I’m a US citizen, received an Associate Degree in Civil Engineering at Vermont Technical College and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Now I live in Europe and help my wife, the owner, run a small business that provides services for industry. I’ve always been a skeptic of the AGW hypothesis, and view myself as a mere spectator in the climate change debate and arena.
As a boy I had a strong interest in meteorology and even dreamed of becoming one for a time. I often read the weather charts and had interest in extreme weather events. I can recall many extreme weather events occurring. That’s why I think what’s happening today is nothing unusual. In fact, if the media stopped hyping it up, most people wouldn’t even notice climate change.
I do believe that the activities of man have a modest impact on the climate and environment, but more through landuse and poor waste management practices respectively. But for the most part, I believe the forces of nature overwhelm anything man puts out.
The focus of public policy and resources ought to be on solving real problems that exist today like water pollution, poverty, mal-nutrition, urban squalor, education, tyranny and so on, and not on thought-up catastrophe scenarios that might or might not come to pass 100 years from now. Too many governments use AGW as an excuse for their policy failures – claiming all problems are due to AGW, and not their own often stupid policies.
This blog allows me to throw in my two cents worth from time to time. I’m not funded by anyone except by my own modest means. This is strictly for fun, learning and free speech.
I worked in Tucson a couple years ago.
´had a very good time there. I stayed in small hotel near A-Mountain.
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Reply: Go Cats go! -PG
Thank you for linking to our video regarding EPA’s refusal to allow its own Science Advisory Board to review the greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding. We will provide updates on our website and on YouTube as the case develops.
Hi P. Gosselin,
I’ve followed your comments for several years on other blogs. Nice to see you have one of your own. You have a typo:
“I’m not funded by anyone accept by my own modest means.”
I’m sure you meant to use “except” rather than “accept”.
Thanks. Now fixed.
I guess my thoughts had been still focussed on the issue of accepting money.
It’s amazing to me when I hear Climate Change skeptics talk about the misinformation from those who believe it is happening, that it’s primarily caused by man, and that the consequences will be significant. What would be the motivation for so many scientists, the vast majority of scientists, far more educated and intelligent than either of us, to spread misinformation? Do you believe they’re just stupid? More so than you? Is there some economic benefit for them? Do you discount what all scientists say? Also, give me a break–an engineering degree does not in any way qualify you to be a climate expert. I work with a lot of engineers and you don’t have to be that bright to get an engineering degree, especially from some no-name university. MIT, maybe, but not the ones you attended.
This first sign one has lost the argument
is resorting to ad hominem attack.
Why then not adhere to logical argument
instead of labeling those who disagree
with you as “deniers” and worse?
Intellect is no qualifier. I have a Degree in Business, majoring in Logistics. I have studied Military Logistics all my life. I have an IQ around the 200 mark, and experience in Manufacturing and Distribution Management at the International level. I see systems in seconds that take you years to understand, if you ever could. I also have a delicately refined and intensely accurate bullshit meter, and I am very effective at finding the cause. Not things I brag about, but I bristle at this “they are smarter than you” bullshit, because in most cases, I am smarter than them.
Follow the money, sweetheart, and there you have your reason. Oh, not what Greenpeace tell you, but follow it FOR YOURSELF. Do YOUR OWN research. It’s easily found and understood – unless you’re not smart enough…
wordsmith: ” I work with a lot of engineers and you don’t have to be that bright to get an engineering degree, especially from some no-name university. MIT, maybe, but not the ones you attended.”
An engineer is one who makes things that work. Many of the things that they make are life critical because people would die if they didn’t work. What this means is that they have to be a better scientist than the so called professional ones because they have to get it right.
All the typical scientist has to do is spin paper after paper never having to apologies for getting it wrong. Actually, getting it wrong is used as a good excuse for still more paper spinning. If they can analyze noise and come up with a p value less that 0.05 – bang! – another paper is on the way.
I will take one good engineer over a hudred scientists any day of the week. Largely becasue I will get difficult problems really solved and things that work. Out of the scientists, all I would get is a lot of paper and requests for still more money to buy still more papers.
To Wordsmith – from a climate “realist!”
