So, how did an apparently “nice sane guy” such as myself, who would travel giving talks promoting Solar Energy, always starting with a few Slides showing graphs from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) regarding Anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) Global Warming, or AGW for short, turn from a Believer first into a Skeptic, and after another decade and a half or two of research, finally turn into a full blown Denier of AGW ?
It didn’t happen over night. First I have to say I was a complete Believer, and heck, I even have Impeccable Green Credentials (Me and Greta):
I live in the National Forest with a (now geriatric) wolf (Fig. 1);
I live about half the year completely off-grid with my PV array (Fig. 2) and drink pure clean water from a well;
I paid a premium for the first modern Prius hybrid, and had all the proper magnetic stickers on it (Fig 3);
and I spent 12 years (or was it 14 years) of my professional life developing Solar PV Technology (would you like to see some of my patents or a long list of my publications?) thinking I was on a Holy Crusade to change the world !
Oh, and I’m an electrical engineer, and have a Ph.D. in Physics (Me and Einstein), and am a Certified Organic Gardener Educator, grow a few things organically, and forage for wild mushrooms.
Figure 1. Picture of the second-most handsome fellow in Brown County, Nashoba.
Figure 2. PV array built from the sons and daughters of trees I planted a long time ago on my land, and with stone foundations, also from my land. I need to give credit where credit is due: Bird Snyder, a local craftsman/genius did most of the work while I tried to “help” him as best I could. Someday I’ll have to do a whole article or series of articles about its construction.
Figure 3. Picture of my old Prius with all the politically-correct anti-war magnets and bumper stickers.
So, maybe it was about 20 years ago (my how time flies, has it really been that long?) I showed Trish how in the “news” that there were whole sections dedicated to AGW. But Trish was a Geologist and knew a thing or two about the environment and how the environment changes over time, and I couldn’t convert her, a Skeptic, into a Believer. But I could blow her off; after all, she was only a Science Teacher, not a Ph.D. Physicist researcher !
And I continued giving all sort of talks at various venues promoting our Solar Technology, always of course starting off with a slide or two from the IPCC regarding AGW. This was really cool because no one could understand any of the graphs that I would show but that would only increase their Belief, and I believed, further promote our Solar Energy Technology as being the only solution to what President Obama has said “is the greatest problem facing mankind”. (I still think the greatest problem facing mankind and science today is male pattern baldness, but, anyway, getting back to the story … ).
I showed one of my presentations to the President of our company (Stan Ovshinsky) and he said get rid of all the IPCC Bullshit. He said that we’re going to win because we will beat them at their own game (i.e., by making solar the least expensive source of energy on the planet, not for any “moral” issues). Of course I didn’t listen to him either also blew him off. I kept those slides in my presentation, because, well, after all, I knew I was right.
And then, once, I shared one of my presentations with my younger brother MikE, also a Ph.D. physicist, and he said, don’t you know that AGW is all Bullshit ? And I said, just go read that 200 page IPCC report [I think the most recent versions may now be thousands of pages], I’ll send you a .pdf of it, and what, you question that ? You expect me to question the research of these hundreds of scientists? And he then said, “Tim, you are a REAL Scientist, a Physicist, you do authentic original research and you don’t just go around and parrot things from other people”.
Well, what my brother said got to me. He caused to stumble …
And I started looking and doing calculations and looking at the “research” and after a number of years (I was retired by now and had lots of time to research this) I got to the point to where I could say to my brother MikE, well, OK, I’m a Skeptic. Which was a really hard thing to say to your very younger brother, but still not good enough for him. And over the next decade I kept looking at the data, and finally after getting all the 800,000 year Vostok Ice Core Data onto my computer and into a spreadsheet and analyzing it, I was finally was able to swallow all of my pride and admit to my younger brother that, yes, this is all Bullshit and admit, yes, “YOU WERE RIGHT” (which doesn’t mean I believe all the other stuff he says) and moved further down that slippery slope from being a Skeptic to a Denier.
It only took me about two decades, more or less.
So, in following posts I shall share with you some of my calculations and observations. I’m thinking maybe about 5 or 10 self-contained bite-sized writings to cover a few of my observations, or who knows, maybe it will turn into a book, or maybe a series of books with volumes spanning shelves in the library.
And I really owe all this to my younger brother, MikE.
Thanks MikE. Like really thanks. Should I be thanking him ? Perhaps instead I should be cursing him … As St. Luke says in the Bible:
Luke 17:2: “It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” Or maybe you like the way St. Mathew said it better, or at least longer anyway (Mathew 18:6).
Because, MikE certainly caused me to stumble.
And then my research turned me into a Heretic by questioning some of the Tenets of the “accepted” AGW Narrative or Religion.
Then, after another decade or so of more research and calculations, I became an Apostate, totally rejecting my former Belief. Apostasy, as you may know, is perhaps the one only “unforgivable” sin. To have had the Truth, and then to reject it.
On the other-other hand, if an independent researcher with such impeccable Green Credentials as I can’t question the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) Narrative or Religion, like who the hell can ?
TimE.