computer models used to predict global warming tend to exaggerate future temperature increases.
These arguments, routinely made by people who reject the scientific consensus on climate change, were included in an unusual report released by the Energy Department on Tuesday. The report, which is meant to support the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to roll back climate regulations, contends that the mainstream scientific view on climate change is too dire and overlooks the positive effects of a warming planet.
Climate scientists said the 151-page report misrepresented or cherry-picked a large body of research on global warming. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth and the payments company Stripe, called the document a “scattershot collection of oft-debunked skeptic claims” that “are not representative of broader climate science research findings.”
The report demonstrates the extent to which President Trump is using his second term to wage a battle against climate change research, a long-held goal of some conservative groups and fossil fuel companies. While the first Trump administration often undermined federal scientists and rolled back more than 100 environmental policies, officials mostly refrained from trying to debate climate science in the open.
This time, Trump officials have gone much further.
How so? The article goes on to describe how the EPA is already using the report to repeal a declaration that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health. Here we have yet another example of the erosion of science by ideology–this time from the Right. And it will be our grandchildren who will pay the price (thank Ceiling Cat I will have none).
*Very few people ever get out of the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador (where the U.S. is sending many of its deportees), but the Washington Post interviewed 16 who did get out. And it’s about as horrible as you can imagine.
The matching firsthand accounts across multiple interviews offer the most complete view yet of conditions inside the mega prison, where inmates are denied access to lawyers and almost all contact with the outside world — and where about 14,000 Salvadorans remain incarcerated. Few detainees have ever left CECOT, and fewer have spoken publicly of their experience there.
The Washington Post interviewed 16 of the more than 250 men who were deported by the United States to CECOT, held there for four months and then released this month to Venezuela as part of an international prisoner swap.
The Venezuelans, rounded up in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, told The Post they were subjected to repeated beatings that left them bruised, bleeding or injured. They said prison staff restricted medical care for detainees suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure or kidney failure.
The men slept on metal bunks — usually with no cushions — in group cells where overhead lights blazed 24 hours a day. They were expected to bathe and relieve themselves using a water tank and toilets that offered no privacy from cellmates. They were rarely allowed out of their cells.
CECOT, opened by Bukele in 2023 as part of his crackdown on Salvadoran gangs, was designed to terrify the most violent of criminals. His government hailed it as the largest prison in the Americas, initially announcing a capacity for 20,000 detainees and later doubling it. The imposing fortress outside San Salvador sprawls across more than 280 acres, surrounded by an electrified perimeter fence and 19 watchtowers. The roof of each pavilion is made of diamond-shaped mesh with sharp edges.
The Venezuelans were placed in cells, up to 20 men in each. The concrete walls showed sweat stains, drops of dried blood and what appeared to be scratches from human nails, one detainee recalled.
Each cell held 80 metal beds stacked closely together in tiers of four, according to detainees and images of CECOT previously shared by Bukele’s government. Use of the water tanks and toilets was controlled by the guards and restricted to certain times of day. With no windows or fans, the detainees lived and ate amid the stench of their own sewage.
The detainees could gauge the time only by the heat that made them sweat during the day and the cold that chilled their metal beds at night. They couldn’t see the sun, they said, but sometimes could hear the rain.
CECOT “seemed like it was for animals,” said detainee Julio Fernández Sánchez, 35. “It was designed for people to go crazy or kill themselves.”
Here’s a short visit, and yes, it looks like hell on earth:
*From the AP: Now it’s social-nedia posts that grossly misrepresented figures from the war in Gaza, and of course the false facts indict Israel. As a reader points out, the misrepresentations always go in only one direction—against Israel.
As the number of Palestinians killed in the Israel-Hamas war continues to rise, social media users are falsely claiming that a Harvard University study has determined that hundreds of thousands in the Gaza Strip are also missing.
“Israel has ‘disappeared’ nearly 400,000 Palestinians in Gaza since 2023,” reads one X post that had been shared and liked more than 35,700 times as of Thursday. “Harvard has now confirmed what we’ve been screaming into a deaf world: This is a holocaust — and it’s still happening.”
