Ben Santer on Seth Meyer’s Late Show – How Climate Deniers Lie
February 23, 2017
The reason most people have not heard of Ben Santer is that, while his contributions to climate science have been massive and epic in importance, and his courage in standing up to an almost unparalleled barrage of attacks is legendary, Ben himself is one of the quietest, most unassuming people you will ever meet.
My conversations with Ben a few months ago lead me to believe he had decided it was time to be more public in his advocacy, and I guess this is evidence of that.
One of the burrs under Ben’s saddle in the last year has been Senator Ted Cruz’s brazen and dishonest claims about climate science, on display most prominently in a December 2015 Senate Hearing, where a veritable clown car of climate criminals were brought out to repeat some of the most eminently crushable distortions. And Ben, in truest form, rather than just “arguing from authority” as one of the world’s highest experts, spent a year going thru the various claims, and publishing a point by point rebuttal.
Now see the video that drove Senator Cruz, and Breitbart crazy – Dr. Santer and other key scientists show precisely how this climate denial lie was constructed.
More below from Dr. Carl Mears, keeper and collector of the data Senator Cruz claims to use.
Finally, Santer finished off on Meyer’s show with an inspiring (really) observation about a grand teachable moment on climate science.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
February 23, 2017 at 10:44 pm
While I’m glad that Seth Meyers did this, he should have invited someone to give a response to Cruz’s ludicrous claim shortly after Ted Cruz was on.
February 23, 2017 at 11:25 pm
Maybe it is not the deniers lying by you folks,lying to both the public and yourselfs. NOAA never lies does it? http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/mscat/
cooling for decades.
February 24, 2017 at 12:06 am
Tommy Poo, you are such a dumbf*&k!
The “cooling for decades” bit applies to the *stratosphere*. Stratospheric cooling was specifically called out by Dr. Santer as a fingerprint of climate-change due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.
If your attention-span can handle it, listen to Dr. Santer for about 10 seconds or so, starting here: https://youtu.be/SRTovL4tIJY?t=97
And Tommy Poo, did I mention that you are a complete dumbf*&k?
February 26, 2017 at 12:23 pm
In case you have a brain, the atmosphere is not on two planets. If less energy is in the upper atmosphere, less energy is in the lower atmosphere as well.;
March 16, 2017 at 6:34 pm
A thumbs up for Tom’s” two planets” reply for possibly being the week’s most hilarious internet comment.
February 24, 2017 at 1:47 am
Jaysus, Tom. Why don’t you just shut up when you don’t have a clue about the subject 🙄
February 24, 2017 at 2:08 am
BTW, this double effect makes super storms much more likely. Below the video abstract of a meta study by James Hansen et al:
The full study => Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2°C global warming could be dangerous
February 24, 2017 at 2:03 am
Idea for a game: When was the first time the dumber-than-a-stick Bates character baited you into responding on a particular topic?
On the current one, for me, I believe it was this reply about 13 months ago:
https://climatecrocks.com/2016/01/26/carl-mears-on-climate-data-vs-models/#comment-80242
February 24, 2017 at 5:44 am
That’s odd, because even it if I didn’t actually know what scientific data in my locale says, I can tell it’s warmed. Winter nights especially have warmed, there’s a longer growing season into autumn, I can grow plant species successfully that couldn’t be grown 30-40 years ago, summer permanent snow lines have lifted, glacial lakes have formed that didn’t exist back in the 70s, coastal erosion has accelerated. The list goes on, but of course, my immediate neighbourhood my not be indicative of the global picture, only, the organisations and scientists collecting the data say the global picture is the same as the one occurring in my small part of the world. To say “it’s cooling” is just a bald faced lie. You really need to get away from your denialist propaganda web sites, along with fossil fuel funded politicians and get out into the real world, where rapid change is actually taking place and stop treating those with a better understanding of the facts as idiots. “cooling for decades” is absolute rubbish!
February 24, 2017 at 6:35 am
I see you have had another night time emission, Master Bates.
Let’s see if you can grasp the following if heat is being held in the troposphere then the stratosphere will cool.
Now you may want to try life in the stratosphere but I, like most other people prefer to breathe and hence stick in the constantly warming troposphere
February 26, 2017 at 12:26 pm
All this warming turns out to be in an actual study 2/10ths of a watt per square meter from CO2 increase which could be an 0.034F increase. I think I can live with that since that is 4150 times less than average solar gain.
March 3, 2017 at 4:33 am
You are STILl confusing Troposphere and Stratosphere – either that or you are deliberately lying
February 24, 2017 at 9:15 am
Ben, Ben, Ben,
Of course humans have some finite influence on global climate. Likely butterflies do too (the butterfly effect from chaos theory). But regarding…
The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.
