Reflections on a hugely changed climate
It's hard to overstate how much the events of the last two months have altered the global picture of climate politics.
Picture the scene you'd have found on any day towards the end of last year: more prime ministers and presidents talking publicly about climate change than ever before; the vast majority of the world's governments apparently committed to making some kind of agreement that would restrain the growth in greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to avoid "dangerous" climate change; the world's two biggest emitters - China and the US - announcing targets to take into the maelstrom of Copenhagen; rafts of mayors and business leaders and activists straining every sinew to encourage everyone across the finishing line.
How different things look now.
Out of Copenhagen came a piece of paper agreeing that limiting the global temperature rise to 2C was indicated by the science, but not agreeing to set 2C or any other temperature figure as a firm target, and not containing anything that would commit governments to policy measures that could achieve such a target.
Meanwhile, the prospective US climate legislation encounters new hurdles, the latest being the election of Republican Scott Brown to succeed Democrat Edward Kennedy as Massachusetts Senator.
That pushes the Democrats below the majority they need to prevent long discussions on the healthcare bill that, it's generally assumed, must go through before the climate wrangles begin in earnest.
It also could be interpreted as indicating that Mr Obama's raft of policies is proving less palatable to the electorate - and with campaigning for mid-term elections due to begin in just half a year's time, one possible consequence would be to push Democrats and Republicans alike away from the camp supporting climate legislation.
Other interpretations and other projections of the US scene are possible, of course. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that passage of the American legislation looks less likely than it did two months ago.
Internationally, this is hugely significant. If the big developing countries do not see action from the US, they will be even more reluctant to curb their own emissions - that's abundantly clear.
Perhaps because the Copenhagen summit ended at a time when much of the world was preparing for Christmas and New Year revelries, I'm not sure that news organisations - including ourselves - have adequately reflected how momentous a shift it signalled.
Before Copenhagen, most of the building blocks appeared to be in place for some kind of global, negotiated, and possibly even effective deal - if not in Copenhagen itself, then within a further year.
Would anyone now make that assessment?
The travails of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), too, may be affecting politicians' views - it's impossible to make a broad judgement on that, despite the protestations of many players in Copenhagen that the basics of the IPCC's scientific argument remained sound.
Anyway, we discussed at the tail end of last year some of the reasons why the summit did not produce a solid deal, and the point of this post isn't to re-tread that ground.
It's simply to reflect, with the benefit of a bit of distance, just how far the world of climate politics has shifted.
Without US legislation, without a willing China and India, it is hard to see how anything more significant than the Copenhagen Accord can come later this year or in the next few years - despite continued European protestations of support, despite the demands of small island states, and despite the judgement of many of the accord's architects (from Barack Obama to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) that it falls short.
Depending on your views on man-made global warming, you might find the mood-shift encouraging or disappointing. But it's hard to argue, I think, that it isn't significant - perhaps the most significant change in international environmental governance since the Rio Earth Summit.
And the question that not even the most clued-up observers know how to answer at the moment is: "what happens next?"
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Absolutely true. The simple fact is that suddenly it has become respectable to be a climate skeptic (all scientists are skeptics). The tide has swung so far against the climategate believers that I've even felt sorry seeing so them so outnumbered. The news has not helped - the sexing up of the IPCC report on Himalayan Glaciers from (on someone's opinion it was) likely glaciers would melt by 2035 to (the peer reviewed science shows) it is HIGHLY LIKELY they will melt by 2035 (and the real science is that if the current warm spell continues they might melt by 2350).
Then there is the growing evidence of "unexplanable" upward adjustments to temperature records in Dawwin Australia, New Zealand, and the US - which are absolutely mind blowing because they appear to show wholesale fraud - and the worst of it is that people like the BBC are leaving it up the soft-news-media of the internet to investigate these allegations so there's no knowing how much or how little credence to give to them.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, can the BBC start taking this subject with a little bit more seriousness. There are real apparently substantive allegations of fraud and I could name half a dozen more to those I've listed - what happend to the old BBC with its charter of impartiality and zeal for investigative reporting? You never know - the claims might all be made up and suddenly everyone would start believing manmade global warming again!
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There is only one absolute certain outcome from climate change idea, and that’s more divisive taxes are about to get burdened on the average working Joe.
This being the same average working Joe, that’s desperately trying to keep a roof over the family’s head and food on the table.
CO2 emissions tax, is no different to a TV licence, a rod licence, tipping tax, income tax, national insurance, road fund duty, v.a.t., fuel duty, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, share transfer tax, ……etc…etc.
If they simply just stuffed it to us on all the other taxes, we’d reduce our carbon footprint, simply because we couldn’t afford a lot of things, although we’d hate them for it.
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Richard - you haven't even mentioned the main reason for the mood-shift - namely, 'Climategate' and the avalanche (sorry for the climate-related pun) of 'skeptical' revelations and challenges to the 'the science is fixed' view.
Now that The Man In The Street can see what a catalogue of dodgy data; cosy peer-review arrangements; illegal ignoring of FOI requests, and downright Bad Science, went into the IPCC reports, its no wonder that the political establishment is in a bit of a quandary as to what to do next.
Frankly I am astonished that Gordon Brown is still talking about climate change as though it is something high on the political agenda; credit to Mr Van Rompuy for his rather more circumspect view of the matter at the recent Downing Street press briefing.
The whole structure of the UN's 'climate change' (why not just Climate Research..?) agenda needs a fundamental rethink. In the meantime, the debate needs to be far more open - the data needs revisiting by organisations with no funding axe to grind; and the peer review process needs to be properly organised, not a cosy run-this-past-my-buddies arrangement.
Almost nothing is more important - because there are literally trillions of dollars involved - and in the current climate (sorry again) of debt-ridden global governments, I would have thought acting on highly questionable 'projections' will be seen to be irresponsible to put it mildly.
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I agree with every word here except one-
Please change
"The travails of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)"
to
"The lies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)"
TIA
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For those who want to see another take on this, Nature this week has an News Feature which centres on the uncertainties in four key areas of climate science: precipitation, regional climate predictions, palaeoclimate data and aerosols. As Nature sees it, these uncertainties "... although broadly appreciated within scientific circles, deserve greater open discussion in the public and policy spheres." There is also an Editorial on the same theme.
Both the editorial and feature are open access (i.e. you don't need a subscription to read them).
The feature is at: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/full/463284a.html
The editorial is at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7279/full/463269a.html
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Richard, it's time to address the elephant in the room, fully and impartially; because Climategate has changed perceptions.
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Very good post on how the political landscape has changed in just two months. There is one further change that needs to happen right away - and a number of intelligent global warming activists like George Monbiot have fully agreed with me that this is needed: complete openness of all climate data and computer code and use of a web system like arXiv.org for preprints, and thus the earliest and widest possible review of all climate papers, as is now common in maths and physics.
This would not only be bang in line with this week's data.gov.uk initiative from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, after the direct involvement of the Prime Minister last year, to his great credit, but would also reflect the immense importance to every citizen and taxpayer of the policies that have been proposed on back of climate science.
It goes without saying that such a policy of openness would have made impossible a scandal like Climategate, which has done so much damage to the reputation of UK science. This is without question the only way to build back the trust that has been lost.
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What has change I think is the attitude of the so called sceptics.
In the past there were pretensions from some of them towards being interested in science and offering alternative explanation to what is happening to the atmosphere. We saw people question AGW by the use of the satellite record (now addressed since the UAH corrections), we saw people ask questions about UHI (explained by the trend in urban and rural areas being the same), or questioning feedback magnitude (still worth debating - none of them bother for some reason).
But, post the stolen emails, all that has stopped. Now sceptics simply cry foul and then hurl allegations about. They make no attempt to address the science any more.
So this is my challenge to sceptics: please can we see how you think the atmosphere's radiative properties and temperature have changed these last couple of hundred years, and what you think will happen in the future couple of centuries, as a readable, bile, cant, and (above all) allegation free post here.
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Absolutely agree that things have changed - it's hard to sustain and argument that everything is fine with the IPCC in the face of Climategate, Glaciergate and Patchygate.
There are apparently more revelations coming in the newspapers this weekend.
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PeterNH, I have a couple of questions for you.
1. You say that the attitude of sceptics has recently changed for the worse. When such people were interested in the science, as you say they once were, did you ever pay tribute to that interest? Can you show me one place where you did?
2. If sceptics or lukewarmers were as interested in the science as you say they should be, would they not be asking for the complete openness of climate science, as I have just done? (in 7.) Wouldn't you agree with them?
Let's just say that I myself am a lukewarmer (as that link may indeed suggest). Would that make it necessary for you to disagree with me? Or is it time to stop throwing around labels and the slurs that go with them as an alternative to attending to the real difficulties in the science (as that page, with all its faults, has been trying to do this week)?
Doing the science properly includes of course independent replication of published results and it's the healthy desire for that ability to replicate that led I believe to the principled actions of the Climategate whistleblower at the UEA, and has now led to a number of people on all sides arguing it's time for a complete overhaul of the openness expected of any climate scientist in the future.
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How can you possibly write about "The travails of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)" and completely the ignore the allegations regarding the former railway engineer who heads it?
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@Bishop Hill #9
interesting, please expand :)
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Ah well, same same but same, the politics and super powers fighting. At least the youth and the next generation know that nothing wont happen either before the oil runs out. Only till then do we not feel reason enough to change anything. And when the front persons and their failing NGO's (or so at least they were in Copenhagen) cannot come up with a single solution, a single REAL agreement, and that they can't do so either without emitting tons and tons of CO2, yeah well, then that's where the rest of us stop listening and do things our own way. This is highly likely the reason why Local initiatives works about 100% better than Global initiatives, as in the Local environment you have any!
For the leaders and the politics, the only interesting answer is when the oil is out so that we will be forced to change our habits no matter what a law or a political paper will say about it.
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Richard Drake,
I've more time for S. McIntyre, and the late J. Daly, than A. Watts. I am, if you like, a warm lukewarmer - always have been. We know about CO2, we don't know about feedbacks.
Openness. Science is open, people private lives aren't. Nor do certain people gain the respect of scientists (who are also people) by accusing them of fraud, lies, scams and some monumental global scientific conspiracy. I don't say you've done any of that, I do say that's where the events of the last few months have got AGW scepticism - to a place where they are so sure they are right they're prepared to drop all pretence of A 'sciency' base and simply cry foul and allege.
Now, care to address *my* challenge?
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Is it perhaps a sign that this utter rubbish spoken about man made global warming, is finally coming home to roost in the minds of the perpetrators of this hoax???
maybe it is that truth will always prevail over the lies and falsehoods of politicians who seek to use spurious scientific data, in order to try, to create their own agenda.
now, maybe the media will get on with telling is what is really happening in the world. Is it not enough we have first this silly hoax called swine flue thrust upon us, then we have the greatest free junket ever called Copenhagen.
Thankfully, there are a lot if awakened human beings who ignore all the lies spoken about man making the earth warm up. And if Lord Monckton is correct in his assertions about it, then the New World Order may be postponed indefinitely we hope. I wonder what the Bilderbergers will have planned at this years meeting? And will Gordon Brown be going I wonder???
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Richard Black.
"..this is hugely significant. If the big developing countries do not see action from the US.."
it seems to me that we see way to much 'action' from the USA, albeit mostly of the divisive and counter-productive nature; their free-for-all corporation will not stop to pursue monopolistic policies until it is -- too late?
the rest of the world would stand a better chance if they distanced themselves from our American cousins, and especially the corrupting influence of the petro-dollar.
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Mango
Richard North has suggested that there will be further uproar after the second part of his Patchygate article in the Sunday Telegraph.
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Personally, I find the theological debate between believers and sceptics to be rather tiresome. In sum, it appears to turn not so much on whether the earth is warming up, nor even on what the potential consequences might be; but on whose fault it is and whether we can or should do anything about it.
I am not following the debate closely: so forgive me if I state (or miss) the obvious.
If the earth is warming, and the consquences like sea level rise and shifting in rainfall patterns, will follow then either:
(a) It is, at least partly the result of human activity, and then we could influence it by reducing carbon emissions (and other polluting consequences of our activities); or
(b) It is not, and we will have to accept the inevitable consequences.
Moreover, after Copenhagen, there is an increasingly likely variant of (a) in which we could do something but fail to do so (in time or at all): and so we have to face the consequences anyway.
Looking at these, the big ones are sea level rise and coastal flooding; and the drying of subtropical areas like the Mediterranean. Sae level rise is, doubtless a major concern to people living in low lying coastal regions. But does anyone really think that a concern for the people of Tuvalu, or the Maldives, is going to drive behaviour, or politics, in the USA or Europe? From what I can see, the potential effect on a country like the Netherlands is much more likely to require a response - but the Dutch could equally respond by, are very good at, building sea defences.
I am left pondering the likely effect of the drying of, for example, North Africa. Here, again, a technical solution suggests itself - in the form of solar power and desalination plants - which could even be developed to produce methanol from carbon dioxide recovered from the air (thus drifting back towards a solution if we are, after all, to blame).
In any event, it seems to me that none of us like change - and sometimes we may be slow to adapt - it is coming anyway. The choice we face is how to deal with it. This requires nether a catastrophic over-reaction nor a head-in-the-sands approach to looming catastrophe. It does require action.
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What happens next? We slowly watch the decline of the human race.
Seriously... nobody really expects politicians to do anything about Global Warming until it is way too late.
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I have to give Anthony Watts some credit for his involvement in the now published study On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
The authors graciously acknowledge his contribution:
"The authors wish to thank Anthony Watts and the many volunteers at
surfacestations.org for their considerable efforts in documenting the current site characteristics of USHCN stations."
The conclusion of the study?
"the adjusted USHCN temperatures are extremely well aligned with recent measurements from instruments whose exposure characteristics meet the highest standards for climate monitoring." Although it has to be noted that "a small overall residual negative ('cool') bias appears to remain in the adjusted maximum temperature series."
A cool bias??? Thanks blog Prof Watts.
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PeterNH (#8 and #14),
"... please can we see how you think the atmosphere's radiative properties and temperature have changed these last couple of hundred years, and what you think will happen in the future couple of centuries"
The answer is the same as if you'd asked me how the integration of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics will be achieved in the next two hundred years. I don't have the foggiest.
However, in the case of the future of physics, I would suggest reading Roger Penrose's The Road to Reality as background. He hasn't provided the solution, with twistors, as he'd hoped in the 60s, but he has given a useful introduction. In some ways he's quite downbeat, including his own, about the failures of physics over the last forty years. But at least that's honest. And towards the end he points to one bright spot: the use of arXiv.org to allow quicker dissemination and discussion of new proposals and ideas. So it is with me and climate science - except I'm not quite as good as Professor Penrose!
Of course it's regrettable if any unnecessary personal details were included in the Climategate files. It's also highly regrettable that Phil Jones saw fit to comment to professional colleagues on the death of John Daly in the way that he did. It is very messy at present. The answer is to put the house in order, at every level, as soon as possible.
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One hopes that finally there will be a semblance of sanity imposed on this lemming like rush off a precipice. Its quite funny that the Chinese and the Indians - two nations whose billions are probably more at risk than others in a warming climate - are so coy about even following the examples of others. One would have thought if they really believed, they would have been in the vanguard with drastic targets of their own, not the pathetic wishy washy targets the Chinese have set. Maybe now there will be a sane (and by real scientists not the knaves selectively reporting what suits their agenda, or the fools naming years such as 2035 for the extinction of the Himalayan glaciers with zero evidence)analysis of which countries stand to benefit and which lose in a warming world. This assumption that everyone loses in a warming world is strange to say the least. Lets have that honest discussion and if Canada and Russia at the very least stand to gain let us be respectful of their views.
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Richard
you have finally admitted it - the climate has changed.
what happens next? The judicial phase.
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@jr4412
Seems that I commented on a blog that was no longer the active one, but I'd be still interested in your views on my last post the previous blog, if you've got a moment to read it, that is?
To continue, I'm not quite sure how to make this an on-topic post, so I'll go with.........
If we're finally on the verge of winning the argument, it just might prove to be a little anti-climactic for us Sceptics, 'Deniers' and luke warmers.
Personally, I'll at least need to find a new hobby or interest, stamp collecting perhaps?
What would it mean for the green movement in general, I wonder, can it return to its roots do you think?
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It is truly fascinating reading the posts of climate sceptics. As a result of a few controversial emails, a handful of dissenting scientific studies and the rabid right-wing press, these people have gone entirely off the handle. Yet challenge them on the *facts* and they go strangely silent. Clearly then, these are not qualified scientific experts, but rather uninformed, terrified individuals venting their frustration at the ever-increasing body of scientific evidence which threatens their lifestyle. A psychologist would call them fossil fuel addicts.
Although understandable and in fact predictable, such addictive behavior has no easy cure. Addicts will continue to justify their position by desperately presenting any last scrap of pseudo-scientific evidence "proving" that climate change is not occurring. The only way they will ever be convinced is if climate change does in fact occur as projected - at which time it will be too late to mitigate its worst effects.
Nonetheless, they will then experience the equivalent of a drug user's slow realisation that he is going to die from his addiction. In fact, these signs are already emerging - aggressive blame ("it's all a socialist plot to raise taxes") and petulant denial ("this winter is colder than last"). We can only hope that the ultimate stage will arrive soon - that of understanding and acceptance of the problem.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
We may not have absolute proof that climate change is man-made and that our (in)activity influences it one way or the other. But if we wait to see if the ailment is indeed fatal, we will do nothing until the patient is dead.
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Does that mean we can now call them Global Cooling DENIERS ??!!!
.
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25. At 3:19pm on 22 Jan 2010, rchrenko wrote:
rchenko, regardless of the debate that none of us can have on here around the science in depth, one thing is evident to anyone with a brain, those "few emails" raise questions about the integrity of the data. Anyone with a brain reading them can see that is a fact.
regardless of elieving or non-believing, something is not right at the UEA, but as usual black's Whitewash is in action.
How on earth can the BBC trust investigate this and find it balanced reporting when the biggest, most damaging scientific data leak ever is completely ignored by the journalist involved.
It is a disgrace.
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Just because Scientists cannot make accurate predictions about pumping billions of tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses does not give indutsrialists carte blanche to carry on. We're carrying out a global experi,mment without any idea as to the outcome only knowing that there's a chance we could cause major havoc and data is showing something untoward. Surely its up to the industrialists to show that they aren't putting the future of the planet at risk with their actions?
Their logic of politicians and industrialists is skew, we pollute the envitonment and get someone else to provge what we're doing is wrong. They must prove they're not harming the environment.
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yoss#22.
"Its quite funny that the Chinese and the Indians - two nations whose billions are probably more at risk than others in a warming climate - are so coy about even following the examples of others."
point well made, I think it's much (all?) to do with the philosophical/theological/religious differences.
blunderbunny #24.
(sorry, have to eat, work, etc :-)), will reply on the other blog.
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It is certainly reasonable to interpret the lull as a mood shift.
But it wasn't, really. It was just a moment to catch our breath -- "the pause that refreshes."
There were the holidays. Many of us, and not just bloggers, were working furiously right up to the very edge of the New Year, as your archives reflect.
The terrorists, perhaps jealous of all the focus other matters were beginning to garner, undertook a series of concerted attacks, some of which also distracted everyone. Anyone who flies had to be concerned about the discovery that it was now, once again, up to airline passengers to police their row-mates in case they were wearing explosives that got through checkpoints. Apparently, that polite young man next to you could actually be about to try to blow you up. Not surprising that got our brains humming for a few days.
Then came the annual slow-motion response to the calendar change. Horrible weather took over in many parts of the world. People returned from holidays to work feeling quite discouraged by the battle with the elements, looking over the financial data for their household or business, trying to get a sense of how they would do in the next year, sorting through mountains of old email.
Some of us got sick. Some of us had loved ones get sick. Others were still catching up with dear friends.
Just as we were getting back into things, the powerful earthquake in Haiti captured the attention of all the world, especially people with international connections, meaning friends & colleagues all over.
Between the pleasantly sleepy mornings of the days just after some rather convivial holidays, the difficult weather of the past three four weeks, and the horrors of an earthquake that had been predicted by scientists but struck people who were unprepared, we have in fact received a very sharp kick to the consciousness at the outset of this 2010.
First, the holidays reminded us of what matters most to everyone: family, loved ones.
Then, it was demonstrated that our security services are actually riddled with holes, most having to do with an inability to think straight. We all need to know that. It means there is a tendency to underestimate threats, rather than to overstate them. We err more on the wrong side of safety, than the reverse.
Then, it took less than a minute to destroy a major port and over a week for the wealthiest superpowers to be able to wade through ensuing logistical nightmares.
For all our vaunted advances, even in the presence of collective will, we operate within a very fragile interface of the elements that make our existence possible.
Far from disparaging science, we should be encouraging it. Evidently, we are getting better at predicting earthquakes: that is actually a positive development, much like some in the medical field.
We should be profoundly concerned about threats to coastlines, for they are also threats to ports. That part of the Katrina experience got a little lost in the chaos of impressions: the hurricane that ravaged New Orleans in 2005 also paralyzed the Gulf Coast of a number of key US states, creating a similar logistical nightmare that went on for months.
People who don't think overpopulation is a growing threat might have revised their opinion in light of what they saw happen in overcrowded Port-au-Prince. Writers who have commented that "salvation lies in greater, not lesser urbanisation" probably also got a bit of a shock.
The UN got a big wake-up call. The planet's message to the UN: "Your intentions are good, but you operate at a glacial pace. Lives are lost because the impact of your best efforts still lags greatly behind the urgent need." Simple steps could have been taken when the geologists in 2008 warned of the dangers of a major quake in Haiti. Water could have been stockpiled. Incentives could have been created much sooner to disperse the population further out across the countryside -- especially families with young children.
The importance of having stockpiles of water -- and how precious that commodity actually is, -- are brought home by what we have seen these past weeks.
So is the heroism of medics, and just how crucial it is to make sure we train enough of them, and stockpile emergency supplies, including anesthetics -- not just at hospitals, but in many, many depots all over.
It is quite remarkable to contemplate how many weapons caches exist everywhere on earth -- and how few medical kits are dispersed in places where humans might need them. That also must change. It is a no-brainer policy detail that is not actually difficult to implement.
And, of course, the obvious, painful point, that even with competent leaders at the top, the venality of corrupt mid-level bureaucrats, their willingness, for example, to tolerate dangerously unstable construction, to appropriate funds meant for programmes, to work slowly instead of swiftly: all these messages are staring us in the face, from the rubble of Haiti. They are by no means unique to Haiti, or the poorest nations of the world. Abuses are widespread: tolerance for such abuses must stop.
So here we are, three weeks into January 2010, and I think we are exactly where we need to be: rested, refreshed, scared witless by the reality of how many people exist on this fragile (for humans) planet who, in a moment of crisis, will demand, need, seek, shriek -- and even deteriorate into the degradation of looting, violence, mayhem, utter despair...
We have been reminded that communications are amongst the most easily disrupted of our assets, and that a shortage of medicines, or overwhelmed hospitals, in a crisis might mean seeing some of what we have witnessed unfold in Haiti actually coming to some place we happen to be in, God forbid, without anyone of us being able to prevent it.
The single best thing we have also learned is that there is a great deal more compassion, cohesion and sense of unity amongst humans today, than there are divisions, cynicism or indifference.
With all that in our hearts and minds, we can now act.
What happens next? Why, we pick up where we left off, with greater intensity, with even more determination.
Don't let the hype about American political developments distract you. The USA, which used to be the Jackie O of the planet, has become a considerably more vapid celebrity wannabe these days. Every little twitch & tic on her body politic arouses torrential floods of soul-searching analysis from both therapist & client -- mostly unjustified. The Obamas & those around them are struggling to lead a nation that resists guidance counseling.
We knew in December the US Congress was unlikely to adopt truly significant pro-earth legislation. Nothing has changed in that equation. The election of Scott Brown, who seems nice enough at first glance, only adds a decimal place of nuance.
The world will have to make its plans for mitigation, crisis-response, education and industrial transformation without waiting for the majority of American legislators to pass significant new laws. As momenum for eco-sanity grows, the US will come around: they will have no alternative.
In the meantime, the upside here is that millions upon millions of enlightened Americans who are indeed committed activists, fundraisers, social innovators, scientific innovators and virtuous forces in the corporate world (and there are actually quite a few of them) are mobilising even harder to make up for the obvious deficiencies in the US Congress.
Focus. It's all here. Game on. Only it's not a game: it's our collective future, and it is worth the effort.
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tFoth (#18): you mention "drying" a couple of times, in relation to the Mediterranean area and North Africa, as a consequence of any continued warming, as if it's a matter of fact.
I think that the latest IPCC report says pretty clearly that its regional forecasts are no more than educated guesswork. What intrigues me is why fairly or very dry areas are forecast to be even drier (while floods are predicted elsewhere). Since a warmer world will contain less ice, it must also contain more water in the liquid and gas phases. Therefore, more places will be wetter than drier compared to the present. Since North Africa was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire (during the Roman Warm Period, of course), I think one might reasonably expect North Africa to be wetter should the earth warm in the future.
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@jasonsceptic
Without an in-depth look at the scientific content and context of the emails, it is not possible to judge whether or not the CRU leak raises "questions about the integrity of the data." In fact, it is the uninformed "shoot-first-and-think-later" response of the sceptics which is the true disgrace. For an *informed* discussion of the details, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change has investigated the issue in depth:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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32. At 4:05pm on 22 Jan 2010, Maria Ashot wrote.
Hooray for the good people Maria!
Problem is more and more of them are speaking out.....
For example, John Theon.
"In a 37-year career at NASA, his titles included Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics, Radiation, & Hydrology Branch followed by a stint as Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA HQ."
"As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research," Theon wrote. "I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made.”
“My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit. Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it.
"They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA's official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind's effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress."
So you ignore the words of people of this stature joining the debate do you?
Over to you.
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34. At 4:09pm on 22 Jan 2010, rchrenko wrote:
I am sure they have investigated in depth. That would be the Pew Center that receives large wads of cash to carry on with its climate research I assume.
Why not take a look through the "harry readme file" and then put your hand on your heart and say nothin there concerns you in terms of raising questions about the integrity of the data.
It is not uniformed to e able t reconise when a file like that highlights, over a long period of time, deep confusion and concern over the data processing by an individual within the process.
Its called common sense, something some of the pro-AGW people seem to have left at the door.
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What happens next? I thought that as it is going to be pretty boring once all the lies come out and the lawyers make money. What I will say is that this total scam has been brought down by individuals and the internet especially Mr.Steven McIntyre.
#"Mango" all the truth on the railway engineer can be found at the eureferendum-blogspot or buy the Sunday Telegraph.
For the truth about "just scientists talking amongst themselves" try this remembering it is 149 pages
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/climategate_analysis.html
#jr stuck again down in the city hopefully can get up the mountains for my plant name Saturday morning.
So that NASA/GISS and MET office get it right East Med temp. is currently 4C rain with sleet Ice over night, possible 4-5cm snow above 800 feet by sunrise.
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#27 Vera Mark wrote:
"We may not have absolute proof that climate change is man-made and that our (in)activity influences it one way or the other. But if we wait to see if the ailment is indeed fatal, we will do nothing until the patient is dead."
Each of us as an individual has to confront a similar question when we consider whether or not to have regular checks for prostate or breast cancer. If we could be confident that medical intervention is always a good idea, there wouldn't be any question. But the evidence is actually very mixed and ambiguous. Intervention often unnecessarily diminishes the quality of life without prolonging it. There are risks and worries no matter what we decide.
