Science?
_From financing “green” energy boondoggles as part of the stimulus program to the EPA's war on coal power plants, the Obama administration has fully and completely
invested itself in the theory of man-caused global warming. Whether this is because they are actually
convinced about the underlying science or whether this is just another excuse
for further ratcheting up government’s control over the economy, or parts of
both, we'll probably never know. As we have discussed in preceding chapters, the desire to regulate and the resulting political and
economic benefits of increasing the state's power that accrues for the
Crooks and Thieves in Washington is reason enough for them to go for it with both guns blazing. Controlling everyone's health care might be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but controlling energy? That's absolute nirvana!
However, in order to pull off this greatest of taxpayer swindles, the Crooks and Thieves need to justify their schemes and sell the public on the need to seize their property and abrogate their rights. Accomplishing that goal for the left is the raison d'être of the Matrix. With the media shilling for them, the sales pitch doesn’t even need to be based on reality. Thus, the rationale for health care was to cover the uninsured while still lowering the cost of care for everyone despite the fact that it will do neither. The rationale behind the regulation of the financial industries is to save the country from another financial collapse and bailout even though the law favors large institutions and enshrines the concept of too big to fail which will make the next meltdown even worse. But, why should the left worry about the truth when the power that comes from regulating health care, financial services and the energy sector will lead to power and riches for themselves and their friends beyond even their most corrupt fantasies?
Thus, it is with global warming. Regardless of whether they believe in the science or not, being able to regulate all forms of energy, transportation and manufacturing production in the United States is former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s wet dream come true. It enables Chicago Style pay to play politics on a mind blowingly massive scale. We are not talking millions, even billions, but trillions of dollars a year to be managed, controlled and exploited by the Crooks and Thieves in Washington. Better yet, the storyline that they and their media allies have created to sell this takeover to the American public casts them as the good guys out to save the planet and casts their enemies as mean, evil, greedy troglodytes who hate mother nature. So mean and evil that this is how we should deal with them:
However, in order to pull off this greatest of taxpayer swindles, the Crooks and Thieves need to justify their schemes and sell the public on the need to seize their property and abrogate their rights. Accomplishing that goal for the left is the raison d'être of the Matrix. With the media shilling for them, the sales pitch doesn’t even need to be based on reality. Thus, the rationale for health care was to cover the uninsured while still lowering the cost of care for everyone despite the fact that it will do neither. The rationale behind the regulation of the financial industries is to save the country from another financial collapse and bailout even though the law favors large institutions and enshrines the concept of too big to fail which will make the next meltdown even worse. But, why should the left worry about the truth when the power that comes from regulating health care, financial services and the energy sector will lead to power and riches for themselves and their friends beyond even their most corrupt fantasies?
Thus, it is with global warming. Regardless of whether they believe in the science or not, being able to regulate all forms of energy, transportation and manufacturing production in the United States is former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s wet dream come true. It enables Chicago Style pay to play politics on a mind blowingly massive scale. We are not talking millions, even billions, but trillions of dollars a year to be managed, controlled and exploited by the Crooks and Thieves in Washington. Better yet, the storyline that they and their media allies have created to sell this takeover to the American public casts them as the good guys out to save the planet and casts their enemies as mean, evil, greedy troglodytes who hate mother nature. So mean and evil that this is how we should deal with them:
So successful has the left been world wide in marginalizing anyone who opposes them, that the green group that made the video above has no qualms about blowing up any of the sad misguided people who dare to disagree with them. Man caused global warming skeptics aren’t just wrong, you see. They are evil and must be killed. After all, the planet must be saved. There is a scientific consensus, they proclaim! The science is settled! Therefore, anyone who disagrees with them must be backwards anti-intellectuals who are too stupid or too greedy to see reason and accept what they spin as scientific fact.
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Leftists love nothing more than to make the case that conservatives are “anti-science”. They gleefully point out the few devout Evangelical Christians who believe the earth is only a few thousand years old and try to lump all Republicans and Conservatives in with them:
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Leftists love nothing more than to make the case that conservatives are “anti-science”. They gleefully point out the few devout Evangelical Christians who believe the earth is only a few thousand years old and try to lump all Republicans and Conservatives in with them:
That this is no more true than a conservative saying that all Democrats are communists because a sizable percentage of communists vote for and endorse Democrats. Or, to be even more ridiculous, for conservatives to say that since Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran constantly uses leftist talking points to disparage and castigate the United States that Democrats are in favor of instituting Iranian Sharia law here in the US. Yet, despite how ridiculous that kind of guilt by association is, the left has been successful in framing the issue in such a way that anyone who disagrees with them is ignorant and anti-science. That's a pretty cool rhetorical trick if you can pull it off and with the media-Matrix fully in the tank, they get away with this type of dishonesty all the time.
In my many dealings with liberals and even some moderates on the subject of global warming, I have been constantly amazed at how successful the political and media propaganda has been in getting people to buy hook, line and sinker into the Anthropogenic (man made) Global Warming theory. Even my "moderate" buddy "Fred" parrots the leftist straw dog meme about Evangelical Christians and how their connection to conservatives and the Republican party makes them all anti-science:
You're not going to find many innovations in science from devout Evangelical Christians, because they basically don't believe in science, certainly not biology. How can you discover the structure of DNA if you don't believe in Evolution? No wonder the education system is failing. The mainline Protestants who believed in both God and Evolution, who created NASA and the Space Age, are considered too liberal for most Evangelicals, today. That's why Americans aren't dominant in science the way they were in my dad's time.
In answer to "Fred's" fascinating take on this, I would like to point out that I agree that anyone who believes that the earth is only a few thousand years old doesn’t much believe in modern science and while I totally disagree with them, their right to their opinion is totally fine with me. I don't think they should be burned at the stake like most progressives do. While I have met people whose strict literal interpretation of the bible leads them to dismiss the science of paleontology, geology, and astronomy among others, they are few and far between. Certainly less than the number of leftists who believe that 9/11 was an inside job. It can be easily argued that a faith based literal interpretation of the bible which disputes accepted scientific fact and a faith based interpretation of the events of a major historical event (9/11 Truthers)that is also in contradiction to known facts is exactly the same. This is the power of belief over real world evidence and it is manifested throughout the human political and religious spectrum.
That said, if we are not still dominant in science the way we were in my friend's father's time, who is? The facts are that the vast, vast majority of major scientific advancement still comes from the US. It comes from other places as well, not because we are nation filled with backward thinking Evangelical Christians, but because so much of the rest of the world has joined us as advanced civilizations. To say that Science is deteriorating in the US because of Christians is just preposterous. There is just no evidence that this is so. As I stated in the chapter Reality, Texas is filled with all kinds of devout Christians, but it is still one of the great centers of scientific and technological advances in the world.
The truth is that other than legitimate differences of opinion on evolution and embryonic stem cell research, I can’t think of a single field of science that conservatives are opposed to. Where, for example is the conservative objection to physics and chemistry to be found? Where is the right's objection to astronomy or space exploration? In fact, some of the great advances in modern science are taking place at the CERN complex in Switzerland. Every day new discoveries about particle and quantum physics are being made. Why just the other day, scientists have said that they may have located the Higgs/Bosun also known as the God particle. Why is this happening in Switzerland and not the US? Because Democrats in the US Congress killed Reagan’s program to build a similar super collider in Texas in order that they could continue to give Medicare subsidies to millionaires. Does that make the Democrat Party anti-science? These same liberals also chose to kill the Apollo program because they claimed we shouldn’t be wasting billions going into space when we had so many pressing domestic problems at home. Does that make the Democrat party anti-astronomy and anti-physics?
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The only objections that conservatives have raised that progressives can point to in any way as “anti-science” come on the specific issues of stem cell research, the theory of evolution and Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). The rejection of embryonic Stem Cell research by conservatives isn't about the science itself, it is about matters of moral conscience in the same way that animal rights groups object to the use of rats and chimps for use in experimentation. If conservatives are anti-science because some of them are morally opposed to using the fetuses of aborted babies for use in experiments, then progressives are anti-science because some of them don't want any animals used in scientific research either. Given that almost any scientist who studies biology or medicine cites grave harm if animals are no longer allowed to be used for study and experimentation, I'd say that logic would dictate that the left is more anti-science than the right. But, since I think this whole anti-science thing is ridiculous, I don't believe either are.
As for evolution, there are very few people who don't accept the fact that life on earth started small and became larger and more complex as time went on. What some critics of current Darwinian theory object to is the explanation as to how life began and how and why it changed. To say that Darwin may have been mistaken that it is the slow process of genetic mutation and adaptation that caused these changes and that there might be an alternative explanation that we have not yet discovered is not anti-science. Nor is doubting the current theory on how life began on earth. As yet, no one has come out with a theory that can be proven or that even seems reasonable. In fact, the guy who discovered DNA, Crick and famous atheist Richard Dawkins both have posited the possibility that DNA was seeded on earth by aliens:
In my many dealings with liberals and even some moderates on the subject of global warming, I have been constantly amazed at how successful the political and media propaganda has been in getting people to buy hook, line and sinker into the Anthropogenic (man made) Global Warming theory. Even my "moderate" buddy "Fred" parrots the leftist straw dog meme about Evangelical Christians and how their connection to conservatives and the Republican party makes them all anti-science:
You're not going to find many innovations in science from devout Evangelical Christians, because they basically don't believe in science, certainly not biology. How can you discover the structure of DNA if you don't believe in Evolution? No wonder the education system is failing. The mainline Protestants who believed in both God and Evolution, who created NASA and the Space Age, are considered too liberal for most Evangelicals, today. That's why Americans aren't dominant in science the way they were in my dad's time.
In answer to "Fred's" fascinating take on this, I would like to point out that I agree that anyone who believes that the earth is only a few thousand years old doesn’t much believe in modern science and while I totally disagree with them, their right to their opinion is totally fine with me. I don't think they should be burned at the stake like most progressives do. While I have met people whose strict literal interpretation of the bible leads them to dismiss the science of paleontology, geology, and astronomy among others, they are few and far between. Certainly less than the number of leftists who believe that 9/11 was an inside job. It can be easily argued that a faith based literal interpretation of the bible which disputes accepted scientific fact and a faith based interpretation of the events of a major historical event (9/11 Truthers)that is also in contradiction to known facts is exactly the same. This is the power of belief over real world evidence and it is manifested throughout the human political and religious spectrum.
That said, if we are not still dominant in science the way we were in my friend's father's time, who is? The facts are that the vast, vast majority of major scientific advancement still comes from the US. It comes from other places as well, not because we are nation filled with backward thinking Evangelical Christians, but because so much of the rest of the world has joined us as advanced civilizations. To say that Science is deteriorating in the US because of Christians is just preposterous. There is just no evidence that this is so. As I stated in the chapter Reality, Texas is filled with all kinds of devout Christians, but it is still one of the great centers of scientific and technological advances in the world.
