After a cluster of disconcerting e-mails and documents surfaced last week from climate scientists associated with the “Climategate” scandal of 2009, it was reported Sunday that top British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) executives sought advice from Britain’s leading green activist research center. Released on November 22, the leaked e-mails and documents reveal climate “experts” collaborating to plot devious schemes to further their global-warming agenda.
According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, “Like the first ‘Climategate’ leaks two years ago, [the leaked materials] were placed last week on a Russian server by an anonymous source.”
For more, click on This Link
Dan Braganca said:
Ya so I don’t wanna get bogged down in a huge debate about the “controversy” of these emails (I think it’s almost entirely overblown but of course we disagree about that). I’d just like to point out that when the Daily Mail writes, “the fact that the world has not warmed for 15 years” they are just flat wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png
I’m not suggesting I’m going to convince you of the reality of man-made global warming and all its implications, but we should at least be able to agree on some basic facts.
--Rick said:
No fear of a prolonged debate. My intention is not to prove myself right 100% of the time, but to stir critical thinking beyond sound bites and give away programs. But in regard to your comment, I offer the following.
Of course, there is also the other side of the coin. Graphs are so useless out of context or out of sequence with time [this was a 2008 graph, or before the climategate scandal graph] and space, don’t you think?
Dan Braganca said:
I think you’ve been misled by the climate denialists like Anthony Watts. I read that link and its presentation of data (’98-2008 as you say – the Daily Mail said the past 15 years) and by giving such a small slice it distorts the full picture. Let’s look at the HadCRUT data:
[But before we do, let's acknowledge that YOU cited the HadCRUT data as demonstrating "the other side of the coin". It will seem pretty dogmatic and inconsistent if you dismiss that SAME data if it shows something you're arguing against]
Now then, your linked piece starts, for some reason, in 1998. Well. 1998 just happens to be the hottest year in the HadCRUT temp data. If you go back further at all the temperature drops significantly. Moreover, once you pass 2008 the temperature continues back up on the normal trend. So if you zoom out we see a clear global warming trend. http://tinyurl.com/bnng64t The general warming trend in the HadCRUT data you cite is consistent with the data from NASA, NOAA, and other peer reviewed data, as well as the most recent BEST temperature data (not peer reviewed yet, but seems reliably consistent). If you go to the link I presented it’s also apparent that HadCRUT isn’t even picking up all the warming on the planet.
It’s important to understand that global temperature trends are better understood over the long term. A yearly blip here and there isn’t representative of much of anything. It’s like if I gave you 5 dollars every year for 20 years, except that in year 11 and 12 I took away 3 dollars from you. You should still say you were making money!
Again, I’m not going to try to convince you (today) that global warming is largely man-made. I’d just like you to notice that these phony “skeptics” are deceiving their readers with tricks. The data that YOU cited confirms the earth is warming. And over the past 15 years the trend continues.
--Rick said:
Again, my remark was not intended to support that global warming does not have anthropomorphic roots…it was to show how one can pull a graph or a statistic out of thin air to support one’s position either way. The same can be said of how one interprets data or even the researchers themselves.
My “official” position is that there are too many conflicting positions and immoral manipulations of mean data to meet predetermined ends for this country to waste trillions of dollars and to restrict the liberties of individuals by granting even more power to government on what could amount to nothing more than environmental voodooism. Until there is near universal agreement that global warming is more than just a transient trend alternating with periods of transient global cooling I’m fine with people and businesses operating as freely as they wish.
As you say, “I’d just like you to notice that these phony “skeptics” [on both sides] are deceiving their readers with tricks.” Isn’t this precisely what caused climategate 1, and now possibly climategate 2, in the first place? Of course, my question is rhetorical as I’m fairly certain that I already know your answer.
Dan Braganca said:
I’m going to answer your rhetorical question. No, it’s not what caused climategate 1. Denialist sites misrepresented what was in most of those emails. And just to make clear that I’m not super dogmatic about this. After the emails first came out I wrote a blog post criticizing the scientists! I’ve investigated it more since and realized that there is nothing nefarious in those emails. They could have handled their response to the controversy better but that’s a separate issue. In college I aggravated a large portion of the left wing on my campus writing a letter to the editor in one of the school newspapers complaining that blaming hurricane katrina specifically on global warming goes beyond the available evidence. But, I did this within the context of agreeing that man-made global warming is real.
