Observations:
1. What a moron. Anyone this scientifically, logically, intellectually and historically deficient should not offer any opinions regarding climate change, or anything else, frankly.
2. 12,000 Twitter-users “love” this statement. I’m hoping they love it because it’s hilarious….probably a vain hope.
3. Omar’s tweet is an extreme example, but still typical of the scientific acumen and degree of confirmation bias fueling the vast majority of climate change hysteria. The tweet should be circulated, mocked and cited forever.
4. Here is some signature significance: despite its self-evident stupidity and the wave of ridicule the tweet has received…like this:
…neither Omar nor her crack staff have seen any reason to take the tweet down in four days, though it is literally the equivalent of the announcement, “I am an embarrassment to Congress and too incompetent to be trusted with a grocery list, much less legislation.” (Yes, yes, I know that dinosaurs weren’t around 120,000 years ago, and so does the meme-maker. The difference is that this response was intended to be a joke, and Omar’s tweet was not.)
5. I guess this is why Democrats want Twitter to censor “misinformation” about climate change: if it did, Omar’s foolishness wouldn’t be broadcast, not that we don’t have enough evidence of that already. Remember this tweet, for example?
6. These are the people pushing for costly restrictions on energy production, transportation, and the quality of American life. They are relying on the gullibility and extreme educational and critical thinking deficits of the public, and so far, they are winning that bet.
7. Having access to stuff like this justifies my re-joining Twitter. At the time, WordPress would automatically put the Ethics Alarms posts up as linked tweets, but Musk ended that deal, and frankly, I don’t have the time to do it myself, so the plan to use Twitter to promote the blog is defunct
Ethics Alarms 
” I guess this is why Democrats want Twitter to censor “misinformation” about climate change: if it did, Omar’s foolishness wouldn’t be broadcast,…”
Sorry, but I disagree with this observation. They want to censor so-called misinformation about Climate Change that they consider misinformation. Omar’s tweet pushes the narrative so it would be broadcast.
Remember: Misinformation means, “opinions, statistics, facts that we don’t like or that question the narrative”.
Much as weather is not climate, except when it is.
Get lost, Congresswoman Pull-Start.
I had students lapse into confusion last year when I showed the temperature history of the last 1000 years. They couldn’t understand how the Vikings were emitting so much CO2 to cause the temperature to be that high. They really did and it took quite awhile to deprogram them from the propaganda they had been taught. It is amazing how often black body radiators pop up in everyday concepts.
I don’t even understand the tweet. First she writes that earth broke some long-standing record, though I’m nearly 100% positive we don’t have records (even oral records) going back that far. Then she writes that she and some unnamed person (or persons) broke in…someplace…on three separate days. And she emphasizes it with a definite “in fact”. Has she just admitted to committing multiple crimes?
Seriously, if a US Representative is going to write totally stupid and baseless stuff about climate change, the writing itself shouldn’t be totally stupid as well.
I don’t understand. You spend the whole article talking about what a dumb and embarrassing tweet this is, as if it’s self-evident, but you don’t ever refute it, or explain why it’s dumb and embarrassing. I had to do a Google search to see if her claim has been debunked, and found that it originates from Michael Mann, a pretty respected climatologist (though he is reviled among climate change skeptics). He may be wrong too, as obviously we don’t have official records from that time period (though there are scientific methods of making such estimates), but I don’t think it’s dumb and discrediting for a congressman to rely on information from a mainstream scientist. (She’s said much dumber things than this.) I also think you should have explained somewhere in the post where she got this idea from, as your post implies to me that she made it up or totally misrepresented a statistic, when in fact she’s reporting it accurately (even if you think Mann himself got it wrong).
It is self evident that a temperature reading that is based on modern equipment and techniques cannot possibly “break” a non-existent “record” from a time when such readings weren’t taken and the methods didn’t exist to take them. All such ancient temperatures are estimates, theories and speculation that are impossible to confirm. Declaring an “emergency” based on such imaginary data is moronic.
Why would you even bother to defend such a statement? It undermines your own credibility.