But Harvard did not publish the report in question. Moreover, these claims misrepresent data from the report that was intended to address an entirely unrelated topic.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: A Harvard University study found that nearly 400,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are missing as a result of the Israel-Hamas war.
THE FACTS: Harvard published no such study. This estimate misrepresents a map included in a report by a professor at Israel’s Ben Gurion University that shows the distance between new aid distribution compounds in Gaza and three main populations centers. Using spatial analysis, the report determined that these compounds are inadequate and also does not address how many people in Gaza are missing.
. . . . “If anyone had asked me about these numbers I would have set things straight right away,” said the Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies who authored the report. “Instead the number was circulated and recirculated by people who had not read the report or stopped to think about it for a moment.”
The inaccurate estimate comes from a post on the blogging site Medium. In the post, the author uses a map from Garb’s report showing how many people live in what are currently Gaza’s three main population centers — Gaza City, central refugee camps and the Muwasi area — according to estimates from the Israeli Defense Forces, to determine how many Palestinians are allegedly unaccounted for. The author subtracts the former number — 1.85 million — from the population in Gaza before the Israel-Hamas war began — 2.227 million — for a total of 377,00 missing people.
Why do the distortions always go against Israel? I think you can guess.
*The NYT’s Christine Chung tried two apps and their associated kits (they ain’t free) designed to beat jet lag, testing each one on a flight halfway around the world. The results? Not impressive. (Article archived here.)
The two apps to which I ceded control of my daily rhythms, Flykitt and Timeshifter, are personalized programs based on scientific approaches to jet lag. Both directed me when to sleep, get light exposure, drink caffeine and take supplements. But they took different approaches: Flykitt featured a heavy vitamin regimen, while Timeshifter focused on preparing for jet lag days before flying.
First up, for the New York-to-Seoul trip, was Flykitt. Its starter pack, $99 for a round trip, includes glasses that filter blue light to minimize light exposure and packs of supplements meant to target inflammation. The program, which promised to curb jet lag in just three days, began on departure day. I put my flight details into the app and answered a few questions about my caffeine intake and sleep patterns, and the app promptly churned out a detailed schedule.
. . .At first, popping handfuls of pills was novel and funny, until it wasn’t. The regimen had me taking about three dozen vitamins over three days, starting on the day of the flight.
I also experienced mysterious, intense thirst. I couldn’t be sure, but I suspected the vitamins were to blame. Addressing my unquenchable thirst resulted in a need to use the bathroom approximately every hour. I spent roughly equal time sightseeing as I did finding public toilets in Seoul.
While I wouldn’t say my jet lag was zapped by Day 3, I slept well and felt energized. I felt fully adjusted after five days, shortly before flying to Taiwan. Flykitt’s app told me that unassisted, this time zone alignment would generally take a little over a week.
And the other one:
After about a week in Taipei, I returned to New York using Timeshifter’s guidance. This app was cheaper than Flykitt, $25 for a year’s subscription. No blue-light glasses, which I honestly enjoyed wearing. The only recommended supplement was melatonin, which I was to take for my first four nights back home to help with the adjustment.
While Flykitt instructed me when to avoid light, Timeshifter alerted me about times to seek it out. When I couldn’t be outside, I turned on as many lights as I could. Standard room light is about half as effective as daylight, Dr. Zeitzer of Stanford said.
. . . . Tt took me about five days to feel back to normal.
The bottom line: Neither program markedly shaved time off my jet lag, but I did feel more clearheaded during and after my trip and I didn’t get sick. The severe dehydration I felt may have been anomalous, but it was a pretty big minus for me. Perhaps the biggest benefit the apps offered was confidence; science was on my side.
