The skeptic who claims to have debunked climate skepticism never was a skeptic.
About Berkeley’s Richard Muller, whose recent “study” on surface temperatures, has caused headlines like “Climate-change skeptic: ‘You should not be a skeptic.’“, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2006:
… Muller estimates 2 in 3 odds that humans are causing global warming…
(h/t Marc Morano)
And here is a link from 2008, where Muller states :
Global warming. There is a consensus that global warming is real. There has not been much so far, but it’s going to get much, much worse. The thing I would tell the president is that the global warming, according to the global consensus — that’s the IPCC scientists, who won the Nobel Prize — the global warming of the future is going to come from the developing world. It’s the exploding economies of China and India and Asia that are going to be responsible for the CO2.
http://physicsandphysicists.blogspot.com/2008/11/q-with-richard-muller.html
Been a long time since I have been on any of the Skeptic sites which I very much enjoyed following (as I Am one myself), but wanted to say this:
I have a degree in Geology and read avidly on all science. I’ve been following the issue of climate change / global warming since the late 80s. Starting about 2004, I began following the argument in earnest on every Skeptic blog I could find.
I do not recall EVER seeing the name ‘richard muller’ in comments, anywhere. Perhaps I overlooked it. Perhaps he used a different handle. Or perhaps he rarely, if EVER, came by a Skeptic blog.
He’s no Skeptic. Or I would have heard of him.
The implication that someone needs to disagree with every tittle of AGW to be legitimately skeptical of components of it is just asinine. Muller is a physics professor, so is likely to understand that the globe will warm from adding CO2 to the atmosphere. He has blogged in support of M&M’s criticism of the ‘Hockey Stick’ papers by Michael Mann, and contends that the hockey stick is broken. Muller has not only stated on numerous occasions that he thinks the official temperature records are flawed, he has impugned the motives and competence of the compilers of those records.
Prior to the BEST project, Muller’s position was most like those ‘skeptics’ who concede that the greenhouse theory is valid, that the world will warm from adding CO2, but that the magnitude of that is unknown.
He is not like those who deny the greenhouse effect or embrace crackpot conspiracy theories. These people neither understand skepticism nor deserve to be associated with that concept. It was inevitable contrarians would scour the archives for quotes from Muller that aligned with the mainstream view to spin some narrative about him being a mole for the warmists or whatever. Framing ‘skepticism’ about climate change science as an all or nothing proposition is about as brain-dead as it gets. But not surprising considering the BEST results are off-message for the critics.
Muller’s book for future presidents also revealed his bias. the following is a copy of a review.
This is a useful book for people with very little scientific
knowledge. The author presents a bit of science, but little
enough that most of the intended audience will be able to
follow the argument. The science is not the problem in most
of the problem areas considered. Rather, it is economics,
specifically trade-offs, sometimes measured in dollars, but often
in lives lost due to one cause versus lives saved due to an
increased effort in another area, or habitat loss due to solar
power.
Most of the topics are summed up by a simple bit of mathematics
or physics, based on a conservation law, continuity, or similar
obvious and not controversial principles. They are what engineers
call a back of the envelope calculation. There is room for values.
One future president might conclude it is good to give up so many
acres of wilderness to get an extra megawatt of solar power.
Another president might conclude the land is more important than
the power. The value of the book is knowing how many acres.
Some of the negative reviews seem to be various forms of “but I
don’t want that to be true.”
The global warming section does not follow this virtuous path.
After an assortment of facts, including many that the skeptics
use to discredit the hypothesis of AGW caused by CO2 we produce,
we are asked to just believe the IPCC. Without this section,
the book would be worth five stars, and my only negative comments
would be a wish that the author had covered the topic.
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