Sorry, don’t know why I posted my original response in reply to another person’s comment.
It isn’t imaginary data, it’s data that a slightly fuller Google search has shown me is accepted by more scientists than just Mann. Why not attack them, rather than the politician who echoed their conclusions? You call her “scientifically deficient” in this article, but that would be harder to do if you focused your critique on the scientists on whom she’s relying. Were you just not aware of these scientists’ conclusions? Did you think she made this up out of nothing? She’s not a scientist; the best she can do is rely on what scientists are saying.
She is stating as fact what cannot possible be confirmed as fact. I know a lot of climate change hacks do that, but it is still intellectually indefensible. Again: if she’s that deficient in critical thinking, logic and science background, it is irresponsible for her to be involved in the issue at all, because people rely upon and trust such officials. Sure: she read it some place, or a staffer did. I’m sure somewhere online someone is saying that the world will end on a given date: members of Congress are supposed to know that they don’t relay such junk as fact, and that doing so is wrong.
She didn’t just “read it some place;” I hadn’t kept up with it, which is why I had to look it up, but it’s been a news story in multiple publications for several days now. You’re right that she shouldn’t have stated it as fact, but by the same token, you shouldn’t so confidently say it’s “junk” as a fact when you didn’t know any more than I did about this story until today. Of the three of us, none of us are scientists, none of us know how this conclusion was reached, and speaking only for myself here, I probably wouldn’t understand it if it were explained to me. But I don’t think her tweet is disqualifying as a matter of ethics or competence; laypeople relay controversial scientific conclusions as fact all the time. Have you heard the “junk” passed off as science by some of Omar’s antivaxx colleagues? Or if we keep it just to the subject of climate change, there are multiple congressman who have argued it can’t be happening because it’s snowing in some places. If that’s the alternative, I am not seeing what’s so outrageous about this.
Come on. I know it’s junk to state it as fact, and so do you. If she stated that a publication stated it, or some scientist claimed it, that would be acceptable. Then, as you said earlier, the blame would fall on bad science.
You don’t even know it’s bad science though. Scientists have estimated the age of the universe within a reasonable degree of confidence; if they can do that, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that they can estimate what the earth’s temperature was 120,000 years ago, and compare it to today’s. If I say “The universe is 13.7 billion years old” without citing my source while talking to other lay people, that shouldn’t be a reason for people to become outraged or compare my competence to that of a first grader’s. But outside of creationist circles, the age of the universe isn’t controversial, while climate change is. That seems to be the source of the outrage here.
Stop it. The Rep. doesn’t understand “science.” Elected officials should not and must not claim national emergencies based on debatable information they don’t understand. As framed by Omar, it is bad science, and obviously so. It’s like bad hearsay: it doesn’t matter in court whether the original statement would be credible, because it is what the unreliable witness says it was that matters.
She’s obviously not just declaring a national emergency based on this piece of data alone. She’s taking it in the context of loads of scientific evidence of man-made climate change causing serious problems for humans. You can keep saying it’s “bad science,” but without an actual explanation of why its methodology is wrong, I don’t see why I am compelled to agree.
Nobody’s compelling you to agree to anything. She’s alluding to non-evidence as conclusive evidence for what cannot be proven anyway. As I have pointed out. Omar couldn’t explain any of the science regarding climate change models with a teleprompter: she’s just parroting stuff she obviously doesn’t understand
“ she’s just parroting stuff she obviously doesn’t understand”
So is any non-scientist politician in a position to make important decisions based on what scientists say. And yet, decisions must be made.
“Everybody does it.” Policy-makers cannot responsibly make decisions affecting the lives and welfare of millions of people unless they understand what they are doing and why. Until they do, they can’t ethically make such decisions. That’s why leaders have to be smart, or have trustworthy advisors to ensure that they know the implications of their decisions. Trustworthy means not polluted by bias and personal or political agendas.
Mann…Mann…where have I heard than name before?