There are many of us out here, not employed by the oil industry or any state for federal governments, with a desire to figure out what is going on under the surface. Why do so many “scientists” cave to the “alarmist” community? They need the grants. The research community has received over $70 B (as in billion) during the past 20 years and of that only $1 B has gone to the “deniers.” We know that science is not consensus. We know that the IPCC, with its various Assessment Reports, was established to suit a broad range of political agendas. The IPCC “peer” review process has always been flawed. It distorts information to suit its agenda. Why are there so many climate alarmist dupes? It is so difficult for scientists, once confronted with the truth, to say “I was wrong!”
wordsmith
23. Dezember 2010 at 18:54
“…an engineering degree does not in any way qualify you to be a climate expert…” and other insults.
If a wordsmith could read, he would see that no such claim was made of being a ‘climate expert,’ quite the contrary.
As to the scientists, Richard Lindzen of MIT, a world-class expert, summed it up: “The important point, however, is that the science that they do that I respect is not about global warming. Endorsing global warming just makes their lives easier….For a much larger group of scientists, the fact that they can make ambiguous or even meaningless statements that can be spun by alarmists, and that the alarming spin leads politicians to increase funding provides little incentive to complain about the spin.”
http://www.heartland.org/events/newyork09/pdfs/lindzen.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJwayalLpYY
I was reading Joe Bastardi’s cool winter forcast and somehow got linked to this. Keep up the good work. I, also, am one of the stupid engineers–sounds like Wordsmith couldn’t make it. I am on the fence on the warming cycle but I lean towards the world is bigger than us scenario. As for scientists being holy, the newest is where the study published on autism being caused by vaccines, has been found to be fraudulent, the author being paid by a lawyer to produce the report. I feel there are many good scientists and a few bad apples.
I’ve been reading your posts for a while and assumed you were German!
Good boy, keep it up.
Some lovely work here Pierre.
I see the usual ad hom combined with appeals to authority used to tell Mr. Gosselin that he should just shut up. While in general it’s reasonable to give a lot of weight to expert opinion, experts are by no means infallible nor always disinterested.
I don’t happen to be a stock market expert. Bernie Madoff is. But I still regard myself as smart enough to tell you that you should not trust him, and ought to take his advice with a major grain of salt. How arrogant of me!
No matter how smart the scientists, a correct theory ought to have predictive power, and the predictions of the climate alarmists have not shown that they fully understand the climate. I don’t regard the majority as being like Madoff, but just as I still can critically evaluate the advice of a financial guy like Madoff, I can also critically examine the predictions of climatologists in order to judge their credibility.
Just came across this web site and noted the comment by wordsmith. I would ask him does he know what a (so-called) climate scientist understands and what are their attributes. Can Mann who produced the “hockey stick” graph and does not understand statistics be classed as a climate scientist? What about Phil Jones who has “adjusted” the CRU temperature record, lost his data, does no recognise UHI and was a co-author with Wang in a paper which has been called scientific fraud in a peer-reviewed journal? What about Trenberth who has admitted in an email that the radiation window is 66W/m2 and not 40 W/m2 as in his heat balance (in which there is a missing balance of 0.9w/m2) and then in climategate emails mentions that it is a travesty that they can not find the missing heat? Quite clearly he has no idea about heat transfer.
The AGW hypothesis concerns the trace gas CO2 absorbing radiant heat and transfering that to the atmosphere to increase the temperature. I have looked at Climate Science courses at various Universities around the world. No course I have seen teaches thermodynamics, or heat and mass transfer which are engineering subjects. From all the articles and books, I have seen, no climate scientist (including the supposed guru Sir John Houghton and even some who are sceptics) has a full understanding of these subjects. Has anyone seen a reference to the dimensionless Nusselt numbers in any article on climate? Another engineering subject, fluid dynamics, is necessary to understand atmospheric circulation such as jetstreams and currents in the ocean.
I would suggest that only a clever person with a background in engineering can come to grips with the complexity of climate assessment. One such person was the recently deceased Dr Noor Van Andel. He was just starting to put together a theory about the formation and effect of clouds together with the theory of Miskolczi about constant optical density. Arthur Roesch at http://climategate.nl/ has mentioned that researchers in the Nederlands are following up the theory and hope soon to publish a peer reviewed article.