To suggest that we don’t have enough evidence that the earth is warming is unreasonable. The overwhelming convergence of evidence is obvious if you’re willing to look at it. Every major scientific group – private and public – from hundreds of different nations and in the united states all have found this. The only graph “pulled out of thin air” that deceives observers is the one you cited by the anti-science interest groups. Feel free to try to find any major scientific organization that provides evidence disputing that the earth is warming. It doesn’t exist. The only graphs that show otherwise are deceitful like the one you linked to.
You write, “until there is near universal agreement” we can’t know who’s right. Well there is “near universal agreement” that the earth is warming among professional researchers. There is practically near universal agreement that global warming is largely man-made. http://tinyurl.com/75kmawg Just look at the percentage of scientists that agree that it is man-made (97-98%) – never mind if it’s happening at all. Whether the trend of temperature on earth is warming or not isn’t even a question. The fact that the groups you cite can’t even agree with that demonstrates their intellectual dishonesty.
Remember we’re not even talking about whether climate change is largely caused by human activity. On what basis do you question NASA’s satellite data, the HadCRUT temperature data that you cited, the NOAA, the private research group RSS, the former skeptic-led Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature data, every major scientific group around the world, former skeptic science reporters (and libertarian Ayn Rand fan) like Ronald Bailey, and all the most recent peer reviewed evidence? Even Exxon Mobil agrees the world is warming!
I’m not asking you to support any particular government program to mitigate the potentially devastating consequences of global climate change. I’m asking you to acknowledge that any impartial observers of the great mass of evidence illustrates beyond any reasonable doubt that the earth’s temperature is trending upward. The Daily Mail is wrong.
--Rick said:
Once again…I am not providing data in support of global warming or against global warming. I am providing data to show how easily it is to obtain contradictory “science” claiming that the earth is moving in one direction or the other. Each example I’ve cited is the result of a simple Google search related to global warming, cooling or contradiction and then taking one of the top 3 results. Here’s another: In this latest article you will note the following two paragraphs:
“Scientific debate is one of the backbones of research. In fact, one of the main ideas behind any scientific inquiry is a question…and then more questions…and then experimentation…and then more questions. It is a fundamental part of any investigation.
Skip any step, and the process fails. Ignore data, and the process fails. This seems to be the argument of the scientific community in terms of the so-called global warming debate. Scientists have been repeatedly warning the public that there is truly no debate. Global warming is a fact that is here to stay.”
You will also find a graph that can be used to support global warming or to deny it. Even in your retort above, you omit the true alleged culprit that demands the entire world restrain its use of energy sources and that the developed world accept a lower standard of living in their choices of energy sources and usages: anthropomorphic global warming, which excludes other potential causes such as solar positioning of the earth in its wobbly orbit, volcanic activity, thermal events below the surface of the sun and the amount of carbon dioxide produced by nature.
If global warming is indeed a fact and if it is true that it is here to stay – then that suggests to me that there is a general conclusion that there is nothing left to question – that this phenomenon can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt – it is a fact that is indisputable; just as it was a fact that Pluto is a planet and always will be one. Maybe you are right and their is no more need for inquiry before we continue to fill the pockets of Al Gore, the first carbon billionaire; or spew billions into useless research programs so long as they continue to demonstrate a problem to a degree sufficient enough to justify continuing their research and lining the pockets of their benefactors who both write the rules and enforce them. Yeah, maybe you are right…nothing to see here…move along. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; he’s on your side and can be trusted.
How many days do you suppose, or that your scientific experts have proven, have we left before we all begin to suffer and then die from the fallout of global warming? Next week? The next month;? The next year? The next century? The next millennium? The next millennium after that? No, it can’t be that far away; otherwise, someone may ask the inevitable, “what’s the rush to fix it?” question.
The only suffering I see now is higher prices at the pump, on my utility bills and in everything that requires energy to make or to ship to market products that others want or need either for comfort or for survival. Well, there are those who have to suffer a bit more than you or I. They are the people who do not make enough money to keep their homes at comfortable levels, put food on the table, purchase clothing for their kids and pay taxes, etc, but who make too much money to qualify for government handouts/assistance no matter how high the minimum wage is raised by fiat.