There are three big problems with this anecdotal study. First, it’s anecdotal: just two trips. Second, there’s the placebo effect, as suggested by the last sentence. Finally, related to the second issue, THERE IS NO CONTROL. Perhaps a couple of vials of water and some wonky instructions would have made Chung feel more “clearheaded.” We won’t know because the NYT doesn’t care whether these results are even replicable. It would be funny except that they are pushing two for-profit regimens not shown to be effective.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a long report on Andrzej’s doings “The Administrator,” of course, is Andrzej.
Hili: The Administrator is reshaping his world, neglecting the kitchen and leaving dishes unwashed. He can’t wait to sit down and write. He hurriedly takes care of matters standing between him and the possibility of working. At dawn, he went out to sort out new hearing aids. He says he needs to regain the ability to hear people. He jokes that he used to hear more when he was deaf. Małgorzata is gone; he says he must now face the world without intermediaries. Still, a partner is necessary. Danka is his greatest hope. He browses through her books, reads the sentences, learns things he already knew. They think alike, so working together will be a joy. He’s acting like some kind of Swede. The most important thing now is preparing the tools needed for action.
When I asked who “Danka” was, Andrzej replied:
Danuta Szulczyńska-Miłosz, a writer. She knows my books, she knows everything I write, and the publisher suggested her as the editor of the book. She stayed with me for two days, and now I know that with her help, the first volume will come out this year. I bought new hearing aids (17,000 zlotys), I’m buying a laptop with the best camera and the best microphone so we can stay in daily contact. A friend who’s choosing and installing all of it for me, along with AI tools, has instructions that price is not an issue. We already have a few side projects related to promotion. With her help, the whole project is gaining momentum. Danka lives near Szczecin, which means far away. But our cats have already settled things between themselves.
Very good. I presume the book is Andrzej’s autobiography.
In Polish:
Hili: Administrator zmienia swój świat, zaniedbał kuchnię nie zmywa po jedzeniu. Nie może się doczekać, kiedy siądzie do pisania. Pospiesznie załatwia sprawy, które dzielą go od możliwości pracy. Od świtu pojechał załatwiać nowe aparaty słuchowe. Mówi, że musi odzyskać możliwość słyszenia ludzi. Żartuje, że jako głuchy słyszał więcej. Małgorzaty nie ma, mówi, że teraz musi zmierzyć się ze światem bez pośredników. Wspólniczka jest jednak potrzebna. Danka jest jego największą nadzieją, Zagląda do jej książek, czyta zdania, dowiaduje się tego, co już wiedział, myślą podobnie, więc wspólna praca będzie radością. Zachowuje się jak jakiś Szwed, Najważniejsze jest teraz przygotowanie narzędzi potrzebnych do działania.
*******************
From The Language Nerds, National differences in phrases:
From CinEmma:
From The Dodo Pet:
This is insane. Supporters of Palestine are vandalizing the NYT building because they retracted a lie! (h/t Luana)
BREAKING: After the NYT retracted its lie about a Gazan child with a muscular disease, pro-Hamas radicals vandalized their Manhattan building.
Islamists are furious the NYT didn’t keep up the lies—and they’re trying to intimidate them into submission.pic.twitter.com/t8EeNWWshW
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) July 30, 2025
From Barry, who adds, “I like the ones near the end of the video that give up. ‘Screw this. Why are we following this duck anyway? I’m outta here’.”
It's just a “swarm of fish" following a duck.
— Insta Science (@instascience.bsky.social) 2025-07-30T14:04:25.098Z
From Malcolm. Crikey–look at those insects!!!!
Removal of a hornets nest
pic.twitter.com/1jNYvdEo0N— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 23, 2025
From my site: three posts on the dangerous North Sea (there are 20!) I put the last one in.
The North Sea is scary as hell, here’s why the North Sea is so dangerous.
A Thread 🧵
1. The last video will really shock you pic.twitter.com/yYBzk8MVKm
— Crazy Moments (@Crazymoments01) July 31, 2025
20. What makes the North Sea so dangerous? pic.twitter.com/u6g3LOQE4I
— Crazy Moments (@Crazymoments01) July 31, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted.