The truth is that other than legitimate differences of opinion on evolution and embryonic stem cell research, I can’t think of a single field of science that conservatives are opposed to. Where, for example is the conservative objection to physics and chemistry to be found? Where is the right's objection to astronomy or space exploration? In fact, some of the great advances in modern science are taking place at the CERN complex in Switzerland. Every day new discoveries about particle and quantum physics are being made. Why just the other day, scientists have said that they may have located the Higgs/Bosun also known as the God particle. Why is this happening in Switzerland and not the US? Because Democrats in the US Congress killed Reagan’s program to build a similar super collider in Texas in order that they could continue to give Medicare subsidies to millionaires. Does that make the Democrat Party anti-science? These same liberals also chose to kill the Apollo program because they claimed we shouldn’t be wasting billions going into space when we had so many pressing domestic problems at home. Does that make the Democrat party anti-astronomy and anti-physics?
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The only objections that conservatives have raised that progressives can point to in any way as “anti-science” come on the specific issues of stem cell research, the theory of evolution and Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). The rejection of embryonic Stem Cell research by conservatives isn't about the science itself, it is about matters of moral conscience in the same way that animal rights groups object to the use of rats and chimps for use in experimentation. If conservatives are anti-science because some of them are morally opposed to using the fetuses of aborted babies for use in experiments, then progressives are anti-science because some of them don't want any animals used in scientific research either. Given that almost any scientist who studies biology or medicine cites grave harm if animals are no longer allowed to be used for study and experimentation, I'd say that logic would dictate that the left is more anti-science than the right. But, since I think this whole anti-science thing is ridiculous, I don't believe either are.
As for evolution, there are very few people who don't accept the fact that life on earth started small and became larger and more complex as time went on. What some critics of current Darwinian theory object to is the explanation as to how life began and how and why it changed. To say that Darwin may have been mistaken that it is the slow process of genetic mutation and adaptation that caused these changes and that there might be an alternative explanation that we have not yet discovered is not anti-science. Nor is doubting the current theory on how life began on earth. As yet, no one has come out with a theory that can be proven or that even seems reasonable. In fact, the guy who discovered DNA, Crick and famous atheist Richard Dawkins both have posited the possibility that DNA was seeded on earth by aliens:
_Does postulating that it might be possible that intelligent beings from another world are the source of life on earth make Richard Dawkins anti-science despite his proven record of scholarly accomplishments? Of course not! And
that's the point. Questions, even far out theories like whether aliens
seeded the planet with DNA, must and always should be asked.
Skepticism is an essential element in scientific progress, not its
enemy. Whether there is a "consensus" of scientists who agree with a hypothesis is irrelevant to whether it is true. Until a theory can be demonstrated in an experiment, proven that the results can be replicated and then had the conclusions peer reviewed an analyzed, it is still just a theory no matter how many people "think" it's true. Has this kind of proper scientific scrutiny been applied to AGW? Can this relatively brand new science of climatology have
really figured all there is to know about how our environment works to the point that we
should gamble the entire US and world economy on it?
To the Crooks and Thieves in Washington looking for another area of the economy to regulate and control, there is no doubt that the science on AGW is as perfect and true as if God came down from Mt. Sinai and handed it to scientists. Here is Congressman Henry Waxman (D, CA), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and co-sponsor of the cap and trade bill that sought to restructure the entire US economy talking about why he thought it was necessary:
To the Crooks and Thieves in Washington looking for another area of the economy to regulate and control, there is no doubt that the science on AGW is as perfect and true as if God came down from Mt. Sinai and handed it to scientists. Here is Congressman Henry Waxman (D, CA), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman and co-sponsor of the cap and trade bill that sought to restructure the entire US economy talking about why he thought it was necessary:
_So, Chairman Waxman is relying on what the scientists say. There is a consensus he says. That is enough to convince him that we must act boldly and decisively in order to save the planet. But, how can these scientists be so sure about this when their field is in its infancy and the subject matter complex beyond imagining? To people like Chairman Waxman, it doesn't really matter whether any of this science can be proven. If you are on the left, the actual validity of the science is not what is important as long as its conclusions agree with preconceived notions that big business and big SUV's are bad things.
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If citing the authority of unproven theories allows you to assume more power, then it must be so! Man causes warming, everyone that agrees with them agrees that it is so. Therefore, it must be so:
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If citing the authority of unproven theories allows you to assume more power, then it must be so! Man causes warming, everyone that agrees with them agrees that it is so. Therefore, it must be so:
I apologize for the length of that video, but it is an important one in understanding how leftist propaganda works to win the debate. As Rolling Stone reporter Eric Bates is happy to point out, everyone knows the science and knows that climate change is real. Yes, everyone except those mean anti-science Republicans who, according to Chris Mathews, are guilty of pandering to greedy business interests and who are "evil in what they are doing". These mainstream media elites have the audacity to claim that AGW science is so indisputable, so settled, that they castigate others within the Matrix for even bothering to cover the positions and arguments of anyone who is skeptical of the theory. No red pills will be allowed!
So, not only are people who don't believe in CO2 as the main driver in global warming evil and anti-science, but they should be silenced as well, eh Chris, Eric and Joan? Sounds more like the way North Korea and Iran deal with ideas they don't like than the free society that we live in. But, that's the way of the left. Why argue facts when you can just keep the other side from talking at all.
To win the debate on AGW and thereby the public's permission to seize more power, this kind of blind public acceptance of the conventional wisdom of the "experts" is what they are counting on. After all, Algore says, the debate is over! The science is SETTLED!!! Now, in my humble opinion, anyone who spouts that kind of ridiculous nonsense is no scientist. Science is never settled!
So, not only are people who don't believe in CO2 as the main driver in global warming evil and anti-science, but they should be silenced as well, eh Chris, Eric and Joan? Sounds more like the way North Korea and Iran deal with ideas they don't like than the free society that we live in. But, that's the way of the left. Why argue facts when you can just keep the other side from talking at all.
To win the debate on AGW and thereby the public's permission to seize more power, this kind of blind public acceptance of the conventional wisdom of the "experts" is what they are counting on. After all, Algore says, the debate is over! The science is SETTLED!!! Now, in my humble opinion, anyone who spouts that kind of ridiculous nonsense is no scientist. Science is never settled!
The absolute arrogance and hubris of anyone, particularly a scientist, to say that they can categorically state that mankind is causing global warming when it is an indisputable fact that we know only a tiny fraction about our climate and what makes it work should have them drummed out of the academy instantly. Science is never settled. This kind of overheated rhetoric is almost always indicative of someone who is trying to pull the wool over your eyes just long enough that they can sell you some snake oil and move on to the next town before you find out you’ve been had. Otherwise, they would welcome debate, dissent and a frank discussion of the issues like scientists in any other field.
Can you imagine a physicist who is a proponent of string theory saying that the issue is settled and no further debate or discussion would be allowed? Why he'd be laughed and hounded right out of the profession. Physicists are serious about their science, so how come climatologists aren't? If these modern day prophets, like Algore, had the evidence that Global Warming is caused by man, they'd welcome the chance to skewer the skeptics with the facts. Yet, Algore will never agree to debate anyone on the subject. I wonder why?
Debate is not to be tolerated. Obama, Waxman, Algore and their media shills have a name for people disagree with their premise. They call them "deniers". The use of this word is not an accident. It is a rhetorical ploy to place someone who has an honest and well thought out difference of opinion on a scientific theory on the same plane as someone who does not believe the historically documented fact that Hitler killed six million Jews. In other words, dissenters who don't believe that AGW is settled science, are people so outside of the mainstream of accepted thought that they are to be shunned and ridiculed. Isn’t' that just rich!
This is the kind of tactic you use when you know your argument can't stand serious scrutiny. If you have the truth on your side, you don't need to resort to this kind of ridicule and intimidation. This is exactly what the Catholic Church did for centuries to anyone whose ideas in any way deviated from accepted dogma. Do you recall what they did to that “we are the center of the universe” denier Galileo?
As if to prove my point, the other day the most prestigious science magazine in the United States published this about an AGW skeptic:
Can you imagine a physicist who is a proponent of string theory saying that the issue is settled and no further debate or discussion would be allowed? Why he'd be laughed and hounded right out of the profession. Physicists are serious about their science, so how come climatologists aren't? If these modern day prophets, like Algore, had the evidence that Global Warming is caused by man, they'd welcome the chance to skewer the skeptics with the facts. Yet, Algore will never agree to debate anyone on the subject. I wonder why?
Debate is not to be tolerated. Obama, Waxman, Algore and their media shills have a name for people disagree with their premise. They call them "deniers". The use of this word is not an accident. It is a rhetorical ploy to place someone who has an honest and well thought out difference of opinion on a scientific theory on the same plane as someone who does not believe the historically documented fact that Hitler killed six million Jews. In other words, dissenters who don't believe that AGW is settled science, are people so outside of the mainstream of accepted thought that they are to be shunned and ridiculed. Isn’t' that just rich!
This is the kind of tactic you use when you know your argument can't stand serious scrutiny. If you have the truth on your side, you don't need to resort to this kind of ridicule and intimidation. This is exactly what the Catholic Church did for centuries to anyone whose ideas in any way deviated from accepted dogma. Do you recall what they did to that “we are the center of the universe” denier Galileo?
As if to prove my point, the other day the most prestigious science magazine in the United States published this about an AGW skeptic:
Ah yes, the science community is now playing the role of the Catholic church and branding a skeptic as a heretic in order to try to silence anyone else with the temerity to question AGW dogma. Normally, when people want to shut other people up, it usually means that the opposite of what they say is true. Particularly when dealing those on the left. So is that the case? Is it really the left that is anti-science? Let's find out.
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Because I understand that most of you who are reading this book have no desire to get knee deep into the scientific detail that is the AGW debate, I want to give you three choices that will enable you to understand the point I am trying to get across on this important subject. For those of you, who really couldn't care less, here is a twelve minute video that explains it well:
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Because I understand that most of you who are reading this book have no desire to get knee deep into the scientific detail that is the AGW debate, I want to give you three choices that will enable you to understand the point I am trying to get across on this important subject. For those of you, who really couldn't care less, here is a twelve minute video that explains it well:
After watching this video you can skip forward to page 106
If you have a little more interest in the science and a little more time (a little over an hour) you can watch this excellent and persuasive video:
If you have a little more interest in the science and a little more time (a little over an hour) you can watch this excellent and persuasive video:
After watching this video you can skip forward to page 106
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Okay, that leaves the rest of you... Is there anybody still there?
For those of you who are willing to devote some time to learn some of the science and the arguments pro and con about whether man is causing the climate to warm, the first thing that you need to know is this: AGW theory may be true, but based on what we currently know it is, at best, an educated guess. It certainly isn't science. AGW theory doesn't even pass even the most basic criteria of the scientific method:
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Okay, that leaves the rest of you... Is there anybody still there?