OK. I’m done. Bottom line: insufficient data to justify forcing people to give up liberties and private property to cure an ill that may or may not be properly diagnosed or even present in a manner that man can palpably verify and challenge. So far, trying to prove climate change exists is second only to proving that God exists. Maybe we simply need to
wastespend more money to build a mass, rapid transit system to Gliese 581Dan Braganca said:
It’s telling you have to shift the subject once again. I suppose that’s the only tactic available to you. I tried to focus on whether the temperature data shows that the earth is warming and you’ve talked about emails, the influence of man on the earth’s temp, other sources of rising temps like solar activity, government solutions, the time frame to fix the problem, gas prices, etc etc.
None of these things I’m seeking to refute in this moment. I never said we should stop all debate about every aspect of climate science. But debate is only useful if we accept that we can know anything at all. I find it amazing that every time I confront you with data that doesn’t fit your worldview you either change the subject or claim that it’s basically impossible to know anything… both sides could be right and on and on you go. Your intellectual nihilism is depressing. You’re really telling me, we can’t know after decades of research the general direction of the temperature on earth? Just the temperature!? Apparently, all the scientists and groups I listed don’t understand how science really works, but you do. Is that right?
You seem so dogmatically committed to your ideological position that you can’t even acknowledge that the earth’s temperature has been rising. I have to repeat myself: you’re telling me scientists don’t have enough data to determine if it’s hotter?
If science can’t tell us something as basic as what direction the temperature is going, how do you think we know anything on any subject? Do you deny the validity of science to understand every subject or just ones you have political hangups over? If science is useless, why do you bother arguing about anything?
Remember the origin of our debate: The Daily Mail claimed, “the world has not warmed for 15 years” as a “fact.” It was your link that brought me to that assertion. It’s notable that when your side makes a claim that it calls a “fact” you don’t bother to question it, you don’t mockingly write that it is “a fact that is indisputable,” and you don’t jest that they claim there is “no more need for inquiry.” Instead, you’re happy to pass it along to your readers without pointing out there is “insufficient data” or how easy it is to find “contradictory ‘science.’”
Your blog post was about bias. Indeed.
--Rick said:
I don’t know why this is hard for you to understand…I don’t have an ideological position for or against. I am still waiting for proof; and until I see proof, I’m opposed to people wasting my money and insisting that I lower my standard of comfort for nothing that may be more than a myth. Your data is no more truthful than opposing data. Your insistence that your data is truthful and opposing data is false is more representative of a dogmatic position than my unwillingness to accept either side at this point in time.
But, let’s suppose your data is correct…then, when do we all die if we do nothing and “what’s the rush” to do anything now? Certainly, if your scientists have proven that global warming does exist and if they can predict with specificity the damage it will do if left unchecked; they must be able to also predict when conditions will ultimately rise to a cataclysmic, existential condition that ends or endangers all human life. If you believe so strongly in science, you must also believe we are capable of solving or proving any problem – like proving that E=MC2 is correct [rumor has it that it may actually not be the whole story], or that millennia long scientific beliefs that Pluto was a planet were ultimately proven to be untrue.
Are you certain that it is wise to give up seeking earthly comforts when a solar storm or a wayward asteroid could strike earth before global warming rises to any real level of significance to humans or before proving beyond that it 1. anthropomorphic in origin, and that 2 it is at least close to a near term existential threat as alleged? Science is important and should be considered with great attention; but, as I’ve tried to point out to you, science is not infallible, and to act prematurely on something that may be false or misunderstood with the sizable investment and energy source eliminations demanded is nothing short of economic suicide – except for those with a financial interest in such a result.
The subject is not global warming, but whether or not it is a valid concern sufficient enough to disrupt the overall global economy and the United States economy in particular. I don’t think the point has been proven sufficiently to justify that and you’ve provided no evidence that the cause you support and defend is worth the sacrifice people such as Gore are demanding as they live totally in opposition to what they are hypocritically preaching. But, all of that is irrelevant as I stated previously that I’ve no intention of debating this issue. I know your position and I’m more than happy to let my readers decide on what is dogma, what is histrionics, what is in support of plundering trillions of dollars from the world economy, and what represents rationality of thought [the most fundamental tool of science] and action.