Does it really matter whether CO2 causes global warming or not? Assuming the flood of climate regulations now I have a vague feeling that nobody remembers where it come from…
Science has been overstretched for the last couple of hundred years in its vain effort to fill the vacuum caused by the collapse of religion in the Western world in the face of ‘scientific’ facts. Please note the word “vain” in its two meanings: a) ego-centric self-importance; and, b) utterly futile; and, apply them both to understand the depth of “scientists’” failure.
These are the same ‘scientists’ who universally accepted the adoption into the English language of the word “tsunami” to take the place of the old English word phrase, “tidal wave”. I do recall the crowing that “the influence of the moon has no relevance or effect on the creation of such waves”.
Well, DUH! Scientists typically are NEVER comfortable with the vagaries of language, and gave up on its study in grade school. Great pity for those who didn’t quit such study. “Tide”, and “tidal” derive from the old English word ‘tid’, which was used to designate “an unspecified but implicitly variable period of time”. As in, “It is going to take as much time as it takes”. ‘Tide’ never did have anything to do with lunar cycles, as far as the inventors of the language goes. In fact, this example of the embrasure of such vagaries is one of the strengths of the English language. The mystery of the rising and falling of the great waters was thus easily encapsulated by the simple phrase “tidal wave” to TELL the listener that the gigantic proportion of ocean tide was about to fall upon them in one wave.
But no! Now it’s a “tsunami”, which is Japanese for “harbour wave’, and no longer tells us anything in English.
But! Scientists were happy that the ruination of the English language satisfied their disdain of it.
These are the same people who embraced the whole concept of “global warming”. Do we have the right to expect anything better of them?
I would like to ask your permission to translate and post in my blog (which I am about to start using again, after over one year gap) your posts about the 129 climate scandals.
As I write in Portuguese and it will be read most by Brazilians, I believe it won´t work if I just link to your website, as you requested.
Cheers
Claudio
Pierre,
you should add a tab for “Tips and Notices” like Antony Watts on his WUWT
Cheers
Casper
Good idea. It’s also okay to just leave them as a comment.
Pierre, I hope you blog on the subject of this link: ttp://junkscience.com/2012/05/08/german-government-to-oppose-fracking/
Is there anon in the German government who has a clue about petroleum geology and the technology involved in fracing? I pray that God enlightens the German ruling class and useflul idiot followers before they destroy their nation.
Recent posts on Watts Up With That and Jo Nova have referred to the publishing of Die Kalte Sonne; indeed with a link to this very site. I recall reading about it at the time and more recently I had been wondering if there was any lasting impact on public opinion about AGW as a result. I posed the question on those sites and there was one response from “DirkH” to say that global warming is well down (he put it in 999th place) on the list of concerns anyway, after the Euro crisis and shutting down “evil nuclear”. Do you have any feeling for the impact of the book and the newspaper articles that accompanied its publication?
Pierre,
This is especially for you
What would happen if the roof of your house was on fire:
http://www.focus.de/immobilien/energiesparen/energiewende-medizin-ein-brennendes-problem_aid_737359.html
Thanks for this interesting link. Will certainly have to write a post on this someday soon. For now I guess the insurance company would have to cover the damages.
Pierre,
May I ask you a few questions? How long have you been living in Germany? Do you understand and speak German? Why did you decide to live in Germany?
About 20 years, and of course I learned the language. Life is an adventure and I like to take on new paths not knowing where they lead to. One thing leads to another, and so here I am now.
Only 11 years in Germany, but I had learned German when I was at school (German is in the second place to English in Poland). German is moderate easy to me. But remember, it is easier to learn German if your first language has genders, complex pronunciation and declination etc.
Pierre,
http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/die-energiewende-ist-bereits-gescheitert/007693/
will you be able to translate Günter Keil’s article on Failure of Germany’s Energy Politics into English? I warn you the article is huge.
Thanks – the first version has already been translated in English.
Pierre, very interesting article on ‘Environmentalists Take Aim at ‘Senseless Internet Surfing.’ ” Is there a chance to get a full translation of the article? Thanks for any help.