That’s right…he’s the one that…um…forgot to include the MWP in his laughably discreditedMANN-made Global Warming HOCKEY SCHTICK (sic) Theory.
Brrr!
And not to forget that the Midieval Warm Period has been confirmed by extensive ice core research.
If I were going to dispute a scientist, I don’t think I’d rely on the work of the deranged segregationist Dilbert guy. But that’s just me.
HeyZeus Alou! You couldn’t have missed the point by a wider margin.
Glass half full?
It dove-tails nicely with the Warmalista Alarmist approach.
Thanks for the Alou Brothers reference, even though it’s Alou the Least. How many readers here have any idea what we’re talking about?
Here ya go:
Water molecules can come in a couple different varieties depending on which isotope of oxygen happens to be attached to the hydrogen. In simple terms, there’s a heavy isotope of oxygen called O-18 and there’s a lighter one called O-16. So some molecules of water are ever so slightly heavier than others depending on which variety of oxygen they have as the O in H2O.
Now imagine you have a box filled with ping pong balls and golf balls. The golf balls are a little heavier than the ping pong balls but otherwise they’re pretty much the same. Suppose you start gently shaking the box up and down. The ping pong balls are going to be jostled more, and more of them will fall out of the box than the golf balls. Now pretend you start shaking the box much harder. Lots of ping pong balls will still fly out, but now lots of the golf balls will fly out too.
When the earth’s temperature is cool, it’s like when you’re shaking the box only gently; mostly it’s just the lighter molecules of ocean water that get evaporated while the heavier molecules stay behind. When the temperature rises the water molecules are being jostled harder so relatively more of those heavier molecules are evaporated into the atmosphere. Eventually that water vapor forms clouds, and some of those clouds eventually fall as snow into glaciers. When global temperatures are warm, that snow has relatively more of the heavier molecules compared to snow that falls in colder climate conditions. In reality there’s a lot of complicated factors that have to be considered when studying this stuff but that’s the basic idea.
When scientists study ice cores, they’re analyzing how the proportions of the heavy vs light isotopes of oxygen changed in the layers of snow that fell thousands of years ago, and with that they can work out a very precise picture of how global temperatures have changed over time.
1. They don’t know how precise it is.
2. Even assuming that it is precise, it doesn’t provide data for a particular DAY, which is what would be required for two days now to break a “record,” which would have to be a day’s record, not an average, not an estimate, not a compilation.
Masked Avenger,
How can a claim made in reference to non-data gathered by no one more than one hundred millennia in the past have any credibility at all? It’s not a scientific assessment in the least, regardless of who made the assertion. It’s complete conjecture…little different than me stating that 120,000 years ago, it was cloudy in the area that is now DC. Frankly, there are many much better, more believable statements for Rep. Omar to make regarding climate change than to repeat something from Michael Mann (who has credibility issues of his own) that’s completely non-sensical…and using THAT as basis for her emergency.
I still can’t believe no one is talking about the three break-ins.
Scientists have tools that have helped them determine the approximate age of the universe. Why is it hard to believe we might also have tools to help us determine average temperatures on the earth 120,000 years ago?
And I don’t know what you mean about the break-ins.
Dumb and intellectually dishonest retort. There are no “approximate” records. Estimates are estimates, not facts.
Science doesn’t deal in “facts” as in “it’s a fact America won the Revolutionary War”
Everything in science comes with a level of uncertainty, so nothing is ever scientifically “true” beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Definitely not true. Gravity exists. The Earth is round, and goes around the sun. E=MCsquared. There are scientific facts, and there are theories, guesses, estimates and assumptions. Estimates of specific conditions thousands of years ago cannot be determined with sufficient certainty to support claims of “records” being broken on a particular “day.” Obviously. And no scientist has stepped up to support Omar’s idiotic tweet. Because that scientist would be laughed out of the field.
Why would a scientist need to defend Omar’s tweet? Scientists are the ones who came up with what she’s saying in the first place! And they have not been laughed out of the field.
And gravity and energy may exist, but there is still a lot about them scientists don’t understand, and they have many theories about how they operate.