My obligation to myself is to make the best use of my life as I can in the pursuit of my individual happiness. It is not to sacrifice my happiness or anyone else’s for a collective. When I see fighting for climate change as something that is within my rational self-interest, I will support it. Until then, I remain resolutely opposed to using any of my resources for what may prove to be nothing more than a fool’s errand or an inside investor’s dream. As always, the last word is yours.
Dan Braganca said:
Your commitment to make this a grand ideological battle is growing thin. We’re talking about if the world’s temperature has been trending upward or not. The Daily Mail made a claim that you linked to. I disputed their alleged fact that you passed off uncritically to your readers.
If multiple scientific studies funded publicly and privately from different nations utilizing a variety of instruments all converge on the same result: that the earth is warming, what more possible proof could you need? It’s obvious why you don’t ever say. I wonder if subconsciously you recognize your secret standard is impossible.
I hesitate to set sail into the stormy waters of your distorted understanding of science, but even at risk of getting lost at sea I must try to rescue some facts.
You write, “millennia long beliefs that Pluto was a planet was actually untrue.” Pluto was discovered in 1930 not in the year 1011 or the year 11 or pre-history. A planet is a classification defined by scientists; it’s not that scientists suddenly discovered they were wrong. They reclassified Pluto into a dwarf planet in order to fit its characteristics to match other celestial bodies.
The notion that E might not equal mc^2 just goes to show the anti-scientific garbage you’re willing to trust.
Then you write, I’ve “provided no evidence that the cause [I] support” is worth it. That’s because I never tried to. How can I expect you to comprehend and agree that human activity is the major contributor to global warming and that it is a worthwhile effort to mitigate our impact on the climate if I can’t even get you to accept that thermometers aren’t lying to us.
You lambast my acceptance of scientific facts as a “dogmatic position” – how amusing. Yup, I dogmatically accept that rising temperatures mean the earth is warming. Similarly, I dogmatically accept that humans and dinosaurs didn’t go sailing together thousands of years ago. I guess I dogmatically accept that the earth is roughly an oblate spheroid despite doubts of the flat earth society.
I only tried to get you to acknowledge the Daily Mail was wrong on 1 particular fact. You insist this is some wider fight about how society must be structured. You’ve only proven your inability to dispassionately examine a single piece of information.
Your paranoia that recognizing a mere piece of evidence may lead us to “disrupt the overall global economy” is sad. It also happens to be hypocritical. You’re completely accepting of the pollution of the status quo and unbothered that the overwhelming majority of scientists argue that climate change may lead to horrible environmental and economic consequences. Why? Because Rick doesn’t think it has been “proven sufficiently.” The same Rick that would radically transform society into a complete Randian free market experiment that has never been tried in any nation on earth. Yes, that same Rick thinks limiting pollution in case the broad majority of scientists happens to be right is senseless and extreme.
--Rick said:
Your last remark was so arrogant and condescending that I have decided to take the last word. Think of it this way; I’m protecting your “thinness” in either skin or ability to dodge key elements in a discussion that you either disagree with or simply cannot answer because they are not in your talking points. Instead, you find criticism in meaningless errors such as the use of “millennia” instead of 8+ decades or dismiss the fact that long standing theories can, in fact, be only partially right, or right for the wrong reasons.
We know very little about our own oceans and next to nothing about the universe as a whole and how it all interrelates, but you feel that global warming theories that blame mankind for earth’s imminent destruction [as soon as 2017 according to many on the forward edge of the global warming...oops...climate change hysteria - video recorded 11/11/2011] is immutable”. How silly is that? The sky is falling! Quick, change the name of our cause to give it more credibility and soundness in science.
Go back and read my comments again. I readily agreed that temperatures have been rising, but that is different from a rise due to anthropological causation; hence, the citation of volcanoes, solar storms, orbital wobbles both around the sun and by our own planet, the shifting of earth’s axis, the movement of the continents back toward each other or any of a number of other possible causes. This is also quite different from acknowledging that temperatures have been rising and drawing the conclusion that they will continue to rise without sufficient evidence before government should be allowed to use force to rob people of their individual property and their unalienable rights without the consent of the governed.