A Hungarian Jewish woman died at about 38 in Auschwitz. https://t.co/ubCSa8u8HQ
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) August 1, 2025
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, my return home from Iceland:
When u are returned to Chicago
— Robert McNees (@mcnees.bsky.social) 2025-07-26T20:44:05.143Z
The answer is not that difficult; I just like to show pictures of skunks. DO NOT HURT THEM!
🦨 Ever wonder how skunks decide where to live in urban landscapes like Chicago?New research from @masonfidino.bsky.social, @lizalehrer.bsky.social, & @sbmagle.bsky.social from @lpzoo.org used nearly a decade of data to find out! 🦊🌍🧪A 🧵
— Stacks Journal (@stacksjournal.bsky.social) 2025-07-09T15:14:21.110Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator. -Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones), schoolteacher, dressmaker, organizer, and activist (1 Aug 1837-1930)
You Amis worry about hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida coast? Damn, we Germans have the deadly North Sea! 😀 😀
If I lived in Australia or NZ, I might want to have a word with you! I like to check out Ventusky for real-time weather and ocean conditions around the world, and I’ve been impressed about how the wave heights across the entire Southern Ocean are consistently far greater than anywhere else on the planet. Today is typical. But I’d still jump at the chance to sail to Antarctica.
I think the golden retriever in the cheetah cage is there to be a friend to the big cat. This is a known thing – that cheetahs get lonely in a zoo, but they do better if they have a buddy. It is adorable.
“In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.”
-Attributed to Michael Crichton
(I just found this quote but once again, nobody puts the damn source!)
“If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. [..] It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.”
-Richard Feynman
The Character of Physical Law
1965
In other news, a new giant walking stick species had been discovered in Australia, and it may be the heaviest insect in that land. Online searches for this often turn up pix of the wrong species, so here it is: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-31/giant-stick-insect-acrophylla-alta-wet-tropics-discovery/105596666
44 grams. I just weighed out 44 grams of sugar to see what that’s like. WOW. It doesn’t look that big. Stick bugs, dragon/damsel flies and mantids are my favorite weirdo insects. What sci-fi authors like to scare their readers with. Thanks.
Stag beetles Edward, you gotta get into stag beetles.
There was a scandal in Japan a few years ago b/c they are very popular there and SE Asian countries were complaining that they’re losing their strategic “stockpile” of native charismatic monster beetles to the Japanese pet trade.
Understandable.
Stag beetles. Just readjust the scale and how much would YOU pay to see them enlarged and fighting in the forum/amphitheater/fight club? Probably like me, quite a lot!
best,
D.A.
NYC
Jerry. You must find yourself a better cook. Rhubarb is neither gritty unless not washed, or sour if properly sweetened (or hard as you previously said, if cooked). Both strawberry-rhubarb and rhubarb only are great pies.
I like rhubarb, and I agree that it’s possible that all it might take is a well made pie to change Dr PCC(e)’s mind. I used to hate brussels sprouts, but it was only because my mom (who was otherwise a fantastic cook) made an awful version of it. So growing up I came to despise those things. But now, after having them done right, I like them. Though I have to admit to still being suspicious when I first see them on my plate.
Wonderful curried.
I sometimes wonder whether the editor here can actually cook …or just pretends to….!!
Nevertheless, I do enjoy his food criticism and appraisement, Puffins and all!
And …gotta admit… I enjoy his instagram-like food posts.
D.A.
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
I look forward to these opportunities our host offers us – often several times a year – to disagree with his rejection of strawberry-rhubarb pie.
The best strawberry-rhubarb pie has no rhubarb in it. Gritty or not, sweetened or not, it’s still a repugnantly tasting VEGETABLE!
And if it has to be sweetened that much in order for even the amateurs to eat it, it ain’t worth it. My theory is that rhubarb pie became popular in England only after cheap cane sugar from the West Indies plantations came onto the scene. That’s when everyone’s teeth started to fall out. True.
(Note excuse to use an archaic sense of amateur….)
Oooh just drove by to say thanks for “amateur”. That’s a new one for me.