There may appear to be no "guesswork" in statistics, but there is great uncertainty nonetheless -- and it's all the more dangerous for being disguised!
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I don’t know whether there is global warming or not, and I’m not a scientist either.
But I can’t see how one can reduce global CO2 emissions with every country ‘going for growth in their respective economies’.
If you truly wanted to cut CO2 emissions, then you’ve got to cut what we produce and consume. You’ve got to cut travel as well.
So if you want to cut CO2 emissions you would have to ban or restrict things.
If on the other hand you wanted to generate more tax revenue, you would want to promote growth in the economy.
How is growth in the economy and CO2 emissions tax going to reduce global warming?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The election of Scott Brown and the US Supreme court decision allowing corporations to spend freely on political campaigns do not bode well for a enactment of a progressive agenda in the United States, including action on climate change. I believe the case is strong that humans are changing the climate and lack of action will have serious negative impacts for everyone. If the US public can be made to understand this (and many people already do), the chances for effective action will be a lot greater. Unfortunately, high unemployment and anxiety about the economy have the public's attention right now.
The other potential game changer is new, green energy technology, and research spending in this field has been woefully inadequate for decades. That is starting to change under the Obama administration and the public may be more easily persuaded that this is worth the money because it can be tied to US dependence on foreign oil and the drag it puts on the economy.
To those who are disheartened by the prospect of continued inaction on climate, I say:
Be informed.
Inform your neighbors.
Don't give up!
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Patrick (#30): you blame 'industrialists' for pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, but they're only producing what you and others wish to consume. If you think this will have unpleasant consequences, then you should consume less and persuade others to do the same.
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BBC bloggers seem to have a way of distorting the truth by among other things not telling the entire story and telling parts of it inaccurately.
The fact is that the chances for legislation and treaties in the US related to climate change were alway bleak. If they seem to have gotten bleaker since Copenhagen, that is only a matter of degree.
First of all a clear misunderstanding or mis-statement of how American government works.
"That pushes the Democrats below the majority they need to prevent long discussions on the healthcare bill that, it's generally assumed, must go through before the climate wrangles begin in earnest."
Utterly misleading and inaccurate. First of all, the rules of the United States Senate unlike the rules in the US House of Representatives allows Senators to speak in the debate process that precedes voting on legislation including treaties for as long as they like. It takes 60 out of 100 Senators to stop the process by voting what we call "cloture." The Democrat party had up until this recent election in Massachussets what we call a "supermajority" which means the 60 votes to prevent any Senator from what we call "filibustering" which means speaking indefinitely to prevent a vote on a bill. Were the issues divided strictly along party lines, the Democrats could have invoked cloture on anything before them that was being filibustered. Now with this election they can't count on it. Second, the vote on health care and climate change related bills are not in any way connected. Health care discussions could be dropped and climate change taken up. The odds against climate change legislation never stood a good chance of passage because third, there are many Senators in the Democrat party whose constituents have strong vested economic self interests in the unfettered use of fossil fuels and would face angry voters if they imposed additional taxes such as cap and trade or a carbon tax. In the US, the legislators do not automatically vote according to the wishes of their party leadership, even if that leader happens to be the President. This is not the UK, we do not have a parliamentary system. Partly loyalty on any specific issue is not the given fact of life in the US it is elsewhere.
Indications that there would be no legal restrictions and certainly no commitment through external treaties were demonstrated in a "Sense of the Senate" vote during the Kyoto talks. The Senate voted 95-0 against anything that came out of Kyoto. While this was a non binding vote, it told the Clinton Administration that they were wasting their time in Japan and that is why they walked out, not because they wanted to.
I've posted many times especially in WHYS that the Europeans who were concerned about climate change and wanted the US to cooperate were making a major mistake bashing America during the early part of the decade. Instead they should have been talking to China and India. The US will not unilaterally fall on its sword making concessions that would adversly impact its trade competitiveness even in good times. If that is what is meant by "US leadership" then on this issue there is none. During this economic downturn that possibility is virtually nil. But China and India would not make any substantive concessions at all. And now that China is the number one producer of CO2, has the second largest economy in the world, is growing at an astronomical rate of over 10% annually while the US economy is barely recovering, the chances of the US agreeing to anything are slimmer than ever.
Also Mr. Black, you left out the recent damning revelations about the e-mails coming out of East Anglia University. These revelations cast grave doubt on the entire scientific argument that climate change is manmade or that there even is a process in progress. Of the three principal sources of this argument NOAA, NASA, and UEA, it isn't clear that there wasn't collusion among them for their own self interests. It seems the long term argument going back around a thousand years was based on tree ring growth but the data didn't fit the theory for the last fifty years so they used what they termed "a trick" to splice actual recorded climate data for that period to the previous tree ring data. To many it looked like a fudge and a deliberate lie. Whether this factually discredits the theory scientifically or not, it was a very damaging blow to its credibility in the public eye not only to those who didn't believe the theory but those who were undecided. It was the icing on the political cake for those opposed to legislation.
And so we watch and wonder if climate change is really happening. Melting of the polar ice caps and glaciers suggests it is. Is it manmade or the result of a natural process and is there anything the human race can do about it? We don't know but one topic which NEVER comes up for discussion is the root cause of climate change, overpopulation of the earth by human beings. Unless and until that subject is taken seriously and an effective program to drastically reduce the world's population is agreed to and implimented, you will know nobody is really serious about this, it's just one more diversion from other unsolvable problems. As a final laugh, someone from the UN, I forget who said that he'd hold President Obama to promises he'd made at Copenhagen. And just exactly how is the UN going to do that?
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aannnnd you're back in the room.
I see a few people are latching onto the shift caused (in part) by climategate (and inpart by our politicians abject inability to organise a drinking session in a drink-producing-place) as a way to attack 'sceptics' again.
Someone rightly pointed out earlier that 'all scientists are sceptics'. The first time a scientist tells you they know something 100% and that the debate is over is the time you stop listening to them.
Climategate, still yet to be adressed fully, regardless of your stance, does raise important questions regarding peer review, data handling/manipulation and scientific professionalism.
At the very least there should be a review into these basic issues.
The thing i find so hard, so difficult to get me head around it that the ENTIRE argument could be put to bed, virtually overnight if they JUST RELEASED THE RAW DATA. The abject refusal to, even in the face of repeated FOI requests worrys me deeply.
Should we curb emissions? Unquestionably, it's common sense. SHould we clamp down HARD on pollution/polluters, good-god yes. Can we still rely on the IPCC/CRU to be impartial and scientifically sound? I'm not so sure, the more that comes out, the worse it looks for them.
Finally, whoever said that the HIE adjustments are adequate is either entirely ignorant or in the posession of data we all don't have (i.e. the calculated adjustments for EACH individual sight with correction values for population, location, infrastructure, movement and maintenance). If you have that data kindly link. If you're referring to the arbitrary 'adjust via popn' model, then i think you need to look again.
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#41 Eric get your facts right it is estimated that globally 1 trillion dollars has been spent on global warming and supposed green technology. Result nothing
USA imports of foreign oil represent only 8% of consumption from none friendly countries rising to 21% if all foreign imports are included. North American reserves of oil are estimated at 185 years on current know sources of supply.
There is no global warming for the past 15 years we should take this disgraceful and fraudelent behaviour from left wing extremists and use it as a lesson.
Yes lets find economical alternative and green sources of energy but the idiots have wasted a trillion dollars on utter rubbish
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As far as I'm concerned the science is settled: there is not the slightest evidence for man-made climate change. CO2 is just a trace element in the atmosphere. The Earth's climate has been much warmer is the past and it's been much cooler too; that's the nature of climate - it's changeable.
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Cambridgedon, I think you have jumped to a conclusion just as surely as those on the other side of the argument have. The heat on the surface of the earth and average temperature is the result of solar radiation reaching the earth compared to what is reflected back into space and the rate at which heat from the earth's molten core reaches the surface and to what degree that is radiated into space. A 1 degree C change in the average surface temperature is only one part in about 300 or less than one third of one percent. Whether the necessarily complex models we have so far accurately predict what will happen as CO2 content of the atmosphere rises is still an open question. This is what is so disturbing about these recent revelations, they cast doubt on the integrity of the scientific argument and of the intellectual integrity of the scientists themselves. At this point an honest assessment would be that we just don't know. Considering what is at stake, this is inexusable at this late date also taking into account the computing resources available to us. This debate has been turned from one of scientific facts resolved by scientists and econoists on a worldwide scale to one of a political football. Had the CFC problem been handled the same way, the hole in the ozone layer would still be getting larger instead of smaller.
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@rchrenko #25
It is truly fascinating reading the posts of climate sceptics. As a result of a few controversial emails, a handful of dissenting scientific studies and the rabid right-wing press, these people have gone entirely off the handle. Yet challenge them on the *facts* and they go strangely silent.
So challange us - many of us are up for it
/mango
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rchenko, jasonsceptic, Erik Bloodaxe, et al.
emails, leaks, reports -- who cares?
the end of the day this is all prevaricating, fiddling while Rome burns.
people like you think creatively inside the box, to what end? -- the established 'order of things' is rotten and needs replacing.
no to 'time is money', no to 'maximising returns for shareholders', no to 'national interest' and definitely NO to war and armed conflict.
bowmanthebard #38.
good to see you back and arguing. ;)
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No. 35, Jasonsceptic:
At the risk of sounding "anti-American" -- most emphatically, I am not -- I take a great many official pronouncements from American authorities with a grain of salt. And I do mean "authorities" in its broadest sense.
Americans as a population have never been more confused. The decline in our educational systems, especially at the key secondary school stage, make it very difficult even for some people with credentials to act in a 100% rational, surgically-precise way. Americans are trying to stay in "world leader" position on the strength of the reputations of the people who, perhaps 30-40 years ago, did indeed have the brains & discipline to make that claim.
It is not that the people who claim climate change does not have a man-made component are ill-intentioned. Most of them are indeed well-intentioned. Most of you here certainly are. (I reserve judgement about the 'cheap-shot' brigade, but there are fewer of them now, I think.)
It is just that some believe their religious beliefs require of them to assign greater emphasis to "God's will" than to "human failings" as they look around.
My first criticism to these people: You really don't get out enough. Especially someone who has a big career at NASA, or Cal Tech, or CERN. These are pretty elite circles.
Rub shoulders with the less well-heeled, and travel the earth. Take a close hard look.
Right now, we are having these torrential rains in much of California. They are a Godsend: where I am wintering (as I see it), the desertification got so severe, it looked like Mars just three months ago. But not when I last drove through, regularly, back in 2006.
Believing in God -- I do -- does not mean expecting God to clean your messes up for you, does it?
It is good we are having a decent rainfall, but it used to happen without such severe mudslides, because there were fewer firestorms, because there was less drought and habitat degradation from pollution & emissions & resource mismanagement. I had lived in California some 20 years before I even saw one house go over a cliff, or get washed away in the surf. That kind of severe coastal erosion began to ramp up in 1980. I actually remember the specific year, and the specific news reports.
Hansen did not push those houses off the cliffs, no matter what his bosses might say.
Neither did God "intend" for these people to get punished. When Pat Robertson suggested "God was punishing Haitians" I think we pretty much all agreed that ranked him with the Talibs, in terms of having sound doctrinal opinions about "God's will."
We have all pretty much agreed that we object to pollution, mismanagement, rampant waste, egregious excess... Why is it so difficult to embrace the idea that humankind might finally get its act together and make some better decisions about how to generate electricity? Or manage farmland? So there is less drought, less desertification, less pollution, less stress?
Is it absolutely necessary to deplete the soil in California so that everyone in North America gets their lettuce from Salinas? Couldn't some of that lettuce be grown in Canadian hothouses instead? Using fewer pesticides?
What Americans often don't realise is just how much of our worst policy is driven by the insistence on "US first -- always." That's no way to run a Planet!
Do you use a turn-of-the-20th-century telephone, Jason? Of course not! Why should you rely on a power-plant that is actually using turn-of-the-20th-century coal-fired processes? And management concepts? Or even WW2-era processes? How can the US, with all the status it lays claim to, rely so much on Coal? On antiquated grids? That some are terrified "any backward terrorist or determined evil hacker" could bring down?
Second criticism: Underlying a great deal of the concern of conservative Americans about possible laws regulating emissions are fears about the cost to them personally.
That is an understandable concern in these fraught times. But it should be acknowledged for what it is -- fear of poverty -- instead of masked with ad hominem attacks on those of us who have reached the certain knowledge that the truth is we really have endangered human survival with the amount of pollution we have allowed to accumulate, unchecked.
Let us address the economic worries. Don't just invoke the Ostrich Act and claim AGW is just part of some "vast wingnut conspiracy": it isn't. It may make perhaps as many as fifty thousand scientists uncomfortable, but out of a population of six-point-eight billion, in which Many Millions of Scientists -- even Scores of Millions -- are convinced & concerned, they don't add up to a very big number.
Third criticism: Pollution originates in special interests. It is protected by special interests. And these special interests are playing you "God-fearing" conservatives like a violin. (Except you are not really "God-fearing." If you were, you would be consuming less and helping more, instead of objecting to Cleaning.)
These same master corporate violinists who are playing you, who took your retirement savings and are trying to make sure you remain indebted to them for however many years you have left, are also killing you slowly with all kinds of sweet lies.
And paying some people to claim Hansen is unhinged, the BBC works for the Sinister Secret World Government, and that people like myself -- believing, practicing Christians, and actually in many ways not very different from you in any number of ways -- are secretly in the employ of the Anti-Christ.
Who is plotting to rob you of your freedoms by taking away your SUV or taxing your electricity bill.
Which is all, I trust you realise, patent nonsense. Far more deficient in coherence than some cheap Hollywood script, far more harmful to your mental health than even the amount of metal particulates in the exhaust of the tailpipes & smokestacks of advanced societies -- that we are trying to scale back on.
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So cynics claim they want to discuss the science of climate change. Could any of them give us a scientific explanation for the following?
But please don’t say:-
1) It’s only natural
2) It’s only the Sun
3) It’s only the Earth’s orbit
4) It’s only the clouds
5) It’s only the cosmic rays
6) But……...It cannot possibly be CO2 from burning fossil fuels. (because then we’d be responsible and could do something about it, right?).
Otherwise the only conclusion anyone could come to is that the cynics are:-
a) Directly or indirectly employed by the fossil fuel industry or
b) Directly or indirectly employed by the commercial media or
c) Couldn’t give a hoot about anything.
So now to your explanations for the following warming observations:-
1) ‘It’s almost certain by now that January 2010 will also be the globally warmest January on the UAH satellite record – the anomaly will likely surpass 0.70 °C.’
Believe it or not, this quote comes from ‘Mr Sceptic’ himself, Anthony Watts. The basis for this is the ASMU-A sensor on board NASA’s AQUA satellite. One of the scientists responsible for it is Dr. Roy Spencer at UAH (University of Alabama Huntsville) who also doesn’t believe CO2 is the main driver of the present warming - so there’s no hidden agenda.
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
If the link doesn’t work go to:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps and click on ‘Draw graph’ at the bottom left hand corner. Use ‘near surface’ values (‘cause that’s where we live and where all the ice is). Note that NASA has already said that 2009 tied as the second warmest year in the instrument record and we’ve started higher than that!
Also check out the 14000 feet channel on there.
2) Why is the sea ice at record low levels for the time of year considering it is well below freezing up there and almost completely dark. Hint - Much of the additional heat is being stored in the oceans at the moment.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/iphone.anom.series.html
3) Why, from the graph below, has summer arctic sea ice declined from about 11 million square kilometres in the 1950’s, down to 6.5 million square kilometres now. That is a 50 year declining trend (climate).
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seasonal.extent.1900-2007.jpg
And this from the Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/two-degrees-to-disaster-20091217-kzhv.html
and also see the link below and scroll down to Fig. 4 (Arctic sea ice decline. Faster than forecast).
The red line is the observed decline. The others are the models.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1398&tstamp=&page=17
4) As for the item on the Himalayan glaciers, none of it changes the facts of anthropogenic global warming or ice retreat as the links below show. I wish it did.
Why are the New Zealand glaciers melting? See the link below regarding the shrinking of New Zealand glaciers:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news-nz/20092411-20286-2.html
This indicates that the loss of glacier mass observed in 2007-08 has continued.
5) Why are the Swiss glaciers retreating?:
http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/index.html
And here:
http://glaciology.ethz.ch/messnetz/glacierlist.html
And why did Michael Zemp, a researcher at the University of Zurich’s Department of Geography say this:-
The University of Zurich’s World Glacier Monitoring Service reported earlier this year, “The new data continues the global trend in accelerated ice loss over the past few decades.” The rate of ice loss is twice as fast as a decade ago. “The main thing that we can do to stop this is reduce greenhouse gases” he said.
http://www.planetark.com/enviro-news/item/53470
And why is the snow melt date getting earlier each year in north Alaska?
6) Why have Chinese scientists reported vanishing glaciers when they visited the Tibetan Plateau?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6907919.ece
7) Why has the Beijing meteorological bureau said this about the recent cold spell in China?
http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/05/china-freak-storm-global-warming-science/
8) Why is there a direct correlation between all of the above and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere? The rise in the level of CO2 has been conclusively proven to be anthropogenic in origin because a) it contains almost no C14 which living things produce and which decays to C12 in fossilized carbon b) it is directly proportional to the amount being emitted by mankind.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
9) Would, by any chance, any of the Newspapers that are going to publish more anti-science this weekend be any of these?:-
Daily Telegraph: owned by the Barclay brothers, two billionaires who live in the Channel Islands.
Daily Mail: owned by Viscount Rothermere, worth over £1 billion and non-domiciled in the UK.
Daily Express: owned by billionaire Richard Desmond. He also owns a television production company Portland TV which broadcasts Fantasy Channel and Red Hot TV and others.
10) Why would the commercial media upset its advertising revenue stream by advising ‘consumers’ against rampant consumption?’ They are only interested in ‘growth’ and ‘shareholder’ ‘value’. They have a vested interest in sowing doubt about climate science, much as the tobacco industry did about cigarettes for years.
11) Why do cynics attack one of the few global media outlets (BBC) that isn’t controlled by big business?
I would ask them if they actually believe in freedom of the press or would prefer all media to be owned and run by five or six very, very rich men? Maybe, of course, many cynics work for said commercial global media outlets and their proxies.
So, there we have the ‘real world’ observations. Now we need the scientific explanations from the cynics.
Of course we know none will be forthcoming, or if there are any, the cause will be anything but (to quote Harry Potter) that which shall not be named.
Clue - It has an atomic number of 6 and an atomic mass of 12 and up until the last 150 years had been stored safely underground for up to 300 million years.
Manysummits. Nice to hear the item about renewable energy in Canada. Interesting to see that China is also going full steam ahead with renewable energy.
http://climateprogress.org/category/china/
In the end renewable energy is going to be where the money is.
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@thinkforyourself #51
nobody, as far as i know, is denying the earth has warmed and most of your post shows syptoms of warming, but none of these events tells us what caused the warming
present clearly the evidence to show what caused the warming and i and others will attempt to answer your questions
/mango
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re MarcusAureliusII @ 47
No, I don't believe I'm jumping to conclusions. Global temperatures have been falling since 1998 despite humans "polluting" the atmosphere with millions of tons of CO2. If C02 is the cause of global warming why hasn't the temperature risen?
In the medieval warm period (800 - 1300 roughly) the global temperature was around 4C warmer than now. Then there was the little ice age that ended around 150 years ago where temperatures were a few degrees cooler.
Climate changes - and these changes can happen quite suddenly. If anyone can show me any evidence that recent warming (1980 - 1997) is outside of Earth's normal operating parameters I'd be happy to read it.
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It looks as if somebody in the right place is at last asking the right questions about Climategate and the CRU.
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_technology/s_t_pn14_100122.cfm
The Science and Technology Committee today announces an inquiry into the unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA). The Committee has agreed to examine and invite written submissions on three questions:
— What are the implications of the disclosures for the integrity of scientific research?
— Are the terms of reference and scope of the Independent Review announced on 3 December 2009 by UEA adequate (see below)?
— How independent are the other two international data sets?
The Committee intends to hold an oral evidence session in March 2010
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It is not as complex as presented. Coal and oil flexed their muscle and that was that. As the events unfold people will see another o\pportunity lost to do something constructive. The polticians will not even bring this subject up, wind-socks with a commitment to only remaining in office and reaping whatever rewards coal and oil will offer. No one wants to admit how corrupt the political systems are and it is depressing but without holding elected and appointed and annointed officials accountable nothing will change. China and India have their own polticial agenda and as long as their economies are growing they will take the same position as the West...it can be dealt with later by someone else. If conditions continue to become worse the problems will become avoidable. In the near future when oil is very expensive those economies will be faced with difficult choices and social unrest. Nothing gets done in a political system just because it is the right thing to do. There are bright minds in both countries competing in the race for alternative fuels as they understand the economic advantage that will bring. The West remains obstructionist and settled in the temporary position of leadership but everyone sees that slipping. Things will change but it is more likely that it will be the East leading the way as they have no choice but to change.
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The thing that really puzzles me in this whole argument is that no-one seems to have read Kyoto.
It talks quite clearly about reducing CO2 EQUIVALENT.
As one poster has quite rightly pointed out, CO2 is a tiny constituent of the atmosphere - by far the biggest greenhouse gas is water vapour, in its many and varied forms.
However - governments (well, ours anyway) insist on characterising CO2 as a sort of insidious black cloud hanging over the country - instead of the life-giving plant food which anyone who has done 'O' Level biology knows from their first text book. Ask any tomato or cannabis grower - they don't pump carbon dioxide into their tunnels for the hell of it..!
So - why this obsession with reducing your 'carbon footprint'..? Seems to me its like if rabbits were a problem, but expressed as 'squirrel equivalent' - governments would say: 'Right - we need to reduce the number of squirrels'....
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MangoChutneyOK:
"present clearly the evidence to show what caused the warming and i and others will attempt to answer your questions"
I think the arguments that present day warming can be attributed to man made C02 are summarized here
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
Of course there are detailed arguments against some of these points, and there's a discussion at the bottom of the article which brings some of them out. However, you should at least agree that the evidence does support an anthropogenic cause for some if not all of present day warming
I should also point out that, amidst all the hysteria here, especially near the top of these comments, people really need to look at the links provided by
thinkforyourself which should remind all of you that the climate will carry on doing what its doing - including responding to increased CO2 - in spite of all the wishful thinking and premature triumphalism we're seeing right now in some quarters.
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Mango #52
I asked you to post your alternative scientific theory/hypotheses for all the evidence of warming (which you accept is happening) I posted at #51 and so far you have given, as I predicted, no other reason for the observed warming other than a broad negative.
Until such time as you can provide such alternative evidence, readers of this blog are entitled to assume that you have none and, furthermore, you either don’t know what you’re talking about or you are being wilfully obstructive.
Until your alternative hypotheses are clearly stated for us to examine, the strong correlation between rising CO2 levels with those rising global temperatures remains, very likely, as the main driver of climate change and this is accepted by 95% of the world’s scientists.
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If we are to take seriously the alleged impartiality of the BBC on this subject, can someone explain why there is no mention anywhere on the vast BBC website of the Parliamentary Select Committee decision to investigate "Climategate"? See link http://www.parliament.uk/science. The BBC ought to rename itself "Pravda".
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Interestingly, if you review the majority of major facts from the 2007 IPCC report, we find that there are large mistakes in the opposite direction. The report has grossly underestimated major trends. For example sea level rise has been much faster in the last three years than the report predicted. The capacity for oceans to absorb excess carbon has also been overstated with the rate of Ocean acidification being greater than previosuly thought. The recent Economics of Ecology and Biodiversity report (teebweb.org) which is not a Climate driven report, still found that long term coral death will occur at 320 ppm of Carbon, due to the rate of ocean acidification (we are well above that number already). The glacier claim is stupid, but so is this whole debate where people try and cling to an mistakes that helps them feel cosy and warm in their pre-held beliefs. I don't want Global Warming to be true, but just a review of observed data since IPCC's 2007 report suggests they are too conservative on the whole, not aggressive. Hence, I too want more transparency on their methods.
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Thanks very much to the posterof the Nature journal editorial. Here it is again. All commenters please read before proceeding:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7279/full/463269a.html
Nature is not some profit-hungry little money-spinner at the edge of a megalomaniac publishing empire. It is one the the world's most respected scientific, peer-reviewed journals with very high, strict standards of approach, evidence and comment.
The problem behind the problem, so to speak, is that we tend to assume that science is a 'pick and mix' offer and that we can agree with the bits we like and ignore/deny the bits we don't - if you don't believe me, look at the history of the relationship between smoking and early death. Thus, libertarians/Republicans/Brit 'Conservatives' bang on about the inevitable couple of errors, exaggerations, fellow-traveller distortions and outright frauds that are bound to be generated by world-wide work on a trend that actually, really, topically and demonstrably threatens the stability of our whole planet.
Yes, that's the problem.
That fringe political 'fact' has been afforded equal status to the mountain of real evidence for anthropogenic climate change is a terrifying indictment of the incompetence and stupidity of the mass media - up to and very much including the science-blind BBC. The smugness and arrogance with which media commentators, who owe their jobs solely to a glib way with words and an ability to ooze their way round the slimy pile of political correctness, challenge and comment upon the work of proper scientists, who work under the most rigorous conditons of procedure and proof, is stunning. I hope lots of them live below the flood-line that takes in over 20% of London, because the Big One is due. It's only a shame that London NW3 is one higher ground, so the 'intellectual' base of the Beeb will get away with it.
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By the way, Mr Black, you continue to have a way with words. Excellent title.
"Hugely changed." It snowed in Napa. Not normal at all...
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Richard,
Compare and contrast: King Canute's attitude to the tide and 2 degrees centigrade.
I think your analysis, if honestly undertaken, will shine a light on just how similar the two situations have always been. Limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade by restricting carbon dioxide production has about as much scientific merit as King Canute's attempt to turn the tide. I see the moderately damp King returning to his castle after his predictable failure and being ridiculed by his wife Ælfgifu for just being silly while he got out of his wet clothes! Sorry about pointing a figure and saying told you so!
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I do not think Richard that you (or Nature for that matter) should try so hard to down play Cimategate. I would challenge anyone who has read the analysis of Climategate by John Costella on SPPI to argue that Jones or any of the rest of his team have any residual credibility at all.
Climategate also like Watergate before it has started a snowball which has still a long way to go.
Noticable for example is the fact that the standard excuse given - that CRU problems do not really matter because NOAA and NASA also show the same thing - is now beginning to turn the focus on these and to show that they are equaly if not more flawed.
Governments too are ceasing to be total Patsy's. In the UK e.g a Science and Technology Committee has been set up to investigate and report on Climategate and in the US the EPA's "endangerment" finding against CO2 will now be challenged.
The tall buildings have started to shake. It is only a matter of time before they start to fall.
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Yes, the (political) climate has changed.
Is it time for some balance in BBC coverage ? Just asking...
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Richard Drake @10: "principled actions of the Climategate whistle blower at the UEA". Care to provide any evidence that the emails were not hacked by an outsider?!
Roldan D @11: Lovely bit of smearing there!
Nick @ 15: So swine flu was an evil hoax as well. Says it all really...
Blunderbunny @ 24: If climate science was based on the activity of internet chat rooms then you are probably right that you are "finally on the verge of winning the argument". If it makes you feel better, then 'you have won'.
"Cambridgedon" - best name for a poster i've seen in a while. I must trust what your learned writings say!
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John from Hendon and Bandythebane #63 and #64
As you are ‘so sure’ that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not responsible for any of the observable effects detailed in my post #51, can you provide your detailed alternative theory/hypotheses to explain what is causing the warming that is producing these rapid observed effects.