I know the difference in outlook means little to you, but unless the cause is proven anthropological beyond a reasonable doubt to be so by a wide margin, I feel comfortable resisting any further plundering of my wallet by the government; let alone the governments of third world countries, who’ve done little to nothing to improve their own lot. What I don’t agree is that it is inevitable that temperatures will continue to rise unless man sacrifices himself to nature without proof that this is not simply part of a longer term cycling of the earths climatology history.
I so disagree that because temperatures are rising researchers get a pass for “cooking the books” so to speak as is evidenced by the content of their own e-mails. And it is the content of the e-mails to me that is the disturbing part of the article – not the temperature claims one way or the other. How do you trust professionals who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy? Answer: You don’t trust them!
Consider for a moment this brief encapsulation of just one theory on the cause of the ice age [the last glacial maximum having occured 20,000 years ago]:
“The cause of ice ages remains controversial for both the large-scale ice age periods and the smaller ebb and flow of glacial/interglacial periods within an ice age. The general consensus is that it is a combination of several important factors: atmospheric composition (the relative amounts of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, sulfur dioxide, and various other gases and particulates in the atmosphere), changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun known as Milankovitch cycles (and possibly the Sun’s orbit around the galaxy), the motion of tectonic plates resulting in changes in the relative location and amount of continental and oceanic crust on the Earth’s surface, variations in solar output, the orbital dynamics of the Earth-Moon system, the impact of relatively large meteorites, and eruptions of supervolcanoes.”
Did any of those factors affecting climate sound familiar to you? This begs the question: If after millennia [this time the citation carries no mea culpa] we are still squabbling about the causes of the ice age; How can you be so certain about global warming being anthropomorphically accelerated, and that it will not revert back to a period of cooling as part of the planetary nature of earth – a speck of dust within an infinite universe?
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_caused_the_Ice_Age#ixzz1f9VSHPb8
” A planet is a classification defined by scientists; it’s not that scientists suddenly discovered they were wrong. They reclassified Pluto into a dwarf planet in order to fit its characteristics to match other celestial bodies.”
~ At least you admit that some science is completely arbitrary which has been my point all along. Thank you, for that.
Global warming is a classification of a condition defined by scientists, and it’s that scientist do not readily admit when they are wrong; even to other scientists; maybe, especially to other scientists that heightens a wariness of the arbitrary nature of their motives and commitments to truth that disturbs a lot of free thinking people. The content within the emails, both in 2009 and now read no better than notations one would expect to find along with a snake oil salesman.
Pardon my faux pas regarding the use of the word millennia and not checking my comment – an admittedly sloppy comment on my part [you got me good there] – but it does not negate the point that science can come to arbitrary conclusions that are later proven to be false to some degree or in total. The fact that the planet was reclassified to a dwarf planet was based on new information discovered that did not fit the abstraction drawn on the initial 1930 discovery of Pluto, necessitated the change for clarity and further scientific understanding or our immediate galaxy. This, no doubt, will not be the last fundamental “truth” to be changed as we get greater ability and a larger scientific epistemology upon which ontological truths can be constructed and trusted. In fact, speaking of Pluto; it was replaced with a heretofore unknown planet now named Tyche.
And I was so looking forward to suing my teachers for telling me there were 9 planets and letting me believe such nonsense for the greater part of my 62 years on earth. Now, it turns our I can’t sue because they were right – even if it was for the wrong reasons. Which brings us to Einstein – again!
As to Einstein’s 106 year old theory of relativity; either way he was a genius, as the author states, and in the cited article’s summation, the view of Einstein ends “relatively” complementary:
“The status of special relativity, just more than a century after it was presented to the world, is suddenly a radically open and rapidly developing question. This situation has come about because physicists and philosophers have finally followed through on the loose ends of Einstein’s long-neglected argument with quantum mechanics — an irony-laden further proof of Einstein’s genius. The diminished guru may very well have been wrong just where we thought he was right and right just where we thought he was wrong. We may, in fact, see the universe through a glass not quite so darkly as has too long been insisted.”
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published with the title “A Quantum Threat to Special Relativity
Then again, because I try to remain open minded, I am also weighing studies that come to different conclusions (perhaps because they are drawn using a similar premise or factors used by Einstein):
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/181422/Einsteins-mass-energy-relation
, or because he was fully correct and these new theories are baseless. Either way, what we have is a situation where some degree of science is in doubt requiring further investigation. But, there lies the rub!