For those of you who are willing to devote some time to learn some of the science and the arguments pro and con about whether man is causing the climate to warm, the first thing that you need to know is this: AGW theory may be true, but based on what we currently know it is, at best, an educated guess. It certainly isn't science. AGW theory doesn't even pass even the most basic criteria of the scientific method:
Let's examine how AGW theory stacks up with the above steps of the scientific method:
Ask A Question
Here is where we first begin to run into problems. Certainly, we can ask the question about whether there is a connection between recent observed signs that the planet is warming and increasing amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere as a result of mankind's industrialization. More importantly, given that no one disputes that CO2's role in trapping a portion of the infrared spectrum will produce a certain amount of warming, the real question is whether it will also trigger a "positive feedback loop" that will multiply warming to a degree that could cause catastrophic or deleterious effects to the planet. The problem is that there is no way to measure whether this will occur. The earth's atmosphere and climate is too vast and the variables far too numerous to quantify in any way. Anyone who tells you otherwise is deluding themselves. This is an entirely unprovable question. However, not all things in science can be quantified or proven through experimentation, so let's give our AGW believing friends a pass and say that this is a question worth exploring, but that we must be mindful that there is no way to prove an answer to it.
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Do Background Research
_ Are we actually experiencing an unprecedented and dangerous warming trend that could turn into an ecological nightmare, as Algore would like us to believe in his movie An Inconvenient Truth? No one really can say for certain. Truth be told, we only have what we consider to be accurate worldwide temperature readings for maybe twenty or thirty years. Every global temperature reading we have from the past cannot be trusted to be anywhere near accurate when we are talking about the difference of a half a degree over a decade, let alone a century. The actual data from weather balloons and satellites do not show the same warming as land based readings and certainly do not reflect an alarming rate of increase caused by man:
_In fact, there is so much argument about the "urban heat island" effect
of cities and how many and what type of temperature readings we should
be taking and where we are taking them to question the supposedly
accurate readings we are getting even now. I will, however, for the
sake of argument, stipulate that current readings are accurate enough to be
used as scientific evidence, but I will note that, in my opinion, given the current equipment available, and issues about their quantity, location, and reliability,
temperature readings are guesstimates at best. They really should not be used.
Therefore, with the lack of any really reliable temperature data, how can we be sure that recent warming is anything but a statistical anomaly? If it is cloudy for a week straight, we don't start questioning whether the sun is on strike do we? Of course not. Therefore, we must look at the evidence and determine whether something is happening now that has never happened before and whether that is directly related to man made gases that have been released into the atmosphere and whether such warming will produce the positive feedback effect that is the source of AGW alarmism.
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Is current the current trend of warming for the past three hundred years unprecedented? Most people think that 1998 was the hottest year on record and that the decade of the Nineties was the hottest in history. Algore certainly says so in his movie and he is a Nobel Laureate and Oscar winner. I bet many of you believe that too. After all, you too have seen the famous "hockey stick" chart that Algore spends so much time with in his movie which shows stable temperatures for a thousand years and then an alarming acceleration in warming during the twentieth century. The media has dutifully spread that chart far and wide. It proves conclusively that man's activities have created an alarming spike in global temperatures right?
Therefore, with the lack of any really reliable temperature data, how can we be sure that recent warming is anything but a statistical anomaly? If it is cloudy for a week straight, we don't start questioning whether the sun is on strike do we? Of course not. Therefore, we must look at the evidence and determine whether something is happening now that has never happened before and whether that is directly related to man made gases that have been released into the atmosphere and whether such warming will produce the positive feedback effect that is the source of AGW alarmism.
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Is current the current trend of warming for the past three hundred years unprecedented? Most people think that 1998 was the hottest year on record and that the decade of the Nineties was the hottest in history. Algore certainly says so in his movie and he is a Nobel Laureate and Oscar winner. I bet many of you believe that too. After all, you too have seen the famous "hockey stick" chart that Algore spends so much time with in his movie which shows stable temperatures for a thousand years and then an alarming acceleration in warming during the twentieth century. The media has dutifully spread that chart far and wide. It proves conclusively that man's activities have created an alarming spike in global temperatures right?
Here is another graph from the IPCC (the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a.k.a the experts) that purports to show a direct relationship between CO2 emissions and temperatures:
_Well there you have it. See how CO2 rises and temperature follows? Cased
closed, right? That is what Algore tells us and that is what the media
is selling so it
should be safe to assume it's true. Well if you believe that, you would be wrong. Correlation does not automatically equal causation, particularly when the evidence has been doctored. Turns
out that the mathematics and statistical models used to create the Mann Hockey Stick and the UN
chart above were skewed and rigged and that the rise in temperatures during
the past century was consistent with the warming trend that started 300
years ago after the "Little Ice Age” and which, by the way, also
perfectly coincides with solar cycles and other trends having nothing to do with CO2 emissions. (if you no other one, read this link)
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Here is a chart that shows a totally different picture of temperatures over this time period:
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Here is a chart that shows a totally different picture of temperatures over this time period:
Wow! Radically different picture this one paints, eh? According to this chart, temperatures were even warmer than they are today just seven hundred years ago and were even warmer than that during the time of the Exodus from Egypt. Interesting, eh? But is this chart accurate? Well, take a look at this chart produced in an earlier IPCC report in 1990:
This chart came from the IPCC? Yes, indeed it did. It too, shows that temperatures were much warmer during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Of course, the minute that Michael Mann came out with his bogus chart that was more favorable to their ideological biases, the IPCC totally ditched this one as if it never happened. It didn't promote the narrative that current warming was unprecedented, you see. Would scientists actually do that? Well real scientists wouldn't, but activist scientists? Is a polar bear white? Scientists with an agenda always use every trick in the book to promote "the cause" and generate more funding. Even doing such patently obvious things as truncating charts to make their observations seem more dramatic:
Here is another chart that shows historical earth temperatures. It is from Greenland ice core samples. It's one the IPCC and the media never want you to see:
That chart paints a radically different picture than Mann's hockey stick, eh? It certainly gives one an entirely different perspective on recent warming. Greenland is, in fact, much much colder than it has been in a long time. Hey, it's no longer green! And, if you aren't suffering from graph overkill yet, here's a little video with even more charts that puts this temperature data even further into perspective :
Recently, scientists in Germany did a study of tree rings and determined that indeed the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods were warmer than today:
10======================================================================================================
Finally, to really put this all into perspective, think of this. Algore, Barack Obama and the media all want you to think that the planet has a fever, right? It's hotter now than it has ever been! Well take a look at this chart and you can see the earth is much cooler than it has been in the past:
Finally, to really put this all into perspective, think of this. Algore, Barack Obama and the media all want you to think that the planet has a fever, right? It's hotter now than it has ever been! Well take a look at this chart and you can see the earth is much cooler than it has been in the past:
Note that during each period in earth's history when the temperature was at it's warmest, life thrived here on earth. It is not by accident that the Cambrian explosion of species came during one such period. As you can see, we are nowhere near that optimum temperature for life today. In fact, the reality is that we are just getting back to normal:
_As you can see, you don't have to go too far back in history to see a pattern of
rapid warming and then a period of cooling. All we have to do is to go
back a seven hundred years. Now, while that may seem to be a lot of years,
in terms of the earth's climate it is but a drop in the bucket. Turns
out that from the 10th to the 13th centuries we went through a little
period called the little climatic optimum. Temperatures at that time got warm. I mean really
warm. This was the time when Greenland was green and the Vikings were
able to sail the North Atlantic at will and carve out a little empire
for themselves. It was also a time when there were thriving wineries in
England of all places!
And then... and then it got really cold. The earth moved into a period known as "the little ice age". This lasted until about three hundred years ago when we started our current warming cycle. Now, you may see many graphs and charts like Mann's hockey stick that erase the entire Medieval Warm Period in order to show that temperatures remained constant for a thousand years and then shot up dramatically and unprecedentedly in this century. However, Mann's work has been completely discredited by a number of sources:
In 2006 ... a panel of experts, chaired by Dr. Edward Wegman, Chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, concluded that the statistical methodology underpinning the hockey stick version was, indeed, profoundly flawed. The Wegman panel submitted a report to the U.S. House of Representatives (which should have been available to all House members including Rep. Waxman) which cited results of an earlier National Research Council panel endorsing the work and results of McIntyre and McKitrick. Wegman's work also found the McIntyre and McKitrick analysis independently verifiable, their observations of the IPCC flaws correct and "valid," and their arguments "compelling."
Perhaps even more devastating, Wegman criticized Dr. Mann and his IPCC colleagues for their systematic unwillingness to freely share research materials, data and results outside of a small group of like-minded analysts.
September 27, 2009 Global Warming 'Science' By John McLaughlin
In the summation of his report Wegman wrote:
It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann's assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.
11======================================================================================================
Even Phil Jones, former head of the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University and the UK and one of the prime authors of the IPCC reports that publicized the bogus Mann hockey stick chart was recently forced to admit that:
‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.
‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
‘Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’
However, there is evidence that the MWP also occurred in the southern hemisphere. In December of 2011, a team of 18 researchers from seven countries did a study of historical temperatures in South America. In their report they said:
"The international research team — composed of scientists from Argentina, Chile, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States — write that their summer temperature reconstruction suggests that “a warm period extended in SSA from 900 (or even earlier) to the mid-fourteenth century,”
Here is the chart from their study:
And then... and then it got really cold. The earth moved into a period known as "the little ice age". This lasted until about three hundred years ago when we started our current warming cycle. Now, you may see many graphs and charts like Mann's hockey stick that erase the entire Medieval Warm Period in order to show that temperatures remained constant for a thousand years and then shot up dramatically and unprecedentedly in this century. However, Mann's work has been completely discredited by a number of sources:
In 2006 ... a panel of experts, chaired by Dr. Edward Wegman, Chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, concluded that the statistical methodology underpinning the hockey stick version was, indeed, profoundly flawed. The Wegman panel submitted a report to the U.S. House of Representatives (which should have been available to all House members including Rep. Waxman) which cited results of an earlier National Research Council panel endorsing the work and results of McIntyre and McKitrick. Wegman's work also found the McIntyre and McKitrick analysis independently verifiable, their observations of the IPCC flaws correct and "valid," and their arguments "compelling."
Perhaps even more devastating, Wegman criticized Dr. Mann and his IPCC colleagues for their systematic unwillingness to freely share research materials, data and results outside of a small group of like-minded analysts.
September 27, 2009 Global Warming 'Science' By John McLaughlin
In the summation of his report Wegman wrote:
It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann's assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.
11======================================================================================================
Even Phil Jones, former head of the Climatic Research Unit of East Anglia University and the UK and one of the prime authors of the IPCC reports that publicized the bogus Mann hockey stick chart was recently forced to admit that:
‘There is much debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period was global in extent or not. The MWP is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia.