[...] light of Germany’s new energy policy, which Pierre Gosselin, an American citizen living in Germany and open Global Warming skeptic, calls the Energy Tyranny [...]
Pierre,
Could you email me? I’m trying to contact two people who were at Heartland. I tried to use the contact page, but the German defeated me. All I got back was a large size image of Luning.
Have just discovered your site and am impressed by the depth of information. I lived in Germany for some time and still visit regularly. The Green Revolution there was years ahead of other countries. At that time I simply felt a resistance to the patronising views of the converted. Now I see things more clearly and view AGW theories and the “terrorism” threat as the main control vehicles in western society. (I live in the Isle of Man and blog regularly on these topics).
It seems that so-called AGW is the best implement to manipulate and control us all. What will they dream up for us at Rio?
Keep up the good work. Btw. I would be happy to assist with any translations if ever required.
I have enjoyed your input at WUWT over the years. I noticed the link for the Scafetta chart vs. HadCrut is broken. Thanks for taking the time to exercise your free speech.
Pierre: Please email me regarding my soon-to-be published book about ENSO: Who Turned on the Heat?
Lieber Pierre, bitte setze mich auf Deine Mailliste…
vielen Dank!
Joachim Seifert
Hi Pierre,
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/reality-check-2.html
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-puts-finishing-touches-to-carbon-tax-agenda/
If I put these three items together, I get the second rape of Africa, this time not by European states but by big business – as forecast by Buckminster Fuller in his “Critical “Path”.
Best, Mike
My comments sometimes just disappear. Then one will show up immediately. If I send the identical comment a second time, Word Press catches it and tells me so. Just now I altered a comment about Al & Tipper and sent it as a test. It also disappeared. This one might also. Just wondering about what is going on. Just me? Or do others experience this also. John
Me too.
Probably wordpress spam filter.
Sorry about that…I have to check over the spam filter. I’m not sure why it’s blocking some comments. For the time being be sure to copy your comments before sending. I’ll see if I can improve this.
Peter,
Congratulations on your website. I am a mathematical physicist at Penn State.
I just scooped this amazing news
AT ARM’S LENGTH or
THE CONSENSUS ON THE CONSENSUS
We all thought that the Doha meeting – the direct successor of the Copenhagen conference – would have no surprises.
*
Climate Change panel chief says ‘not invited to COP18’
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not be attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) in Doha, chairman Dr Rajendra K Pachauri has said.
“For the first time in the 18 years of COP, the IPCC will not be attending, because we have not been invited,” he told Gulf Times in Doha.
COP18 is to be held from November 26 to December 7.
http://tinyurl.com/bryqa9p
see details of new publication by Andrew Montford on “Institutional bias” in the Institute of Physics in London
Just found your website/blog following links from Climate Sanity, now added to my ‘Climate Folder’. Especially liked the Prof. Jan-Erik Solheim from Oslo. As an astrophysics graduate (1985) and science teacher I have always been scekptical of a ‘consensus’ that needs to trash the opposition rather than apply the rules of scientific debate.
Dear Pierre,
I always read your blog first time in the morning.
But I have the idea that this has escaped your vigilant eye:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/stromkonzerne-wollen-nachtspeicherheizung-wiederbeleben-a-870771.html
This is beyound my imagination.
Greetings,
Bacchus
BTW Pierre, if you want to participate:
Petition against enforced financing of German public media
https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/abschaffung-der-gez-keine-zwangsfinanzierung-von-medienkonzernen
It may be too late, Pierre, but you may like to get in touch with the producers of this upcoming BBC radio programme in order to put them right on a few things.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q8mqh
Tom Heap is a fervent warmist of the worst kind and recently got into trouble for trying to say that the UK would soon be like Madeira as GW took hold.
Best of luck if you can get a hearing at the Beeb.
No offence but I really can’t take this page seriously!
First of all you’re advertising for “die kalte sonne”, claiming that you are non commercial and independent?
A German bestseller? Not at all by the way. The book is just silly, and people from within the field of climate research are smiling about it. Bitter truth.