They didn’t. No climate scientist has declared a “record hot day” thousands of years ago. No current science is capable of measuring a single day’s net temperature for the entire globe, which is what Omar’s idiotic tweet asserts.
In your best interests, I’m officially ending your comments on this topic: it is now just obstinacy and trolling. It makes you look bad, and maybe you are, but I’d like to see what you can offer on other topics.
Note: defying a suspension risks banning.
No current science is capable of measuring a single day’s net temperature for the entire globe, which is what Omar’s
Yes they are capable, it’s why they can make the assertion.
You’re banned. This is trolling, and unusually stupid and deceptive trolling. No evidence offered (because there is none); just contradiction without substance.
No further comments from you will be posted here.
And while I’m dealing with a couple of commenters’ ridiculous arguments—denials, really, on this topic: what the issue with scientists trying to assess very old cliamte data is what is called “proxy data.” The bottom line is, Rep. Omar to the contrary, it cannot measure temperatures by the day at all. The chart included here explains that. The only way to estimate the temperature of a given day in the far past is “Direct and indirect information about the climate ….gleaned from historical documents. These include accounts of weather in newspapers, ship logs, personal diaries and church records, while documented harvest dates – for grapes and other crops, for example – can also indicate climatic conditions of the past. Photos, maps, charts and paintings can all be sources of data too.” Of course, these are still only as accurate as the source, and the “records” Omar was blathering about from “120,000 years” ago don’t exist. Nobody knows what the hottest day in a year that long ago might have been, so using a current day and saying it broke a 120,000 year old “record” is nonsense.
Actually gravity is just a term/theory to explain an existing phenomenon. If another, better theory comes along, it will replace “gravity”
Yes there are things that can be said to almost be factual because tests and data have shown it to be over and over and over again, but that’s not what we’re talking about here .
Most things in the science aren’t described as a “FACT”
Someone could discover something totally new tomorrow that turns our old “facts” into not facts.
Science deals with data and observational studies as evidence. Then conclusions are drawn from those things.
You only think gravity is a “fact” because countless tests and data points have consistent confirmed it.
But beyond these satay points confirming a theory…there’s not real “facts”
The age of the universe is a guess, and every scientist will admit to that. The scientific method doesn’t apply here–you can’t perform repeated experiments, excluding non-control factors, to conclusively determine causation.
I do wonder whether there will ever be a reckoning here like there has been for the COVID freaks who demanded everyone wear masks, close schools, and get vaccinated. Of course they usually just claim that they were operating on the best information they had at the time, which illustrates the problem The Science has, which is ignoring data that goes against the established hegemony as determined by politics needs.
Jack,
No one is defending her statement, only your responses. Frankly, I had the same thought. You call her an “idiot” multiple times without explaining why and , as Masked Avenger points out, almost make it sound like it’s her own misinformation. The study she referenced has been blasted in the media for the last two weeks. Yes, she’s quoting science she doesn’t understand and that’s based on averages we can’t know, but it’s still a credited source. That doesn’t make it empirically right (science gets things wrong all the time), but it also doesn’t make her an idiot for quoting it, either.
Blame the bad science, not the people who get swept up by it.
Oh, bullhockey, Neil. She’s an elected official, communicating in public. Her statement was idiotic. There is no science behind what she said, just mindless, dishonest, scaremongering and advocacy. Anyone with an ounce of sense and a pinch of integrity would know her statement is at best a gross, gross, exaggeration without legitimate evidence. If you can’t distinguish bad science better than that, then you can be talked into believing anything. And if you are that gullible, you don’t belong in Congress. You don’t even belong at the head of a first grade class.
“ There is no science behind what she said,”
Serious questions: did you know about the scientific sources of Omar’s claim before you wrote this post? Have you looked up the scientific sources on which she based her tweet?
If not, how can you make this claim so confidently?
Honest answer: yes. There had been media reports that “Earth broke a record for its hottest day in 120,000 years” on concurrent days, citing the “Climate Reanalyzer” dashboard maintained by the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, which compiles weather data stretching back to 1979. It includes a warning warning that its data “should NOT be taken as ‘official’ observational records.”