This is not exactly The Four Yorkshiremen, but I was watching a video the other day where a former Royal Navy sailor described the practice of “black catting”, or what we would call one-upsmanship. For example, if you said you seen a big, black cat, the other fellow would say he saw one that was bigger and blacker. “Or, if you’d been to Tenerife, he’d been to Elevenerife.”
“Scientific consensus” is a trope use to stifle dissent and discussion for political purposes. Examples: Climate change, Covid, transgender care
I understand scientific consensus as a Bayesian term (in a hand waving sense, people don’t really make calculations to update their priors after reading a paper or making an experiment): the evidence, data, measurements, results of experiments, calculations… shifted the opinions of most scientists to support one theory.
“Consensus” is necessary – usually N=3 – to publish scientific papers.
and scientific literature is necessary for science.
Neither are sufficient for science.
What is it called when words like “consensus” get mixed around in different contexts to subvert meaning to seize the means of production of a valuable product?
“Alchemy of the word”
-Herbert Marcuse accurately explaining Marxism
Counterrevolution and Revolt
Beacon Press
1972
I’m only making this comment because though you’re right about what you said, it’s not like scientific consensus is a bad thing, as I am sure you will agree. I agree that it can be misused, but it IS useful and we do it all the time. I do a lot of flow cytometry; the scientific consensus is that the reason some of the fluors work is because of resonance energy transfer. I know bupkis about quantum yield theory in FRET, so I have to rely on the scientific consensus that it will work. A similar reliance on other’s expertise happens all the time in every laboratory in the world. So when it is misused as you note, mostly by politicians and activists, it adds further harm to the perception of science and scientists.
No it’s not. Plenty of self-styled mavericks are simply wrong. Some of us have been around science for many decades and seen these scenarios play out, variously. But people can reject scenic consensus when it suits heir own agenda. Of the 3 examples you cite, the only valid one where what seems to be consensus is in fact way off base is “transgender” care — this came out out of psychotherapy field, notorious for crank fads, so there you are Of course, people are always free to reject the consensus around, day, evolution gravity, shape of the earth, the existence and origins of viruses, or whatever suits the tribal demands. There’s always an audience — see also HIV/AIDs denial, which is deadly and which persists with “brave” eccentrics of certain intent screaming censored. Bad ideas never go away.
And I would argue (and have) that the claimed “consensus” around “transgender care” does not actually exist. There is a consensus among activists and clinicians; the actual researchers I’ve read* have been cautious about drawing conclusions and open about the fact that much more evidence is needed.
*(activist scientists like Jack Turban and Joanna Olson-Kennedy excepted.)
Four Yorkshiremen never gets old. Killer. 🙂
Pals mobbing the New Woke Times uptown. Better than their friends flying planes into Manhattan buildings, or wrecking our campuses, snarling Grand Central Station, or hijacking planes. Or blowing up restaurants, cafes or nightclubs in Israel.
So… Hilarious. I wish both Hamas supporting parties – the mob of useful idiots and the Voice of Hamas NYT… all the best in destroying each other.
DavidAnderson_JD_NYC
@DavidandersonJd
Climate change skepticism is longstanding on the right. The apocalyptic tones from the left, the “we only have ten years” proclamations that have been ongoing for over thirty, the sensationalized public framing rather than the nuances of climate professionals simply heighten that skepticism. Reasonable pushback on the alarmism, reasoned debate about policy choices, are alike cast into the all-purpose bin of “denialism.” More broadly, the incorrect medical and scientific “consensus” on gender and gender-affirming care; an array of deeply flawed policies and practices recommended by medical and scientific professionals and implemented by bureaucrats during the pandemic; the as-of-yet unfilled economic forecasts by “hundreds of leading experts” of economic doom under Trump; and the social science assertions of systemic racism have all further eroded public confidence across fields. The unwillingness of “consensus” experts to engage reasoned dissent and the opprobrium heaped on those who disagree is similar across these disparate domains. A reasonable outsider wonders whether this rot is systemic.