Secondly: What you are propaganding is not at all a contribute to anything but pushing the confusion of peoples opinion on climate change. Too many people are already thinking of it as a big fraud.
We have to overcome that point of arguing about wheter or not it is happening!
I don’t remember how I found this site. You are frequently cited by Watts and others who think science ought to replace theology regarding climate.
I thought you were French living in Germany (UE, one big happy family) for lower taxes. Rather pleased you are a fellow American. I would like to believe (theological?) we learned our scepticism and belief in truth from our culture, history and Constitution. Perhaps as Barry said we are not really “exceptional” but I believe we are. It is not our air, but our traditions that sets us apart, for good or ill.
Thanks for the fine work.
German bureaucrats are inventive when it comes to finding new areas to squander German taxpayer money and managing something that shouldn’t be their business.
We are financing solar-thermally driven desalination plants in North Africa.
I still have to find out how much money is wasted through this.
http://www.kfw-entwicklungsbank.de/ebank/DE_Home/Laender_und_Programme/Nordafrika_und_naher_Osten/index.jsp
P. So sorry to see that you deleted both (1) the article you posted this morning, and (2) my response to your note about “turning out the lights”.
The fact that the article pointed out that climate change (a) included a large dose of human help, and (b) that the 50 year uptrend in temperature was still firmly in place….should be no reason to remove the article AND the respones to it.
Ethics are an important thing in life……you should repost the article and responses.
Pierre,
Thought you might appreciate this, since I reference you many times.
Your information is quite helpful to me. Thanks.
Jack Dini
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/53896
http://notrickszone.com/climate-scandals/
In Australia we have bushfires not wildfires. On this page you mention brushfires. Please correct this typo.
The article on the link is correct though. The Greens still won’t take the blame for causing bushfires. The Victorian ones in 2009 were also electricity faults but the fires spread, but the more recent ones devastated the Green’s home state. The Greens have set the economy back so far in Tasmania that the biggest money spinner is a huge privately-owned art gallery. No one in their right mind will open a factory there.
Burning the bush in the winter to prevent bushfires is still very contentious here, and very political. The aboriginals did it for 10,000 years, but greenies hate it.
After years of climate change language (remember acid rain in the mid 80s? Then weren’t we heading into a mini ice age, but was that before or after the hole in the ozone…) I’ve concluded that the biggest problem is that humans resent being content; as a species we seem to need to fear something. Climate change and threats ties in nicely in the west with the decline in mainstream religion. Consumerism fills the void a little, but there’s nothing better than banging around and wailing about how we are all doomed!
Sure, lets use less, recycle and push for each nation to be independent in their energy supply – but speaking personally, this hand wringing over us destroying the planet through irreversible climate change and co2 abuse is now beyond tired. In the UK we seem to have a government intent on enslaving the race and turning the clock back to the 1700s – alas so many who believe are endorsing their own enslavement and are pushing to let their elderly parents die of cold while handing great wads of cash to industry and landowners in the name of saving the planet for their childrens future. It’s not funny; it’s a catastrophe and without blogs like this becoming mainstream, it will continue.
Good work sir! Keep it up.
If you have not seen it go to WUWT here,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/17/watching-the-death-of-the-eu-carbon-market/#more-84396
and the last comment, currently, for two picture links…Der Spiegel and Fotoshopped steam and the real thing.
sorry not thinking, here is the whole comment:
vladimpala says:
April 17, 2013 at 2:55 pm
I clicked through to enjoy a little Schadenfrikkinfreude at the EU carbon price fall, and came across an article about it in Der Speigel On-Line International, illustrated with this abhorrent photo:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/bild-894842-462914.html
It looked like someone wanted to make the steam look like brown smoke, so they grabbed a big CONTRAST brush in Photoshop and swiped it over the clouds, leaving a glowing sky and weird color balances.
Sure enough, here’s the original unaltered DFA photo. The clumsiness of Der Spiegel is breathtaking.
https://www.focus.de/fotos/braunkohle-tagebau-von-vattenfall_mid_1230552.html
this study is worth to read. ´has nothing dircty to do with cc
http://www.newscientist.de/inhalt/statistik-wissenschaftler-konzipieren-studien-falsch-a-896695.html