‘For it to be global in extent, the MWP would need to be seen clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern hemisphere. There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.
‘Of course, if the MWP was shown to be global in extent and as warm or warmer than today, then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented. On the other hand, if the MWP was global, but was less warm than today, then the current warmth would be unprecedented.’
However, there is evidence that the MWP also occurred in the southern hemisphere. In December of 2011, a team of 18 researchers from seven countries did a study of historical temperatures in South America. In their report they said:
"The international research team — composed of scientists from Argentina, Chile, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States — write that their summer temperature reconstruction suggests that “a warm period extended in SSA from 900 (or even earlier) to the mid-fourteenth century,”
Here is the chart from their study:
In a more recent and wide ranging study, scientists found that a new process of determining temperatures using a mineral known as ikaite shows that both the warming of the MWP and the little ice age that follows was actually global in its impact:
_If you want further evidence that shows that the Medieval Warm Period was global, you can check out this paper here. and here.
12======================================================================================================
Is this enough evidence to show that the MWP was global and thus, modern warming is not unprecedented? Many would say that the evidence is compelling and changes our whole perspective on the issue of whether we are experiencing natural or man made warming. However, since AGW bigwig Phil Jones has obviously either never heard of these studies and others like them or dismisses them as not being enough evidence to make a determination about the MWP, he is inadvertently admitting something just as serious.
Given the paucity of temperature recording stations in the earth's oceans and in the southern hemiphere and given that AGW theorists don't accept satellite temperatures which show little or no warming for the past thirty years, Jones is admitting that if we use the very same standards of proof he claims are necessary to show there was a MWP, we currently don't have reliable data about what the temperatures are globally today. You'd think that a real scientist would then make it an imperative to make sure that there is a proper and verifiable means of gathering global temperature data. Thus, his duty as a true scientist would be to make sure that this be the primary effort of the climate science community and advocate strongly to make sure that money was spent to accomplish something so essential to the basic science.
Without accurate and reliable global temperature readings, whatever conclusions are arrived at are nothing more than educated guesses. However, Jones prefers to base his "science" on data that even he admits is problematic. It is incredibly informative to anyone that takes the scientific method seriously that Jones and the IPCC are willing to place the scientific credibility of AGW theory behind a chart as flawed as Mann's hockey stick and then use it as their main evidence to support the theory of unprecedented 20th warming. Particularly, since this in direct contradiction to his own standards as to burden of proof when it comes to the MWP.
It is even more amazing that Jones and the IPCC chose to ignore the ample historical and anecdotal evidence to show that, in the northern hemisphere at a minimum, it was very warm indeed at that time. Instead of using Mann's cooked books to create a false impression that temperatures have never been warmer than they are today, perhaps a better and more reasonable analysis of how warm the earth was then compared to now is to look at how many wineries do and could exist in England today. How green is Greenland currently? Does it even come close to matching the descriptions of it from the time? When looked at from the point of view of logical analysis, it would seem to be obvious that the anecdotal evidence of the day would seem to carry much more weight than guesses made by scientists derived from cherry picked tree ring and ice core samples or whatever. But, maybe I am all wet.
What there is no doubt about, however, is that the climate warmed suddenly during the 10th century and somehow man was not to blame. It then cooled just as suddenly and man was also not to blame. Imagine that! While I will admit that it is within the realm of possibility that CO2 emissions may indeed be a factor behind our current warming trend, I also think that given the long earth history of warming and cooling cycles it doesn’t look very likely. We’ve had ice ages and then warming and then ice ages, little climatic optimums and then little ice ages and on and on and on for millions of years. The earth warms and cools and basically couldn’t give a damn about that insignificant mammal known as man. Perhaps, just like it has since its birth, the earth’s current warming is just one of its many natural and cyclical climatic events.
13=======================================================================================================
Now all of that is fine, you might say, but this climatic optimum was years and years ago right? We are burning fossil fuels and destroying our planet now! Well, then let's look at the current trend of warming. As I said, most people think that 1998 was the hottest year of the 20th century. The reality is that 1934 was the hottest and the 1930's were the hottest decade on record. And Greenland, remember Greenland and all of those glaciers melting which Algore says will produce a massive rise in sea levels? Well the melting of those glaciers was 50% more then than now:
12======================================================================================================
Is this enough evidence to show that the MWP was global and thus, modern warming is not unprecedented? Many would say that the evidence is compelling and changes our whole perspective on the issue of whether we are experiencing natural or man made warming. However, since AGW bigwig Phil Jones has obviously either never heard of these studies and others like them or dismisses them as not being enough evidence to make a determination about the MWP, he is inadvertently admitting something just as serious.
Given the paucity of temperature recording stations in the earth's oceans and in the southern hemiphere and given that AGW theorists don't accept satellite temperatures which show little or no warming for the past thirty years, Jones is admitting that if we use the very same standards of proof he claims are necessary to show there was a MWP, we currently don't have reliable data about what the temperatures are globally today. You'd think that a real scientist would then make it an imperative to make sure that there is a proper and verifiable means of gathering global temperature data. Thus, his duty as a true scientist would be to make sure that this be the primary effort of the climate science community and advocate strongly to make sure that money was spent to accomplish something so essential to the basic science.
Without accurate and reliable global temperature readings, whatever conclusions are arrived at are nothing more than educated guesses. However, Jones prefers to base his "science" on data that even he admits is problematic. It is incredibly informative to anyone that takes the scientific method seriously that Jones and the IPCC are willing to place the scientific credibility of AGW theory behind a chart as flawed as Mann's hockey stick and then use it as their main evidence to support the theory of unprecedented 20th warming. Particularly, since this in direct contradiction to his own standards as to burden of proof when it comes to the MWP.
It is even more amazing that Jones and the IPCC chose to ignore the ample historical and anecdotal evidence to show that, in the northern hemisphere at a minimum, it was very warm indeed at that time. Instead of using Mann's cooked books to create a false impression that temperatures have never been warmer than they are today, perhaps a better and more reasonable analysis of how warm the earth was then compared to now is to look at how many wineries do and could exist in England today. How green is Greenland currently? Does it even come close to matching the descriptions of it from the time? When looked at from the point of view of logical analysis, it would seem to be obvious that the anecdotal evidence of the day would seem to carry much more weight than guesses made by scientists derived from cherry picked tree ring and ice core samples or whatever. But, maybe I am all wet.
What there is no doubt about, however, is that the climate warmed suddenly during the 10th century and somehow man was not to blame. It then cooled just as suddenly and man was also not to blame. Imagine that! While I will admit that it is within the realm of possibility that CO2 emissions may indeed be a factor behind our current warming trend, I also think that given the long earth history of warming and cooling cycles it doesn’t look very likely. We’ve had ice ages and then warming and then ice ages, little climatic optimums and then little ice ages and on and on and on for millions of years. The earth warms and cools and basically couldn’t give a damn about that insignificant mammal known as man. Perhaps, just like it has since its birth, the earth’s current warming is just one of its many natural and cyclical climatic events.
13=======================================================================================================
Now all of that is fine, you might say, but this climatic optimum was years and years ago right? We are burning fossil fuels and destroying our planet now! Well, then let's look at the current trend of warming. As I said, most people think that 1998 was the hottest year of the 20th century. The reality is that 1934 was the hottest and the 1930's were the hottest decade on record. And Greenland, remember Greenland and all of those glaciers melting which Algore says will produce a massive rise in sea levels? Well the melting of those glaciers was 50% more then than now:
So, what difference does this make? Well, you could consider the 1930's to be basically a pre-industrial world. Now, while the United States and Europe were beginning to become full industrial societies during that time, the rest of the world was continuing to live as they had for the past several millennia. The actual amount of industrialization, even in the United States before 1920, was relatively miniscule. Certainly there were not millions upon millions of coal fired power plants, cars, trucks, buses and, of course, those ubiquitous SUV's spewing their toxins out into precious mother earth. It is inconceivable that CO2 emissions could have been released in such quantities as to be the major factor behind the rise in temperatures in this period. Certainly not enough, by any current manmade warming model, to have produced such high temperatures. Therefore, even though the amount of C02 actually pumped into the atmosphere was relatively insignificant in the fifty years leading up to 1930 compared to today, most of the warming in the past one hundred years occurred during the first half of this century. That is not an insignificant fact if your hypothesis is that CO2 increases caused by man are directly responsible for recent warming:
Interesting no? This is why the warming of the Thirties is so significant:
_
The numbers on the left are not straight temperature, but "degrees of anomaly" from a baseline temperature that has been declared "normal." The blue data is the NASA difference from normal for each year. The red data is smoothed by averaging 5 years at a time. You can see that there's a peak in the 1930's, then a drop into the 1970's, then another warming into the 1990's.
Since there are two peaks, it's easy to change the overall ordering of "hottest years." Anything that drops the recent peak even a bit causes the 1930's years to become hottest. In the new ordering, there's a mix between 1930's years and 1990's years, because the two peaks are so similar.
So on the one hand, the warming people are right that the revisions are minor. On the other hand, no one seemed interested in presenting the bigger picture. If temperatures had risen in the 1930's and then fallen again, why were researchers so sure that the recent rise was the beginning of long-term global warming?
The numbers on the left are not straight temperature, but "degrees of anomaly" from a baseline temperature that has been declared "normal." The blue data is the NASA difference from normal for each year. The red data is smoothed by averaging 5 years at a time. You can see that there's a peak in the 1930's, then a drop into the 1970's, then another warming into the 1990's.
Since there are two peaks, it's easy to change the overall ordering of "hottest years." Anything that drops the recent peak even a bit causes the 1930's years to become hottest. In the new ordering, there's a mix between 1930's years and 1990's years, because the two peaks are so similar.
So on the one hand, the warming people are right that the revisions are minor. On the other hand, no one seemed interested in presenting the bigger picture. If temperatures had risen in the 1930's and then fallen again, why were researchers so sure that the recent rise was the beginning of long-term global warming?
_But, there it is, the 1930's... the hottest decade on record and the
warming wasn't caused by man. And that decade was so instrumental in
producing the century long rise in temperatures. So, if we accept that
the thirties are a statistical anomaly caused by general variations in
temperatures that occur for reasons we cannot yet explain, how can one
argue with certainty that the 1978-1998 warming period was any
different? After all, we are talking about a planet that has been
around thousands and thousands of years. We cannot even come close to
determining whether we are experiencing an alarming and
catastrophic "trend" on the basis of thirty years, a hundred years or
even a thousand years worth of semi-accurate data. This is SCIENCE
after all, not Hollywood.