OK…it’s somewhat questionable that human influence has actually been discerned.
But that’s not the problem.
The problem is replacing the word “discernible” with “catastrophic”.
What skeptics take issue with is: The balance of evidence suggests a catastrophic human influence on global climate.
And any reasonable person should take issue with this cockamamie position.
Especially when the proposed fixes are so utterly consequential while, by your own reckoning, they would have at best a few hours of benefit 83 years from now.
February 26, 2017 at 3:57 am
Get educated, Ron. Have a read here => WMO report shows “increasingly visible” human impact on climate and extreme weather
February 26, 2017 at 12:33 pm
You can see the problem from the responses to your comment. The religious wackos, no other word describes them, cannot even agree to disagree. It is as if you were calling the Pope the devil in front of a church full of Catholics.
They are so blind they cannot even admit something is wrong with the claims as it turns out it was warmer in 1000 AD than today unless trees in Alaska that old and older grow under glaciers.
While they and I could agree that pollution in a crowded world needs to be fixed, they claim I have to eat insects and not heat or warm my house while the Al Gore, Obama’s and Hillary go past in limousines and fly on private jets belching tons of CO2.
Lets see them give up all the modern comforts of life and eat insects and than maybe I could believe them.
February 24, 2017 at 9:45 am
“Since 2009, the US and other governments have undertaken actions with respect to global climate that are not scientifically justified and that already have, and will continue to cause serious social and economic harm — with no environmental benefits,” said Mr. Lindzen, a prominent atmospheric physicist.
February 24, 2017 at 11:05 am
But that isn’t what Santer wrote all those years ago with this paper now is it.
It was over some aspects of that paper that Santer and Michaels (delayer-denier for hire as with Western Fuels and Greening Earth) clashed during the
House Science Committee: one last ‘rational’ climate science hearing? which was reported on here at Climate Denial Crock of the Week, not hard to find unless you don’t like to look.
The late Rick Piltz at Climate Science Watch reported on the whole here, and videos of the entire proceedings are available (warning, beware the ramblings of Ralph Hall, the silly posturing of Dana Rohrabacher – against Richard Alley and the ‘theological’ idiocy of John Shimkus (there is no valid ‘theological debate’ on this topic):
However as the decades have rolled by nature has increasingly demonstrated the catastrophes that a warming world with increased climate change can bring.
Maybe a load of wind driven debris has not landed on your head, yet, neither have you been flooded out. Open your eyes and look at news not through the Fox Filter, take off your blinkers and you will be sure to agree, if you have any cognitive ability and the honesty to acknowledge reality.
February 24, 2017 at 11:11 am
So…climate change was invented just a few decades ago.
February 24, 2017 at 11:26 am
A dishonest or idiotic reply there Ron which does not exclude it being both.
February 26, 2017 at 4:01 am
As I just said, Ron, get some education. Read some history => The Discovery of Global Warming
February 24, 2017 at 11:08 am
Which indicates you neither understand climate change or chaos theory, you just threw that out to make you appear ‘scientific’.
February 24, 2017 at 11:23 am
Mr Richard Lindzen has said lots of misleading things, mostly when talking to laymen rather than in front of scientists working in fields linked to climate change study. Lindzen is a an atmospheric physicist yes but that appears to be the limit of his expertise and even then that appears to be limited.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/06/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism
But there is more: Is Richard S. Lindzen deliberately lying, or just deluded?
Richard Lindzen can also be unpleasantly devious too, given another link I would have linked you to the evidence but I will leave the search as an easy exercise for the perennially wrong Ron, I have even provided the quote mark delimiters:
“If Richard Lindzen shows up at your door, slam it.” Take some lettuce and a carrot with you.
February 24, 2017 at 2:06 pm
What skeptics take issue with is: The balance of evidence suggests a catastrophic human influence on global climate.
And any reasonable person should take issue with this cockamamie position.
Especially when the proposed fixes are so utterly consequential while, by your own reckoning, they would have at best a few hours of benefit 83 years from now.
February 25, 2017 at 5:05 am
You could of course do what Master Bates seems unable to do and that is explain Utzi the iceman.
or then again the following.
From an Australian regional newspaper, fro the South coast of NSW, where being backed by mountains to the west and South it avoids the extreme weather normally and has a generally balmy temperate climate.
http://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/4472837/cattle-deaths-a-climate-change-wake-up-call/
The loss of so many precious dairy cows in the Shoalhaven during last weekend’s extreme heat and humidity should have us all paying close attention. We know records are being broken for warmest months and warmest years. We know Australia – and, more alarming still, NSW – were the hottest places on earth in recent weeks.