It is not simply that the expert “consensus” has been wrong on many measures: it is more the all-too-human refusal to acknowledge error, the urge to double down on failed choices, the avoidance of accountability that have increased distrust. None of this is helped by the propensity for experts in our social media age to increasingly opine publicly on political issues outside their areas of expertise and thus lend credence to assertions that their expertise is also politically tainted.
I will acknowledge having to tamp down my own emerging skepticism about climate, having watched over the last decade or more the tightening of the acceptable narrative in so many academic and professional areas, the almost mindless conformity that has consumed so many otherwise intelligent people, the understandable cowardice that prompts many either to parrot the prevailing line or try to hide, and the refusal by institutional gatekeepers to fund or publish research that counters the “consensus.” How many topics are now effectively off limits to any researcher who wants to retain employment and respectability in his or her field? Some academics might still want to hide in their disciplinary silos, but many in the public don’t make such distinctions. You are all “experts.” The wide-ranging failures of the “consensus” and the self-correcting measures in many fields, unfortunately, taint nearly all.
I have no solutions. Trust, once violated, is incredibly difficult to regain.
You’re absolutely correct that the idea of consensus has been badly coopted, but I would argue that most of that influence has come from the left in recent years, as noted above by Dr. Brydon. The climate crowd has been ruthless in stifling dissent from the received wisdom that they put out, and will do anything to bully and discredit those who disagree with them, from junior researchers to journalists and politicians. Michael Mann is one of the worst in this regard, he’s notorious for it. (He threatened my husband years ago for a piece criticizing him, sending his lawyer after him saying he’ll sue, and trying to strong-arm hubby’s boss to fire him. To his credit the boss told Mann to pound sand.) They also twist the storyline in their research articles to stick to the narrative, and get very annoyed when called on it (https://x.com/BjornLomborg/status/1939722892666699859). Up and coming scientists know by now that they have to toe the line if they want to be published (https://www.thefp.com/p/i-overhyped-climate-change-to-get-published ). And now, of course, they’re going after the authors of this latest government study, all respected scientists who fell afoul of the climate crowd and were hounded out of their jobs. I’m no fan of Trump or this administration, but I applaud the fact that they brought these folks back into the fold, it’s long overdue.
“And now, of course, they’re going after the authors of this latest government study, all respected scientists who fell afoul of the climate crowd and were hounded out of their jobs.”
Sorry, but no. This latest government “study” was a review paper by John Christy, Ph.D., Judith Curry, Ph.D.; Steven Koonin, Ph.D., Ross McKitrick, Ph.D., and Roy Spencer, Ph.D. They are a rogue’s gallery of climate denialists and climate minimalists whose work and statements have been rightfully criticized for their poor quality which sometimes descends into abject dishonesty. Many are still at their jobs.
They are united in their close associations with fossil fuel interests which may include the Heartland Institute, climate denier websites and podcasters, and proclaim the same paranoid conspiracy theory you and Dr Brydon espouse in your comments – that the scientific consensus about AGW is used unfairly or unethically to quash valuable dissent.
The science of climate change, although relatively recent, is, along with quantum mechanics, among the most highly-documented scientific theories in history. The consensus about AGW is vastly multidisciplinary, and involves a huge number of climate scientists who agree to an extremely high degree on certain basic principles. All of the authors of this government report are at contrary opinion on these basic precepts and some have gone so far as to repeatedly call the climate science of AGW a “hoax”.
Their associations, inaccuracies, and infamous statements are documented here:
https://www.desmog.com/ross-mckitrick/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ross_McKitrick
https://www.desmog.com/john-christy/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_R._Christy
https://www.desmog.com/judith-curry/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judith_Curry
https://www.desmog.com/roy-spencer/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roy_Spencer
https://www.desmog.com/steve-koonin/
I’m not going to debate your comment, but it did make me chuckle and shake my head. The fact that you rely on Desmog and Sourcewatch says it all.
Desmog Blog and Sourcewatch compile documented statements and associations, with reference links. It is their statements that “say it all”.
Thank you.