If you cannot provide us with your detailed hypotheses as per the above, could you also provide us with your detailed reasoning why you feel confident to dismiss all the evidence that the main driver is very likely to be anthropogenic emissions of CO2 in the light of the fact that CO2 has been known to be a powerful greenhouse gas for over 150 years and we are now emitting it at 40 billion tonnes per year.?
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The climate has indeed changed as Jack Hughes said #65 and I believe this kind of science will never again be allowed to distort the public consciousness.
This is not good for science but what may happen next is that some very serious thought will be given to how science can be distorted by politics money and the media.
Richards' balance reflects fear of speaking against the 'consensus view' which would be against the organisations declared policy.
But the BBC the Met Office and the Royal Society amongst others got carried away and will suffer in what happens next.
We must teach our children rational thought and how to find answers to the questions we ask not tell them what they must believe.
The science is never settled
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Paul Kerr #68.
"We must teach our children rational thought.."
wow, which planet you live on?
in this world our last prime minister and the last president of 'the greatest nation on earth' listened to god before invading Iraq.
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If the climate proponents are wrong, we end up with cleaner energy and air. If the climate skeptics are wrong, we end up with a dead planet - which is really bad for business. Which is worse?
People have their heads in the sand on this issue, even if the rays are burning their butts. It's "tomorrow's" problem that will affect their kids and grandkids, so they don't see it. 9/11 was the same - no one saw anything coming until it happened.
Only in this case, by the time the morons see it, the damage is done and its too late for their kids/grandkids who have to live in it, if they can.
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Cambridgedon;
"re MarcusAureliusII @ 47
No, I don't believe I'm jumping to conclusions. Global temperatures have been falling since 1998 despite humans "polluting" the atmosphere with millions of tons of CO2. If C02 is the cause of global warming why hasn't the temperature risen?"
Then how do you explain the rapid melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps. I think that's what has a lot of scientists worried. I was also a skeptic until I saw photographs comparing them over decades a few years ago. I saw the Columbia glacier in Prince William Sound with my own eyes in 1988. The photos of it I saw a few years ago looked nothing like that. A lot of ice has disappeared in a very short time. Not just there but in a lot of places.
On the other hand, graphs of CO2 levels versus global temperature seems to have the CO2 graph lagging temperature changes. If it was the cause, it would be leading so perhaps it is the effect. I just don't know and I don't think anyone else can be certain at this point either.
Implimenting the changes necessary to slow or stop global warming scientists insist are needed if they are right would plunge the world into a perpetual economic depression. Not implimenting it if they are right could result in our extinction. This is why their questionable credibility is so infuriating. You can no longer believe a word they say about it even if they are right.
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Fjet2020 (#70),
"If the climate proponents are wrong, we end up with cleaner energy and air."
That would be nice. How about these other likely effects? We all end up with less growth. The two billion people without electricity on the planet are prevented from using coal to put that right very cheaply, so many more millions die of preventable diseases. Because almost everyone is poorer there is less money to clean up pollution of all kinds. But a few privileged people in banks with an inside track with governments who decide on carbon permits make billions in cap and trade and other such rigged markets.
On top of this, in a fit of guilt, we transfer billions to corrupt developing country governments that are meant to help them adapt to climate change but in fact only serve to increase their tyrannic control over their own peoples.
That last one was what Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the official negotiator for Sudan and the G77 block of developing countries led by China, was doing all he could to argue for at Copenhagen. The language he used throughout, especially at the end, and the murderous record of his own government, should serve as a warning to all of us not to be naive about impacts of any kind.
There is a 'hugely changed climate' now, as Richard says. Thanks goodness for that. But we shouldnt assume too much, not yet. And the debate is bound to be passionate, because of the enormity of the stakes on each side.
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MarcusAureliusII
"This is why their questionable credibility is so infuriating. You can no longer believe a word they say about it even if they are right."
Bear in mind, Marcus, that I don't see this "questionable credibility".
I see a dodgy dossier about Himalayan glaciers that found its way into the IPCC report. But the rest of it is full of peer reviewed science.
I see some guys at UEA got upset because they perceived vexatious FOI requests from Steve McIntyre. Probably (in retrospect) they'd have been well advised to release the data, but you might think that McIntyre had no intention of using the data for original research, but only wanted to identify and emphasize any errors he could find. So I can see Phil Jones' point.
I see a programmer ('Harry') struggling with some legacy code. As often happens
And that's about it.
You have to understand that virtually all peer reviewed climate science is fully consistent with the view that modern warming is largely caused by anthropogenic fossil fuel emissions.
Be skeptical, by all means. But you must be equally skeptical about any alternative theories you may read about.
And don't confuse statements of scientific uncertainty (which are a standard part of the scientific process) with lack of understanding or a lack of credibility. The development of the science and the reduction of uncertainty is really not helped by politically motivated attacks which concentrate on minor errors in details of the edifice while ignoring its fundamental consistency
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#67. thinkforyourself wrote:
"As you are ‘so sure’ that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not responsible..."
I know that I should retaliate and start poking huge holes in the 'so sure' that you seem 'so sure' about - I won't do so again -- click back through Richard Black's blogs and see perhaps a couple of dozen detailed refutations of the CO2 theory from me.
As to what changes climate from time to time: I tend to believe answers that suggest that changes in our climate are due to a number of large and quiet high energy physical properties of the solar system - the solar flux, the changes in obliquity, the relationship with the moon. If you want to change the earth's temperature perhaps one way you could try is the stop depositing water vapour into the upper atmosphere and thereby reduce global dimming. Apart from that, modifying the solar flux seems rather a difficult engineering problem beyond our capabilities.
So stop flying and build huge electric/magnetic arrays between us and the sun to modify the solar flux - but as a quick calculation shows that the scale of the engineering is beyond our capabilities and is likely to remain so, given a best guess of technology development well into the millennium perhaps the best thing that we can do is ameliorate the effects of climate change - reduce the population, relocate flooded-out people etc. We should certainly not waste money of CO2 reduction!
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Oh dear, warmist toys are most definitely dangling out of the pram, aren't they?
Still, on the plus side my snowman's almost gone now, so that's got to be conclusive proof of Man Made Global Warming ;-)
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"What happens next?"
1. SHORT TERM:
If you ask the Met Office I suspect you will be told that we will get an above average warm February.
However, my money is on Joe Bastardi who correctly predicted the cold in January.
"February Weather, Looking Like December All Over Again
Much of the U.S. should prepare for another round of severe cold and snowy weather, similar to the recent "December to Remember," but focused farther east.
AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist and Long-Range Forecaster Joe Bastardi sees a "top-ten cold February" in store for much of the U.S., compared to the last 50 years.
"I believe the physical drivers are all there for a major cold month, much like this December was," Bastardi said.
"It may very well turn into a blend of February '07 and February '03, which were the most extreme Februarys we've had in the last 15 years," said Bastardi. Joe believes that the legendary February of 1958 is not beyond reach.
2. LONG TERM:
Everyone will eventually forget about the "man-made" global warming hoax. Discredited climate alarmist scientists will quietly retire. And soap box politicians will find a new doomsday scenario to bleat about to the sheeple.
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Bandythebane at # 64 says:
‘….Climategate also like Watergate before it has started a snowball which has still a long way to go.’
Yes, in the sense that they were both criminal conspiracies. One by Richard Milhouse Nixon and the other by the ‘hacker’ and his as yet unknown (but can certainly be guessed at) paymasters, who stole the material from a university server and timed its release with the express aim of smearing the scientists there and thereby attempting to derail the chances of an agreement at Copenhagen.
Yes, it was a massive criminal conspiracy that could endanger the well being of future generations and, as such, if and when the blighter and his sponsors are caught, I hope they are subjected to the full rigour of the criminal law.
By the way, why no reply, yet, on your alternative scientific explanation of the observed effects detailed in my post #51?
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Fjet2020,
So either "its too late for their kids/grandkids" or we condition kids/grandkids and parents/grandparents with a paranoia based on what seems pretty flimsy evidence...with the likes of this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKUHY-3tuwM
Also, the Science and Technology Committee Announcement today looks like it may dig a little deeper than, at least I, suspected it would:
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/science_technology/s_t_pn14_100122.cfm
The Independent Review will:
1. Examine the hacked e-mail exchanges, other relevant e-mail exchanges and any other information held at CRU to determine whether there is any evidence of the manipulation or suppression of data which is at odds with acceptable scientific practice and may therefore call into question any of the research outcomes.
2. Review CRU's policies and practices for acquiring, assembling, subjecting to peer review and disseminating data and research findings, and their compliance or otherwise with best scientific practice.
3. Review CRU's compliance or otherwise with the University's policies and practices regarding requests under the Freedom of Information Act ('the FOIA') and the Environmental Information Regulations ('the EIR') for the release of data.
4. Review and make recommendations as to the appropriate management, governance and security structures for CRU and the security, integrity and release of the data it holds .
Personally I like to understand the numbers before forming an outright opinion and have yet to come across any that convinces me of AGW, and, as such remain firmly in out leaders "flat earth" group.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
As predicted, John from Hendon did not answer my specific questions from post #51 and #67 and went off the subject waffling at post #74:
‘… I tend to believe answers that suggest that changes in our climate are due to a number of large and quiet high energy physical properties of the solar system - the solar flux, the changes in obliquity, the relationship with the moon.’ !!!!???
But more tellingly he says, again as predicted:
‘..We should certainly not waste money of CO2 reduction!’
So, in his ‘opinion’ he ‘tends to believe’ ….’answers that suggest’…..that the severe observed effects detailed at post #51 could be caused by…um…the moon, um…solar flux…etc.
But definitely not by the GHG, anthropogenic CO2.
It’s a long time since I’ve heard such a ‘logical’ argument.
Blunderbunny #75, answers please to questions put at post #51.Your efforts wouldn’t even make it into the Sun newspaper. That’s written to the level of an 8 year old.
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Shadorne # 76. You’re a text book denier. I can’t even hazard to guess what your motivations are except to say they are disingenuous.
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thinkforyourself,
....can't you?
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Perhaps the coup-de-grace in meaningful climate action will be yesterday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that limits on corporate campaign contributions are unconstitutional restraint of free speech. No one stands more to lose from emissions caps than the oil companies -- which are also the companies with the highest cash reserves. Can private donations match the influence of Exxon/Mobil?
Our previous decision that corporations should enjoy the same rights as people seems likely to kill us all. Why not just make it official? $1 == 1 vote...
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@thinkforyourself
You really dont see the irony in that choice of screen name, do you?
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Thinkforyourself:
It has been alleged by CRU that the emails where stolen, however, there has been no proof offered. Given the email file was called FOIA.zip (Freedom of Information Act) it seems far more likely that a whistleblower from inside East Anglia Univerity released the emails.
You may not be aware but there have been for many years efforts by concerned citizens to get access to the research and raw data that is being used to claim that there is unprecedented warming. For years taxpayer funded climate researchers have been stonewalling efforts to get access to raw data.
If you watched the KUSI news special by John Coleman (link in a previous post on another blog by Richard) then you should be aware that NASA has also been manipulating data in order to make the present temperatures appear unprecedented compared to the past. Simply put they apply a correction to lower temperatures from the early part of the last century while they have selected only a small subset of temperature stations for the recent data (the warmest stations: near sea level and near cities). This makes current temperatures of the past decade appear high when looked at over 100 years even if there is not actually anything unprecedented or unusual about the recent warming that we have experienced.
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60. At 7:34pm on 22 Jan 2010, Indiablue wrote:
Interestingly, if you review the majority of major facts from the 2007 IPCC report, we find that there are large mistakes in the opposite direction. The report has grossly underestimated major trends. For example sea level rise has been much faster in the last three years than the report predicted. The capacity for oceans to absorb excess carbon has also been overstated with the rate of Ocean acidification being greater than previosuly thought.
==========
1. Sea Level - The Maldives Sea Level Project indicates that the sea level in the Maldives, at least, has fallen, and that wasn't based on computer models, the researchers went there and checked on the coastlines etc. There is also some allegation of skulduggery from Climate Change Scientists who visited afterwards and appeared to attempt to destroy a tree that had been indicative of how the sea had receded rather than risen. The argument is, as expected fierce, the Believers point to their monitoring station data, the Sea Level experts point to the inadequacy of the sea level monitoring stations, many being sited on structures or sites that are likely to have resulted in considerable movement with the resulting tendency to report non-existent or exaggerated sea level changes. Google Maldives Sea Level Project if interested.
2. Last November, a Professor at Bristol Uni published a report to the effect that global CO2 sink capacities appeared to have been seriously underestimated, mind you once it appeared in the press, very quickly a 'new' rebuttal style page was added where by a second professor begged to differ and said the data was hard to interpret.
These were on the University of Bristol web site before Christmas, whether they remain or not I've no idea.
Personally, I'm with Feynman
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. "
and maybe the UEA and IPCC people might like this one
"The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another."
finally
"There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made."
If the UEA and IPCC are to be vindicated, then not only should the data be made public, but also the software, in the Airline business I believe that engine control software has to be mathematically proven to be safe, I would suggest that the climate change software needs the same if we are proposing to bet the worlds economy on the output of it, although given it is modelling software, that may be impossible, at least it should be open to inspection.
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Tourniquette at # 83.
Yes, it looks pretty bad doesn’t it? I think hell and hand carts springs to mind.
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To thinkforyourself:
That's a lot of work you are doing to illuminate the situation vis a vis climate science.
Thank you,
Manysummits
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Put your own timeline on this:
1> AGW is a 'goer'.
2> Condition public accordingly.
3> AGW may is not provable afterall.
4> Conditioned populus are confused!
5> NEED to get TAX from somewhere...where is plan 'B'?
Are you confused?
Now watch this:
An interesting old clip, but worth a watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpODYhnPEo&feature=player_embedded
From excerpt at around 01:40 to ~02:40
"...the result you can see. Most of the people that graduated in the 60's; drop-outs or half baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the governments, civil service, business, mass media, educational system.
You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them, they are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern.
You cannot change their mind even if you, if you, expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is, is black.
You still cannot change the basic perception and the logical behaviour. In other words these people, eh, eh, the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To get rid society of these people, You have, you need another 20 or 15 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded an..an..and, commons...common-sense people...."
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The last blog was so nice, it was on biodiversity.
But mention climate, and the lobby is out in full force.
/////////////
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Paul Butler;
"And don't confuse statements of scientific uncertainty (which are a standard part of the scientific process) with lack of understanding or a lack of credibility."
I'm also not confusing it with outright fraud. The fact that the tree ring data had to be "spliced" at the point where it no longer correlated with the temperature measurements puts the entire theory that is based on that presumed correlation during eras before which there was temperature measurement data available in doubt. This is not science, it is a fudge because it appears to force arriving at a predetermined conclusion and the fact that the data and this "trick" as the author of it put it himself in the e-mail was deliberately withheld casts serious suspicion on the motives. It looks to many people including me like it might be a cover up. Why do you think we call it "Climategate?" It has more the air of a religious dogma like so called "intelligent design" than a legitimate scientific investigation and impartial report. Its revelation could hardly have come at a worse time for those who are legitimately concerned. When one aspect of its integrity are put in doubt, so are all of the others.
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Then Shadorne at # 85 why won’t you at least give us the benefit of your alternative theory to explain the warming being observed all over the planet, as I detailed in 8 questions in my post #51, if it is not anthropogenic CO2?
I mean, emails don’t make glaciers retreat or reduce sea ice extent or cause long term droughts and massive heat waves in Australia or cause oceans to acidify.
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To Maria Ashot:
The rains and flooding you describe in California are consistent with the current stste of ENSO - the El Nino Southern Oscillation.
For a look see, I find the 'Diagnostic Discussions' always helpful. Here is the latest, dated Jan 7, 2010, from NOAA. I have included a brief excerpt for the USA:
"For the contiguous United States, potential El Niño impacts include above-average precipitation for the southern tier of the country, with below-average precipitation in the Pacific Northwest and in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys."
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
- Manysummits -
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I see pph at #89. Your alternative theory is that the threat of insidious green taxes is forcing the sea ice and glaciers into retreat.
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Shadorne at #85.
What I am aware of is that John Coleman is a weather presenter at a commercial TV company in San Diego and has a journalism degree. He is not a scientist.
And still no answers to my post #51. If it’s natural change you all have nothing to fear by posting your scientific findings.
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• 73. Paul Butler
‘I see a dodgy dossier about Himalayan glaciers that found its way into the IPCC report. But the rest of it is full of peer reviewed science.’
I think perhaps you miss the point – before ‘the dodgy dossier’ you would almost certainly have argued that it was ALL ‘peer reviewed science’. If one bit of it is now found to be incorrect, albeit in a very minor way, how can you be sure that another ‘dodgy’ bit doesn’t lurk as yet unseen? And if so, how many more ‘dodgy’ bits might there be? It’s all about confidence isn’t it?
‘I see some guys at UEA got upset because they perceived vexatious FOI requests from Steve McIntyre. Probably (in retrospect) they'd have been well advised to release the data, but you might think that McIntyre had no intention of using the data for original research, but only wanted to identify and emphasize any errors he could find. So I can see Phil Jones' point.’
Is there something wrong with wanting to ‘identify and emphasis any errors’?
‘Be skeptical, by all means. But you must be equally skeptical about any alternative theories you may read about’
I am always sceptical. About everything!
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To Richard Black:
I'm afraid James Lovelock wins the prize - so far - for best 'futurist.'
He is very pessinistic in his long term outlook in his last book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia (A Final Warning)"
Rather than indulge in my own speculations about the future, how if I make a point?
This Point:
It seems to me our collective future may be an excellent example of chaos theory, i.e., a deterministic, dynamic non-linear system, where seemingly small differences in initial conditions lead to radically different outcomes.
During the height of the Cold War, the rapid decisions of a few men aboard a Soviet nuclear armed submarine apparently saved the day. Had the missiles been launched, we would even now be in a different world, recovering from nuclear winter, and that is an optimistic scenario.
The best available evidence, all things considered, is at present that we are running out of time, and that a several years delay in addressing climate change with more than words will bring us closer to the 'tipping point,' or bifurcation, but no one can say how close.
It is within the realm of possibility that we might actually arrive at this point of no return in a few years.
My friend the retired professor of Chaos Theory, who is certainly the most widely read man of my acquaintance, thinks of 'us,' mankind, as 'local optimizers,' and when pressed, feels that we may have actually passed the point of no return in the 1980's.
My appeals that he come out of retirement and 'help out' have so far fallen on deaf ears, and he continues to indulge in Spanish classes and to contemplate our next mountains.
His family history indicates he may be long lived, and so his final analysis is that he and his wife may not see the worst in the remaining twenty years or so, at which point he will be safely 'out of the picture.'
- Manysummits -
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Pph at #89. says:
‘..You cannot change their mind even if you, if you, expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is, is black’
I’ve posted that ‘authentic information’ (at #post 51) on rapid observed warming from around the world and from many sources. All we need now is your detailed alternative theory explaining why you believe there is no correlation between the rising level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere and the observed effects.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html
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Climate change is not a problem; governments trying to influence climate change is. Consider the fact that mankind is probably in far greater danger from the plethora of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of governments than from co2, even at many times current levels. In full knowledge of the horrific consequences of unleashing just one of these products of science, governments not only went ahead and built them, they stockpiled enough to blow the planet earth to smithereens. Furthermore, it is now a frightening fact that there are terrorist groups with ever-improving capabilities trying to obtain such weapons, and nations with demonstrably weak government and porous security in possession of nuclear weapons. Nor is there reason to hope that terrorists would hesitate to use a nuclear bomb. As a result, the chance of a nuclear holocaust is probably greater today than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. Governments, however, are demonstrably incapable of disarming to solve a problem governments created. What empirical evidence makes anyone believe governments can successfully address climate change without their meddling having unintended consequences far worse than anything global warming might do?
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MarcusAureliusII
You're talking about the tree-ring divergence problem in your post #91. That has always been discussed as an issue and has never been covered up. Of course its existence affects interpretations of reconstructions of past climates using that particular proxy. So other proxies (not just tree-rings) get used to do reconstructions. They are pretty variable obviously, but they do all tend to show global present-day temperatures a bit higher than the reconstructed global temperatures for the Medieval Warm Period (note that may not apply on a regional basis).
Believe me, Marcus, its far easier to present and interpret real data than it is to invent some massive structure using fabricated result. And why would anybody do that, anyway?
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thinkforyourself:
Maybe there should not be any theory at the point of commitment, but FACTS that can be verified?
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\\\ Abdication of Responsibility ///
I am wondering if voting every few years is enough?
The 'intelligent minority' to whom we have entrusted our futures seem disquietingly quiet; ineffective - non-responsive - irresponsible.
As George Monbiot so forcefully pointed out in his Guardian article of Jan 11/10; "The Holocaust We Will Not See," prior to Industrial Man we were Colonial Man, at least some of us, and a rapacious lot we were, Church and State.
As I look even further back, an image of the Mongol Hordes makes its way into my consciousness, and before that, first arrivals, Out of Africa, on each new landmass were curiously followed by megafaunal extinctions.
We are behaving normally - locally optimizing, Dr. Chaos might say, and consuming all available resources, while mutiplying and filling the Earth.
Our lever is technology, wrought by the musings and actions of a very few high priests of science and engineering - genius at work.
And the rest of us follow along, munching the greenery when we can, or being exterminated if we are so unlucky as to be in the 'wrong world.'
I once had a favorite great uncle. When asked about politics, I remember his pronouncement very clearly - "a dirty business."
Am I to think we should all become more and more involved in politics as it is currently configured?
Is not politics now just 'business as usual'?
Perhaps there is another way for us to involve ourselves - one that does not require that we forsake kith and kin to just another profession.
I learned a very hard lesson in my own life:
"If something is not working, try something else."
- Thoughts at the beginning of a weekend - from Calgary -
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Bonn1e #96
I don't think I would have argued that the IPCC report was all correct in every detail. But I would have argued (and still do, obviously) that it presents an overview of the current state of climate science and draws what are the most likely conclusions (albeit with substantial uncertainties which are detailed in the report itself)
As for your second point - yes the science should be as error-free as possible. But I'm sure you'd agree that with the enormous amount of data that is being handled here, it can't all be 100% correct. We can assume, however that the errors will tend to vary on both sides of the mean so they shouldn't affect the final result unless they turn out to be systematic. I think Phil Jones (of UEA) would have felt that McIntyre just wanted to find holes in the detail of his work, basically obstructing the main thrust of his (publicly funded, remember) research. I'm not saying he was right, incidentally, just pointing out that he seems to be quite a combative individual.
I think if anything good comes out of all this, its that data and methods will have to become more open and that scientists will have to learn to communicate better (especially about uncertainties) than they have done in the past
By they way, I'm also skeptical about everything (at last as far as science is concerned). So even though I'm aware of the weaknesses in the AGW theory, I'm aware that there are even bigger weaknesses in the alternatives, such as they are. And that's why I continue to accept and argue for the conventional AGW theory
Anyway, its late and I must to bed now. Nighty Night!
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61. At 7:49pm on 22 Jan 2010, MercThrasher wrote:
Thanks very much to the posterof the Nature journal editorial. Here it is again. All commenters please read before proceeding:
======
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."
— Richard P. Feynman
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"If something is not working, try something else."
Or maybe...if it's working then don't break it!
The Earth has been waming for a LONG period of time.
WHY try to scare people about that fact?
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The politics is disappointing and the mood swing is changing, however and despite the criminal activities of hackers and false prophets, the science has not changed. I am an Australian and I have witnessed the empirical evidence of the desecration of Australia's ecosystems.
Massive land salinity continues, which has engulfed millions of hectares of precious land, rivers contaminated with hydrocarbons, pesticides and heavy metals. Thousands of native birds and animals slaughtered from mining activities, toxic underground plumes from hazardous waste plants, invading waterways and on a regional level, unsubstantiated media reports that the city of Perth in WA has had its hottest year on record. Biodiversity is threatened - many species have gone extinct. The only assured colony of quokkas live on Rottenest Island away from pollutant industries and land clearing.
Humans are a species which depends on other species for survival - all things go together - all things connect.
The lemmings are moving closer to the cliff's edge. So be it.
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#100, Paul Butler wrote:
“ …. So other proxies (not just tree-rings) get used to do reconstructions. ….”
Yes, like sediment data series (whose hockeystickness is due to building work) being used upside down.
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Paul Butler;
"Believe me, Marcus, its far easier to present and interpret real data than it is to invent some massive structure using fabricated result. And why would anybody do that, anyway?"
Oh c'mon Mr. Butler, let's not be naive. Notariety and funding for starters. Look at the following these people have gotten. CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing but the climate is unaffected...not news. CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing and if something isn't done about it, human life on earth will come to an end...news of the century. Do you realize how much NASA's budget has been cut back since the end of the Saturn program and now with the end of the space shuttle? Some of these people's jobs may be at risk. Now they're part of an indespensable team. This keeps these people working, gets them in the news, gets them on TV, gets them money to speak at various functions. They could write books that would sell, even textbooks. All they had to do was lie. Why did a scientist in South Korea claim he'd cloned a human being?
Scientists are people who are corruptable just like everyone else. When their "peers" who review them have the same philosophical and political agenda they have, naturally they will look with favor at their work and discount even major blunders if they can. Let's not ascribe nobility to scientists any more than to other people. They have jobs, egos, bills to pay, things they want that only money can buy just like everyone else and among them are people who have few scruples. Is climate change real or just one monstrous hoax? I'm not sure, how can anyone else be at this point?
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Thinkforyouself:Then Shadorne at # 85 why won’t you at least give us the benefit of your alternative theory to explain the warming being observed all over the planet, as I detailed in 8 questions in my post #51, if it is not anthropogenic CO2? I mean, emails don’t make glaciers retreat or reduce sea ice extent or cause long term droughts and massive heat waves in Australia or cause oceans to acidify."
It is called natural climate and ocean variability.
Do some research.
Read Grapes of Wrath.
Read about the Vikings and Greenland.
Learn that significant variations in climate have been happening many times before and long before SUV's were invented.
If you and your ilk bothered to read about Henrik Svensmark then you would be aware of the fascinating hypothesis about cosmic rays and their link to climate.
Did you know that the entire planet has believed to have been almost completely covered in ice several times in the past - it is called "snowball earth"?
If you studied atmospheric physics (as I did) you would know about Milankovich cycles.
Do some basic research of your own instead of bleating like all the other sheeple who just accept the stories perpetrated by NGO's and the Main Stream Media.
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Here it is Climategate 2 - the sequel has arrived. This time out, the alleged perpetrators are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/climategate_cru_was_but_the_ti.html
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EPA's recent declaration that CO2 is a pollutant and therefore a hazard to human health was outrageous. That's like saying that if the salinity of the sea increased, salt would be a pollutant also. CO2 is not only a natural constituent of the atmosphere and always has been but in fact human life couldn't exist without it. That is because all green plants require CO2 to perform photosynthesis that sustains their existance. Green plants by and large are the base of the entire food chain for the biosphere. EPA did this because that gives it powers to circumvent congress and impose regulations by fiat. You can lay this one squarely at the feet of the Obama administration.
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Eric Bloodaxe, Acting on a perssonal level and encouraging others to do the same is lame, and is a op in the ocean when acting against trillionaire magnates whose aim is to increase consumption and make money in any way possible and be damned about the consequences. The bottom line is we have been encouraged by every marketing trick imaginable to consume more of course we have been willing consumers willing addicts in the face of legal pushers. however sadly the world is the biggest loser our future is bleak, global warming just one potential negative outcome, dead oceans, dead forests lost eco-systems the list is endless yet we consume, consume, consume. We're the addicts and industry are the pushers, governments facilitate this.
