The Denial You See Now, It's Hard to Even Take Its Measure

In the wonderfully written novel and movie No Country for Old Mean, Tommy Lee Jones, playing a weary Texas sheriff on the edge of defeat, says in narration:

"The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure."

You might say the same about climate denial.

(OK, a bit of a corny intro.)

I mean, even though it's warmer than ever, with records being set all the time now, some people utterly ignore them and continue to deny everything.

Like Tony Heller. And like Oregon hyperdenier Chuck Wiese.

I've come across Wiese a time or two. Recently he spoke at a protest rally in Salem organized by Timber Unity, who object (again) to the cap-and-trade program Oregon Democrats are taking a second run at. (This version has some carve-outs for conservative/poor counties, among a few other changes.) At a rally at the statehouse

Mr. Wiese announced to the crowd that “CO2 does not cause the climate to change. It has no ability to do that.”

This is such a huge blatant deceptive lie it is indeed hard to even take its measure. It's denying the basic facts about the light CO2 absorbs. It reminds one of Hitler's view of colossal lies. (I'm not calling anyone a Nazi, just comparing tactics.)

Weise has a B.S. in meteorology (and post Tyndall and post Arrhenius!). About the only way to deepen this shitpile of misunderstanding is to claim that CO2 doesn't exist at all.

From what I have been able to follow of Weise's view, he says there is no proof that CO2 warms "over the entire hydrological system." He's never defined what that means (I've asked), or said how he knows it's not true, or even how he measures it. My guess is that he means the water vapor and clouds shift as CO2 increases to lead to no net forcing. But that's just my guess. To be honest I don't think he knows what he means either.

CO2 is sending more energy downward (Feldman+ 2015). The greenhouse effect is increasing, as measured at the top and bottom of the atmosphere. Atmospheric water vapor is increasing. The cloud feedback is very probably positive.

I once asked Weise what's causing all this warming, and he said he didn't know. He asked me what I will say next decade when it starts cooling.

Weise also seems to think that a (very good) physicist named Walter Elassser proved that (as far as I can tell) water vapor means there is no room left for CO2 warming. From what I've learned Elsasser came up with equations to approximate the spectral line widths of GHG absorption frequencies in order to calculate with them, as in this 1942 textbook. But that was made irrelevant with numerical computer calculations. I once asked a prominent climate scientist (not MM) what he thought of Elsasser's work, and he said he'd never heard of him. But it seems Weise read about Elsasser's work as an undergraduate and now, 40-50 years later, can't imagine that science has moved on since then.

Hopefully Weise will see this post and come here to explain himself. He'll do so full of anger and vitriol, which he's been full of every time I've ever encountered him. As always, he'll say I'm the dishonest one. (Just watch.)

CO2 has no ability to affect climate, and I'm the deluded one.