Of the authors, I’m only familiar with Judith Curry, but I know enough about her intellectual honesty, the quality of her science, and the integrity of her motives to know that literally everything you wrote about her is so false as to be slanderous.
It’s more than a little ironic that your reply illustrates precisely the kind of behavior that Loretta Michaels was talking about when she wrote:
That would be the same Judith Curry who in 2016:
Judith Curry blogged that she agreed with then-President-elect Donald Trump’s description of climate change as a “hoax,” and said that the United Nations’ definition of anthropogenic climate change “qualifies as a hoax.20
“[I]n terms of climate hoaxes, perhaps it is NOT Donald Trump’s whose pants are on fire…Trump’s election provided an opportunity for a more rational energy and climate policy.”
The same Judith Curry who in 2015 wrote:
“In an op-ed for Fox News, Curry stated that “the hottest topic in climate research is the observation that global average surface temperature, as well as satellite observations of temperatures in the atmosphere, has shown little or no warming during the 21st century.”
Who in 2023 wrote:
““‘Yes,’ she writes in Climate Uncertainty and Risk, ‘CO2 emissions are a problem and should be reduced, but not as an urgent problem that trumps the need for abundant, reliable, and secure sources of energy for the global population.’ ”
Who in a Senate hearing on climate change in 2023 said:
“near-term risks from human-caused climate change have been exaggerated and confused by conflating the slow incremental risk from warming with emergency risk associated with extreme weather events that has little if anything to do with warming.”
Who in February of 2023:
” appeared via video at the Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change, on a panel about “Understanding What’s Really Happening to the Climate.” The title of Curry’s presentation was “Global Warming: Why Scientists Disagree.”
There is plenty more where that came from in the links I provided.
Most polls show “global warming” as way, way down the list of voter concerns. Why is that? I suspect one reason has to do with various media-hyped predictions based on climate modelling that did not even come close to coming true – e.g., the Arctic will be completely ice-free by 2012; eastern Australia will be in permanent drought starting in 2008 (actually we’ve had a lot more rain than usual). Plus the evidence that, if anything, paving the world’s forests and animal habitats to put up solar and wind farms – the left’s preferred solutions – plus the gargantuan amount of mining and transmission lines required, is far more destructive to the natural environment than simply trying to burn fossil fuels more efficiently plus using nuclear energy. And then there is the fact that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the hard left saw ranting about global warming as a new approach to bringing down western affluence and ultimately western civilization – same as why these self-proclaimed “antifascists” have aligned themselves with Islamofascism. Thus many sane people are rightly suspicious about climate hysteria. Climategate, which exposed scientific fraud in the name of pushing catastrophic global warming, did not help either. Nor did the obvious limitations of electric cars.
All the evidence does indeed indicate that the planet has warmed slightly since the end of the Little Ice Age, and the trend is continuing. The real issue here is what can be done about it. Most people in the affluent west don’t want to lose their affluent lifestyles and overseas travel opportunities. And most of the extra CO2 comes from China and India, not the west. I don’t have the answers.
Well said, Mike. Let’s not forget Spain’s power outage in April, which caused a complete failure across Spain & Portugal, and severed the connection to France’s grid. Spain’s grid, heavily reliant on renewables like wind & solar (~70%), couldn’t cope with the outage, due to its lack of stable synchronous generation like gas or nuclear in the affected areas, and meant it was unable to absorb the shock. A power system that’s almost entirely reliant on renewables lacks the flexibility, backup and storage needed to manage shocks. Funny how that topic never appears in the climate crowd’s reports.
I would argue about the “unfulfilled economic forecasts…of economic doom under Trump.” Whatever the forecast an economy doesn’t change much in 7-months, especially one as large and globally intertwined as America’s, and one that was on a firm footing when Trump inherited it. But when you try to upend decades of norms through reckless, record-high, haphazard, destabilizing tariffs, of course the forecast will be dire. And there have already been repercussions in this short time; have you noticed the manufacturing jobs that have been lost month after month? The latest jobs numbers were so bad, Trump decided to fire the Labor Statistics Chief ie. the messenger. I’m sure he’ll replace her with someone who is willing to cook the books. Magical thinking is no way to run an economy (let alone a government), and I’m still on the side of the “experts” in regards to their assessment of Trump-economic-doom.