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MarcusAurelius #108
Don't know if you're still following this, but good morning anyway
The problem with your argument about funding is that, frankly, scientists don't get paid that much. As a postdoc researcher myself, I could earn far more working as a computer consultant in the city. And I have. I do science out of curiosity about how the world works. As the dendrochronologist Ed Cook says in one of 'those' e-mails, 'I don't care what the result is as long as its close to the reality.'
So a massive amount of data points to a warming planet and indicates that CO2 emissions are largely responsible (see my link at #57). I'm well aware of other hypotheses (Shadorne #109), such as Svensmark's ideas about amplified solar forcing, and they might still turn out to be right, although that might require the unravelling quite a bit of the physical science of radiation. The point is though, those hypotheses do need to be proven, and until they are the appropriate view is respectful scientific skepticism
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What happens next?
All of the Copenhagen delegates will arrange more global conferences but run them as video conferences instead of flying out to exotic destinations.
There will be no more flying from country to country, spending vast amounts of dosh on sleep-overs, grub fests and booze fests.
The new parsimonious behaviour will be advertised prodigiously to let us all know how delegates are reducing their carbon footprint.
The participating delegates will all have a crash course on bicycle maintenance and instruction on how to ride a bicycle.
The delegate allowance will cover for a bicycle, a laptop, locally produced lunches made from locally grown produce.(vegetables grown in their own garden and the partner doing the cooking)
All discussions and outcomes from meetings will be immediately available for perusal by us lot, via google links.
;-)
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#113 Paul Butler wrote:
"those hypotheses do need to be proven"
This sounds wonky to me. What do you think has to happen for a hypothesis to be "proven"?
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@Paul Butler #57
I think the arguments that present day warming can be attributed to man made C02 are summarized here
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
Of course there are detailed arguments against some of these points,
Paul, we've had this argument on this blog before. This website doesn't take into account the fact that the only way CO2 can raise the temperature significantly is if climate sensitivity is high. There is no empirical data to suggest climate sensitivity is high that i am aware of. Quite the opposite, the empirical data that does exist suggests climate sensitivity is low, although i now accept that there may be problems with the latest paper. If you read the first few comments, you will see reasons why the assumption that Man pumping out CO2 = CO2 rise = global warming is wrong.
However, you should at least agree that the evidence does support an anthropogenic cause for some if not all of present day warming
I have always stated that man is responsible for some climate change, through land use etc, but the case for CO2 being the primary driver of global warming has not been proved.
@thinkforyourself #58
Mango #52
I asked you to post your alternative scientific theory/hypotheses for all the evidence of warming (which you accept is happening) I posted at #51 and so far you have given, as I predicted, no other reason for the observed warming other than a broad negative.
You asked for sceptics to give an alternative explanation without mentioning any of the possible reasons! How do you expect an answer without allowing us to give one?
Further, science works by the proposer of an hypothesis putting forward a case and sceptics showing the case is not proven. There is no precedent for sceptics having to put forward an alternative explanation or is climate change a special case in which the proposer puts forward a case and then disallows any discussion?
/mango
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110. At 02:22am on 23 Jan 2010, Shadorne wrote:
'Here it is Climategate 2 - the sequel has arrived. This time out, the alleged perpetrators are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)'
Well I'm puzzled now. What is the point of telling people the earth is warming due to human activities when it likely isn't.
Why bother, why go to all that trouble.
I can't believe they would do it simply to generate a new form of tax.
I'm really curious, why try and make up such a thing as global warming?
Why not make up something else, they could tell us that tectonic movement was speeding up, but to what end, where's the purpose.
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#117 Dempster wrote:
"Why bother, why go to all that trouble.
"I can't believe they would do it simply to generate a new form of tax."
Nor do I. I think the real reason was expressed by Edmund Burke: "Man is a religious animal." Many people in the West have given up explicit religious belief, but the apocalyptic fantasies continue, almost as a matter of biological necessity, taking ever-new forms from the Millenium Bug through SARS, bird flu, swine flu, etc., etc., world without end!
"I'm really curious, why try and make up such a thing as global warming?"
Just because something isn't true doesn't mean someone consciously "made it up" as a lie.
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@paul butler & thinkforyourself
I should have mentioned:
There is a way of proving the A in GW, simply point to the AGW signature as predicted by the IPCC AR4 Chapter 9 P675. Find that and you blow apart any argument presented by the sceptics. The problem is climate scientists have been trying to find it for decades without any success whatsoever
/mango
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#80. thinkforyourself wrote:
"As predicted, John from Hendon did not answer my specific questions from post #51..."
Sorry but I did answer the questions and if you think my response was waffle and off the subject perhaps you had better read it and consider my many thousands of word in my previous postings.
Summary: CO2 is not causal - there is no evidence that it causes changes in climate. CO2 reflects (and only sometimes) global temperature in the historic record. It is an absolute perversion of the data to link CO2 to CAUSING changes in climate. Read the 'scientific' papers rather than the political statements of the IPCC - the truth of my statements is even apparent from reading the 'scientific' papers of the IPCC.
My opinion about 'causes' of climate change is as stated above.
Get used to it - CO2 is not a problem. Pollution is a problem, but CO2 is a gas vital to life on this planet - NOT a pollutant and not a CAUSE of Climate Change.
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To see the debate between the Professors Singer and Watson on the BBC click here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/8374523.stm
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#9 Bishop Hill
ridiculous. soon we'll have 'typogate', 'misquotogate', 'wrongfontgate'.
none of this bs has affected the core science, the science contrarians will never accept for very unscientific reasons.
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Shadorne at #109 says:
‘…If you studied atmospheric physics (as I did) you would know about Milankovich cycles.’
Shadorne, if you in fact studied atmospheric physics, why can’t you spell Milankovitch? (Milanković in Cyrillic).
And why do you, as an alleged ‘atmospheric physicist’, deny any link between rapidly rising levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and the observed effects of warming?
You say:
‘….It is called natural climate and ocean variability. Do some research.’
Well let’s hear your alternative research (as an atmospheric physicist??) that disputes any link between rapidly rising levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and the observed effects of warming?
Still nothing concrete from you with regard to my questions at post #51.
Until such time as you can provide such alternative evidence, readers of this blog are entitled to assume that you have none and, furthermore, you either don’t know what you’re talking about or you are being wilfully obstructive.
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MarcusAurelius11 says at #108:
‘…Is climate change real or just one monstrous hoax? I'm not sure, how can anyone else be at this point?’
Unfortunately, Marcus, it’s monstrously real.
Go to http://www.ipcc.ch/
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Surely it's about time for Richard Black to stop being the only reporter whose story is always captionen with a photo of his own face and start being an impartial reporter of facts.
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So Shadorne #110, this is your alternative theory!
If you read your Americanthinker article/smear it is by Joseph D’Aleo who has a climate sceptic weblog called icecap.
The web site domain name for ‘icecap’ was registered on October 20, 2006 by Joseph D’Aleo, who is listed among the personnel of the ‘Science and Public Policy Institute’, another organization that promotes the views of global warming sceptics that is backed by the ‘Frontiers of Freedom’.
The ‘Science and Public Policy Institute’ (SPPI) is a global warming sceptics group which appears to primarily be the work of Robert Ferguson, its President and its website draws heavily on papers written by Viscount Christopher Monckton.
Why does it always come back to that guy?
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#122, rossglory wrote:
“
#9 Bishop Hill
ridiculous. soon we'll have 'typogate', 'misquotogate', 'wrongfontgate'.
none of this bs has affected the core science, the science contrarians will never accept for very unscientific reasons.
“
Is that the core science that tried to 'hide the decline'?
Or perhaps the core science that led to the IPCC publishing ludicrously exaggerated glacier melt rates? The IPCC that doesn't seem to believe that its head may just possibly have the potential for a conflict of interests.
Then again it could be the science that led to the Y2K temperature mess giving this from the recently released NASA emails:
“Hide this after Jim checks it”
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Increased sea salinity is toxic, Marcus at #111. Have you heard of the Dead Sea?
It is 8.6 times more salty than the ocean. This salinity makes for a harsh environment where animals cannot flourish, hence its name.
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Mango at # 116.
It’s not an hypothesis, Mango, the ice is melting at the same time as the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising rapidly, due to anthropogenic emissions.
So, yes you do have to explain the warming causing the global ice melt with an alternative rationale if anyone is to take you seriously.
I don’t.
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Paul Butler;
"As the dendrochronologist Ed Cook says in one of 'those' e-mails, 'I don't care what the result is as long as its close to the reality.'"
I don't know where you come from but where I come from that is not science. Getting the right answer for the wrong reason??? If you don't know why it is the right answer how do you know it is right at all? Survey enough one acre plots of land and you will come to the inescapable conclusion that the earth must be flat. Science is an investigation into both what and why. I'm an engineer. Engineers apply science to create phenomena at will. To be an engineer you need to learn a lot of science and I have at one of the best engineering schools in the United States. I've also worked in the largest research consortium in the world for twelve years and was surrounded by and worked with many scientists, some of whom were candidates for Nobel prizes.
If the allegations about NOAA fudging the data Shadorne linked to in his posting turn out to be correct, that is the death knell, the stake in the heart of the current theory of global warming. These supposed allegations if true are the most contemptable corruption of science possible, on a par with the intelligent design wackos.
Thinkforyourself; I wish you would. Your link is to an organizatoin that obtains its information ultimately from the sources whose credibility we are discussing here and which is in doubt. Not only must those who assert global warming is real prove it without using slight of hand but if they expect the world to turn itself upside down by listening to and following their prescription for slowing or reversing it, they must demonstrate that they have proof of the cause. It seems to me they have done neither.
If scientists were genuinely concerned about "saving the planet" it seems to me they would have devoted far more effort to finding alternative sources of energy than to trying to bankrupt the world's economy in general and America's in particular. Junk science + political advocacy = crackpots ringing alarm bells nobody will listen to. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling" is coming from what now appears to be a clutch of chicken littles.
What have they done instead? In Europe where they've rung the alarm bell loudest they've spent their time and efforts on building a monster superconducing supercollider atom smasher, a redundant global positioning satellite system (which the US military has vowed to shoot out of the sky for security reasons), a virtually worthless and redundant space program, and building a redundant super jumbo airplane. Their wind turbines and solar boilers are a joke compared to the magnitude of the problem. BBC reported one company in Europe has developed technology to beam energy from solar collectors in orbit in space to the surface of the earth that is safe because its energy density is only 1kw per square meter. A quick calculation shows the receiving collector on earth would have to be about four square miles to equal the output of just one nuclear power plant reactor. Equally hairbraied ideas include covering half the Sahara desert with solar boilers, transmitting power a third of the way across Africa, and then across the Mediteranean to supply power to Europe. And all in the next few decades. Who can take people who think and talk that way seriously?
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@123, thinkforyourself
If you want to be pedantic about the spelling of Milankovic then check out Chebyshev.
Or is that Chebishev? Hang on it might be Tchebicheff or is that Tschebyscheff.
Or perhaps any permutation of the above and more!
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@thinkforyourself #129
It’s not an hypothesis, Mango, the ice is melting at the same time as the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising rapidly, due to anthropogenic emissions.
Just because there ice is melting at the same time as CO2 is rising, it doesn't mean one causes the other, unless you have direct empirical evidence which you don't. Ice melt is not just caused by warmer air, but winds, seas etc.
/mango
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Yorkurbantree (#66), only just seen your question, sorry:
'Richard Drake @10: "principled actions of the Climategate whistle blower at the UEA". Care to provide any evidence that the emails were not hacked by an outsider?!'
The main evidence by now is the absence of any evidence from the UEA of how the hacking occurred. They would have discovered this very early, if it had been someone from outside - and they had every interest to publish it. In the absence of any hard evidence of hacking, it's far simpler for someone on the inside to pull off something this complex and comprehensive.
The set of emails were extremely well selected to show the abuse of peer review, the very specific issue of 'hiding the decline' in the tree ring proxy data post 1960 and various other thorny details that had become major points of questioning from Steve McIntyre of the Climate Audit blog since around 2002. (The emails relating just to 'hide the decline' in fact go back to the late 90s.) Indeed, I ended up on Climate Audit suggesting rather tongue-in-cheek that the resulting zip file looks something like a love letter to Mr McIntyre!
That is on the extremely interesting thread The Mosher Timeline begun eleven days ago, which has people arguing on either side of this point, as well as providing many fascinating incidental details of the story. Others much more knowledgeable about the emails than me give many lines of evidence suggesting conclusively to us that it must have been an inside job.
The great thing though is that this stuff is all out there for you to make up your own mind about, which is quite opposite from the intentions of Phil Jones and other self-styled members of the international 'hockey stick Team'. I applaud the whistleblower therefore and believe they should be viewed with great esteem for having acted in the public interest and not subject to legal retribution if their identity is finally discovered.
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118. At 10:28am on 23 Jan 2010, bowmanthebard wrote:
#117 Dempster wrote:
What is the point of telling people the earth is warming due to human activities when it likely isn't. Why bother, why go to all that trouble.
I can't believe they would do it simply to generate a new form of tax’
Bowman answered: Just because something isn't true doesn't mean someone consciously "made it up" as a lie.
Well that’s a very interesting answer.
However it’s not a very good answer is it.
The primary question in my mind, is why make it up, to what end.
As regards the answer of ‘it can from the basis of new taxes’, this doesn’t really cut it for me.
They didn’t need to invent something to introduce value added tax or insurance premium tax, they just wanted more money, that was reason enough.
So why make up global warming?
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It seems the BBC didn't like my link to the paper "On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record". However, it can be accessed via John Cook's highly recommended website:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/On-the-reliability-of-the-US-Surface-Temperature-Record.html
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Thinkforyourself, I really wish you would think for yourself. As it happens, I was thinking of the dead sea when I typed my posting about salinity. So at what level does salt become a pollutant? How about in its pure form such as in a salt mine? It was considered so valuable to ancients that we got the expression "worth his weight in salt." Without salt we'd all be dead. The liquid in your blood is to a large extent salt water. Twisting the meaning of words to tell lies is an old trick. It's one of Gnome Chumpsky's favorites. So I put it to you...in the 1970s American TV series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, her father falls asleep sitting at the kitchen table and drowns in a bowl of chicken soup. Does that make water a pollutant too? Infants given too much oxygen just after birth were blinded. Is oxygen a pollutant? Where does this garbage end?
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To ghostofsichuan #55:
" No one wants to admit how corrupt the political systems are and it is depressing but without holding elected and appointed and annointed officials accountable nothing will change." (#55)
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Ghost - Hello from Calgary!
There is a little kitten on my desk who wants my attention, but I need to write a bit.
Your posts have repeatedly re-iterated the problems with our political systems.
This morning, I woke up to this:
Government doing little about asteroids: report (Reuters)
"Why has nothing been done? I don't know," added A'Hearn, who was principal investigator of NASA'S 2005 Deep Impact mission to knock open the comet 9P/Tempel...
The administration and the NASA administrator say nice words about science but it takes a while to implement things," he said."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100122/science/science_us_space_asteroids
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If one will take the time to read the article (a fairly short one), I think it will be clear that A'Hearn's last quote is a master of understatement!
I bring this up because I happen to know a fair bit about asteroids and impact events, another of my several 'special' fields of interest.
Here again, the threat is real and quantifiable, and the funds required to implement A'Hearn's minimum program almost laughably small (see article).
But there is a pattern here.
It is a matter for intellectual empathy - far away and remote from most people's 'special' fields of interest, which appear not to include climate change or asteroid impact repercusions.
Government officials know this, of course, as do the contrarian AGW lobby.
I was reading a little of Carl Sagan yesterday, in the last chapter of his magnificent book "Cosmos." The title of the chapter is "Who Speaks for Earth?"
Carl concludes by saying, "We do," and highlights both the dark side of human nature and our 'light' side, our 'soaring, passionate intelligence,' which he thought the 'clear tools for our survival.'
May I lapse into lingo everyone will understand for a moment?
Most people are as dumb as the proverbial hammer when it comes to climate science or asteroid impact, and the list of further ignorance is large.
But we are tough. Every person alive today has an unbroken chain of successful ancestors behind them stretching back some four billion years.
Surely there is a type of collective genius in that?
Which is why James Lovelock thinks some of us will survive the coming planetary 'change of state.'
In any case, we do seem to need to invent a new way of governing ourselves. A way both modern and old, i.e., something realistic, which will actually work.
- Manysummits, going for a coffee -
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#134 Dempster wrote:
"Well that’s a very interesting answer.
However it’s not a very good answer is it.
The primary question in my mind, is why make it up, to what end."
Do you think traditional religious myths were made up for some conscious end? -- I would say they are more like "memes" that spread because they fit in with some basic human need. Apocalyptic it's-the-end-of-the-world-and-it's-all-our-fault stories tend to spread like wildfire, and although individually they tend to be shorter-lived than stories of the Creation, etc., they are as old as humankind.
I don't know why religious myths seem to satisfy such a deep human need -- maybe it's to promote the cohesiveness of the group, and/or to provide a framework to hang moral rules on, and/or help us cope with the knowledge of our own mortality by "externalizing" it in some way -- these are matters we can so far only speculate about.
One thing we can be much more sure of is that religious urges are a human universal, and the myths they give rise to are generally not consciously made up by some manipulative genius. They're more like a cattle stampede that starts when a single cow sneezes -- and sparks a chain reaction!
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I am an American. Investigative journalism died in my country long and I have to turn to the foreign press in search of actual news. Most people in the US don't even know there has been a climategate. Nor do they know about Pachy's incredible conflicts of interest, or Michael Mann's fake hockey stick. Our liberal press fawns over Al Gore. He refuses to debate or answer questions, but they put him on the television where he makes fantastic factual errors which are not corrected by the host or retracted by Gore himself. But the errors in climate science are so egregious that it will come to light in America before too long - despite NASA & CRU skewing the data. When it does, people are going to be mad. I should say, I do feel the BBCs coverage has been overly-biased to warming - does this article even mention ClimateGate? I hope the BBC will take a more balanced approach moving forward.
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# Dempster Bowman
"The primary question in my mind, is why make it up, to what end."
That is so simple to answer: Money,power and greed.
Think, they are taxing the air around us and to help out they allow you buy carbon credits or offsets. You can buy your electricity from taxpayer funded projects that once the grants strip off will cost 10-20 times the current rates, nice little earner if you can get it.
To make it all work you need to have a suitable scare story that plays on peoples feelings, that takes years to come about as we need to make money on the way. Get a bunch of activist scientists pay them a bunch of cash make them feel important, put a big figure on the front end to distort the message and hey presto an estimate $75 billion a year industry. Simples
Now why all the urgency?
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#140 Kamboshigh wrote:
"The primary question in my mind, is why make it up, to what end."
"That is so simple to answer: Money,power and greed."
That sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, and I don't believe it. It also sounds like the very common error of assuming one's enemies aren't sincere.
You can see the moral sincerity on both sides just from the righteous indignation of contributors to this blog. If we all feel so strongly and we are all so sincere, surely almost everyone else is too?
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Thinkforyourself:Shadorne # 76. You’re a text book denier. I can’t even hazard to guess what your motivations are except to say they are disingenuous.
How can I possibly be a denier when meaningful and measurable anthropogenic global warming from CO2 is unproven and remains a hypothesis?
Try looking in the mirror. You Sir, make all kinds of spurious claims (like the IPCC and CRU do) without one single shred of evidence! Granted CO2 is an infra red absorber but that proves NOTHING as to whether changes in trace concentrations of this gas have any meaningful or significant effect on our climate compared to other powerful NATURAL causes.
Thinkforyourself, if you want to be taken seriously by sharper minds then you need to demonstrate conclusively what are the NATURAL causes for MASSIVE changes in climate that have been observed historically and over geological time frames. Once the NATURAL causes have been fully explained and quantified then one could begin to estimate the teeny tiny impact of man-made CO2. Unless you or the IPCC or CRU can do this conclusively then all you have is a hypothetical unproven "strawman". I am sorry but sharp minds will remain skeptical until such a time as you bring evidence. CORRELATION is NOT PROOF of ANY CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP AT ALL.
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Bowman, I think having read several versions of the climategate issue that we are in a conspiracy.
Humans are easily manipulated to a view especially if you play on their fears and show them a utopian ideal and make them believe that they are doing something good. Plenty of examples of that happening in the last 100 years.
As to the moral sincerity of the AGW leaders, that has been totally thrown out of the window, which makes me always wonder why the good posters on this blog fail to actually see the desperation of their position and the blind acceptance of something that has no scientific basis.
I'll put it this way and if I or you quoted it or posted on this or any other blog we would become subject to anti-terrorist legislation. The comments yesterday by Jim Hansen of NASA GISS advocate the need to sabortage and take acts in the name of envro-terrorism in order to destroy the cities and infra-structure of a corrupt society in order to return us to the agriagn- ages. There is a similar individual in a cave in Afganistan saying exactly the same.
People on this blog in the heat of the moment advocate population control, but who is going to determine the limit and what happens to those who ignore it and with what result. Well we have been there it was called Eugenics.
You need to read Michael Crichton "State of Fear" The loonies of AGW are not beyond doing some of the things in the book in fact I almost expect it.
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elbowmanthebeard;
"It also sounds like the very common error of assuming one's enemies aren't sincere."
I have no doubt they are sincere. They sincerely want money or fame or to bring an end to industrial society in the Western world and revert back to the 19th century. You will notice that not one of them has a realistic plan that could possibly work to reduce CO2 emissions to the degree they say it must be without an end to industrial society. Their little science fair projects like solar boilers and wind turbines are a joke. Not one of them talks about major reductions in the world's population so in order to keep the total CO2 emissions where they claim they must be, as the population continues to grow without control, everyone will have to live increasingly poorly until lighting a single candle will be too large a carbon footprint. What next, a tax on breathing?
The good news is that their game is over. All of these screwball ideas which would only serve to deindustrialize our societies are for all practical intents and purposes dead dead dead. India, China, and now the US will not go along with it. And under those circumstances, the bottom line is that nothing will be done. And if it isn't but the worst is true, these scientists who lied to get their way can shoulder much of the blame. Had they done real science instead of inventing lies, just maybe someone would have figured out a workable solution before it was too late.
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#143 Kamboshigh wrote:
"Bowman, I think having read several versions of the climategate issue that we are in a conspiracy."
I think every academic movement -- scientific or otherwise -- is subject to some corruption, just as every church, every police force, every bank, every political parliament, every manufacturing business has its dodgy characters as well as its reasonably decent and honest characters. That's just human activity for you.
So I don't think opponents of AGW should pay all that much attention to Climategate. Physics isn't corrupted as an enterprise just because a few dodgy characters said they got cold fusion going, or because the greatest physicist of them all did alchemy on the side.
Don't get me wrong -- I think climate science is almost 100% misguided and corrupted for other reasons, and believe me, I'm a sceptic.
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All these climate skeptics that keep vying for some reason to deny anthropogenic global warming amaze me. Who are they trying to protect? Themselves? Or the fat-cats of the petro-chemical / automotive and other industries that are making a huge profit at the expense of our society. Open your eyes. Do you see a world that will be pleasant to live in 50 years from now if we carry on business as usual? Do you have children - do you care about their futures? I have no doubt climate change is happening as I have worked as a development scientist in communities where the sea now comes up to people's waistline in their houses and they don't know where to go, and I have seen the effects of bleaching on the fisheries resources that these people depend on. Children born today will likely never see a coral reef when they grow up. Who cares? Shouldn't we care? Do we want to live in a civilisation where we're surrounded by wasteland and spend our time engulfed in pollutants that we don't need but that has made someone rich, and probably are only harming our own health? Look past the end of your nose. Is this the legacy you want to leave the next generation with? Are humans so selfish that we don't care about the next generation? And what are we worried about trying to make that change? Reducing your energy consumption means saving yourself some money! More people on buses means less congestion and a more pleasant place to live and less air pollution - which Londoners are all to familiar with - you just need to look in your hankerchief. Insulating your house means living in a warmer and dryer house, and again, reducing your bills. Who are you trying to protect by not making these changes?
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@Nicko #146
What concerns me about AGW believers is their constant desire to play the morality card. Nothing of what you have posted tells us what has caused the warming. Conjecture is not empirical
/mango
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To 'Nicko' # 146:
Spot on!
(Thanks to jr4412 for the succint two-worder)
- Manysummits -
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#144 MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"I have no doubt they are sincere. They sincerely want money or fame or to bring an end to industrial society in the Western world and revert back to the 19th century."
They sincerely want a return to a less industrialized, less greedy, more "natural" age in which there is more harmony with nature, more sharing, more "freedom to be authentically human", and so on. Most of them do not want "money and fame" any more than most of us are cunning operatives for Big Oil.
They sincerely think that without urgent intervention, the planet is doomed and humankind will be extinguished forever.
Putting aside my view that those ideas are part of a conceptually confused, historically ignorant, scientifically illiterate Rousseauan fantasy -- and that far from reverting to the 19th century, they would land us in a new Dark Age -- we should at least admit that these ideas are sincerely held. And by that I imply they are not being held for profit.
Your "thing" seems to be that "the real problem" is overpopulation, but to my mind that gets things wrong in much the same way. Have you ever wondered why the population has risen so dramatically in the last few centuries? Or what did "control" (to use your word) the population before that?
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#146 Nicko wrote:
"All these climate skeptics that keep vying for some reason to deny anthropogenic global warming amaze me. Who are they trying to protect?"
I'm trying to protect a bit of scientific common sense, as well as resiting the urge to yield to mass groupthink and mass hysteria. I am not working for an oil company.
"Children born today will likely never see a coral reef when they grow up."
The vast majority of children throughout history never saw a coral reef in their lives. That is not because there were no coral reefs, but because travel was too expensive.
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#147 MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
"Conjecture is not empirical"
? Don't follow this. Any empirical claim -- of science, common sense, history, even observation -- is conjectural.
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Very good summary of the current position. However you fail to mention the currently growing elephants in the room of Climategate and Glaciergate. The government is now to investigate UEA and quite frankly politicians (who are not scientist in the main - 12 MPs have a formal scientific qualification) are waking up to the fact that the science is a lot less settled than they had assumed. I forecast that the Tory party could well throw cold water on the whole business after the election, since their membership simply does not believe it. However, one thing is for certain the climate puritans have had their day, all governments will now be very wary of environmental Cassandras.
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MangoChutney #147. My post was not attempting to address the causes of warming. There is plenty of science out there which is available to be read. My point and question is two-fold. 1. Why this desperate attempt to deny it and why wait until you have been convinced by science when - it it does turn out to be true - it will almost certainly be too late to act? It shows a fear that taking the necessary precautions will be more harmful to the general Jo Public than continuing business as usual. Are you willing to take the risk that it is not being caused by humans? If predictions are correct and it is due to humans - we cannot turn back the clock and we will have condemned our children. Point 2. Why do you perceive it as costly to us the Jo Public to do something about it? Yes, there may be higher taxes, but there will probably also be savings from more efficient energy usage (have you changed your lightbulbs to energy savers and noticed any change to your electric bill?), new jobs created, new businesses and industries built around it - that spreads the wealth a little away from the few fat-cats that is the structure of our current society, and also helps to create a more pleasant environment to live in. I can understand the super-rich from oil and other instrusties that'll be directly affected being a little concerned - but why the rest of us? Wouldn't there be other benefits as well to adopting the changes required? Wouldn't it make for a more pleasant world, and offer new opportunities? Also, AGW is not the only environmental concern in the world - pollution, land-fill, loss of biodiversity, ecosystem services (e.g. fisheries, clean water, clean air) - but addressing AGW may well help us to address all these other issues.