14======================================================================================================
We have not even begun to discuss the actual physical causes of climate change yet. So far, all we have done is taken a quick look at the data to see whether the current warming trend is part of a greater series of climatic cycles, a statistical anomaly, or an alarming rise in temperature that is accelerating to a crisis level as the discredited Mann chart indicates. I will state unequivocally that the recorded data set that we have to work with is so tiny compared to the millions of years of earth's climate history as to be statistically insignificant and, thus, there is no way to base any type of conclusion on it. A hypothesis? Yes. Conclusion? No.
No statistician or Horse Race handicapper would ever seriously consider this temperature data set under consideration as even remotely predictive in his or her fields of expertise. It could be a trend. Or, it could be just a statistical anomaly or aberration. The temperature changes in this period of warming seem consistent with every other known period in human history, but the earth is so old that this is just a fraction of what can be shown both by scientific methods (ice core or tree ring samples) and human anecdotal confirmation. When talking about the differences in temperature of a single degree, the evidence we actually can be even remotely confident of is but a tiny fraction of the total. Every race handicapper I know would laugh uncontrollably at you for choosing a horse running in the mile and a half Belmont Stakes based upon an estimation of his past performance over his last twenty inches. And that, in reality is about the sum total of what the current factually reliable data we have on earth's climate history is. And, yet, this is the data set that we are going to use to determine whether we radically and unalterably change our lives and our societies? Ridiculous!
Now while I personally question the validity of the current temperatures data set, I will, for the purposes of this discussion stipulate that the “high” temperatures that we are now experiencing are part of an actual trend and not a statistical anomaly. But, is there a correlation between the rise in temperatures of the past three hundred years and the rise in levels of atmospheric CO2?
Well, first let's put CO2 as it relates to total atmospheric greenhouse gases in perspective:
14======================================================================================================
We have not even begun to discuss the actual physical causes of climate change yet. So far, all we have done is taken a quick look at the data to see whether the current warming trend is part of a greater series of climatic cycles, a statistical anomaly, or an alarming rise in temperature that is accelerating to a crisis level as the discredited Mann chart indicates. I will state unequivocally that the recorded data set that we have to work with is so tiny compared to the millions of years of earth's climate history as to be statistically insignificant and, thus, there is no way to base any type of conclusion on it. A hypothesis? Yes. Conclusion? No.
No statistician or Horse Race handicapper would ever seriously consider this temperature data set under consideration as even remotely predictive in his or her fields of expertise. It could be a trend. Or, it could be just a statistical anomaly or aberration. The temperature changes in this period of warming seem consistent with every other known period in human history, but the earth is so old that this is just a fraction of what can be shown both by scientific methods (ice core or tree ring samples) and human anecdotal confirmation. When talking about the differences in temperature of a single degree, the evidence we actually can be even remotely confident of is but a tiny fraction of the total. Every race handicapper I know would laugh uncontrollably at you for choosing a horse running in the mile and a half Belmont Stakes based upon an estimation of his past performance over his last twenty inches. And that, in reality is about the sum total of what the current factually reliable data we have on earth's climate history is. And, yet, this is the data set that we are going to use to determine whether we radically and unalterably change our lives and our societies? Ridiculous!
Now while I personally question the validity of the current temperatures data set, I will, for the purposes of this discussion stipulate that the “high” temperatures that we are now experiencing are part of an actual trend and not a statistical anomaly. But, is there a correlation between the rise in temperatures of the past three hundred years and the rise in levels of atmospheric CO2?
Well, first let's put CO2 as it relates to total atmospheric greenhouse gases in perspective:
_
Manmade Greenhouse Gases
It is one thing to say the planet overall may be warming and quite another to assert such warming is manmade as opposed to the result of natural forces. AGW advocates say manmade warming comes from production of so-called "greenhouse" gases. These are considered those constituents of the atmosphere capable of absorbing infrared (heat) radiation.
Numerous gases make up the Earth's atmosphere. Of these, nitrogen represents about 78% by volume, oxygen comprises just under 21%, and other gases (including "greenhouse gases") make up slightly over 1% by volume remaining. Of the principal greenhouse gases, water vapor is by far the most prevalent. Second place belongs to carbon dioxide (CO2) at 0.04% with methane and nitrous oxide finishing a very distant third and fourth.
What complicates analysis of any manmade greenhouse effect is the relatively overwhelming prevalence of water vapor -- a gas ignored by the IPCC. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates water vapor makes up 95% of identified greenhouse gases and, of that amount, less than 0.001% can be attributed to manmade causes. Thus, the IPCC and AGW proponents have focused on CO2 as the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas.
There is little doubt that the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy, which has been going on since the start of the Industrial Revolution, releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Also, CO2 levels have been increasing steadily and are now estimated from ice core analysis to be some 35 percent higher than 200 years ago.
The problem with such seemingly serious assertions regarding CO2 is that, in spite of its increasing presence, it still remains just a trace gas in the atmosphere. As of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth's atmospherewas estimated at 0.0382% by volume, or 382 parts per million by volume.
Another problem is that natural production of CO2 from such sources as combustion of organic matter, natural decay of vegetation, volcanic emissions, and the natural respiration of all aerobic organisms dwarfs that produced by fossil fuel burning. The U.S. Department of Energy has released estimates that nearly 97% of total CO2 emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth and that, because of the overwhelming presence of water vapor, manmade CO2 causes less than 0.12% of Earth's greenhouse effect. To attribute so much power to affect the earth's climate to a man-made gas so minor in amount would appear to defy common sense.
Put another way, if accumulation of greenhouse gases has any impact on global warming, Department of Energy data indicates nearly 99.9% would have to be attributed to natural causes. Nevertheless, AGW proponents blame approximately 1/1000 of all produced planetary CO2 -- this trace gas which, in its totality, comprises less than 4/10,000 of the atmosphere -- as the principal cause of climate change because it provides the only way to link global warming to human activity.
15=====================================================================================================
Despite the statistical unlikelihood, it is still possible that levels of CO2 in the atmosphere could be drivers of warming trends. It is critical that I emphasize that it can be stipulated that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that in addition to other greenhouse gasses (particularly water vapor) these gases help to warm the surface of the Earth. Also, it can be stipulated that human industrialization contributes to higher CO2 levels. However, as John McLaughlin just pointed out, it must be noted that we are talking about a maximum total change in atmospheric CO2 concentration due to man of about 0.01% over the last 100 years. Perhaps by looking at past warming and cooling trends, we can determine whether increases in this trace gas has ever been responsible for generating this kind of temperature change before:
Manmade Greenhouse Gases
It is one thing to say the planet overall may be warming and quite another to assert such warming is manmade as opposed to the result of natural forces. AGW advocates say manmade warming comes from production of so-called "greenhouse" gases. These are considered those constituents of the atmosphere capable of absorbing infrared (heat) radiation.
Numerous gases make up the Earth's atmosphere. Of these, nitrogen represents about 78% by volume, oxygen comprises just under 21%, and other gases (including "greenhouse gases") make up slightly over 1% by volume remaining. Of the principal greenhouse gases, water vapor is by far the most prevalent. Second place belongs to carbon dioxide (CO2) at 0.04% with methane and nitrous oxide finishing a very distant third and fourth.
What complicates analysis of any manmade greenhouse effect is the relatively overwhelming prevalence of water vapor -- a gas ignored by the IPCC. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates water vapor makes up 95% of identified greenhouse gases and, of that amount, less than 0.001% can be attributed to manmade causes. Thus, the IPCC and AGW proponents have focused on CO2 as the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas.
There is little doubt that the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy, which has been going on since the start of the Industrial Revolution, releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Also, CO2 levels have been increasing steadily and are now estimated from ice core analysis to be some 35 percent higher than 200 years ago.
The problem with such seemingly serious assertions regarding CO2 is that, in spite of its increasing presence, it still remains just a trace gas in the atmosphere. As of November 2007, the CO2 concentration in Earth's atmospherewas estimated at 0.0382% by volume, or 382 parts per million by volume.
Another problem is that natural production of CO2 from such sources as combustion of organic matter, natural decay of vegetation, volcanic emissions, and the natural respiration of all aerobic organisms dwarfs that produced by fossil fuel burning. The U.S. Department of Energy has released estimates that nearly 97% of total CO2 emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth and that, because of the overwhelming presence of water vapor, manmade CO2 causes less than 0.12% of Earth's greenhouse effect. To attribute so much power to affect the earth's climate to a man-made gas so minor in amount would appear to defy common sense.
Put another way, if accumulation of greenhouse gases has any impact on global warming, Department of Energy data indicates nearly 99.9% would have to be attributed to natural causes. Nevertheless, AGW proponents blame approximately 1/1000 of all produced planetary CO2 -- this trace gas which, in its totality, comprises less than 4/10,000 of the atmosphere -- as the principal cause of climate change because it provides the only way to link global warming to human activity.
15=====================================================================================================
Despite the statistical unlikelihood, it is still possible that levels of CO2 in the atmosphere could be drivers of warming trends. It is critical that I emphasize that it can be stipulated that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that in addition to other greenhouse gasses (particularly water vapor) these gases help to warm the surface of the Earth. Also, it can be stipulated that human industrialization contributes to higher CO2 levels. However, as John McLaughlin just pointed out, it must be noted that we are talking about a maximum total change in atmospheric CO2 concentration due to man of about 0.01% over the last 100 years. Perhaps by looking at past warming and cooling trends, we can determine whether increases in this trace gas has ever been responsible for generating this kind of temperature change before:
Here is a chart that shows the relationship of CO2 and temperature during earth's history:
From this chart there doesn't seem to be any historical causation, does there?