Once a particular notion becomes conventional wisdom, evidence and stories confirming that conventional wisdom are easily accepted and published—and reported in the media. Those that contradict the prevailing views have a much harder time getting a hearing. I suppose only time will tell who is the flat-lander and who is not [I'm thinking black holes" and their 4th dimension]. I think, since my mind is still open to accepting that things aren’t always what they seem, and that yours seems rather tightly closed on the new field of climatologic alarmism; that the probability of being correct is on my side. You also keep forgetting to answer the question, “What is the rush?” Are you of the school who believes that a global warming catastrophe becomes irreversible in 2017 and there is only a limited window through which people’s pockets can be picked if a global redistribution of wealth is to be attained? Or, are you more open-minded than I presume?
From the Nova article:
“(To our knowledge, tiny black holes cannot form today.)”
Let’s hope first that the scientist who made the statement immediately above are right and that new black holes can’t form. Then, let’s hope that if these scientists are wrong and black holes can form that they don’t form or migrate near enough to the earth for the intense gravity of the black hole to pull us in and devour the planet. In either case, I hope you notice that nothing in this universe is concrete and one should never take any fact that can’t be proven to a very high degree as an absolute – that includes global warming; anthropogenic or not. And it damn sure includes work done by “scientists” who are less than candid and who demonstrate a proclivity to do less than their best because doing their task properly takes too long or is just too hard.
“I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Dan Braganca said:
Hmm… you now write, “I readily agreed that temperatures have been rising.” The only point I sought to make this entire time was that The Daily Mail was wrong when it wrote, “the fact that the world has not warmed for 15 years.” You argued with me every single time despite my constant repetition that I’m only attempting to get you to admit that the temperature trend on earth is rising.
Please quote back where you “readily agreed that temperatures have been rising.” I’ll be really impressed if you can find multiple places, but even one would be exciting. It’d also be helpful if you could type out: “The Daily Mail is wrong to claim the world has not warmed for 15 years.” Since you “readily agreed” with me the entire time that shouldn’t be a problem.
--Rick said:
The graphs I sent you clearly indicated that temperatures could be viewed either way and the only point I made was that graphs out of context or over limited time are meaningless. You seem to believe that a graph is proof of life and everything else. It’s just data [good or bad] in a visual form and without appropriate context and supporting information is as meaningless as looking at computer code line by line. That was the message of my first reply. Period.
2nd Reply:
“Until there is near universal agreement that global warming is more than just a transient trend alternating with periods of transient global cooling I’m fine with people and businesses operating as freely as they wish.”
If it is MORE than just a transient trend – then global warming as a threat exists. Why is that so difficult to detect? If it did not exist and I did not agree that it exists, then, I could not suggest that global warming might be a trend, because only things that exist tend to become trends. I can’t believe you need that explained to you. My thought was that you were looking for a blanket statement that global warming existed with the implication that man was the cause. That, you won’t get for the manifold reasons I’ve already wasted too much time on.
From the second comment on, I am speaking of anthropomorphic global warming, having already conceded that global warming qua global warming exists. This latter is not the debate – part of the debate is the cause while the other part is its longevity or lack thereof beyond earth’s normal heating and cooling cycles; hence the information provided in that regard – all of which you ignore. Unless you are functionally illiterate, I think it’s clear that there is a distinction in my responses that I am talking about man made warming [and having to then pay tribute to Caesar in the form of carbon credits instead of using my resources for my own purposes].
Simply acknowledging that global warming exists is obvious and whether one acknowledges it exists or not has absolutely nothing to do with the meat of that article, which is that scientists were caught manipulating data for a second time. So, yes there appears to be a trend reading your data, but again, without linking that trend to a man made cause – so what? My concern is with “scientists” trying to sell their perspective without adhering to the scientific method of proof to which I’ve ended all of my comments with Ayn Rand’s quote on high values and not stooping to lesser standards for expediency or degree of difficulty in whatever it is you are faced with – designing a building or reporting completely and accurately on global warming based upon indisputable scientific evidence and not supposition supported by distortion of data.