I guess I can summarise:
1. Why do you want to take the risk and hedge your bets that AGW is not true - when if the predictions do turn out to be true, it will be too late to do anything about it? For me there may be concerns within the science, but there seems to be enough to make it a serious concern that it AGW is true.
2. What are you afraid of by making the changes necessary?
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I would recommend that anyone who hasn't done so already should read John Costella's review and explanation of the Climategate emails on SPPI.
It is wonderful to hear climate scientists honestly saying what they really think. e.g. Kevin Trenberth "We cannot account for the lack of warming at the moment.... saying it is natural variability is not an explanation when we do not know the physical process or where the heat went.... geoengineering is hopeless as we will never be able to tell whether it is successful or not".
At last thirty years too late the enormity of their ignorance is clearly dawning. No one after reading all these can ever again say "the science is settled"
or e.g. Michael Mann - "As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, this is about plausibly deniable accusations".
This is a serious problem even on this board. All sorts of contributors -thinkforyourself, manysummits and many more give links to information to support their case but now after Climategate there is a huge credibility problem. Neither side thinks the other's referances are believable.
Once we know e.g. that William Connolley wrote it all, Wikipedia becomes worthless, Realclimate is damned by its symbiosis with Gavin Schmit,and the IPCC itself by the Himalayan fiasco.
The rot is still spreading, the Kusi video on "Climategate - American Style" plausubly shows that NASA and NOAA are probably even worse than CRU and Hadley, so where can we go to find solid ground.
McIntyre for all his acclaim has surely his limits (and limitations) as an auditor, but he is surely right that an auditor is needed.
Climate Science needs to distance itself from politics. It needs a new "gold standard" where the truth is more valued than the plausible rebuttal. Its data needs to be beyond reproach. It needs to have some genuine scientific rigour with genuine experts from all of the hard sciences involved instead of, as it would appear, the bunch of amateurish hicks.
Until it gets these we can all sit here indulging our prejudices and firing dodgy references at each other, but aren't we totally wasting our time?
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bowmanthebeard @ #150
"I'm trying to protect a big of scientific common sense and resisting the urge to yield to mass groupthink and mass hysteria" - fair enough - but what if your hesitation and scepticism leads us to drop the ball - and if the science does turn out to be good - how do you propose we deal with it? Do you not think precautionary action is justified? Leaders and managers have to deal with imperfect information and make decisions on it all the time - they'd be pretty bad leaders/managers if they waited until everything was 100% confirmed if it meant that by that time the damage is done and there is no going back.
"The vast majority of children throughout history never saw a coral reef in their lives.... because travel was too expensive" - maybe true - but it is just one very tangible example of what we may lose. And in the past children could have had the opportunity if they could make the journey - the children in the future will not have that option. As a kid I never had the opportunity, but I saw one on TV and spent 2 weeks as a 16 yr old in school holidays working 12-16 hr shifts 6 days a week in a meat factory so I could afford a flight to go and see one. I accept not everyone has the opportunity to make that financial commitment, but you want to remove the possibility/dream that one day they could see one?
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#154 bandythebane wrote:
"Neither side thinks the other's referances are believable."
That is a good point, and I would suggest we never, ever cite references to "back up our points", although it is reasonable to occasionally cite a reference to let other bloggers know where to find something. I have found this blog a very valuable place to find out where to find new stuff. For example, thanks to this blog, I found out about the Climategate emails before the Drudge Report and before my two boys (aged 18 and 21, and omniscient -- hence the pleasure in telling them first!).
However, I don't agree with this:
"It [climate science] needs a new "gold standard" where the truth is more valued than the plausible rebuttal. Its data needs to be beyond reproach."
We approach the truth by speaking our minds and hearing plausible rebuttals -- that is why freedom of speech is so valuable, and why we should train ourselves to "swallow our bile" when we hear disagreeable or offensive views. ("Offensive" = stuff we disagree with morally).
There is no such thing -- nor should we ever allow ourselves to believe that there is such a thing -- as "data that is beyond reproach".
We must question all "data", and all opinions, however offensive it may be to question some of them.
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Climate Contrarian #156:
"There is no such thing -- nor should we ever allow ourselves to believe that there is such a thing -- as "data that is beyond reproach".
---------
So what?
You bet your life and those of your family on the science and engineering of 'flight' every time you travel by air.
Get real!
//////////
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#155 Nicko wrote:
"what if your hesitation and scepticism leads us to drop the ball - and if the science does turn out to be good - how do you propose we deal with it?"
I think we belong to a stunningly clever and co-operative species, and if some really clear signals that we are doing some hugely damaging stuff eventually emerge, I think that is the best time to deal with it. Why? -- Because only after we have got some very clear signals can we realistically hope to know enough about what caused the trouble to sort it out.
Here's an anology: nations that "prepare for war in advance" nearly always make huge mistakes about the nature of the war that eventually comes. I would almost recommend a low defence budget on the grounds that "whatever we spend it on, it's probably the wrong thing".
"Do you not think precautionary action is justified?"
Well, I'm a bit of a non-interventionist in almost every area of life. Too often, we "go in" with all guns blazing and make things worse. My advice would be: life is an experiment -- let's play it by ear. If something's definitely broke, let's fix it, but if it isn't definitely broke, let's leave it alone -- for now -- lest we do more harm.
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71. At 10:08pm on 22 Jan 2010, MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"Then how do you explain the rapid melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps. "
Sure, some galciers are retreating but others are advancing. The Artic ice cap may also be retreating (although not for the last few years) but the level of Antartic ice is increasing. This is normal - it has happened before and it will happen again.
A 1000 years ago it was poosible to grow crops in Greenland and to graze sheep there. So there is potentially a lot of natural warming to go.
Warm climate = greater prosperity: desserts bloom, literally, due to increased rainfull.
Cold climate = famine, drought and pestilence.
I'm still waiting for someone to show me that the late 20th centuary warming is outside Earth's normal operating parameters. Anyone??
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#157 manysummits wrote:
"You bet your life and those of your family on the science and engineering of 'flight' every time you travel by air."
So if my revered Captain boards the aircraft stinking of booze, I should just keep my mouth shut and hope for the best?
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MarcusAureliusII #144.
"Had they done real science instead of inventing lies, just maybe someone would have figured out a workable solution before it was too late."
your argument ignores 'vested interests'.
example: the 'Electric Vehicle One', manufactured by General Motors was viable, a success with the few people in California lucky enough to get to use them; then, overnight, they were collected and destroyed. WHY?
Kamboshigh.
too much time on the keyboard and not enough travel to the mountains? ;)
got the name of the plant yet?
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Richard Black, then man who can't bring himself to mention the elephant in the room. The inelegantly named "Climategate" should have been top of your list, and the Science and Technology Select Committee due in March deserving of a mention.
The data is looking dodgy as the proverbial dossier. That's why scepticism is becoming acceptable.
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#140 Kamboshigh wrote:"The primary question in my mind, is why make it up, to what end."
I can understand how laypeople would have trouble grasping this. You really need to have done research in an esoteric area of science at a University in order to understand how the research grant process works.
In a nutshell:
An esoteric science usually has no direct business application that industry will fund - for example astronomy, atmospheric physics, particle physics (there are many more). This means that, every year, a Professor and his/her team of graduate students will fill out at least half a dozen or more applications to various government run institutions for research grants. These annual efforts are in addition to funding that a University may receive for facilities. The availability of funds is limited and everyone is competing with peers for a finite amount of funds. It is highly competitive and each applicant has a strong incentive to exaggerate the importance of their particular research. A successful Professor can usually be depended upon to secure significant funds for the University itself and the most successful at obtaining funds usually get promoted to head of departments. It does not stop there, the head of department usually then becomes involved in lobbying (along with other department heads at other Universities) for the government to increase overall funding in their esoteric area (increasing the pie for everyone). Given enough time, a small exaggeration about the importance of the research eventually becomes hyperbole as the number of graduate students multiply and with the increased pressure to maintain a steadily increasing source of funds. Young ambitious graduate students and assistant professors see how the most successful fund raisers get tenured and the whole thing can easily get out of hand.
This is exactly what has happened to an esoteric area of research that I am deeply familiar with: Climate Science.
Example: Glaciergate - a prof in India tells New Scientist that Himalayan Glaciers will melt by 2035. This anecdotal comment (no research behind it) eventually makes its way into WWF report (who also seek to raise funds for their cause) and eventually into the IPCC report. This potential catastrophe is then used as a catalyst by TERI to get around $5 million in government grants. The funds are used by the head of TERI (who happens to be the head of the IPCC) to start a research center specifically for Himalayan Glaciers and to place the original scientist in the quoted article in New Scientists at its head.
Very simply science is run by people and is just as easily corrupted as finance or any other activity. Like Bernie Madhoff - you need to keep things just about plausible and you need to maintain the appearance of being bona fide and authoritative. Just as with a successful Ponzi scheme, the trick is to choose something that many stakeholders want to believe in and then rely on the fact that there are a great many gullible people who are willing to believe in something or be a part of something in spite of absolutely ZERO PROOF. An example of a stakeholder is the Main Stream Media - they pay people like Richard Black to write articles that people will read - to encourage readership and circulation there is always an incentive for a journalist to try and make the environmental issues bigger and more important than they are. (similar motives as the Prof seeking research grants - the journalist is trying to beat the competition)
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Nicko
I suggest you read "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. That book explains very well how cutting carbon emissions is a very poor way of tackling climate change. There are more effective things that should be done with our money.
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bowmanthebard #160.
"#157 manysummits wrote:
"You bet your life and those of your family on the science and engineering of 'flight' every time you travel by air."
So if my revered Captain boards the aircraft stinking of booze, I should just keep my mouth shut and hope for the best?"
up to your old tricks again?
(sophism == misleading and deceiving argument)
inebriation has got nothing to do with "the science and engineering of 'flight'".
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#159 Cambridgedon wrote:
"some galciers are retreating but others are advancing."
The advance or retreat of a glacier is mostly determined by precipitation. Preciptiation (i.e. rain or snow) falls differently from one place to the next, and from one year to the next.
If we cast our minds back almost 5 years, we will recall the dark days when Britain would run out of water, when the water table would take frightening number of years to return to its "normal" value -- if ever, note! -- yet Ireland was disgustingly deluged with flood after flood.
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#165 jr4412 wrote:
"up to your old tricks again?
(sophism == misleading and deceiving argument)
inebriation has got nothing to do with "the science and engineering of 'flight'"."
If I misinterpreted anyone, sorry, I probably didn't understand -- but do you understand the point he/she was making? If so, please explain!
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Bowman’s speciality, jr4412.
He must always take up a contrary position.
It’s all rather boring.
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kavu at #139 says:-
‘…Our liberal press fawns over Al Gore. He refuses to debate or answer questions, but they put him on the television where he makes fantastic factual errors which are not corrected by the host or retracted by Gore himself.’
Is this your ‘liberal’ media kavu? It seems Fox fake the news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS1NWYV1i_E
Does the liberal media in the US include Rush Limbaugh and Hannity!!!
I wouldn’t characterise what these people ‘do’ as either liberal or fawning.
Tell us another story.
Still no-one with a concise alternative theory to describe the reason for the trajectory of the observed rapidly melting ice. Lots of waffling, opinions and stories from weblogs of unknown provenance.
Until such time as this appears we are left with the very likely correlation between the rising level of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere and the observed effects.
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#168 thinkforyourself wrote:
"He must always take up a contrary position."
Yeah, I guess you're right. That's what I always feels compelled to do.
"It’s all rather boring."
Huh? -- Gee, your last compliment suddenly seems a bit hollow!
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If I must ‘thinkformyself’, Marcus at #136 -
Should you not also try to gain an insight into why you use the name of a Roman emperor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius
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bowmanthebard #167.
sorry man, not in the mood to play games.
re-read your own post #156 from "We approach the truth by..", then manysummits #157 in that context.
re-phrasing my own #165: "what has inebriation got to do with aerodynamics, or for that matter, with no such thing as "data that is beyond reproach"?
care to answer?
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Well said Nicko at #146.
I, too, am often in London trying to cross a road against all the speeding traffic. In fact, several weeks ago I was soaked by a passing truck. The unpleasant, incessant noise and fumes, not to mention the danger to pedestrians doesn’t seem a very exciting place to be heading, especially if all these cynics are proposing for us is ever more of the same.
Imagine roads near houses being quieter, a place where children could safely play. Imagine all the stress that could be avoided by motorists. I don’t think anybody could disagree with that. Doesn’t sound very ‘regressive’ to me.
There just has to be a better way.
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I find it astonishing that this atricle did not even refer to "climategate" or "glaciergate"! These two events are the truly seismic shocks that are reverberating worldwide. This will only make people dig deeper into the "science" to uncover the facts.
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And Mango at #147 says:
‘..Nothing of what you have posted tells us what has caused the warming. Conjecture is not empirical’
And nothing that you have posted has told us anything at all. Melting ice is not conjecture.
Why don’t you try to come up with some reasons why the observations I posted at post #51 are being made other than always replying in the negative? Why not establish a proposition. You’ve been given ample opportunity.
You’re not convincing anyone.
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Thinkforyourself:Still no-one with a concise alternative theory to describe the reason for the trajectory of the observed rapidly melting ice. Lots of waffling, opinions and stories from weblogs of unknown provenance.
How smug you are. You think you got everyone snookered now with some brilliant reasoning. Well let me burst your bubble. It is all related to galactic cosmic rays and their effect on low cloud cover and the way solar wind affects cosmic ray intensity. There you have it - no waffling. The evidence is very strong (a lot more ironclad than the laughable CO2 "theory") and the Galactic Cosmic Ray theory is being tested at CERN currently. (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN ) Unlike CO2, this "concise alternative theory" looks extremely promising: we have long suspected a link between the sun and climate, although a physical mechanism has been elusive - until now.
BTW - your reasoning is pretty woolly. If I were to claim there is a celestial teapot orbiting the planet earth - could you offer a concise alternative theory to show conclusively that I must be wrong? And what if you could not prove me wrong? Would that make my celestial teapot a certainty?
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and Shadorne adds yet another single issue narrow-cast (#176), yawn..
global warming -- with or without the 'A' -- is the least of our problems, but, please, do go on. ;(
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OK Gray at # 174, you say:
‘…This will only make people dig deeper into the "science" to uncover the facts.’
So go and look at the observations being made around the world that sea ice and glaciers are melting rapidly (See my post #51) and then give us your scientific conclusions. Check the strong correlation between increasing levels of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (here http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo.html ) and the observed evidence
at my post #51.
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Many of us would like to see reduced traffic and a cleaner environment.
Many of us would like to see wild areas and species protected.
These are objectives that should be pursued on their own merits without the need to use extremely questionable climate science as a reason for action.
It appears that many who accept catastrophic global warming as a reality have no scientific bases for so doing but use it as an excuse to push the above objectives.
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elbowmaninthebeard;
Luddite!
You and your back to nature friends can go off and live in a cave and ride bicycles for all I care, I'll keep my central heating, my central air conditioning, and my gas guzzling car. Your cause is politically dead and will not likely come back to life. The world's agin ya charlie.
trytothnkforyourselfforonce
"Should you not also try to gain an insight into why you use the name of a Roman emperor?"
I'm sure it never occurred to you that it's because that is my real name.
BTW, that truck that soaked you was delivering your dinner to your local supermarket. Of course in elbowmaninthebeard's world they would have had to deliver it by donkey cart. Yesterday's dinner wouldn't be in the store for another week yet.
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So Shadorne at #176, on global warming, which you now accept, as you have an explanation for it (and implicit in your acceptance of the warming is that the temperature instrument records from GISS, Hadcrut and NCDC are therefore correct, (see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/)
you say :
‘… It is all related to galactic cosmic rays and their effect on low cloud cover and the way solar wind affects cosmic ray intensity. There you have it - no waffling. The evidence is very strong (a lot more ironclad than the laughable CO2 "theory")…’
So it’s ‘a lot more’ ironclad. I thought something was either ironclad or it wasn’t.
But then you say, rather bafflingly, of its ‘ironcladness’:
‘… and the Galactic Cosmic Ray theory is being tested at CERN currently. Unlike CO2, this "concise alternative theory" looks extremely promising…’
So it’s not proven then, as the results haven’t been produced.
Surely you have to wait for results from something that is, at present, an hypothesis. I mean, it has been known that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas for 150 years and yet you can’t accept it at all.
As I said before, I can’t even hazard to guess what your motivations are except to say they are disingenuous.
On the CERN experiment, however, I have an open mind and look forward to another piece in the jigsaw.
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By the way Shadorne at #176 you say:
‘…If I were to claim there is a celestial teapot orbiting the planet earth’
Has your hypothetical teapot been observed?
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To Bowmanthebard
Why in God’s sweet mother earth would a group, or rather groups of scientists make up global warming to fall in line with some traditional religious myths. Come if you want a bit of logic and reason, then that doesn’t make sense.
To Kamboshigh
Think, they are taxing the air around us and to help out they allow you buy carbon credits or offsets.
Why bother, why not just up VAT, or fuel duty.
If they want more tax, just increase the rate of all the various taxes.
To Shadorne
If there is evidence against Global Warming, why deny it. What does it serve you to consider that such is evidence is in error.
To MarcusAureliusII
How can you be so sure that science was not done. Figures may have been manipulated, but then figures often are.
So here’s the question:
What is the motivation for a lot of scientists endeavouring to show to Governments and the population of the world that global warming exists, and it’s caused by humans.
To what end would they embark on such an endeavour?
Where is the motivation?
Who specifically stands to gain?
And for the avoidance of doubt, I do not know whether global warming is, or conversely is not happening.
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Marcus Aurelius at #180 says:
‘..I'm sure it never occurred to you that it's because that is my real name.’
I’m sceptically speechless!
He also says:
‘…BTW, that truck that soaked you was delivering your dinner to your local supermarket. ‘
No, I didn’t eat any dinner after that for four days as I was laid up with ‘flu.
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\\\ Peak Soil: Does Civilization have a future? ///
(Earth magazine, January, 2010 issue, in 'Views';
by Ward Chesworth, a geochemist at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada)
An excellent article from my perspective.
Highlights:
1) Since the Neolithic Revolution ~ 10,000 years ago, "we have been degrading soils at an average rate of 55,000 hectares per year..."
2) Modern industrial agriculture is now almost totally dependent on non-renewables, such as "oil, gas and fertilizer raw materials..."
3) According to the World Wildlife Fund, we are now in overshoot, utilizing non-renewables to the tune of ~ 1.25 Earths.
Conclusion:
In order to sustain civilization as we know it -
"two things will be required: a smaller human population and sustainable agriculture not dependent on fossil fuels."
-------
Consider something else I saw in this mornings paper (Sunday Sun) on the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Domincian Republic).
The part that caught my attention was the compiled listing of the ten worst disasters in human history, as far as is known, by category.
I will summarize them, very roughly:
1) Tornadoes; ~ 500 deaths per event
2) Volcanoes; ~ 5000 deaths per event (one order of magnitude greater than 'Tornadoes.')
3) Cyclones & Earthquakes; ~ 100,000 deaths per event (20 times that of 'Volcanoes.')
4) Droughts; ~ 1,000,000 (one million) deaths per event (one order of magnitude above that of Cyclones and Earthquakes)
The world, as it warms, is seeing the expansion of its deserts, and the predictions are that this will significantly increase.
This all ties in with Lester Brown's perceived nightmare scenario - a starving world.
---------------
Ward Chesworth goes on to quote the ecologist William Rees:
"sustainability is the greatest collective exercise the human race will ever have to undertake."
Ward is not optimistic that we are up to this challenge.
May I remind everyone that neither is James Lovelock, nor Sir Martin Rees, nor was Jacques Cousteau.
To be fair, at least as many are hopeful.
My own view at this time:
Until the 'bottom line' of the modern publicly held multinational corporation is seen for what it is, the lowest quality, lowest common denominator of 'worth,' and until such time as the inhabitants of this planet somehow reign in this monster we have legally created and let loose upon ourselves and the natural world, it will be 'business as usual' until it is too late.
We must lead the way and change radically our own lifestyles.
We must demand 'rights for the natural environment' in the name of humanity's future.
We must bring these corporate monstrosities into the service of the common good.
And we must do this in a timely fashion, in a situation worldwide which is already unravelling.
I would like your considered opinions.
- Manysummits / watching the snow fall / Calgary, January 23, 2010 AD -
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Dempster;
In real science which you apparently are not familiar with, when data is mathematically processed, that process is fully explained, justified, and its implications for the final results are explored. It is used because it must be and the explanation of exactly how and why allows those who review it to challenge the validity of the process or accept the explanation. That was not done here at all. What was done instead was deliberately deceptive. Right wrong or otherwise it is not science and those who perpetrate such a fraud immediately lose all credibility for their enetire work with real scientists when that fraud is revealed.
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care to answer?
no idea what you're talking about. Explain.
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@157,
......and not for the first time on this , or numerous other blogs, I take great exception to you comparing aircraft engineering to the myth of AGW.
As an example, the computer models designed the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, but the engineers tested their models on the real world , in search of empirical evidence. They found their models were wrong , and spent two years working to correct the faults that the models had introduced, at a cost of millions of dollars.
Similar rigorous checks are conducted in the pharmaceutical industry, and still there are mistakes.
Where is the empirical evidence of CO2 influencing climate ?
Your religious beliefs insult every person who uses logic, experience and expects facts.
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#183 Dempster wrote:
"Why in God’s sweet mother earth would a group, or rather groups of scientists make up global warming to fall in line with some traditional religious myths"
Because they're religionists, not scientists.
Your use of the word 'scientist' above is bizarre.
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Does increased CO2 level cause global temperature rise ?
That is the question.
According to the Vostok ice core data at CDIAC
They say 'There is a close correlation between Antarctic temperature and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 (Barnola et al. 1987).'
They also say 'The extension of the Vostok CO2 record shows the present-day levels of CO2 are unprecedented during the past 420 kyr.'
However they also say 'According to Barnola et al. (1991) and Petit et al. (1999) these measurements indicate that, at the beginning of the deglaciations, the CO2 increase either was in phase or lagged by less than ~1000 years with respect to the Antarctic temperature, whereas it clearly lagged behind the temperature at the onset of the glaciations.'
They do not say 'increased CO2 causes increased temperature'.
Is it not possible that historical CO2 rise has been a byproduct of increased temperature and not a cause ?
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186. At 11:15pm on 23 Jan 2010, MarcusAureliusII
The question remains, why try and prove global warming exists, if evidence supports the contrary.
Why would a scientist do it.
Where is the logic?
Think logically MarcusAureliusII
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\\\ A Personal Note ///
Dr. Chaos thinks us "local optimizers," a cold and impersonal term if ever I heard one, yet grounded in reality and history, at first glance, perhaps even after exhaustive study, and 'many glances.'
Certianly I have done my share of local optimizing. I suppose it is what allowed me the opportunity to climb full time for some seven years, "for to admire an' for to see," and all at my own expense.
But doing that put me into a position more familiar to the many, in terms of wealth accumulation.
And it may have been the second truly sane thing I had ever done.
And it brought me my wife Underacanoe, and then our son Cloudrunner, and now I blog for free around Richard's virtual campfire - at considerable cost to my prospects for further 'local optimization.'
If I can do it - why not others?
In fact - others are doing it - I sense this.
Can this lifewish, for that is what I think it is, gather force and momentum, until it reaches clear around the world?
On my bookshelves is a copy with gold filligree of Jules Verne's classic "Around the World in Eighty Days." Now a modern satellite does this in a tad over eighty minutes.
The internet is here, and is rapidly becoming the medium of choice. What does that mean in terms of Marshall McLuhan's "The medium is the message"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
- "Paint Your Wagon" -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5_57PF7HwM
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The scam is unravelling Richard; I am afraid your time has gone...
The majority of the public, which funds you by the way, simply wants the BBC to return to a neutral position on AGW; not convinced either way. This is the intellectually correct position, and the democratically warranted one.
It is a travesty that the BBC has unilaterally decided to make itself a campaigning organisation for the warmists, and more so now their 'settled science' appears made up on the back of a fag packet.
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Well said, MarcusA. Earlier, MangoC said of Nicko (#147): "What concerns me about AGW believers is their constant desire to play the morality card."
But it's absolutely fair for AGW believers to play the morality card if they genuinely occupy the moral high ground. And they seem to think that they do. If so, I strongly advise them not to look at the three short videos prepared by CO2Science a couple of months ago called Copenhagen Climate Concerns: Morality. You'll never think the same way about the global warming issue again. I embedded the video featuring Richard Lindzen in my Christmas commentary on Copenhagen, Devoid of Morality. There's no more important subject in public ethics to think clearly about and to get right.
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189. At 11:35pm on 23 Jan 2010, bowmanthebard wrote:
#183 Dempster wrote:
"Why in God’s sweet mother earth would a group, or rather groups of scientists make up global warming to fall in line with some traditional religious myths"
Because they're religionists, not scientists.
Your use of the word 'scientist' above is bizarre
Well that's a very good answer, but it's not actually true is it.
Come on Bowman, I neither believe or disbelieve, I hoping for some logical reasoning here.
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190. At 11:37pm on 23 Jan 2010, BobRocket wrote:
Does increased CO2 level cause global temperature rise ?
That is the question.
I don't agree with you Bob, I think the question is why would scientists say that it is, if evidence suggests the opposite.
To what end?
Why bother?
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bowmanthebard #187.
"Explain."
Truly Witty, If Tactless.
Neil Hyde #188.
"Similar rigorous checks are conducted in the pharmaceutical industry, and still there are mistakes."
'rigorous' checks and studies which do not support the aim(s) of the manufacturer are often sacrificed in the rush to get the product to market; the whole setup (competition, patenting, etc) invites the ignoring of facts which do not fit the bill.
manysummits #192.
"In fact - others are doing it - I sense this."
and yet, a majority still aspire -- and who can blame them -- to "live like the folks on the hill". (John Lennon 'Working Class Hero')
Space_1999 #193.
"The scam is unravelling.."
so is our life support / eco system.
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bowmanthebard at #158 wrote:
"Because only after we have got some very clear signals can we realistically hope to know enough about what caused the trouble to sort it out." - so if there was good chance of a threat to a flight you were on or your health - you would rather wait until there was definitive evidence before doing something about it - what would that definitive evidence be? you would be happy to wait that long because before hand it was purely speculation and there wasn't sufficient evidence? I would suggest you might be angry at the authorities/doctor for ignoring it until that time.
"Well, I'm a bit of a non-interventionist in almost every area of life." - so you're a couch potato who is happy to sit by and watch everything around you go to pot because until it has done so there is no point doing anything about it?
"If something's definitely broke, let's fix it, but if it isn't definitely broke, let's leave it alone -- for now -- lest we do more harm." - And if by leaving it alone you're doing more harm?
Civilisation didn't get to where it has got today being run by people with your attitude. If that were the case there would have been no development and we'd still be sitting in the stone age.
When it comes to the environment we live in, you are right - life is a giant experiment. But the environment is our life support machine. And normally it takes a long time (at least measured in human terms) for things to take effect, and, most particularly, for management errors to be corrected. There is a little idea called the precautionary principle if you aren't SURE about the science - which should have kicked in well before now - because if we meddle with this life support machine and get it wrong - who knows how long it will take to recover a decent quality of life.
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Lets get a perspective on the over population thing people.
There are around 70,000,000,000 people on our globe at the moment.