16======================================================================================================
Now take a look at these two charts:
16======================================================================================================
Now take a look at these two charts:
_Both of these charts show that the warming of the past three hundred years started way before levels of CO2 began to rise significantly. As mentioned, the warming that we are in now is part of a much longer trend and most of it took place long before the era of mass industry. This is an inconvenient fact for those who wish to make a causal relationship between CO2 and warming. This is why all the proponents of AGW still use the discredited Mann hockey stick chart. Without the Medieval Warm Period shown in the first chart above, it makes it look like a) there is a connection between temperatures and CO2 that doesn't exist in the historical record and b) that the current warming trend is something we've never seen in the past millennium. Here is the chart that Algore used to "educate" people about manmade warming in his Oscar winning movie:
First, note Algore's use of Mann's discredited "hockey stick" temperature graph. Since they are the ones that are asking the scientific question about whether there is a causation effect between temperatures and CO2, isn't it curious that they rely on discredited science to determine it? By design, what you can't see because of the timescale of the chart is that there is also a lag of around eight hundred years between the time that temperature increases and when atmospheric levels of CO2 rise. Here is a closeup that reveals this inconvenient truth:
Here is a chart from the Vostok Ice Core sample that shows this effect in more detail:
In even more recent history, we can see that levels of CO2 lag rises in temperatures:
17=======================================================================================================
There is an obvious reason why this occurs that both pro AGW and skeptics agree on. As the temperature warms, more CO2 is released from the oceans and trapped under ice on land. Since it takes the oceans a relatively long time to heat up, the release time of the CO2 lags the rise in temperature. It would seem to be a slam dunk then, eh? CO2 has never been shown to be a direct cause of climate change according to the available evidence we have. Therefore, we can safely dismiss the causation between CO2 and rising temperatures, right? Well, not so fast. While the evidence of lagging CO2 is important, AGW proponents muster a very good scientific argument for their cause:
There is an obvious reason why this occurs that both pro AGW and skeptics agree on. As the temperature warms, more CO2 is released from the oceans and trapped under ice on land. Since it takes the oceans a relatively long time to heat up, the release time of the CO2 lags the rise in temperature. It would seem to be a slam dunk then, eh? CO2 has never been shown to be a direct cause of climate change according to the available evidence we have. Therefore, we can safely dismiss the causation between CO2 and rising temperatures, right? Well, not so fast. While the evidence of lagging CO2 is important, AGW proponents muster a very good scientific argument for their cause:
And there you have it, the positive feedback loop. According to this scientist, small variations in temperature can cause the earth to go into a cycle of cause and effect changes that can create periods of ice ages and periods of rapid warming. Even though there is zero evidence that CO2 does cause warming to a degree that would trigger this chain of events, it is imperative to study this science because a rise caused by this trace gas of a few degrees could set in motion a series of reactions that could result in a more dramatic increase like, say, five to eight degrees as portrayed in Algore's An Inconvenient Truth and The Day After Tomorrow:
While all the evidence of this background research into whether we can
make a hypothesis and then conduct experiments to test it seems not only
lacking but counterintuitive, it certainly can't hurt to be sure,
right? I mean consequences as shown above and in Algore's flick would be catastrophic. Therefore, despite evidence to the contrary. I see no reason not to proceed to a hypothesis stage and then an experiment stage.
18======================================================================================================
18======================================================================================================
Hypothesis:
According to AGW supporters and skeptics alike, CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose particular properties dealing with infrared radiation prevents heat from leaving the earth. The more CO2 that exists in the atmosphere, the less heat that will be released into space. While there is clearly some debate as to how much of an effect on temperatures the additional CO2 has, there is total agreement as to the theoretical science of its warming properties. However, AGW theorists go further. They claim that because mankind is increasing the level of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels while, at the same time, decreasing CO2 absorption through deforestation and other factors, rising levels of this trace gas will trigger a positive feedback effect that will cause the earth to warm dangerously, potentially resulting in severe climate change.
To be clear about the amount of CO2 that man is responsible for:
The human component of carbon dioxide that is injected into the air each year is very small, on the order of 3%. Half the carbon dioxide emitted into the air by human activity each year is immediately absorbed into nature. Carbon dioxide is 8% of the greenhouse effect; water in the air is 90% of the greenhouse effect. By volume, carbon dioxide is currently at about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere, increasing at about 2 parts per million annually. In other words, carbon dioxide is increasing at a rate of .5% per year. Since human activity adds 3% of the carbon dioxide that gets into the air each year, the human component of the increase in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year is 3 % of .5%, or just .015%.
According to the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) the positive feedback effect of this extra .015% of CO2 released into the atmosphere by mankind will set off the positive feedback loop.
The effect of that positive feedback loop to the climate of the earth according to AGW theory is well described by the American Association For The Advancement Of Science in their 2011 budget request:
Past scientific research demonstrates that the Earth’s climate is changing, that humans are very likely responsible for most of the well-documented increase in global average surface temperatures over the last half century, and that further greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, will almost certainly contribute to additional widespread climate disruption. This climate disruption poses considerable risk to society because it can be expected to cause major negative consequences for most nations and to a wide range of species.
Therefore we have our hypothesis:
Manmade CO2 is responsible for an increase in global temperatures and this specific increase, above and beyond natural variations, are enough to set in motion a series of positive feedback loops which will cause wide scale climate disruption.
We now have a hypothesis to work with. Let's do some experimenting, eh?
19=====================================================================================================
To be clear about the amount of CO2 that man is responsible for:
The human component of carbon dioxide that is injected into the air each year is very small, on the order of 3%. Half the carbon dioxide emitted into the air by human activity each year is immediately absorbed into nature. Carbon dioxide is 8% of the greenhouse effect; water in the air is 90% of the greenhouse effect. By volume, carbon dioxide is currently at about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere, increasing at about 2 parts per million annually. In other words, carbon dioxide is increasing at a rate of .5% per year. Since human activity adds 3% of the carbon dioxide that gets into the air each year, the human component of the increase in carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year is 3 % of .5%, or just .015%.
According to the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) the positive feedback effect of this extra .015% of CO2 released into the atmosphere by mankind will set off the positive feedback loop.
The effect of that positive feedback loop to the climate of the earth according to AGW theory is well described by the American Association For The Advancement Of Science in their 2011 budget request:
Past scientific research demonstrates that the Earth’s climate is changing, that humans are very likely responsible for most of the well-documented increase in global average surface temperatures over the last half century, and that further greenhouse gas emissions, particularly of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, will almost certainly contribute to additional widespread climate disruption. This climate disruption poses considerable risk to society because it can be expected to cause major negative consequences for most nations and to a wide range of species.
Therefore we have our hypothesis:
Manmade CO2 is responsible for an increase in global temperatures and this specific increase, above and beyond natural variations, are enough to set in motion a series of positive feedback loops which will cause wide scale climate disruption.
We now have a hypothesis to work with. Let's do some experimenting, eh?
19=====================================================================================================
Experiment:
_The experiment stage is where we are going to have our greatest problem
with the scientific method. As you will recall, a proper experiment
conforms to these guidelines:
Your experiment tests whether your hypothesis is true or false. It is important for your experiment to be a fair test. You conduct a fair test by making sure that you change only one factor at a time while keeping all other conditions the same. You should also repeat your experiments several times to make sure that the first result wasn’t an accident.
Unfortunately, part of having a fair test is having accurate measurements. When we are talking about temperature changes in the hundredth's of a degree, it would seem that it would be critical to get proper temperature readings so that we can accurately model the climate. Alas, this is easier said than done. We do have satellites and weather balloons that record temperatures in the atmosphere. However, the datasets that they have revealed go against AGW theory. Therefore, AGW proponents prefer to use ground based weather stations to gauge the temperature. Is this a fair test? Well, a true scientist isn't supposed to ignore data that she finds troubling. She is supposed to include all factors into her records and then consider whether they prove or disprove her hypothesis. There is not supposed to be selective cherry picking of data. Nevertheless, let's give our AGW friends a break and allow them to base global temperatures on ground weather stations.
Unfortunately, that leads to another problem. Weather stations on the ground do not accurately cover the earth well enough to provide an accurate representation of "global" temperatures:
Your experiment tests whether your hypothesis is true or false. It is important for your experiment to be a fair test. You conduct a fair test by making sure that you change only one factor at a time while keeping all other conditions the same. You should also repeat your experiments several times to make sure that the first result wasn’t an accident.
Unfortunately, part of having a fair test is having accurate measurements. When we are talking about temperature changes in the hundredth's of a degree, it would seem that it would be critical to get proper temperature readings so that we can accurately model the climate. Alas, this is easier said than done. We do have satellites and weather balloons that record temperatures in the atmosphere. However, the datasets that they have revealed go against AGW theory. Therefore, AGW proponents prefer to use ground based weather stations to gauge the temperature. Is this a fair test? Well, a true scientist isn't supposed to ignore data that she finds troubling. She is supposed to include all factors into her records and then consider whether they prove or disprove her hypothesis. There is not supposed to be selective cherry picking of data. Nevertheless, let's give our AGW friends a break and allow them to base global temperatures on ground weather stations.
Unfortunately, that leads to another problem. Weather stations on the ground do not accurately cover the earth well enough to provide an accurate representation of "global" temperatures:
It's pretty clear that unless we use satellite data, we are going to have a problem accurately determining global temperatures. Do you remember when our buddy Phil Jones of CRU said that since we can't confirm what happened in the southern hemisphere, we can't tell if the Medieval Warm Period was truly global? Well as we have seen that same joker, used very similarly located temperature stations to conclude that the earth is warming today. As the weather station chart above clearly indicates, we are missing most of the ocean and basically the entire southern hemisphere. So which is it Phil, old pal? If you can use the data from the weather stations depicted above to say that we are warming at an unprecedented rate without any reliable data from the southern hemisphere, then you have to admit that there is enough evidence to suggest that the MWP was global and therefore warmer than today. If you won't admit this is true, then your data is worthless. Since you claim to stand by your data, it would be incumbent upon you to say that the MWP did exist and as you said, "then obviously the late 20th Century warmth would not be unprecedented". Exactly!
20======================================================================================================
In addition, despite the billions and billions of dollars the world has spent on studying global warming, mostly going to charlatans like Old Phil there, there has actually been a decrease in the number of weather stations:
20======================================================================================================
In addition, despite the billions and billions of dollars the world has spent on studying global warming, mostly going to charlatans like Old Phil there, there has actually been a decrease in the number of weather stations:
Incredible, no? Right at the same time scientists are beginning to warn about global warming and despite tens of billions of dollars spent funding their research, they chose to skimp on the most important tool of data collection. Instead of expanding the number of weather stations world wide exponentially in order to derive more accurate data for their models, they chose to eliminate them instead. It's a real head scratcher. That is, unless you were trying to cook the books. But we'll be getting to that later.
In the meantime, check out the decline in the number of stations worldwide during a time of rampant alarmism about global warming and a matching rise in the abundance of funding for studying the climate:
In the meantime, check out the decline in the number of stations worldwide during a time of rampant alarmism about global warming and a matching rise in the abundance of funding for studying the climate:
That's a significant decrease, eh? Well, with fewer weather stations, surely they were more
effectively deployed throughout the planet and also placed in a way as
to minimize the famous "urban heat island effect". While that's what
good scientists concerned about reliable data would do, it wasn't done
in this case. In fact, quite the opposite.
21=====================================================================================================
Even with fewer stations being used to record the weather, our scientific community thought these would be good spots to measure temperature:
21=====================================================================================================
Even with fewer stations being used to record the weather, our scientific community thought these would be good spots to measure temperature:
And there are plenty of other examples of climate science data collection at it's finest. You can see them here:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/
So much for a controlled and fair experiment using accurate measurments. It appears to the naked eye from the placement of weather sites in urban rather than rural areas and the specific choices of where to locate the thermometers, that there might be a problem with excess warming due to the urban heat island effect.
22======================================================================================================
Recently, a group of pro-AGW scientists did research on how the urban heat island effect impacted temperatures in Korea:
On average, the total temperature increase over South Korea was about 1.37°C; the amount of increase caused by the greenhouse effect is approximately 0.60°C, and the amount caused by urban warming is approximately 0.77°C.