Weather record-keeping began in the 1800s. Anything before that period is, of course, speculative and based on varying models and formulas on inherently questionable data like tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, and cannot possibly account for the entire globe at any time. Claiming that such shaky data can tell what the temp was for a specific day thousands of years ago is obviously nonsense, and thus there are no “records,” and claims of any kind cannot be “facts.” Thus any dolt should be able to figure out that Omar’s tweet was at best ignorant.
Then it seems misleading to not even mention where Omar was getting her information in your article; your post gives the impression that she made it up herself.
And why even single out Omar in this post? Why not write a post about the science here being misleading, or the media reporting on a claim that can’t be confirmed?
It seems to me like Omar is an easy target precisely because she’s not a scientist, but rather a lay person doing her best to pass on the science she’s heard. She’s also an easy target given the apparent anti-leftist bent of most of your commenters here. Instead of addressing the methods behind how actual scientists reached this conclusion, you just spent the whole article finding different reasons to call this woman stupid for repeating them. That doesn’t strike me as fair, helpful, or persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already hate her.
Then it seems misleading to not even mention where Omar was getting her information in your article; your post gives the impression that she made it up herself.
Baloney. It’s not my job to mitigate a false and misleading tweet and an absue of her position and authority. The Tweet was factually ridiculous. That she would post it and couldn’t figure out that it was, if tyhat’s what happened (Hanlon’s Razor) is the point.
And why even single out Omar in this post? Why not write a post about the science here being misleading, or the media reporting on a claim that can’t be confirmed?
Because the post was about the obvious implications of the tweet, not climate change. See the Comment Policies: I write about what I choose to write about. “Why did you write about X when I would have written about Y?” is mot considered anything but heckling. I don’t appreciate it, and I don’t tolerate it.
It seems to me like Omar is an easy target precisely because she’s not a scientist, but rather a lay person doing her best to pass on the science she’s heard. She’s also an easy target given the apparent anti-leftist bent of most of your commenters here. Instead of addressing the methods behind how actual scientists reached this conclusion, you just spent the whole article finding different reasons to call this woman stupid for repeating them. That doesn’t strike me as fair, helpful, or persuasive to anyone who doesn’t already hate her.
As for the rest of your comment: the fact that she reveals her self as stupid (or possibly dishonest) is an important point: she’s a member of Congress. Members of Congress who reveal themselves as stupid should not be in Congress. What part of “Incompetent Elected Official” is unclear?
Warning: you are officially on thin ice. This is trolling, not good faith debate. This is the first of the pending comments today I’ve seen; a few more like this one, and you’ll be facing expulsion.
“ It includes a warning that its data “should NOT be taken as ‘official’ observational records.””
Where on the site is this? I couldn’t find it.
The idea is that since the earth was cooler in the past, we can say that the average temperature never reached higher than X degrees. They do this taking ice samples and observing other things.
“The mean global temperature increases in early July 2023, estimated from the Climate Forecast System, should NOT be taken as “official” observational records.”
You didn’t look, did you? It’s not only there, it’s in bold print.
And that’s why you re banned.
Jack,
It is your forum.
Lex Fori applies.
But- it looks like you have banned both Masked Avenger and D Pres. (if either were less than a total ban, that’s my mistake).
I think Masked Avenger is wrong but I don’t think his argument was properly countered so as to consider him a troll.
I will probably elaborate upon this in your most recent post (which directed me here).
-Jut
I have not banned “Masked Avenger.” I am going to do a supplementary post about the Omar claim, which has also turned up in places like “The Hill”—and might have been where it came from. Thinking about it for three minutes should have been enough to lead any objective readers to the conclusion that it made no sense. Defending her isn’t proof of trolling, but it is strong evidence of bias.
D Pres IS banned: either he is trolling, sealioning, or the Stupidity Rule applies. For example, his/her latest (and spammed) on the most recent post was “What is the issue with these two articles?”