All these people could, arithmetically, be placed into Scotland, each with a ~30Ft x ~30Ft area of land allocated to that individual.
Now, go do a Google Earth and compare the size of Scotland to the entire Earth land mass...and we cannot manage more people?! Sounds like pretty bad management to me.
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Richard Drake #194. A good video. Of course everyone should have energy. Clean green energy. We have the technology, and there is plenty of room for further refinement and development - and it will probably end up being cheaper and safer. It should be roled out to everyone. And we should replace the old fossil fuel energies. It is a moral issue. No-where in that video does he say it needs to be fossil fuels. And nowhere does anyone concerned about AGW say that we should do without energy!
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Dempster
I think in all issues relating to science there will be (and should be) healthy debate on all sides regarding methods, evidence and conclusions.
Sadly I think that the debate was hijacked by some who saw money and control in a subset of the evidence.
Only politicians and their sponsors will hold up and villify a scientist who, on being shown new evidence, changes their opinion however it is the politicians who hold the purse strings and only scientists who back their agenda will get funding.
This happens in all areas of science, look what happened to Professor David Nutt when his science was contrary to what the politicians wanted to hear. (or Dr David Kelly or Copernicus)
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Dempster;
"186. At 11:15pm on 23 Jan 2010, MarcusAureliusII
The question remains, why try and prove global warming exists, if evidence supports the contrary."
The real answer is obvious. Now that all other efforts by Europe to destroy the dominance of America's economy, its culture, its civilization have failed, this is the latest assault tactic on it. You will notice that the overwhelming majority of so called concerned people are either Europeans or their American sympathizers on the extreme left of American politics. And you will notice that they have excused America's major competitors such as China and India from complying with the same restrictions they demand of the US. They excuse Brazil and Indonesia from burning down the tropical rain forests which play a critical role supposedly in the balance of CO2 in the atmosphere. The ultimate object is clear. It won't work. America will not accept what Europe demands of it and should it try to impose it by any forceful means, it will have a full scale trade war on its hands, a war it cannot afford and will surely lose. That war has already been in progress at a lower level for some time and Europe is already losing. Europe seems determined to escalate it and it will succeed if it keeps up what it is doing. In this regard, China is America's number one ally. Modern China is an American invention. It was invented by President Nixon and Henry Kissinger in 1973. America is the largest foreign investor in China. China is where America sent not jobs but entire industries that were too dirty, too dangerous, too tedious, too low paying to be done in the US. Products produced there will destroy the market for Europe's goods. There is nothing Europe can do about it. The global warming scam is Europe's desperate feeble hopeless way of fighting back. The so called scientists who dreamt this fraud up are the servants of European industrialists.
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Several people have asked why would scientists exaggerate data on global warming.
It may or may not be deliberate:
Many years ago I was an S. Tel. E. at the BBC. (I don't know if the position still exists but the BBC loved their abbreviations: Senior Television Engineer or Engineering Supervisor)
We had a spate of programs where the sound had too much treble sometimes requiring further equalization before broadcast. All the equipment in the program chain was well within specification yet the output had too many highs.
At the time the equipment specification for high frequencies was +/-1dB and here lay the problem.
A mathematician would see an error of +0.5dB as equal (though opposite) to an error of -0.5dB but not so some operators. Some would see an error of -0.5dB as 'down a bit' and would correct it. They would also see an error of +0.5dB as 'a bit in hand' and leave it. To compound matters if a piece of equipment was 'down a bit' they would adjust it to have 'a bit in hand' but still within specification.
The overall result was that all errors in the chain were positive leading to the noticeable excess of high frequencies.
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MarcusAureliusII #202.
that is one way of looking at it.
another, less flattering to an all-American-flag-waver, is that the USA is the most indebted nation on this earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_current_account_balance
"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income."
(Errol Flynn)
you are correct of course to say that "China is where America sent not jobs but entire industries that were too dirty, too dangerous, too tedious, too low paying to be done in the US."
and it is easy to overlook the fact that the Chinese are using German machine tools and British finance -- ouch.
"People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one."
(Banksy)
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Missed the end off my last post #203:
No one had acted dishonestly or maliciously but the result was a distorted output.
Of course if someone had a mission to pump up the highs things could be much worse.
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@202, MarcusAureliusII
I didn't think I would ever have to say this but your post made U_Whoever sound like an intelligent life-form.
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RW 203;
In a totally unrelated matter, the problem with your recordng/reproducing/broadcast chain seems likely the result of cumulative error. While each piece of equipment in the chain may have added a one db or less treble boost, the net cumulative effect was a substantial boost when the overall system from microphone to system output was taken into account. There is a natural tendency to boost high frequencies rather than cut them for broadcast because the slightly sharper transiet attack increases the relative loudness of explosive parts of speech and therefore intelligibility for a given condition of signal reception. When comparing output to input for each piece of equipment each one would rather err on the side of boost rather than cut. This may actually be considered by some to subjectively be an improvement, a cut might be construed as a degradation. Fortunately, this type of linear distortion is usually easily correctable near the output stage.
For the most accurate reproduction of music, current BBC thinking well known to those in the business is for a treble cut to eliminate shrillness. It is known as the "Gundry Dip" after Dick Gundry who "was for many years responsible for maintaining technical standards in BBC Radio." (totally incorrect analysis of course and not at all consistent with Gundry's own philosophy of flat frequency response.)
You might find this posting interesting;
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=75195
You should find the posting by KenG (Ken Gundry) who is Dick Gundry's son particularly interesting. Scroll down, it's near the bottom.
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90. At 00:03am on 23 Jan 2010, manysummits wrote:
The last blog was so nice, it was on biodiversity.
But mention climate, and the lobby is out in full force.
AGREED!
I've been away for four days and here we are back to the same old rubbish.
I see that Mango is in his element again, he seemed lost when there was a different topic to debate.
Who is this quasi Roman Emperor? Is he really on the same planet? A really impressive player on the anti-AGW team.
Think I will wait for Richard to come up with something different.
Cheers
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Vikings maintained a colony in southern Greenland for about four centuries, ending circa 1420 A.D. They abandoned this colony because a succession of cooler, shorter summers had made the climate too cold for them to sustain their agriculture -- food production.
The AGW enthusiasts have not to my knowledge explained how this cooling matches up with their scenario of increases in global temp. over last millenium. The Vikings were certainly NOT reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere during the thirteenth & fourteenth centuries.
Explanation, anyone?
TeaPot562
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jr4412 at post 204
YOU aren't the mysterious Banksy are you? Or, are you an admirer of iconoclasm?
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The film Eli was interesting, a bit like the way of the arrow plus the end result of global warming. Tried to jot down a few tips on survival while watching the film, but it was too dark. ;-) The film should certainly wind up the anti religious lobby cause the end screen shot was of all of top religious books of the planet, all carefully reproduced using salvaged technology, and placed side by side on a shelf.
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Nicko (#200),
"Richard Drake #194. A good video. Of course everyone should have energy. Clean green energy. We have the technology, and there is plenty of room for further refinement and development - and it will probably end up being cheaper and safer. It should be roled out to everyone. And we should replace the old fossil fuel energies. It is a moral issue. No-where in that video does he say it needs to be fossil fuels. And nowhere does anyone concerned about AGW say that we should do without energy!"
Thank you for the considered reply. The key moral question is: is it right to force those that don't currently have electricity to pay more to get it than they would have to if there were no controls, taxes or cap and trade type schemes to reduce carbon emissions?
I don't care that one day green energy will be cheaper and safer. I care about the many millions of children that will die unnecessarily before that happens, from respiratory diseases in Africa - to take one crucial example - through inhaling smoke in huts that have to use fire for heat and cooking, rather than electricity.
The standard answer (at Copenhagen for example) is to funnel billions into developing country governments to try to avoid those deaths. But even if the developed countries make good on such pledges do I trust every one of those receiving governments to get as many people onto electricity as they would simply by using the plentiful coal in Africa to drive down the price? No way. And that way concentrates power at the top, the opposite of what I want to see in what Paul Collier calls The Bottom Billion is his great book on the subject.
I thoroughly agree with each part of what Richard Lindzen says in his video on the morality of the situation: those that oppose AGW alarmism and controls on carbon have the moral highground. We just don't seem to realise it yet. But, with more revelations today of key IPCC insiders greasing their own palms through the system of fear they themselves created, that is changing fast.
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#180 MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"Luddite!
"You and your back to nature friends can go off and live in a cave and ride bicycles for all I care, I'll keep my central heating, my central air conditioning, and my gas guzzling car. Your cause is politically dead and will not likely come back to life. The world's agin ya charlie."
I really can't see what's Luddite about what I wrote. Perhaps you didn't bother to finish reading it? In which case you can't be a very careful reader, can you?
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#198 Nicko wrote:
"so if there was good chance of a threat to a flight you were on or your health - you would rather wait until there was definitive evidence before doing something about it - what would that definitive evidence be?"
We have to make a judgement about what to count as a "good chance". My feeling (not wholly uninformed by background and experience) is that climate "science" is third-rate statistical extrapolation, nothing like real science, and so doesn't give us a good reason for thinking that there's any danger of global warming.
Similarly, there are those who think the mere sight of a turban is enough to warrant action to avert disaster on a plane. I think they're too twitchy.
"'Well, I'm a bit of a non-interventionist in almost every area of life.' - so you're a couch potato who is happy to sit by and watch everything around you go to pot because until it has done so there is no point doing anything about it?"
Not everything. There are some things that I deem to be "broke" and therefore "worth fixing", despite the dangers attendant on attempts to "fix" anything. But the climate isn't one of them. The apparent fact that the climate has cooled or stayed about the same for ten years is the death knell for AGW, as far as I'm concerned. Climate "scientists" didn't predict it, and it shows the connection between climate and CO2 levels is extremely tenuous, definitely no basis for action.
"And if by leaving it alone you're doing more harm?"
Life's a risk -- live with it!
"There is a little idea called the precautionary principle if you aren't SURE about the science - which should have kicked in well before now - because if we meddle with this life support machine and get it wrong - who knows how long it will take to recover a decent quality of life."
So whenever you have the slightest symptom, you go to a doctor to get a check-up? -- That's actually a dangerous way to live. You say the "precautionary principle" is a little idea. It sure is -- it's a very little idea with a big name. Actually, it's a stupid idea masquerading as a clever idea, and like most stupid ideas it wears the clothes of a "principle". I really urge you to adopt a bit of scepticism about it. There is almost no thought behind it at all.
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I keep hearing about this wonderful, authoritative thing "THE Precautionary Principle", as if it's a well-established canon of rational action. It is nothing of the sort. I've only encountered the term in this BBC blog.
For a start, it seems to assume that we can be "sure" of some claims but not others. That's ridiculous -- we can be sure of absolutely nothing.
Whenever we act rationally, we have to take account of both the desirability of our intended goal, and the likelihood of achieving it, and ideally the desirability and likelihoods of all the other non-intended consequences of our actions as well. Nothing as bone-headed as a "principle" can guide us here -- we have to muddle through as best we can.
Please -- no more appeals to this silly so-called "precautionary principle"!
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#33 Eric Blodaxe
Nothing in the future is "a fact". The only "fact" anyone can offer is the current water shortages which are, in part, due to a lack of precipitation; and probably more to the increase in water usage both for agriculture and private consumption.
Whether the area dries as a result of global warming is therefore moot. However, the fact that the area provided grain in Roman times is a complete red herring. The total population of the Roman Empire is estimated at about 50-70 million people (roughly the population of the UK), all except a tiny minority living relatively simple lives, and very few of whom were fed by grain from Egypt.
Its a safe bet that the Mediterranean countries are already producing far more grain than they did in Roman Times: and the question is what happens next?
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From the current Economist (on glaciers):
"That a review process which included 40,000 comments did not catch the error proves that size is not everything—especially since the error was quite catchable."
It may not say much about "size", but perhaps it says something about the formal "peer review process"? Any of its defenders care to comment?
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Oh dear, the denialist lowlife is out in force again!
Of course, ALL views are important, however mendacious or ignorant, and should be recorded for posterity, lest they be forgotten forever. So I hereby propose 'A Database Of AGW Deniers'.
A 'Official Online Denialist Pledge' that individuals can sign, and a text block highlighting their main concerns with the fact of AGW !
Then, their all important contribution to the future of mankind will not be lost forever. It will also, more importantly, make it simple for the future world to 'get back to them'.
Shouldnt be too difficult for the all powerful 'new world order' to arrange. Apparently they've orchestrated a worldwide conspiracy of scientists ! LOL
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One thing strikes me as an interesting idea.
That the BBC makes sure it preserves this and a few other threads regarding climate for the long-term future. Although the vast majority of us will not be able to look at them in 2110, it will be a fascinating experience for those around at that time to see what was being said on the matter almost a century before. By then, they are likely to have a fairly clear idea as to who was right and who was wrong on this matter!
Cheers - John
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If you think you have something to say beyond "4 legs good, 2 legs bad", and you want people to read what you have to say, it might be an idea not to start off your comment with ad hominem abuse.
I generally stop reading when I come across phrases like:
"the denialist lowlife is out in force again"
or
"the planet-rapist lowlife is out in force again"
or anything similar. It simply shows that you have not grasped the concept of a "fallacy of relevance".
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Pph at # 199
All your numbers are wrong. Yet you are ‘sceptical’ of climate science. By inference, all your other posts are not very convincing.
In fact -
The estimated human population of the earth is 6.7 billion not 70 billion as you claim.
The area of Scotland is 30,414 square miles.
= 30,414 x 5280 x 5280 = 847,893,657,600 square feet
Area available in Scotland for each human being if, bizarrely, the entire human race was located there
= 847,893,657,600 / 6700,000,000 = 127 square feet
= 11 feet x 11 feet.
So your original population premise was out by a factor of 10 and your maths would have produced a square only 3.5 feet on a side. So completely wrong. So your scepticism of anthropogenic global warming must also be based on flawed understanding.
However, you need at least half a hectare of arable land for two people to get enough food.
That is 2500 square metres or a square 165 feet x 165 feet or, in total, 215 Scotlands.
Global arable land is estimated at 10.5 % of the total land area. Thus, on that percentage the earth’s present population would require 215/0.105
= 2040 Scotlands or 65 million square miles.
The land area of the globe is about 57 million square miles.
The figures above are indicative but show that your understanding of even this issue is not good.
It is very unlikely that the earth’s population will stabilise under 9 billion due to demographic momentum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_momentum
The only way forward is reduced consumption and the rapid phasing out of fossil fuel use. Sorry.
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Poor old Rob #203 says:
‘..Several people have asked why would scientists exaggerate data on global warming.’
Pedantic arguments about data haven’t stopped the rapid melt of glaciers or sea ice, the rising temperatures (See what’s happening at UAH this January) and the simultaneous close correlation of those observations with the rapid increase in anthropogenic CO2, a proven powerful greenhouse gas. Coincidence…I don’t think so.
See post #51 for all the ‘data’.
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xtragrumpymike2 #208.
"Who is this quasi Roman Emperor?"
was laughed at in France many years ago, never recovered, seems to suffer from ingrowing toenails.
sensiblegannie #210.
"YOU aren't the mysterious Banksy are you? Or, are you an admirer of iconoclasm?"
no (and not Errol Flynn either). LOL.
iconoclast? no; I do think however that religious belief ought to be private and has no place in the public sphere.
thinkforyourself, Nicko #various.
seriously good posting, thumbs up.
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#185 manysummits
"Until the 'bottom line' of the modern publicly held multinational corporation is seen for what it is, the lowest quality, lowest common denominator of 'worth,'"
and of course the things 'we' value don't appear in the accounts.
i was recently reading about the notorious history of the ethyl corp and its production and defence of tel (tetraethyl lead) and one of history's unsung heroes, clair cameron patterson. he fought passionately to get tel removed from petrol.....fortunately for us eventually succeeding.
i don;t imagine the behaviour of large corporations has improved any (and after 30 years of 'deregulation' i suspect they have less need to).
but then again, we get the politicians we vote for and they give us the corporations that pay them (reminds me of the definition of an honest politician, one that stays bought!).
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To jr4412:
Thanks for your response, i.e., 'majority want to live like people on the hill.'
I suppose that's true - I don't know. Maybe they just want the security?
Thomas Paine in his 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense," declares that the only legitimate reason for government is security of peoples property and fortunes.
This ties in with the 'fear' factor - most people are simply afraid - of most everything, as far as I can see. Afraid of being different, of even being perceived as being different - of responding to my post # 185 (you are the only one).
Afraid of stepping off the trial. I tried an experiment on a foray into the mountains a couple of years ago.
I wasn't climbing with the few friends I used to - I was forced by lack of a car and other things, to join a local outings group on a semi-strenuous hike to see a glacier. The route near the terminus was faint, but being over boulder scree, and without vegetation, any number of 'routes' were practical, and equally safe.
There were perhaps twelve members. I stepped off the faint track and went my own way, both going up and coming down, but everyone else religiously stuck to the faint trail behind the leader.
Interesting.
On my own outings, I encourage independent thinking and route selection where possible. I remember one man who tried his own way on a big mountain. He came over later and said that he hadn't realized there was so much difference in route selection, that his way had been difficult, while mine had been relatively easier.
I suppose that's why people follow leaders, but you learn less that way.
Maybe people are even afraid of learning?
- Manysummits -
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#222, thinkforyourself wrote:
“
Poor old Rob #203 says:
‘..Several people have asked why would scientists exaggerate data on global warming.’
Pedantic arguments about data haven’t stopped the rapid melt of glaciers …............
“
Are these the Himalayan glaciers that the IPCC said would be gone by 2035?
Even though the 2035 claim was ludicrous in the extreme it did not stop NASA from yet further exaggeration and stating 2030 on their website.
Both organizations above and others have now been forced to remove these exaggerations but many, many more are yet to be corrected.
From the recently released NASA emails:
“Hide this after Jim checks it”
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bowmanthebard #215.
"I keep hearing about this wonderful, authoritative thing "THE Precautionary Principle" ... I've only encountered the term in this BBC blog."
you have to get out more often.
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2001/109p871-876kriebel/kriebel-full.html
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Nice work climate science.
1)Make a ludicrously exaggerated claim, let's say that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035.
2)Convince EU to fork out 10 million Euros to study the effects of this 'problem'.
3)Become head of the body that receives this 10 million Euros.
Yes, nice work climate science.
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thinkforyourself at # 221
Thank you for that.
I suppose this just reinforces the beauty of an open peer review process ;)
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elbowmnthebeard;
"Putting aside my view that those ideas are part of a conceptually confused, historically ignorant, scientifically illiterate Rousseauan fantasy -- and that far from reverting to the 19th century, they would land us in a new Dark Age -- we should at least admit that these ideas are sincerely held. And by that I imply they are not being held for profit.
Your "thing" seems to be that "the real problem" is overpopulation, but to my mind that gets things wrong in much the same way. Have you ever wondered why the population has risen so dramatically in the last few centuries? Or what did "control" (to use your word) the population before that?"
Yes, I posted the wrong criticism of your assertion. There are more motives than mere money at work here. I've already mentioned the desire for fame. And political ambitions. There are those who are in part duped too. Your boss tells you your department is studying climate change and the effet GHGs are having. The tendency to make an intellectual surrender to groupthink is made even stronger by the fact that if you say after honest study that GHGs have no effect, there is no correlation you will be ostracized by the group, dismissed as "not getting with the program" and even possibly fired. So you allow yourself to be guided in the direction management wants you to take. Also people who are already convinced that GHGs are responsible for global warming are attracted to this area of research. They've gone nine tenths of the way to their conclusion and are just looking for a smoking gun to prove they are right even if they have to invent it themselves.
Yes I'm aware of Malthus. There was war, famine, disease, and what was the fourth horseman? Oh yes meteorites. Conquest of famine and disease added to the preclusion of a major war due to weapons being so much more powerful than in the past has allowed human population to run rampant. Even in China which is the only major nation I'm aware of that has had any population control policy at all, population continues to increase. Ironically in the advanced nations populations are mostly in decline. Even in the US, population would be stable were it not for immigration. In the undeveloped world, people want large families to have sons who will survive long enough to care for them in their old age.
Every one of 6.5 billion people want much the same things to make life more comfortable and interesting whether they live in so called developed countries where they are largely available already or in so called developing countries where they aren't yet. A comfortable place to live, work, play which means for most people heating and or air conditioning, a diet which consists of more than locally grown produce planted with oxen and harvested with a scythe, the freedom to travel with more than just their feet or a bycicle, and many other energy consuming modern appliances and machines. If the global warming theory holds right and there is a maximum rate of CO2 that can be generated before climate change occurs, and since our technological civilization depends largely on burning fossil fuels for energy, then either each of us must consume less and less on average as the number of us goes up or there must be a limit to that number until a different technology that can meet the needs and desires of people comes into existance and replaces what we have. That population would be far smaller than it is today. Even if efficiency could increase more than marginally which is what the best current alternative energy schemes offer, economy would have to be drastically cut rapidly and substantially at first and then continue to decline as the population continues to increase.
On the flawed science by which the alarmists demand we make those cuts, divert our resources to these marginal alternative energy schemes, this is entirely unjustifiable. Given that not only their science but their intellectual integrity has been badly discredited, others who still can garner the respect of the rest of us will have to make a much more convincing case. So convincing that those who refuse to even consider this argument now which means not only Americans but the governments of China and India and many others will be prepared to make the required sacrifices for their own survival as well. American people will not unilaterally surrender en masse to this hysteria which would be hopeless anyway if the others don't. And even if they can make that argument, they had better work with a lot of other professions such as economists to develop a well thought out comprehensive plan that seems both fair and likely to be effective. When American climatologists pointed out that the result of Kyoto mandated reductions based on mathematical modeling would only produce a reduction of 2/3 of one degree in 65 years, the Europeans suddenly came up with the idea that Kyoto would then be just the beginning. That kind of shoot from the hip ad lib improvisation is not adquate to turn the world upside down. They've wasted a lot of precious time already so they'd better get on the stick and do some real work. I don't see anything like that effort being exerted. As I've said all along, this has become a political debate, not a scientific one and those driving it have a much more sinister agenda than most suspect.
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manysummits #225.
"Maybe they just want the security?"
'I Want More' (Can, 1976)
"This ties in with the 'fear' factor - most people are simply afraid - of most everything, as far as I can see. Afraid of being different, of even being perceived as being different.."
easy to give in to peer pressure, most people feel 'validated' by community approval, I suppose; I've begun to wonder whether, after centuries of stratified societal existence, the craving/need for authority has become part of human DNA.
"There were perhaps twelve members.."
as you said in pevious posts, the real benefit comes from being alone (for a while) in a natural setting, finding the time to re-connect; I don't think that's very easy (impossible?) when being part of a group.
"Maybe people are even afraid of learning?"
a good education does rattle one's 'cherished' -- indoctrinated -- beliefs, doesn't it? ;)
RobWansbeck #228.
"1)Make a ludicrously exaggerated claim, let's say that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035.
2)Convince EU to fork out 10 million Euros to study the effects of this 'problem'.
3)Become head of the body that receives this 10 million Euros.
Yes, nice work climate science."
all to do with climate science, nothing to do with endemically corrupt political/commercial systems? handy.
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#231, jr4412 wrote:
“ ….
RobWansbeck #228.
"1)Make a ludicrously exaggerated claim, let's say that Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035.
2)Convince EU to fork out 10 million Euros to study the effects of this 'problem'.
3)Become head of the body that receives this 10 million Euros.
Yes, nice work climate science."
all to do with climate science, nothing to do with endemically corrupt political/commercial systems? Handy.
“
Unfortunately it will be near impossible to separate climate science from 'endemically corrupt political/commercial systems'.
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RobWansbeck #232.
"Unfortunately it will be near impossible to separate climate science from 'endemically corrupt political/commercial systems'."
sure, I can accept that, but then why make such an effort to make the point (#228) as you did in the first place?
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Honestly, it's difficult to know who to trust to sort out the climate, when so many of those making the decisions have personal vested interest.
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Thinkforyouself:Surely you have to wait for results from something that is, at present, an hypothesis. I mean, it has been known that CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas for 150 years and yet you can’t accept it at all.
Clearly you do not even know that CO2 is a trace gas in our atmosphere (less than Argon by percent). Clearly you do not know that WATER is much more abundant in the atmosphere and a much stronger infra red absorber. Clearly you do not understand that there can be Global Warming without any need to conjure up a CO2 monster as an explanation - there are plenty of natural explanations for it.
Your statement that "CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas" is patently FALSE, at least as far as our atmosphere is concerned. CO2 is actually negligible and insignificant. We know this now. In addition, the suspected tiny effect of CO2 on Global Warming is NOT even proven. It has definitely NOT been demonstrated experimentally to any degree of satisfaction (as CERN is trying to with their CLOUD experiment and Cosmic Rays). It has not even been measured or quantified from observations because we DON'T KNOW OR UNDERSTAND THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SIGNIFICANT NATURAL CLIMATE VARIATIONS. In order to measure or observe the insignificant impact of CO2 you would need to back out the NATURAL VARIATIONS. All we can say at this stage is that CO2 must be insignificant otherwise thermageddon should already be upon us - it most absolutely is NOT a "powerful greenhouse gas" in the context of our atomsphere.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: Do some research and get your facts right.
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pez1960 #234.
"Honestly, it's difficult to know who to trust.."
Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.
-- R Nesen
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
-- Goethe
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re - #235
Aha! - the tired old numbers game!
Most people have now moved past this one, even the antis!
380ppm or whatever it is now might sound a small number. Just as well for people like yourself that it's carbon dioxide we are dealing with here.
If it were hydrogen sulphide instead, at that teeny-weeny concentration, you would be at significant risk from fatal pulmonary oedema.
So there you go. Don't assume small is ineffective.
Cheers - John
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So Shadorne at # 235 you accept that global warming is occurring but you have no alternative explanation for it yet. The CERN cloud experiment has yet to report any findings and remains an interesting hypothesis, which I follow closely.
You conveniently forget that, when asked, you said the cloud issue was your alternative explanation for the observed warming that I listed at post #51.
Instead, you now shift the emphasis to claiming that CO2 can only have an ‘insignificant’ effect on global atmospheric temperatures. Again revealing your true colours as an ‘apologist’ for fossil fuel use.
You try, yet again, to be wilfully obstructive by moving your warming proposition instead to focus on another greenhouse gas, water vapour.
But you are not telling us the whole truth, are you Shadorne.
Fortunately for readers of this weblog, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena, California are available to give us the full picture of the combined amplifying effect of rising levels of anthropogenic CO2 on another powerful atmospheric greenhouse gas, water vapour.
Quote:
‘…Researchers studying carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas and a key driver of global climate change, now have a new tool at their disposal: daily global measurements of carbon dioxide in a key part of our atmosphere. The data are courtesy of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft. ‘
It also says:
‘..AIRS temperature and water vapor observations have corroborated climate model predictions that the warming of our climate produced as carbon dioxide levels rise will be greatly exacerbated -- in fact, more than doubled -- by water vapor," said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. ‘
And it also says:
‘..Dessler explained that most of the warming caused by carbon dioxide does not come directly from carbon dioxide, but from effects known as feedbacks. Water vapor is a particularly important feedback. As the climate warms, the atmosphere becomes more humid. Since water is a greenhouse gas, it serves as a powerful positive feedback to the climate system, amplifying the initial warming. AIRS measurements of water vapor reveal that water greatly amplifies warming caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide. Comparisons of AIRS data with models and re-analyses are in excellent agreement. ‘
And it also says:
‘….."The implication of these studies is that, should greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current course of increase, we are virtually certain to see Earth's climate warm by several degrees Celsius in the next century, unless some strong negative feedback mechanism emerges elsewhere in Earth's climate system," Dessler said’.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-196
Checkmate, Mate.