And these are believers in AGW, no less. According to them the effect of the UHI is greater than the supposed warming caused by CO2. In fact, here is a chart that shows this exact correlation
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/
So much for a controlled and fair experiment using accurate measurments. It appears to the naked eye from the placement of weather sites in urban rather than rural areas and the specific choices of where to locate the thermometers, that there might be a problem with excess warming due to the urban heat island effect.
22======================================================================================================
Recently, a group of pro-AGW scientists did research on how the urban heat island effect impacted temperatures in Korea:
On average, the total temperature increase over South Korea was about 1.37°C; the amount of increase caused by the greenhouse effect is approximately 0.60°C, and the amount caused by urban warming is approximately 0.77°C.
And these are believers in AGW, no less. According to them the effect of the UHI is greater than the supposed warming caused by CO2. In fact, here is a chart that shows this exact correlation
Note that the lines start to really diverge after 1985 when the number of weather stations decreases. Is all of this a coincidence? Could it possibly be that the very scientists who are screaming the loudest about climate change are purposely skewing their data? It seems so and this is but one of many areas in which things of this nature have occurred as we shall see.
Even with all of the billions of dollars funneled into NASA to study the climate, the space agency was forced to admit that it's temperature data was not reliable:
Even with all of the billions of dollars funneled into NASA to study the climate, the space agency was forced to admit that it's temperature data was not reliable:
_Can you believe that NASA is saying that it would be better to use
our old pal Phil Jones' numbers? Numbers which he in fact says that he
has lost!
_23======================================================================================================
If NASA's temperature readings are so bad that they admit that the guy whose dog ate the homework has better readings than they do, then how accurate do you think these readings are? So troubling were the issues raised by skeptics of AGW about the reliability of temperature data that Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) decided to do an independent study of their own. According to the UK Daily Mail:
If NASA's temperature readings are so bad that they admit that the guy whose dog ate the homework has better readings than they do, then how accurate do you think these readings are? So troubling were the issues raised by skeptics of AGW about the reliability of temperature data that Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) decided to do an independent study of their own. According to the UK Daily Mail:
Well there you have it. There's no deliberate attempt to fudge the temperature data in order to skew the experiment. Ah, but wait. It seems that not everyone at BEST agrees. In fact one of the lead scientists, Prof Judith Curry (the heretic!), who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming skeptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.
The last time I took a science course was in college. But, I can tell you one thing. Were this anything other than a politically correct field of science, no teacher that I ever had would allow me to make conclusions on an experiment with data coming from measurements this shaky. They would tell me to go back and make sure that all of my data was beyond reproach before continuing to the next step. You would think that this kind basic science 101 stuff would be the bare minimum for scientists receiving billions in funding. You would think that every weather station would be beyond reproach and that there would be enough to accurately cover the whole globe. You would think that this would be the first priority of any scientist looking to discover the truth. Unfortunately, these scientists did the opposite. While the appearance of impropriety and shoddy methods do not necessarily mean that the data is fatally flawed, it does raise questions as to what we can accept as truth. When temperature changes are measured in tenths and hundredths of a degree over a decade, this kind of data collection is totally unacceptable.
24======================================================================================================
Despite the questionable nature of the data set to be input into this "experiment", some data is necessary. You see, this isn't to be a "closed" experiment with controllable variables and results that can be judged and collected in real time. Oh no, because of the vast size and innumerable variables that earth's atmosphere and climate contain, this will be an "open" experiment conducted solely in the "laboratories" of computer models. Climate scientists, will test their theories as to how much rising CO2 will retain radiation and how that will impact the earth into the future. Thus, they are not really conducting actual experiments, per se. They are simply projecting what would happen to the climate if their hypothesis on the role of CO2 in creating warming is correct.
Herein lies the greatest problem of the AGW proponents in trying to make the case that what they are doing is actually science. If computer models trying to determine what would happen in a massively complex and dynamic system such as the climate could be relied upon, then surely we would have been able to "model" the stock market or just predict who would win the eighth race at Belmont to some degree of certainty. After all, there are far fewer variables in those instances and most of the data is known and quantifiable. You would think that the disaster in computer modeling by people like David X. Li that led Moody's and Standard and Poor's to rate mortgage backed securities as AAA rated would have shown the folly of such modeling of such an enormously complex thing like the climate, but when it comes to the AGW crowd, you'd be dead wrong.
When it comes to the climate, the computer never lies! When operating my own computer, I have always ascribed to the old software axiom: garbage in, garbage out. Any computer programmer can tell you that. There are so many variables to compute when it comes to say horse racing or the stock market, much less something as complex and dynamic as earth's climate. It is simply not possible to have any confidence it its projections. It was reliance on computer models that caused the 2008 financial meltdown. It was these computer modelled projections about risk that made so many investment banks and investors bet so heavily on the mortgage backed securities because their computers were saying they would be as safe as US Treasuries. But, models can never be complex enough to handle something as dynamic as the economy:
24======================================================================================================
Despite the questionable nature of the data set to be input into this "experiment", some data is necessary. You see, this isn't to be a "closed" experiment with controllable variables and results that can be judged and collected in real time. Oh no, because of the vast size and innumerable variables that earth's atmosphere and climate contain, this will be an "open" experiment conducted solely in the "laboratories" of computer models. Climate scientists, will test their theories as to how much rising CO2 will retain radiation and how that will impact the earth into the future. Thus, they are not really conducting actual experiments, per se. They are simply projecting what would happen to the climate if their hypothesis on the role of CO2 in creating warming is correct.
Herein lies the greatest problem of the AGW proponents in trying to make the case that what they are doing is actually science. If computer models trying to determine what would happen in a massively complex and dynamic system such as the climate could be relied upon, then surely we would have been able to "model" the stock market or just predict who would win the eighth race at Belmont to some degree of certainty. After all, there are far fewer variables in those instances and most of the data is known and quantifiable. You would think that the disaster in computer modeling by people like David X. Li that led Moody's and Standard and Poor's to rate mortgage backed securities as AAA rated would have shown the folly of such modeling of such an enormously complex thing like the climate, but when it comes to the AGW crowd, you'd be dead wrong.
When it comes to the climate, the computer never lies! When operating my own computer, I have always ascribed to the old software axiom: garbage in, garbage out. Any computer programmer can tell you that. There are so many variables to compute when it comes to say horse racing or the stock market, much less something as complex and dynamic as earth's climate. It is simply not possible to have any confidence it its projections. It was reliance on computer models that caused the 2008 financial meltdown. It was these computer modelled projections about risk that made so many investment banks and investors bet so heavily on the mortgage backed securities because their computers were saying they would be as safe as US Treasuries. But, models can never be complex enough to handle something as dynamic as the economy:
This has been the problem with using computers to model complex phenomena from the very beginning. I remember during the first Gulf War, shortly after the first oil wells in Kuwait began to burn, Carl Sagan appeared on ABC's Nightline and predicted that " the net effects would be similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer". This prediction, of course, was based upon computer models, which Sagan had previously used to try to predict the impact of a nuclear winter. Were the models, and, thus, our old buddy Carl correct? Uh, no, actually. While there was great ecological damage in the nearby region, there was nothing even remotely close to the catastrophe predicted by Sagan. So much for the utility of computer models circa 1991.
25=====================================================================================================
Now, compared to models that try to predict the climate of the entire earth over the course of an entire century, the calculations and programming needed to predict the effects of oil well fires in a small region of the planet is a piece of cake. However, this massive failure in the predictive ability of their models did not stop our CO2 alarmists. Oh, no, far from it. As far back as the early eighties till the current day, they are still completely convinced in the efficacy of using very similar programs to simulate their vision of a coming global apocalypse.
Amazingly, most of the past and, indeed, current models about the greenhouse effect are based on mathematical equations done by Arthur Milne in 1922. Many argue that these equations are all wrong because they are missing some key data about how the upper atmosphere actually works. Surely, these were things that Mr. Milne could not have even fathomed given the information he had back then. Garbage in, garbage out.
Hmmm, let's see. Computer models failed totally to predict the effects of a relatively simple regional phenomenon lasting but a few months, but we are supposed to accept that these same models can accurately predict the effect of greenhouse emissions on the entire earth's climate going forward 100 years. That sounds like a rather dubious proposition to me. Yet, knowledge of these basic predictive and structural problems never stopped our hero, Algore, from relying almost exclusively on these very same models in his 1988 book Earth in The Balance. So sure was he that the underlying theory of anthropogenic warming was correct, it did not deter him in the slightest to make extensive use of these flawed and buggy computer programs in his first attempt to warn (scare) us as to the dangers of CO2. The evidence might be seriously flawed, but the conclusion is undoubtedly true!
Well, that was 1991 and we are now in the 21st century with state of the art computers and technology. Therefore, our models should be more accurate and reliable, right? Well, that might conceivably be correct if scientists had absolutely all of the relevant information to plug into their fancy-dancy little programs. But, do they?
Actually, not even close. Let's take a look at what would seem to be the most obvious cause of warming. No, we are not talking about CO2. No, we are not talking about methane produced by cow farts. One would think that the most obvious thing to study and analyze and then input into our perfect little climate program would be our old friend the sun. After all, it is the sun, which provides virtually all of the heat in our atmosphere. We all know that when a cloud obscures the sun, it becomes cooler and when it disappears at night, markedly so. So, one might logically reason that in order to project warming trends over time, it would be imperative to have mastered the science behind this amazing star. Have we? Do our good friends who make those lovely computer models accurately input this wisdom into their projections?
The answer is a resounding...
NO!
26======================================================================================================
Did you know that while our planet is supposedly experiencing a climate calamity caused by man's greed and selfishness, the climate on Mars is also getting warmer? In fact, it has warmed by about .5 degree celsius since 1970 which is about the same amount that the earth has warmed:
25=====================================================================================================
Now, compared to models that try to predict the climate of the entire earth over the course of an entire century, the calculations and programming needed to predict the effects of oil well fires in a small region of the planet is a piece of cake. However, this massive failure in the predictive ability of their models did not stop our CO2 alarmists. Oh, no, far from it. As far back as the early eighties till the current day, they are still completely convinced in the efficacy of using very similar programs to simulate their vision of a coming global apocalypse.
Amazingly, most of the past and, indeed, current models about the greenhouse effect are based on mathematical equations done by Arthur Milne in 1922. Many argue that these equations are all wrong because they are missing some key data about how the upper atmosphere actually works. Surely, these were things that Mr. Milne could not have even fathomed given the information he had back then. Garbage in, garbage out.