This summer, those sorts of conditions have become all too familiar. The disastrous effect on dairy herds is a major concern. For farmers, each cow is not just a valuable asset – they are part of the family. The loss of so many will be deeply felt.
The extraordinary run of hot weather has also taken its toll on humans. With minimum temperatures often failing to fall below 20 degrees, we have lost sleep and productivity. As summer draws to a close, many of us have come to regard a day in the mid-30s as cool – it is becoming the new normal.
Then from the past from India
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indias-next-weapon-against-climate-change-heat-tolerant-103800648.html
“This is nothing less than a catastrophe,” said Ananthakrishnan Kannappan, a livestock agent for 30 years in Anantapur. “This is the first time that due to lack of water and fodder, farmers are eagerly competing to sell off their livestock for throwaway prices.”
But the solution to the problem is simple and small, livestock experts argue: heat-tolerant dwarf cows.
A team of researchers from Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University and the state government’s Animal Husbandry Department are now promoting a switch to Vechur and Kasargod cattle, two local varieties known for being easy to raise, resistant to diseases and – most important – better at tolerating high temperatures than the more popular crossbred cattle.
“High-yielding crossbreed varieties of cattle can faint or even die during hot and humid summer days,” said E.M. Muhammed, an expert on animal breeding and genetics at the university. “Our natural breeds can better withstand the effects of climate change.”
Dwarf cows, on the other hand, appear to carry a “thermometer gene” that allows them to better tolerate high temperatures, researchers said.
Ron are you and your fellow travellers really ready for what the future holds. ?
What are your solutions. ?
February 25, 2017 at 1:01 pm
“What skeptics take issue with is: The balance of evidence suggests a catastrophic human influence on global climate.”
Oh…. so THAT’S what they take issue with, is it? Well, why didn’t you say so before?!? Why, that makes all the difference then, all the difference in the world!
Come on in, then, out of the rain, get those wet things off, and get yourself warmed up by the fire. Have some brandy, that’s a good fellow, and tell us ALL about it…….
February 26, 2017 at 4:06 am
They aren’t “skeptics” at all. Science is skeptical by nature. And there is a scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming. These guys are just die-hard climate change deniers
February 26, 2017 at 12:43 pm
You claim if a majority, a scientific consensus exists, that the debate is settled. That is simply wrong. Science is not consensus, it is a study of reality. If the opinions are wrong they are wrong. Two examples, ulcers, turns out caused mostly by a bacteria and are cured not be diet but by meds. Atoms exist as discrete particles. turns out atoms are really just a collection of quarks arranged in various manners. Up, down, strange and so forth quarks and what we observe as solid is mostly empty space.
The consensus was wrong. The consensus you claim on climate is not actually a consensus, it is simply a whole lot of vested interests who profit from the consensus. All they can say with certainty is the world was warmer now than in the depths of the little ice age or during the last ice age and it has been warmer in the past, most recently in the medieval warm period which since that is inconvenient reality a lot of AGW types dispute.
February 27, 2017 at 11:08 am
There was no consensus on atomic theory until Einstein’s paper on the photoelectric effect and the discovery of subatomic structure as mostly empty space by Rutherford. The beginning of quantum dynamics. Until then there was a competing hypothesis known as the plum pudding model.
Since two thirds of the population carry H. pylori, and only 10% suffer from peptic ulcers, it follows that H. pylori infection is precipitated by one or more of these other factors.
The medieval warm period is in dispute, not because it is inconvenient, but because the evidence suggests it was mostly a regional phenomenon. In fact, if the MWP was warmer globally, it would suggest climate sensitivity is at the high end of the consensus range. AGW theory rests, not on empirical observations, but on the radiative properties of greenhouse gases. All empirical observations are evidentiary support for the theory.
February 25, 2017 at 12:15 pm
Thanks to Peter Sinclair for this, and for all his contributions to the topic.
But may I add that based on the comments above, he shows great promise as a troll collector?
Thanks for posting this. When Ted Cruz appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers in 2015, Meyers was thoroughly unprepared to deal with the barrage of “alternative facts” and delusions the Senator unleashed.
He deserves some credit for copping to that failure, and for bringing on an actual climate scientist to set the record straight.
February 26, 2017 at 3:09 pm
That is a perversion of reality for the vested interests aren’t into promoting the truth about climate and how we are changing it.
Now do let us know what you think ‘the consensus’ is. It isn’t about a popularity contest.