Unless, of course you also don’t believe JPL. That would be seriously weird.
Now, perhaps you would kindly ask your employers to put their money into renewables PDQ and do us all a favour.
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I have just been taking a look in todays newspaper, at an explanation of pyrolysis. It sounds alright in principle, an alternative means of energy production, but it does appear to need a lot of space enable the type of production envisaged. I also have concerns about so much land put aside for foresty plantations of the fast growing trees recommended? Would these trees be of a similar monoculture such as hastily planted trees back in the 1960's, that were never used and now are abandoned as a failed project of some sort? Does the cost of supplying water to maintain these trees plus the cost of cutting down, transportation, building the machinery to generate power, the machinery to pyrolyse the woodchippings, the machinery to make the woodchippings, the transportation to send the pyrolysed material to disused mines outweigh the benefits gained? Has this idea been fully costed out?
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#233, jr4412 wrote:
“
RobWansbeck #232.
"Unfortunately it will be near impossible to separate climate science from 'endemically corrupt political/commercial systems'."
sure, I can accept that, but then why make such an effort to make the point (#228) as you did in the first place?
“
Why? It wasn't such an effort. Many seem unaware of the point and still cite the IPCC as if its output was the result of pure science ignoring its potential to be one of the 'endemically corrupt political/commercial systems'.
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Richard, nice headline but the story is wrong.
The attitude is shifting because scandal after scandal is being revealed regarding false evidence of glaciers melting, climategate etc. etc.
The positions of biased campaigning and actual evidence have been blurred to the point that opinion is shifting towards scepticism (yes, this really is how it is spelt in this country) and no wonder.
Why are you not asking questions about how this has happened and why there aren't fraud investigations in to funding?
I'd rather hear the truth than fairy tales, when will you be investigating this?
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I think there is much more symmetry to the opposed sides' positions in this debate than is generally acknowledged.
AGW believers often accuse sceptics of working for the oil or automotive industries. Symmetrically, sceptics often accuse AGW believers of being fame-and-money-hungry "reds under the bed" trying to raise new taxes, or trying to bring the USA to its knees. Surely both of these accusations are equally silly and paranoid?
AGW believers think there will be significant loss of life and livelihoods if we do not take action to limit global warming. Symmetrically, sceptics think there will be significant loss of life and livelihoods if we do take action, because the proposed action is likely to put the world's economies into reverse, raising the price of energy and food, thereby causing famines and suchlike.
In other words, both sides recommend caution, according to their own lights. Surely each side is equally fearful of the consequences of the other side's proposals?
It seems to me that the quality both of the debate and of our own critical abilities is diminished if we suppose that "we are the moral ones" and "they are the immoral ones". This is just far too simplistic.
Con artists and pyramid schemes always seem to present themselves as representing morally worthy causes. There's a reason for that: most of us are reluctant to question the integrity or even empirical judgement of saints (or Nobel Peace Prize winners, or the like).
I for one hereby publicly resolve not criticize the morals of my opponents in this debate. I know I have done so in the past, and probably will lapse again in the future, but from now on I'm going to really try to limit my criticism to pointing out factual or conceptual errors alone.
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#222 thinkforyourself wrote:
"Pedantic arguments about data"
For what it's worth, I thought RobWansbeck's #203 was an interesting and insightful account of how numbers can become systematically skewed, despite generally good intentions on the part of those who are skewing them.
There are many other examples of this sort of thing. For example, drug companies are ever-fearful of getting sued, so they systematically err on the side of caution with recommended dosages. Don't try it at home, folks, but the dosages of many medicines can be doubled for greater efficacy -- although of course it also results in greater risk of overdose. Depending on how sick you are, this can be a rational thing to do.
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Thinkforyouself: Unless, of course you also don’t believe JPL. That would be seriously weird.
Unfortunately none of what you spout or the links you refer to is credible science. It is all simply speculation. I don't need to "believe" in someone or something. I can read the papers and do the maths and physics myself.
I repeat: do some research (if you are capable) and you will soon find (if you are sharp enough) that the global climate is an extremely complex thing which is NOT well understood. The Science is NOT settled. SPECULATION is NOT SCIENCE. Anyone can speculate that Glaciers in the Himalayas will completely melt by 2035. JPL employees can also speculate all they want. The FACT is we do NOT know with any certainty what will be the temperature 100 years from now.
Here is an example of some idle speculation: The Earth will be hit by a large asteroid within the next 100 years and at least 4 billion people will die.
The reality is that nobody can prove me wrong. We have small rocks passing by the earth regularly and many go undetected until the last few days when they pass by or hit - sooner or later a big one will come along - you only have to look at the moon surface to know this is true. Read about the Tunguska event and you know this is true. Furthermore it is entirely plausible that many people could die, as mass extinctions have been linked to asteroid impacts in the past.
Should we all panic because of my idle speculation, after all, it is entirely plausible and nobody can prove me wrong until 100 more years have passed.
Should followers of my doomsday belief go around (like you do about your CO2 belief) and challenge anyone to come up with a concise alternative theory to explain why this definitely will not happen?
SPECULATION is quite different from SETTLED SCIENCE. "Man-made" global warming from CO2 is in the realm of idle speculation. It is still an unproven hypothesis.
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RobWansbeck #240.
"Many seem unaware of the point and still cite the IPCC as if its output was the result of pure science.."
cuts both ways though; result? justified laments like #234.
so why not apply the precautionary principle mentioned earlier? what could we lose by clamping down (hard) on polluters, apart from their 'goodwill'? what could we lose by saying no to monocultures and monopolies, apart from 'income'?
I struggle trying to understand how seemingly intelligent people keep on insisting that it is possible to have one's cake and eat it.
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#244 Shadorne wrote:
"The Science is NOT settled. SPECULATION is NOT SCIENCE."
Agreed -- not all speculation is science -- but all science is speculation. In other words, it's never certain, it always involves guesswork, and so on. It's an unavoidably risky business, intellectually, made somewhat less risky by careful, rigorous testing -- i.e. the making of genuine predictions whose truth can be checked afterwards.
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bowmanthebard #242.
"In other words, both sides recommend caution, according to their own lights. Surely each side is equally fearful of the consequences of the other side's proposals?"
let's see. 'our' side will lose a viable future for our descendants, 'their' side will lose that too AND they stand to lose their current privileged position. asymmetric!
Shadorne #244.
in #163 you wrote: "This is exactly what has happened to an esoteric area of research that I am deeply familiar with: Climate Science."
and it shows, so 'deeply familiar' that there's no room for anything else?
what are your views regarding, say, overfishing, deforestation, lack of access to clean water for a significant percentage of humanity, on the waste that waging wars represents, etc, etc.
do you have any? do you have anything to talk about except your narrow discipline?
btw, thanking you for 'sheeple' and 'thermageddon' -- both beautifully evocative and concise, enriching the language (poetry in motion!).
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\\\ Reflections on a hugely changed climate ///
1) We are losing everywhere; Copenhagen 15; peak oil; peak soil; fisheries on collapse trajectory; coal fired power accelerating; etc..., and now - US Supreme Court rules unlimited spending by corporations and special interests to political campaigns is legal, right after the most Democratic of states, Massassachusetts, has gone Republican; after a dissapointing first year in office by the new President of the USA, in a country which appears to this observer to be firmly governed by Republican special interests and the military establishment.
2) Revisionist history is telling us the truth about who we were, and it appears we have not changed for the better.
3) The wealth gap widens, as does the science gap, i.e., we are dumbing down, as Carl Sagan thought.
4) We are on the defensive vis a vis climate science, not because of Climategate and the IPCC Himalayan glaciers, which are trivial, but because of big money, and an intelligent and luxuriously funded contrarian and disinformation campaign, operating in a society which most definitely has lost the ability to 'think-for-them-selves.'
I heard a song at the coffee shop this morning, "Straighten Up and Fly Right," which is almost a museum piece. Perhaps the artistic community is attempting to send us a message!
- Manysummits -
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#247 jr4412 wrote:
"'our' side will lose a viable future for our descendants, 'their' side will lose that too AND they stand to lose their current privileged position. asymmetric!"
I see... You're saying that taking action to stop manmade global warming will involve sceptics losing their "current privileged position"?
I'm a sceptic, but I don't think I'm "privileged", apart from the fact that I live in the West, like most people on this blog. Do you think simply being a sceptic indicates that a person is "privileged"? That's a bit weird. And a bit prejudiced.
Another weird thing is your claim that priveleged people will lose their priveleged status if action is taken against global warming. Oh dear -- you seem to be playing into the hands of the "reds under the bed" sceptics, who say belief in AGW is all a conspiracy to add to taxes and destroy the USA!
I thought they were being paranoid and silly, but what you say seems to bear them out completely.
Question for all bloggers: Do other AGW believers agree that action taken against global warming will in effect be a revolution against the "priveleged", as favoured by comrade jr4412?
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I wonder if the IPCC withdraw another missleading claim, oh dear, oh dear. What with the glaciers statements being retracted, calls for Dr. Rajenda Pachauri to resign and now this. Oh dear, oh dear, where will it end?
___________________________________________________
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7000063.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
___________________________________________________
THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.
It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny.
When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: "We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."
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bowmanthebard #249.
my fault I suppose for being unable to stick to the comfortably narrow debate about climate change; my views on (A)GW are on record on this and previous blogs of Richard's: I have no position on (A)GW, it is not of my real concerns and I remain perplexed why so many people here go on about 'climate change' when there's war, genocide, famine, failing fisheries and agriculture, land grabs and all the other side-effects of the inhumanity of homo sapiens -- surely a misnomer, if there there was one.
but hey, you 'win'.
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@207, MarcusAureliusII
Thanks for the link, I've even added a bit myself.
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jr4412: what are your views regarding, say, overfishing, deforestation, lack of access to clean water for a significant percentage of humanity, on the waste that waging wars represents, etc, etc.
Exactly. There are some very REAL environmental problems! Thermageddon is not one of them.
Overfishing is a huge problem - I am deeply familiar with it - Newfoundland has a moratorium on cod fishing - once upon a time the "Grand Banks" was one of the world's richest fishing grounds. I just returned from St John's, Newfoundland.
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#245, jr4412 wrote:
“
RobWansbeck #240.
"Many seem unaware of the point and still cite the IPCC as if its output was the result of pure science.."
cuts both ways though; result? justified laments like #234.
so why not apply the precautionary principle mentioned earlier? what could we lose by clamping down (hard) on polluters, apart from their 'goodwill'? what could we lose by saying no to monocultures and monopolies, apart from 'income'?
I struggle trying to understand how seemingly intelligent people keep on insisting that it is possible to have one's cake and eat it.
“
'Goodwill' reduces the likelihood of war and 'income' reduces the likelihood of starvation.
I am interested in the accuracy of the science wherever that leads whereas you appear to be prepared to accept very bad science if it supports your political views. I have no great objection to your political views but they should be argued on their own merits and not on the back of scare stories.
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Re - 241: the book Climate Cover-up is an interesting read:
ISBN-10: 1553654854
ISBN-13: 978-1553654858
A lot of people go on about how the AGW 'agenda' has conned the masses. This book explains in detail who has really been conned and how. PR is so very effective and science is hopeless at it, which is why we are now where we are on this matter.
Cheers - John
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PS - Richard, have you read the book? Would be interested to see your take on it.
Cheers - John
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Agreed jr4412 at #247
'sheeple' and 'thermageddon'. Brilliant nonsense. These seem to be part of the ‘lexicon’ of the fossil fuel lobby along with references to the sky falling in from ‘Chicken Little’ and ‘circling the wagons’. If I was employing these PR companies, I would hope for a little more imagination.
At least we now know that Shadorne doesn’t believe that 2 + 2 necessarily equals 4.
Heisenberg probably rules, OK.
Yet still they mortgage the future.
Loved Marianne Faithfull’s version. Thanks.
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The problem is that climate science is no longer really about the science (as it was in the late 80's and 90's)....... it's about the religion of Climate Change, and the political realisation that Eco/Green taxes really are the geese that lay the golden eggs.
Recent scandals show that the IPCC pretty much moved away from the science (which still falls on the side of man made global warming to some degree), and into the realms of "sexed up" Hollywood box office big boom/end of the world PR no matter the actual facts.
They need to get rid of the climate change religion fanatics, and the green tax drunk politicians, and allow science to take the lead again (and of course not rig it so grants are only available for pro-MMCC studies).
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RobWansbeck #254.
"I am interested in the accuracy of the science wherever that leads whereas you appear to be prepared to accept very bad science if it supports your political views."
not having a BSc (or other science degree) leaves me dependend on the expertise of others, whether a given development is 'very bad science' will emerge after testing and verification, and through the peer review process.
and 'hard' sciences (eg chemistry) do rather better on testing/verifying a theory than the 'soft' sciences (eg sociology), experiments to test hypotheses in a laboratory are so much easier than testing ones that require large populations plus controls to have any relevance (statistically).
scientists -- any discipline -- are not apolitical though, nor are their employers or their surroundings; do you believe, say, CERN to be less influenced by politics than the IPCC?
I asked "what could we lose by clamping down (hard) on polluters, apart from their 'goodwill'?" and you answered "'Goodwill' reduces the likelihood of war.."
given that there hasn't been a single day for decades during which there hasn't been war waged somewhere on Earth (and the polluters have not yet been 'leaned on'), I'd say (politely) that is naive because, well, where's the evidence that backs your assertion?
I asked "what could we lose by saying no to monocultures and monopolies, apart from 'income'?" and you answered "..'income' reduces the likelihood of starvation."
we have seen (almost) uninterrupted economic growth in the West -- where the monopolistic policies and corporations orignated -- for a hundred years or more, yet the numbers of malnourished people has been increasing, last year's headline: "Every sixth earthling is underfed". again then, where is the evidence that supports your assertion?
truth is, both the politics and the people who formulate the policies, have no proven record of 'reducing' starvation or pollution or anything else -- business as usual has failed us up to now and there's no reason to believe that that would change.
nice try though.
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re #258
I think we need to be a little more focussed again.
Before the predicted excesses of AGW become a problem to many countries, we have another tricky little problem to face. Peak Oil.
Not only are we wasting fossil fuels at a rate that has the potential to alter our climate: we are squandering them at a rate that the rate of supply looks likely to be unable to satisfy the rate of demand again soon. Every time we climb from recession, demand grows: this comes up against the supply ceiling: economics 101 says the price goes up: demand destruction follows as recession after recession follows. Not just a double-dip but a downward staircase!
Regular crude, easily available and cheap, has been the glue that has held all this shebang together these past decades.
There are huge non-conventional reserves in the Athabasca and Orinoco tar-sands, oil shales etc etc. However, all such resources are rate constrained. They will not keep the boy racers going! Unless (in the UK) they can afford fiver-a-litre-unleaded!
Cheers -John
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More food for thought. Today the United States produces about 28% of the world's GDP and about 33% of its GNI (gross national income.) Even with its current population, due to the nature of the vast distances it covers, the amount of travel that is required of people to sustain their lives, and the severe and extreme climate conditions and swings which prevail thoughout most of the country during ordinary times, the likelihood that it could reduce its CO2 emissions level at all without substantial adverse impact on its own and the world's eoncomies and societies without a drastic change to the available energy technologies is impossible.
But the population of the United States is not going to remain static. Almost entirely due to immigration, according to the United States Census Bureau by mid century America's population will rise from just over 300 million in 2008 to 420 million in 2050. That means there will be over one third more people. It will likely mean that increased output would equal half of all the wealth produced in today's world economy. It means that vast new cities will spring from small towns or nothing at all that exists today. It means that in planning for such a future, talk about reducing CO2 output is simply out of the question. And as the world's popultion heads towards 9 billion, the amount of food America will be called upon to produce to feed all these hungry new mouths will increase energy consumption in the highly energy intense agricultural industry by a great deal as well. The bounty of America's land feeds much of the world, agriculture being America's number one export industry. Whoever sets targets had better come up with a plan taking these realities into account if they expect it them to be achieved. If the cuts are arbitrarily made without population reductions, the consequence will be that hundreds of millions, even billions will starve to death before our very eyes on television.
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#259, correction.
oops, omitted a few words.
"we have seen (almost) uninterrupted economic growth in the West.."
should read:
"we have seen (almost) uninterrupted economic growth and rising incomes in the West.."
thinkforyourself #257.
I'm sure that 'PR companies' love words like these but perhaps you misread/misinterpreted the last paragraph of #247? I loved reading these words, and the compliment I paid was genuine; another current favourite, this on last year's swine-flu: 'panicdemic' -- to convey the media frenzy.
"At least we now know that Shadorne doesn’t believe that 2 + 2 necessarily equals 4."
the jury's out, I for one will be reading his/her future contributions with interest (as long as CO2 doesn't appear in them ;)).
Marianne Faithfull. yes, the whole 'Broken English' album is worth listening to, IMO.
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RW;
I read your posting on hydrogen audio;
"I have known of sound mixers who believed that equalizing for a good sound through a typical television set was more important than a flat response and would use devious means to achieve this.
They couldn't get away with simply using the small speaker since production staff would complain so they would sneak some equalization into the monitoring chain rolling off the high and low ends to closer match the small speaker.
This would then require the program material to have the highs and lows boosted to compensate leading to a relative dip in the mid-range. The production staff would hear a flat mix and be unaware of the hidden effect on the program.
Usually they would just patch in the equalization and hope no one would notice but I have found equalizers hidden under desks."
Equalizers hidden under desks....they would sneak some equalization into the monitoring chain
How enlightening and entirely expected as a reflection of BBC corporate culture. Why didn't they just confront the issue head on, discuss it openly, and come to a resolution that would satisfy everyone, one that would be the standard method to achieve the best sound from the most home television receivers? Wasn't that the common goal? Didn't they have as a common goal to best serve their customers? I suppose not. Was it because being European and a quasi government organization to boot, that is not their culture at all? That would be "too American." BTW, IMO that's how they report the news too.
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Anyone who has not looked through the emails made public by the C.R.U. should read this (1.2MB)
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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India and China are probably the lowest polluters per capita. They are also not consumer economies yet. They have a long way to go before they catch up with their 'green' thinking European counterparts.Many don't have enough food, electricity and running water yet, let alone cars, central heating and family holidays abroad. I'm not sure why they are being bullied already, they're not even close.
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RV, you can hardly claim that China and India are being bullied about global warming. If there is anyone who is being bullied or at least is the object of an attempt to bully someone it is the US.
No matter how much protest there is, CO2 per capita doesn't count. The fact remains, China is the largest producer of CO2 in the world. While many, even most of their people produce very little CO2, certain industries and practices more than make up for it. For example, had China been building nuclear power plants instead of coal fired plants, its CO2 output would be much lower...and so would its GDP since nuclear plants are far more expensive and take much longer to build than coal fired plants. You don't build one nuclear plant a week, the equivalent of the two coal fired plants the Chinese are bringing on line every week.
It is true that in order to significantly cut CO2 emissions, China and India would suffer a severe impact to their economies. So would the USA. Therefore, Americans feel that if everyone is not going to make a sacrifice, they won't either. What's more, China's CO2 output is rising so quickly that even if the USA made substantial cutbacks at great sacrifice to itself, China's increase would offset any benefit in slowing global warming. So the bottom line is that nobody will do anything. If the global warming theory is correct, the fraudulent "research" notwithstanding, then we are all doomed and we will just have to adjust to the change as it occurs. If we can't, well life on earth will change. It has in the past, it will in the future, it's just a matter of when and how. Everyone is going to die sometime.
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Sheeple read this and Weep!
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-dodgy-citations-in-nobel-winning.html
After having a good cry, you should get angry, very angry. The IPCC, CRU, NOAA, NASA GISS, AL GORE & all his band of converts (most world leaders) have, along with the help of NGO's (like WWF) and the Main Stream Media (like the BBC) have been MANIPULATING YOU.
The anthropogenic kool aid end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario is not based on science at all!
This whole thing brings George Orwell's 1984 or "The Matrix" to reality. The Free West has been living under the kind of manipulative thought control only believed possible in science fiction.
The whole man-made catastrophe is ONE GIANT HOAX fed by alarmist reports needed to increase funding for out of control Green Political Machines.
The majority of the "SCIENCE" is not science at all. It is pure PROPAGANDA!
And we were told that it is ALL SETTLED AND PEER REVIEWED AND THE CONSENSUS OF THOUSANDS OF SCIENTISTS!!!!!
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RaniV, No. 265: India & China are not being bullied -- or rather, shouldn't be. But India and China, as well as the US, rely far too much on coal for their fuel & power-energy generation needs.
They are not alone, of course. In the EU, for example, Poland remains highly resistant to the idea of shifting away from coal, a traditional resource, in favour of less polluting sources.
China's and India's paper needs, like those of the US, drive increasingly accelerating deforestation.
Many hundreds of millions of human beings all over the world would like to be able to continue to exist in a state of blissful insouciance, using whatever is at hand to cook a meal or warm themselves; cutting down trees for furniture and paper goods that are no longer designed to last; smoking tobacco products because it is too hard to stop, even as they & their loved ones choke on the fumes...
It is not "bullying" to ask people to please pay attention to how recklessly we are using up resources, nor how rapidly we are dumping into the air tonnes of solid particulates from smokestacks, charcoal fires, automobile exhausts and even cigarettes...
Arguing about whether it is more "fair" to look at pollution on a per capita basis, or a net tonnage basis, or a rate of industrial greening basis is an exercise in futility. The only real measure that matters is how many more of us, in any country, are beginning to power on our brains as we go about our daily lives, and choosing to be more responsible in how we make our livings, and how we arrange our lives.
Instead of dwelling on how some people's comments might make a populous & important nation such as China or India feel, better to dwell on what a huge positive impact all that collective population and energy could have, if they were to be directed, as they ought to be, towards a re-designing of processes with an eye to reducing all kinds of pollution.
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RaniV #265.
"..polluters per capita."
MarcusAureliusII #266.
"..CO2 per capita doesn't count."
perhaps we should calculate CO2 'allowance' by average weight; using that measure the USA, having enormous numbers of obese people, could easily justify their higher emissions.
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No. 261, Marcus Aurelius II: It is generally recognised that either we all collectively, voluntarily begin to apply what we know works to choose smaller family size, or natural forces beyond our control will impose population reduction over time in ways that are far more distressing.
However, it is hard to be able to count on large shifts in attitude taking place, for example, in societies where polygamy -- and the resulting mushrooming population of offspring -- is viewed as the sacred right of the alpha male. Considerable effort will need to be expended to reorient young men in these societies away from the belief that having 30 sons is normal or desirable. Certainly, for as long as commercial ties or politically correct mental contortions prevent us from being able to say to certain leaders, "It is time to stop clinging to the customs of your distant ancestors; they are incompatible with present realities," all bets are off as to whether we will be able to make enough of the right decisions quickly enough to make sure the situation does not deteriorate further over the years to come.
Nevertheless, in the matter of emissions reductions, conditions need not be quite as static as your summary suggests. Even if the US does not invest as intensely as it could & should in developing advanced high-speed rail links along the most essential transit corridors, we already have the technology to make far more efficient motors. Back in 1997, I remember renting a full-sized, freshly-minted Pontiac Bonneville from National Car Rental in Los Angeles and driving it all the way to San Francisco -- 450 or so miles, 600+ km -- on a single tank of petrol. And not a huge tank: the mileage worked out to 50 mpg! We were quite surprised, and spent months looking for this model afterwards. Never found it again.
It is not an urban legend that US auto executives stalled and stalled for years on delivering a more fuel-efficient engine. Was it a conspiracy of some kind, collusion between interests -- or merely indifference & incompetence? Ultimately, the reasons are moot. But the fact remains that even having great distances to cover does not doom the 21st century American driver to being stuck with a dirty, polluting, inefficient engine. (A reminder that electric motors will solve nothing if the electricity originates in coal-fired power.)
Similarly with agriculture. The US rose to the status you describe because so much of the world was wrecked by the events of the 20th century. Does it make sense to abandon sound farming practices and over-cultivate the land, just so America can retain its official ranking? Should we just pump more methyl bromide into the depleted soil, more fertilizers onto our crops, more hormones and antibiotics into our cattle -- all the while making sure to make it as difficult as possible for farmers from other parts of the world to struggle to expand their capacity?
When it comes to global food security, the old supremacist attitudes have to give way. There is a lot of arable land on the planet that is being under-utilised. France & the great European viticultural states once had to make room for competitors from California; now, California finds itself yielding market share to rivals from the Southern Hemisphere, from Africa and from other recovering parts of the world where the soil has not been quite as depleted, there has been less desertification, and production costs are competitive. There is nothing wrong with that model. The market has grown, and continues to grown: there is room in it for more producers from more corners of the globe.
Countries that have a traditional expertise and strength in food production -- France, Italy, or for that matter Argentina, Canada, the US -- should certainly enjoy the advantages of that expertise & existing infrastructure. No one will take that away from them. But there is no reason, given the population projections you provide, that we should all resign ourselves to the distressing scenario you describe, when all that needs to happen is for young people the world over to be reminded once again of the vital importance & dignity of food production as a career choice and as a life path.
What you describe may happen. But it can also, still, be avoided: through careful planning, a concerted effort, intelligence and alacrity.
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#270 Maria Ashot
I am amazed that any Pontiac Bonneville could get as much as 30 miles per gallon -- even holding an older car of a similar size to a steady 60 miles per hour, the best MPG I could get when the car was new was a shade over 15 miles per gallon. Recall, climbing out of the Los Angeles basin, you reach an elevation of 4,900 feet (about 1600 meters) at Tejon Pass before descending to the Calif. central valle. Did your Bonneville have a 30 gallon tank?
TeaPot562
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TeaPot562, No. 271: No, it was a normal 15 gallon tank. We were amazed, too.
It was one of the greatest, unforgettable rides in my life... Interstate 5, at night, good music blasting away...
That model, for some reason, had a much more fuel-efficient engine. Not exaggerating.
They can give us much, much more fuel-efficient mileage, believe me!
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In April last year the New York Times carried a story about misrepresentation of science in the AGW debate. No, the story wasn’t about the IPCC but about the Global Climate Coalition, a group which represented (and was financed by) major fossil-fuel related industries. The GCC lead a lobbying & public relations campaign against the notion of AGW.
The article describes how a GCC ‘scientific briefing’ document from the 1990s stressed that the “role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood” and that “scientists differ” on the issue. However, at the same time, the GCC’s very own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted. As the article describes the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995 that: “The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,”.
For the full story, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html
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@simon-swede #273
i would agree that a 1995, the Global Climate Coalition were wrong to go against their own experts, putting their commercial interests above the interests of the planet, even if, in the opinion of many scientists, the case for CO2 driven climate change has not been made.
In the light of this old story being brought to the surface again, I'd be interested in your comments on the IPCC's errors, deliberate ignoring of evidence and the conflict of interest ipcc's pachauri / TERI
/mango
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#268 Maria Ashot wrote:
"Arguing about whether it is more "fair" to look at pollution on a per capita basis, or a net tonnage basis, or a rate of industrial greening basis is an exercise in futility."
Of course it is more fair (sic, not "fair" in sneering it-doesn't-really-exist quotation marks) to look at pollution on a per capita basis. And the awareness that one is acting unfairly can be a powerful incentive -- that is the real reqason why white South Africa gave up Apartheid.
Americans simply must end this charade of pretending we can count countries instead of individual humans. It diminishes their standing in the world to blinker themselves to such obvious potential injustice.
