Goddard's Appeal to Athority

Steve Goddard continues to misrepresent Hansen to misinform his readers, and probably himself.

As previously reported he accuses Hansen of calling or declaring a permanent drought in the US, when what Hansen actually said was, there would be a semi-permanent drought over the next several decades with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.

He repeated a similar claim in his 'Warming To Bring Permanent Drought And Permanent Flood To The Midwest' post and said;

 "No sooner than Hansen declared permanent drought for the midwest – we get a new global warming report warming of permanent floods in the midwest."

Well as  anyone can see Hansen has never declared a permanent drought and certainly no drought for this present time. Nor has there been any war(n)ing of permanent floods. Why does Goddard feel the need to make this easily refuted stuff up?

Just to reiterate, what we have is drought conditions being alleviated somewhat by heavy rain. Doesn't that fit exactly what Hansen suggests will happen over the next several decades?

“Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding.”

But it gets better. When I said "Shouldn’t that be Semi-permanent drought over several decades?", Mr Goddard replied with his usual politeness;

" I have been hearing the exact same crap for three decades already."

So straight away on being challenged Goddard drops the permanent drought claim - though don't hold your breath for a correction.

It seemed only fair that I should suggest he provide a quote of Hansen saying 'the exact same crap' three decades ago and he kindly provided a link to this news article about US drought in 1988;

Now any one with a keen intellect will immediately realise, (sorry Mr Goddard that can't include you), that 1988 can't be said to be three decades ago.

The article itself is also an interesting read in light of Goddard's claim. Although Hansen is quoted in it, and there is a quote "It is an example of the kind of drought that will occur more frequently as global warming become larger", this wasn't said by Hansen, but Manabe, a soil specialist.

However, something I found rather amusing happened in our conversation when I asked Goddard if he really did think 1988 was three decades ago. He replied in his usual amiable way;

"You are a know nothing idiot child. I was working on global warming studies at Los Alamos in 1980."

Well 1980 is over three decades ago so I will give him that but perhaps he should have quoted his own published Global Warming research instead of a news article eight years later.

Blow me, isn't that a prime example of the Fallacy: Appeal to Authority? Only using Goddard's view of his own self importance to make himself the authority?