Anecdotally, I deal in collectibles, and Trump has created a buyer’s market as people are not spending money on superfluous objects. Whether the fear of spending money is warranted or not, it’s simply a sign people are unsettled. Of course precious metals are doing well, which is another sign people are worried…
This is just wrong. Take a look at how fast unemployment rose and industrial production declined after “Black Thursday” (the start of the Great Depression).
What is wrong…economic doom forecasting?…well, sure, no one knows the future. I did cite some facts, so not sure what is wrong. No one that I’ve read/heard is talking about a Great Depression or comparing anything to the GD, so don’t understand your comment.
Not a reply specifically to you, Doug, just trying to keep it all under #10.
I propose a truce between the skeptics and the alarmists. Herewith:
Both sides should acknowledge that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is a collective-action problem. All the sovereign actors who piously pledge voluntary nationally determined emissions reductions are engaging in international diplomacy but their actions are driven entirely by domestic public opinion and not by science at all. Further, there is no sovereign power (such as a one-world government imposed by imperialists from the planet Vulcan) able to enforce compliance and punish cheats with military action or trade embargoes.
The alarmists should, with some reflection, realize that neither their countries, nor they themselves, will agree to curtail economic activity knowing full well that adversary countries (or even their own neighbours on the street) would take advantage of their altruism by moving into the economic space they vacated. Global emissions would remain unchanged but the new distribution of utility would be disadvantageous for the altruistic country or individual. No good deed goes unpunished. The only rational strategy in a collective-action game is not to play. They have no winning solutions, (absent a global sovereign to enforce reductions on all for the good of all) and so don’t deserve efforts to solve them.
The skeptics and the alarmists should publicly agree that business as usual, maybe tinkered at the edges with subsidies, is what they both will do, the skeptics because they want to, and the alarmists because they must, to avoid economic ruin at the hands of unscrupulous cheaters. The two camps are just arguing about whether any of the predicted second-order consequences of AGW will happen, which are interesting scientifically but will all become clear in the fullness of time, and not a moment before they actually do happen. No need to bluster about alarmists being communists or skeptics being paid stooges for the fossil-fuel industry.
“I also learned that pure rhubarb pie is common in the UK”
I love rhubarb pie, especially with cream. It might be that I was born and brought up in England, where rhubarb is very popular, but it also might be that I am devoid of a sweet tooth and avoid sweet things because they just taste horrible.
It’s not encouraging on Dem forums. Like the comments on Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack.
The problem comes when the discussion turns to Democrats. Arguments then break out. Examples: yes white male privilege definitely exists and we need DEI. No, Biden never had an open border(!). No, Biden has no dementia. Kamala lost due to racism and sexism. And of course trans women are women
Those defending reality are in the minority.
Eventually, reality will prevail. But IMO not soon enough, and so it will be a hard landing.
Note to self: cancel that seafaring vacation you planned for the North Sea.
Especially after reading about the fate of the ferry ESTONIA, sank in the area in 1994 with over 800 lives lost.
William Langewische wrote about in his book The Outlaw Sea.
Back when the Estonia went down, I had many friends in Sweden. Everyone in Sweden knew someone who had lost their life in that tragedy.
The practical choice facing the people of El Salvador is CECOT or MS-13. The people of El Salvador have chose CECOT. Bukele ‘only’ has a 91% approval rating. The murder rate in El Salvador has ‘only’ gone down by 98%. My comments are based on other comments that I have read on this site plus some folks who are from Peru and observations that I have read on Substack.
The medical establishment embraced AFAB/AMAB along with “pregnant people”. They went to pains to destroy there credibility.
Those hornets look might big & fierce & a funny color. What species are they? Could they be Asian Giant Hornets, aka Murder Hornets?