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Mango at #274
If you really are interested in a less-polarised view on the issues you raise than can be found in most of the postings here, then once again I would suggest having a look at the current issue of Nature. As mentioned earlier in this blog, this contains a News Feature and a related Editorial which take up these and other issues - these endeavour to put them into a more complete context about the implications for the AGW debate. Both the editorial and feature are open access (i.e. you don't need a subscription to read them).
The feature is at: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100120/full/463284a.html
The editorial is at:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7279/full/463269a.html
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@simon-swede #276
Simon
Do you really believe Nature is serving up a "less-polarised" view, when they use the terms "climate-change denialists"? I thought Nature was meant to be a serious journal?
/mango
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I was intending to keep out of this blog for the obvious reason that, like all previous "blogs" where "climate change" has been the subject of Richard's article or his article has been hi-jacked in such a way as to ignore any comment that looked anything like something different to "climate change" the argument just goes round and round in ever decreasing circles.
But Sensiblegranny has raised an interesting point
239. At 5:29pm on 24 Jan 2010, sensiblegrannie wrote:
"I have just been taking a look in todays newspaper, at an explanation of pyrolysis"
which requires commenting on without reference to CC or AGW.
PYROLYSIS IS AN ADVANCED FORM OF COMBUSTION IRRESPECTIVE OF THE FUEL USED.
The purpose of "pyrolysis" when used in the context of energy production (it is also used to dispose of certain "hazardous" waste), is essentially to increase the efficiency by ensuring virtually complete combustion of all fuel elements present and reducing, at the same time, the presence of polluting contaminants in the exhaust stream.
The concept of growing wood as a potential fuel for energy production is not (IMCO) the most appropriate use of this technology (which, incidentally, will only improve as it's use becomes more commonplace) and I agree with all your concerns in this matter.
BUT......my recommendations are for the use of this technology to produce energy from household and commercial waste, where current investigations are in process. In fact, two small-scale plants are already in operation.
An enormous amount of energy is being dumped in landfill with all the negative implications of that. As I have commented before, we are having problems with the concept of recycling of many materials (not metals for which there is a viable market) many of which are "energy rich". The establishment of pyrolysis plants at transfer stations to produce energy for the locality has significant advantages and would virtually eliminate landfill.
The main hurdle at present is not the technology but the total misunderstanding by certain parties of the enormous difference between "burning" or even "incineration" and "pyrolysis". Until we can overcome this paranoia we will continue to pollute the land by dumping waste into landfill with enormous loss of potential energy.
Forgot to mention......there are big "multinational" companies making heaps of money (yours and mine) out of operating landfill sites!
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Mango at #277
I doubt I am alone in considering Nature a serious journal which offers readers articles of substance and analaysis which is thoughtful.
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I don’t know whether there is global warming or not, and I’m not a scientist either.
However I have noted that we have the likes of:
Bowmanthebard, MarcusAurelius and Mangochutney
Saying there is no climate change and the whole thing is a con. But they may also be sceptical about being sceptical.
And on the other side we have Mad Maria Ashot who says there is climate change and wants to see half the working Joe’s in the world on the dole and the other half neutered.
It’s no wonder the political climate has shifted away from global warming really is it.
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Re:-
"274. At 07:43am on 25 Jan 2010, MangoChutneyUKOK wrote:
@simon-swede #273
i would agree that a 1995, the Global Climate Coalition were wrong to go against their own experts, putting their commercial interests above the interests of the planet, even if, in the opinion of many scientists, the case for CO2 driven climate change has not been made."
Mango......are your really aware of the implication of this statement of yours?
You are clearly acknowledging the fundamental concerns of many on this site that "Big Business" are putting their "commercial interests" ahead of the "interests of the Planet"
You go on to say that they "ignored their own "experts" (your comment not mine...............remember..."experts") who .please correct me if I get this wrong........their "experts were stating that "at the same time, the GCC’s very own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."
Do I read that right?
Their "experts" were convinced that the IPCC had got it right? The "role of greenhouse gases in global warming COULD NOT be refuted?"
But still you quote "in the opinion of many scientists, the case for CO2 driven climate change has not been made."!!!!!!!!!!!
Precisely, Mango, which scientists make up the "many" and please remember, they are obviously not the "experts" advising the GCC.
A remarkable bit of convoluted debating, if I might say.
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@xtragrumpymike2 who wrote...
"Do I read that right?
Their "experts" were convinced that the IPCC had got it right? The "role of greenhouse gases in global warming COULD NOT be refuted?"
But still you quote "in the opinion of many scientists, the case for CO2 driven climate change has not been made."!!!!!!!!!!!"
This happens because the AGW camp selectively uses the "settled science" (that CO2 may cause SOME warming) and an unverified/likely wrong assumption...that feedbacks are powerful and positive. If YOU keep talking about two different subjects and then complain that I keep having to answer two different subjects...who's the one being unreasonable and irrational?
So the convoluted debating is inherent to the AGW debates because...its coming from the AGW camp's dual role. If you dare to make your stand on "settled" science you can only go so far as to claim that there MIGHT be a theoretical maximum of about 1C of warming (about .4C of which would have already been realized).
This debate has never REALLY been about CO2. It's really all about the feedbacks. You have already lost that debate. The holocene quite simply cannot have been as stable as it has been without feedbacks being low. The interglacial period is clearly the point at which the high albedo and water vapor feedbacks that dominate the glacial-interglacial transitions are basically maxed out.
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#277 mangochutney
i would say the terms sceptic, denialist and contrarian are all pretty mainstream now and describe a pretty specific non-scientific attitude to climate research.
but carry on ignoring nature, nasa, national scientific bodies, the united nations etc etc and place your faith in climateaudit, wottsupwiththat and a few comprehensively demolished papers if you wish.
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#281 xtragrumpymike2
i think you'll find that what mangochutney is trying to imply is that way, way back in 1995 corporations did bad things and ignored scientists, but now the scientists are bad and it's ok to ignore them.
neat little meme but nonsense all the same.....imho
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rossglory:
The word denialist is an attempt to link those who have legitimate doubts on Global Warming dogma to those who doubt the Holocaust. Check the first paragraph of the wikipedia article.
You should be ashamed of yourself for using that word.
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Re my post 159
I'm still waiting for someone to show me that the late 20th centuary warming is outside Earth's normal operating parameters. Anyone??
Any of you "believers" come up with a answer yet?
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#280 Dempster wrote:
"Bowmanthebard [...]
Saying there is no climate change and the whole thing is a con."
If you are unable to suplly a reference for this, you should come clean and say "I was wrong -- bowmanthebard never made any such claim".
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FergalR at #285
Maybe you should inform David Bellamy?
"I am a denier, and proud to be one," declaimed David Bellamy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climates_magnetic_attraction.html
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It doesn't surprise me in the least that Nature uses the word 'denialist'. It exposes the lack of criticism in climate science -- and why groupthink has a vice-like grip on all of the mainstream media (to which Nature and New Scientist both belong, at their different "levels").
The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory was similarly "mainstream" -- and unquestioned by the mainstream media -- a few decades ago. Those who did question it (such as Einstein) were thought to be fuddy-duddy reactionaries who had lost their marbles. The tide has since turned, and it is increasingly thought to be a mishmash of philosophical confusion and mid-century yin-and-yang mystical claptrap.
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simon-swede:
Maybe you should ask yourself why global temperatures have been flat for a decade, why global storm energy is near a 30-year low, why the only thing closing ski resorts is an overabundance of snow, why Arctic ice is increasing and why anybody in their right mind would believe a word the IPCC, CRU or GISS say.
Using that word is an insult to the dead, despite your sarcasm.
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#288 simon-swede wrote:
'"I am a denier, and proud to be one," declaimed David Bellamy.'
Ever hear of a thing called 'irony'? It is with irony that I currently refer to myself as a 'planet-rapist', although I am in fact not an actual rapist, and don't doubt this description is offensive to victims of actual rape.
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@xtragrumpymike2 #281
Mike,
Please remember I have never stated that man does not have any role whatsoever in climate change – quite the opposite, I accept Man has a role in climate change through deforestation, land use, concreting over vast area of land etc. I have also said on many occasions, as believers of AGW on these pages should acknowledge, Man has to get our collective act together to stop the continued exploitation, over-use of out land and seas and crazy wish to pollute everything we touch.
My only beef is CO2 as primary driver of climate change, which has not been proven anywhere except in a test tube under controlled conditions and without realistic levels of CO2. I believe the tenuous link between CO2 and temperature is being championed by some climate activists as a means of preventing the use of fossil fuels (for whatever reasons they have or maybe just because they genuinely believe CO2 is evil) and exploited by politicians as a means of introducing new taxes
You are clearly acknowledging the fundamental concerns of many on this site that "Big Business" are putting their "commercial interests" ahead of the "interests of the Planet"
I don’t think I have ever said that business doesn’t put their commercial interests above the interests of the planet and I don’t think I have ever defended business interests in their exploitation of the planet and finite resources or the pollution that this entails. Business exists to create a profit for their owners, although that profit may not be financial, if business doesn’t make a profit, then business doesn’t exist.
You go on to say that they "ignored their own "experts" (your comment not mine...............remember..."experts") who .please correct me if I get this wrong........their "experts were stating that "at the same time, the GCC’s very own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted. Do I read that right?"
That is what the report from 1995 stated, so yes you are correct. The science, however, moves on and the role of various bits that make up the atmosphere, such as clouds etc were not understood at the time (clouds are still acknowledged as not being sufficiently understood). Climate sensitivity was thought to be high, but is now considered to be low according to the only empirical evidence that we have.
Their "experts" were convinced that the IPCC had got it right? The "role of greenhouse gases in global warming COULD NOT be refuted?"
But still you quote "in the opinion of many scientists, the case for CO2 driven climate change has not been made."!!!!!!!!!!!
The role of GHG in global warming certainly cannot be refuted thank goodness! Without GRG this planet would be cold and devoid of life, but CO2 only contributes a few degrees of warming and according to the CO2 absorption curves is simply incapable of raising temperature to any measurable significance without the sun putting out more light, which it clearly is not.
At the time the AGW signature that could show beyond reasonable doubt that CO2 was a primary driver of climate change was being discussed, but 2 decades on, we are still no nearer to finding the signature, we just have computer models that predict where the signature should be.
Precisely, Mango, which scientists make up the "many" and please remember, they are obviously not the "experts" advising the GCC.
These are people who I think you will know, there are others which can be found easily by googling:
Abdusamatov, Baliunas, Ball, Christy, Chylek, Douglas, C. Idso, S. Idso, Lindzen, Michaels, Shaviv, Soon, Spencer, Stott, Svensmark, Tennekes.
@ross glory #283
i would say the terms sceptic, denialist and contrarian are all pretty mainstream now and describe a pretty specific non-scientific attitude to climate research.
Personally I find the term “denier” extremely offensive for the reasons others have stated. For a journal such as Nature to use this term is simply not acceptable.
but carry on ignoring nature, nasa, national scientific bodies, the united nations etc etc and place your faith in climateaudit, wottsupwiththat and a few comprehensively demolished papers if you wish.
Who’s ignoring them? I read on a regular basis documents from NASA etc and I am an avid reader of RealClimate even if I don’t agree with them. Again my beef is only with the CO2 primary driver of climate change, which is simply not proved.
#284
i think you'll find that what mangochutney is trying to imply is that way, way back in 1995 corporations did bad things and ignored scientists, but now the scientists are bad and it's ok to ignore them.
I think you will find you are wrong, but it’s good to see you acknowledge the “scientists are bad” ;)
/mango
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023540/lord-sterns-dodgy-dossier-exposed/
it just keeps on going.
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#290 and #291
Personally I try avoid the term and other such labels because I dislike them and don't think they add anything to the debate. When I use them I tend to do so inside inverted commas, not least of all because its usually that I am using someone else's words.
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To Maria Ashot:
From Canada, you cross the US border at Abbotsford, and wend your way over to Interstate 5.
I remember I left on inpulse in December of 1999, I believe, and was driving south past Mount Baker as the Sun was setting. There was a big high pressure system providing immaculate skies that night, and the summit snows of Mount Baker were glowing all the shades of rose. Soon, under darkening skies, Venus lit up the heavens above me, and in front of me, an endless stream of white headlights coming my way on the other side of the superhighway, and an endless stream of red tail-lights heading south.
Diana Ross et al were blasting out tunes on the radio of my Ford half-ton at full volume as I whizzed past the great cities of the Pacific Northwest, one after the other, and I, a part of this endless stream.
Every now and then I'd tune into a new station, and contemplate the changes in 'atmosphere' along the way. The night lights were set up for Christmas, and I was heading for Calif-or-ni-ay, and the Anza-Borrego Desert.
- Manysummits -
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For all those fans of things to do with glaciers....
Nairobi, 21 January 2010 – The last assessment on glacier melt by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) shows that the average annual melting rate of glaciers doubled after the turn of the millennium.
The report, 'Global Glacier Changes: Facts and Figures', was published by UNEP and WGMS in September 2008. It highlights global trends in glacier retreat and shows that record losses were posted in 2006 for a key network of reference sites. The previous record loss in the year 1998 was already exceeded three times in the years 2003, 2004 and 2006, with the losses in 2004 and 2006 being almost twice as high as the previous 1998 record loss.
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=608&ArticleID=6449&l=en
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I don't believe those figures simon-swede. I no longer give any credence to anything the climatological elite proclaim. They are inveterate liars. It would be miraculous if Northern hemisphere glaciers are retreating right at this moment - wouldn't you agree?
Not that it matters: who cares if the glaciers melt? Their contribution to the planet's albedo is insignificant. To suggest that rivers, agriculture or drinking water supplies depend on glacial meltwater is nonsensical and risible. The only land ice that would make an iota of difference to anything if it melted would be the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and they're doing just fine.
The science is scuttled.
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to add to Fergal's comment
even if the figures are correct, do these figures tell us the cause of the melting?
/mango
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And now it seems the IPCC simply made up claims about the effects of global warming on the Amazon rain forest. I'd give a link but the moderators would probably delete it.
Really, what is the point in the BBC when this information is to be found on the internet for weeks before Auntie is grudgingly forced to report it?
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What happens next Richard?
Well as you failed to tell us what has already happened, ie climategate as a catalyst for more people deciding that maybe this "science is settled" thing needs to be looked at again, I cannot see you accurately reporting the next steps either.
Cannot wait for you to write about:
1. The fact that the hurricane advisor Chris Landsea resigned from advising the IPCC in 2005, citing his reason as:
"I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.
Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. "
And yet the study he started was still cited to highlight more extreme weather in IPCC AR4, despite the fact the study was not completed until 2008 - and had the following conclusion:
"We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses."
2. The fact that a non-peer reviewed opinion, on Himalayan glacier melt reaching 100% by 2035 being utterly untrue.
3. The fact that Dr Lal has now said that:
"It (2035 glacier melt) related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action."
This from the IPCC whose mandate is to advise, and not be motivated to policy change.
4. The fact NASA's NOAA site claimed that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2030, and yet that claim has mysteriously vanished in the past 48 hours.
I am proud to be a "flat earther", if it means I keep my eyes, ears and brain open to the fact that just maybe, this co2-fixated path is a money making scam for people such as Lord Stern who run carbon trading companies, and a loser for the rest of us.
It is also a disaster for our planet. While you people fuel the co2 madness, the population is still exploding, and the real danger is therefore being left unaddressed.
Richard - over to you.
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I'm with Mango on this. There simply is no link between co2 and temp rises, well not in the way that supports the AGW hypothesis.
The evidence we repeatedly see is indicative of a changing climate, NOT a cause.
Even that, it increasingly turns out, is erronious, and possibly fabricated (i hasten to add, some not all, here).
The worst thing about this whole saga, is that the name of science is being destroyed by activists and politicians.
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@fergalr
If you look at the world temperature anomaly for the last week on the Japanese met office site here
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/climate/synop.html
and click on anomaly, it will give you the anomaly compared to the 1971-2000 average. You can see that the northern hemisphere isn't relatively speaking that cold.
Now I'm not suggesting that this is evidence for anything, but certain areas of the media are going on about how cold the northern hemisphere is this winter when the picture is a bit more complex.
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# 298. "To suggest that rivers, agriculture or drinking water supplies depend on glacial meltwater is nonsensical and risible."
Seriously? Rainfall varies with seasons, and glaciers provide natural reservoirs of water in dry periods. They keep the water levels of rivers topped up in the dry months providing drinking water, irrigation for farmland, and HEP in some parts of the world. You might be able to replace stores of water in glaciers with water reserves provided by dams, but only at huge cost and with other environmental impacts.
There is a 2005 paper by Barnett called 'Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions' (peer reviewed) that covers this:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
"In this review, we suggest that the simplest of changes associated with
global warming (a modest increase in near-surface air temperature)
will be responsible for alterations of the hydrological cycle in
snowmelt-dominated regions via seasonal shifts in stream-flow.
Without adequate water storage capacity, these changes will lead to
regional water shortages. The model-predicted changes are already
being seen in the observed data. If maintained at current levels,
these changes will lead to a serious reduction in dry-season water
availability in many regions of the Earth within the next few decades."
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Maria Ashot #270;
Your posting is so inane, so full of inaccuracies it is not worthy of a detailed reply.
BTW, so that you don't continue to look entirely foolish in the future, the accepted term for the machine that powers an automobile is an engine, not a motor unless it is an electrically powered vehicle which most are not. Small point but as an electrical engineer, when I first read your reference I thought you were entirely daft. Most electric motors are well over 90% efficient. Internal combustion engines a small fraction of that.
The myth of the existance of a 100 mpg gallon carburator being surpressed by the big oil companies goes back to at least the 1930s. The explanation for your 50 mpg Pontiac Bonneville assuming your readings were correct is that the odometer was defective. But don't take my word for it, just ask any automobile mechanic. He'll set you straight.
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Re Asopus, #204
Since the link to the article was removed, the full Barnett reference is: T. P. Barnett, J. C. Adam & D. P. Lettenmaier, 'Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions', Nature, vol 438, pp 303-309, 17 November 2005.
The Barnett et al article includes a section on uncertainties in climate forcing. It notes: "One of the greatest uncertainties in future prediction has to do with how the models are forced. Stated more directly, what are the implications of omitting forcings that we strongly suspect (or know) are important but cannot yet reliably be included in the model physics? Of these, the most important is thought to be the incomplete inclusion of aerosols and their impacts, especially on clouds. Excellent discussions of the current state of the aerosol
problem may be found in refs 57 and 58, and ref. 59 shows the
sensitivity of climate model predictions to uncertainties in indirect
aerosol forcing."
After examining some of the main issues arising from this, their conclusion on this point is: "The bottom line here is that other important, but poorly represented, atmospheric physical and chemical processes seem unlikely to neutralize or reverse greenhouse warming. This is true even if we take the lower end of the estimated warming by the IPCC (1.4 degrees C) to be the net thermal forcing on the snow/glacier packs. Our ACPI study showed that such an increase, coupled with inadequate containment, is all it takes to invoke the water storage problems noted above."
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#304.
Drat. The Beeb doesn't seem to like us posting links to PDFs.
Also, in my comment, instead of "Rainfall varies with seasons" I should have said "Precipitation (i.e. rain and snow) varies with seasons".
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I watched an interesting program about the Sahara Desert on the History Channel this weekend. With all of the tools even real scientists now have at their disposal, the one which seems to be getting duller, not sharper is the the most important one, the one failing out of disuse, their brains.
Fossil evidence shows that the Sahara oscillates between lush grassland and arid desert. The transition based on core samples shows the transition between greenish organic matter and red clay took place in less than one or two centuries and the last time was between five and six thousand years ago. Prior to about 5500 years ago, the Sahara had been covered with vegitation. It was slow enough to allow humans to migrate to beyond the fringes of the advancing desert to the Nile Delta giving rise to the civilization of Ancient Egypt. This oscillatory process was ascribed to the wobble of the earth's axis, a well known phenomenon that takes about 20,000 years. It was said the transition came when the earth had completed one such cycle. Problem is that the process is continuous and gradual but the change was sudden. It was of course not explained how such a sudden shift in climate could occur as the result of such a gradual process. Too bad CO2 emissions weren't rising rapidly at the time, it could have been ascribed to that instead just the way apparent sudden climate changes are today.
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#306
The post referred to is, obviously, #304. My bad!
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Asopus:
What a childish analysis. Do you believe that when rain falls on a mountain it immediately appears on the plains below? Does it occur to you that perhaps it takes many months to reach sea-level? True nature lovers should be campaigning for the destruction of glaciers since they provide such an inhospitable environment for life.
AGW alarmists are always on about Global Warming increasing the atmosphere's water vapour content. They harp on about this because they depend on it to hang their disaster fantasy runaway Global Warming on. The fact that the Earth has managed to avoid such a fate for its entire history is proof positive that they're talking nonsense.
If the Earth's temperature increases there'll be more rain (and snow for your precious glaciers). If not SNAFU.
Oh, but let's not forget that the oceans are "acidifying"!!!! At the awesome rate of - wait for it - 0.0017 of a pH unit per year. Frankly, if there's an animal in existence that can't adapt to such a minuscule rate of change it deserves to be extinct. Fortunately, the pH of sea water varies quite widely through the seasons and with the tides so no such animal could exist. Don't hold your breath for the oceans turning acid; our fossil fuels will have been exhausted several hundreds, if not thousands, of years before such a science-fiction scenario could come about.
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Warming of climate in the Northern Hemisphere was predicted around 1970 by climatologists of the time. But it wasn't ascribed to CO2 increasing blanketing the earth, it was ascribed to the drying up of the Aral Sea due to hydroelectric dams being engineered by Americans and built by Stalin in the USSR in the 1930s. These dams cut off flow of water to the feeders to that sea resulting in a slow but steady drop in that sea's level until now it is all but gone. It was said the cooling effect of this largest inland body of fresh water in the world on air passing over it would be lost and that by the year 2000, the climate of New York City might resemble that of Miami Florida of that time. I had fogotten this until about 20 years later, I'd seen photos of the Aral Sea where fishing boats were sitting in the sand that had once been the seabed. The piers rose a good ten feet or more above the sand. These had once been fishing villages. That sea is gone now but climatologists today have never even heard of this theory and on the few occasions I've mentioned it, they dismiss it out of hand. Their minds are made up, they do not want to be confused by other facts or theories. They know the truth. And why shouldn't they, they're the ones who invented it.
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MAII at #305
You write “The accepted term for the machine that powers an automobile is an engine, not a motor unless it is an electrically powered vehicle which most are not…”
That's not entirely true, at least according to Wikipedia, which notes that combustion engines are often referred to as motors. Their entry states: “At one time the word, 'engine' (from Latin, via Old French, ingenium, 'ability') meant any piece of machinery… A 'motor' (from Latin motor, "mover") is any machine that produces mechanical power. Traditionally, electric motors are not referred to as 'engines'; however, combustion engines are often referred to as 'motors'.…”
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#305 MarcusAureliusII wrote:
"the accepted term for the machine that powers an automobile is an engine, not a motor unless it is an electrically powered vehicle which most are not."
Tell it to Chuck Berry!
"Rain water blowin all under ma hood, I knew that was doin ma motor good"
(Maybellene, 1955)
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"Fossil evidence shows that the Sahara oscillates between lush grassland and arid desert."
"This oscillatory process was ascribed to the wobble of the earth's axis, a well known phenomenon that takes about 20,000 years."
I know nothing about the deserts, but I wonder if anyone attributes their occurrence to over-grazing? That would explain the "oscillation" too.
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RE:Glaciers as a natural reservoir
The idea of glaciers as a natural reservoir is a bit...misleading. As usual the alarmists look at ONLY the down side then pat themselves on the back for a job well done.
Let me put this into perspective...were the Himalayan glaciers actually melting significantly due to global warming, it would mean that it is partly because of this melt that those regions down river are capable of supporting as many people as they do.
If you alarmists got your way and we magically stopped using carbon based fuels AND you were actually right about CO2 causing almost all of the warming (LOL, and you're not ;) the increased uptake by the oceans would rapidly lower CO2 levels and temperatures...making the himalayan glaciers increase their mass...and causing a significant drop in the amount of water flowing into rivers. Obviously this also assumes temperature is the only factor in any melting glaciers as well as assuming that they're melting significantly in the first place.
That's the thing, glaciers are a water balance issue. That's what makes it so incredibly difficult to know what is causing it in the first place. Because of the way atmospheric water vapor increases with temperature and the way temperature decreases with altitude, there should be an increase in the amount of snow in winter (all things being equal) just at a somewhat increased elevation.
But all things are NOT equal. We have these persistent ocean/wind currents that fluctuate between states over a period of 20+ years. This ALONE would cause moisture balance issues that could make glaciers shrink or grow...and its difficult to know which way.
In many respects even the definition of "climate" is cherry picked to show warming. Generally it's defined by all those demanding action on climate change as changes over a period greater than 30 years. But several of those persistent ocean cycles take 50+ years. We've only observed the warming part of the cycle in great detail. We have almost no detailed information on the cold period.
It could be that most of what has been observed is the result of these cycles...likely through a process that blocks the cold, polar air and prevents it lashing out across the high latitude land masses... where, no surprise, the meeting of warm, moist air and the polar vortex create huge snowfalls in winter.
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301. At 1:13pm on 25 Jan 2010, jasonsceptic wrote:What happens next Richard?
Jason,
Exactly. Great point.
So Richard do you want to remain part of the problem (one of those spreading alarmism high and wide about the "killer everythings")?
Or are you going to help stem the tide of taxpayer & charity money wasted upon fraudulent NGO's, Research Institutes & Scientists who "cry wolf"?
Are you really going to continue to help spread the alarmist kool-aid so that the head of the IPCC can get more funding for his cronies at the TERI institute he heads up?
When will you remove the wool from your eyes?
So Richard - over to you...
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Yes I know that BBC is a British web site and perhaps I was a bit hasty but while there may be Rolls Royce "motorcars" and Jaguar "motorcars" in Britain, there are no Pontiac Bonneville motorcars in California or the rest of America. We have cars and automobiles and they are nearly all powered by internal combustion engines or now hybrid engines, only a handful by electric motors. Motor as the term used for the machine powering a car (or gasoline powered lawnmower or powered boat etc.) in the US is a word that is both arcane and archaic. It is a kind of generic term (automotive power is acceptable) except when used for an electric motor where it is specific. In fact even in Britain, I'll bet the term "speakermotor" is rarely if ever used anymore, a dynamic loudspeaker mechanism being a linear electric motor. (Is loudhailer still used?) Probably in france the term "moteur" is still commonly used relative to cars. Small wonder women in America often feel garage mechanics take advantage of them. "Oh mister garage mechanic, my motor seems to be acting up again, would you be a kind dear and take a look at it for me?" Yep.
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#310 FergalR
A lot of bluster there FergalR, but not much that makes sense or is relevant to the comment I challenged:
"Do you believe that when rain falls on a mountain it immediately appears on the plains below?"
Nope.
"Does it occur to you that perhaps it takes many months to reach sea-level?"
You mean that water is stored, in places like glaciers for example? Precisely the point I was making. Glaciers are a long-term store of water. If the glaciers are in decline the store of water is also in decline and there is less melt water is available in dry seasons. Smaller glaciers = smaller amounts of melt water in dry seasons. No glacier means no melt water in dry seasons.
"True nature lovers should be campaigning for the destruction of glaciers since they provide such an inhospitable environment for life."
And where does that leave the eco-systems that are dependent on the glacier melt water in dry seasons? Where does it leave the farmers who depend on melt water for irrigation in dry seasons or the HEP plants in the Alps that depend on melt water in dry seasons?
That's enough for me. I'm not going to waste any more of my time on you.
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