Hmmm, let's see. Computer models failed totally to predict the effects of a relatively simple regional phenomenon lasting but a few months, but we are supposed to accept that these same models can accurately predict the effect of greenhouse emissions on the entire earth's climate going forward 100 years. That sounds like a rather dubious proposition to me. Yet, knowledge of these basic predictive and structural problems never stopped our hero, Algore, from relying almost exclusively on these very same models in his 1988 book Earth in The Balance. So sure was he that the underlying theory of anthropogenic warming was correct, it did not deter him in the slightest to make extensive use of these flawed and buggy computer programs in his first attempt to warn (scare) us as to the dangers of CO2. The evidence might be seriously flawed, but the conclusion is undoubtedly true!
Well, that was 1991 and we are now in the 21st century with state of the art computers and technology. Therefore, our models should be more accurate and reliable, right? Well, that might conceivably be correct if scientists had absolutely all of the relevant information to plug into their fancy-dancy little programs. But, do they?
Actually, not even close. Let's take a look at what would seem to be the most obvious cause of warming. No, we are not talking about CO2. No, we are not talking about methane produced by cow farts. One would think that the most obvious thing to study and analyze and then input into our perfect little climate program would be our old friend the sun. After all, it is the sun, which provides virtually all of the heat in our atmosphere. We all know that when a cloud obscures the sun, it becomes cooler and when it disappears at night, markedly so. So, one might logically reason that in order to project warming trends over time, it would be imperative to have mastered the science behind this amazing star. Have we? Do our good friends who make those lovely computer models accurately input this wisdom into their projections?
The answer is a resounding...
NO!
26======================================================================================================
Did you know that while our planet is supposedly experiencing a climate calamity caused by man's greed and selfishness, the climate on Mars is also getting warmer? In fact, it has warmed by about .5 degree celsius since 1970 which is about the same amount that the earth has warmed:
_Hmmm, perhaps someone placed a massive population of decadent Americans
driving their SUV's all over Mars' barren landscape while we weren't
looking, eh? And it isn’t just Mars, it’s Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune too. Some heretical scientists say that this warming might actually be caused by the sun! Can you believe? Bet you haven’t heard that one on your nightly news lately!
If you ask me, this seeming "coincidence" of warming on Mars and other planets and warming here on earth might actually mean we have stumbled onto something here right? I'll not bore you with all the technical details about sunspots, solar cycles and solar maximums and Maunder minimums, but check out this picture here to get a little perspective and read this if you want to immerse yourself in some of the science. In fact, many scientists are convinced that there is a link between solar activity, sunspots and global temperatures:
If you ask me, this seeming "coincidence" of warming on Mars and other planets and warming here on earth might actually mean we have stumbled onto something here right? I'll not bore you with all the technical details about sunspots, solar cycles and solar maximums and Maunder minimums, but check out this picture here to get a little perspective and read this if you want to immerse yourself in some of the science. In fact, many scientists are convinced that there is a link between solar activity, sunspots and global temperatures:
27======================================================================================================
Here is a chart that best illustrates the connection between the sun and temperatures:
Here is a chart that best illustrates the connection between the sun and temperatures:
Below on some dramatic images that highlight the enormous power of the sun, particularly as it reaches a maximum period:
It doesn't take much to imagine that one of the hottest year of the twentieth century, 1998 occurs as the sun is approaching maximum. If some scientists are correct about the relationship between solar activity and global temperatures, we are not facing a problem with global warming, but with global cooling:
_Notice how the Met Office's climate models predicted that warming would come roaring back between 2004 and 2014 due to rising CO2 and just the opposite has occurred. The earth has either cooled or temperatures have remained flat. Makes you wonder with that type of failure how the AGW proponents at the Met Office can be so certain they are right about CO2. The point is that it seems that we have reached the pinnacle of a particularly active 11 year sunspot cycle and that the sun is currently at its most active in 300 years. According to NASA:
"NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), launched in February 2010, made the finding: About 1 in 7 flares experience an "aftershock." About ninety minutes after the flare dies down, it springs to life again, producing an extra surge of extreme ultraviolet radiation.
"We call it the 'late phase flare,'" says Woods. "The energy in the late phase can exceed the energy of the primary flare by as much as a factor of four."
What causes the late phase? Solar flares happen when the magnetic fields of sunspots erupt-a process called "magnetic reconnection." The late phase is thought to result when some of the sunspot's magnetic loops re-form. A diagram prepared by team member Rachel Hock of the University of Colorado shows how it works.
The extra energy from the late phase can have a big effect on Earth. Extreme ultraviolet wavelengths are particularly good at heating and ionizing Earth's upper atmosphere. When our planet's atmosphere is heated by extreme UV radiation, it puffs up, accelerating the decay of low-orbiting satellites. Furthermore, the ionizing action of extreme UV can bend radio signals and disrupt the normal operation of GPS."
28=====================================================================================================
This information on sunspots and the "late phase flares" is very recent. It's impact has not yet been entered into anyone's computer model. However, clearly it should be. Especially because we know of the direct relationship between sunspots and temperature:
"NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), launched in February 2010, made the finding: About 1 in 7 flares experience an "aftershock." About ninety minutes after the flare dies down, it springs to life again, producing an extra surge of extreme ultraviolet radiation.
"We call it the 'late phase flare,'" says Woods. "The energy in the late phase can exceed the energy of the primary flare by as much as a factor of four."
What causes the late phase? Solar flares happen when the magnetic fields of sunspots erupt-a process called "magnetic reconnection." The late phase is thought to result when some of the sunspot's magnetic loops re-form. A diagram prepared by team member Rachel Hock of the University of Colorado shows how it works.
The extra energy from the late phase can have a big effect on Earth. Extreme ultraviolet wavelengths are particularly good at heating and ionizing Earth's upper atmosphere. When our planet's atmosphere is heated by extreme UV radiation, it puffs up, accelerating the decay of low-orbiting satellites. Furthermore, the ionizing action of extreme UV can bend radio signals and disrupt the normal operation of GPS."
28=====================================================================================================
This information on sunspots and the "late phase flares" is very recent. It's impact has not yet been entered into anyone's computer model. However, clearly it should be. Especially because we know of the direct relationship between sunspots and temperature:
Sunspots!
and aftershocks, who woulda thunk it? Interesting how there is much more of a correlation between sunspots and temperature than C02 and temperature, no? But, again, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. However, you'd think that this would lead AGW climate modelers to place a much greater emphasis on solar activity than they do. Of course, if they did that, then CO2 might no longer be the main culprit. Think about this. The earth has warmed for exactly how long
since the little ice age? Uhhh, yeah, that's right, 300 years and the
sun has been growing more and more active during those same 300 years.
Coincidence? I think not!
Even some of Algore's Kool Aid drinking scientists had to admit that at least 50% of the recent warming can be attributed to the sun's activity. Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory has come to the amazing conclusion that it wasn't Mastodon flatulence or too many parties around the campfire by our decadent ancestors that caused climate change in the past. It was that totally insignificant little star known affectionately as el sol. Imagine that!
29======================================================================================================
Another thing that computers have such a hard time modeling is how clouds affect warming and why. Cloud science is in its infancy and we are just beginning to understand how they are formed. However, for the purposes of modeling how greenhouse gases affect the climate they are the most critical factor. As climatologist Roy Spencer of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala. points out knowledge about precipitation is critical for any effective climate model:
Even some of Algore's Kool Aid drinking scientists had to admit that at least 50% of the recent warming can be attributed to the sun's activity. Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory has come to the amazing conclusion that it wasn't Mastodon flatulence or too many parties around the campfire by our decadent ancestors that caused climate change in the past. It was that totally insignificant little star known affectionately as el sol. Imagine that!
29======================================================================================================
Another thing that computers have such a hard time modeling is how clouds affect warming and why. Cloud science is in its infancy and we are just beginning to understand how they are formed. However, for the purposes of modeling how greenhouse gases affect the climate they are the most critical factor. As climatologist Roy Spencer of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center of the National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala. points out knowledge about precipitation is critical for any effective climate model:
It seems that the science behind clouds and precipitation which clearly has a powerful effect on the climate and temperatures is still not fully, some would say even partially, understood. As Dr. Spencer elaborates:
were warming due only to CO2, it would be a non-issue. The IPCC modelers derive their “catastrophic” warming predictions from algorithms whereby CO2-caused warming causes a decrease in clouds, which lets in more sunlight and leads to more warming. In truth, says Spencer, quite the opposite is true -- weak warming increases clouds, letting in less sunlight and leading to less warming. In fact, Spencer believes that a full 75-80% of warming could be due to cloudiness changes due to PDO. In other words, most of past warming is likely natural and climate sensitivity is likely closer to 0.5ºC.
Dr. Richard Lindzen American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fundamentally agrees with the 0.5ºC figure, noting that a doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1ºC to greenhouse warming:
We see that all the models are characterized by positive feedback factors (associated with amplifying the effect of changes in CO2), while the satellite data implies that the feedback should be negative. Only with positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds does one get the large warmings that are associated with alarm. What the satellite data seems to show is that these positive feedbacks are model artifacts.
In a uniquely fascinating lecture...Willis Eschenbach outlined his hypothesis that temperatures are kept within a narrow and fixed range by a governing mechanism of clouds and thunderstorms set by the physics of the wind, the waves and the ocean – but not CO2 forcing. And past IPCC expert reviewer Tom V. Segalstad also insisted that clouds are the real thermostat, with far more temperature regulating power than CO2.
How can the impact of clouds and precipitation be properly modeled in our "experiment" when we know so very little about them? Obviously, it can't be done in any way that will give us reliable results when input into the computer programs, but that doesn't stop the AGW folk from saying their models are accurate reproductions of the climate.
30=====================================================================================================
Recently a new theory about the interrelationship between the Sun and cloud formation has arisen that shakes up everything we know about the earth's climate and temperatures:
were warming due only to CO2, it would be a non-issue. The IPCC modelers derive their “catastrophic” warming predictions from algorithms whereby CO2-caused warming causes a decrease in clouds, which lets in more sunlight and leads to more warming. In truth, says Spencer, quite the opposite is true -- weak warming increases clouds, letting in less sunlight and leading to less warming. In fact, Spencer believes that a full 75-80% of warming could be due to cloudiness changes due to PDO. In other words, most of past warming is likely natural and climate sensitivity is likely closer to 0.5ºC.
Dr. Richard Lindzen American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fundamentally agrees with the 0.5ºC figure, noting that a doubling of CO2, by itself, contributes only about 1ºC to greenhouse warming:
We see that all the models are characterized by positive feedback factors (associated with amplifying the effect of changes in CO2), while the satellite data implies that the feedback should be negative. Only with positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds does one get the large warmings that are associated with alarm. What the satellite data seems to show is that these positive feedbacks are model artifacts.
In a uniquely fascinating lecture...Willis Eschenbach outlined his hypothesis that temperatures are kept within a narrow and fixed range by a governing mechanism of clouds and thunderstorms set by the physics of the wind, the waves and the ocean – but not CO2 forcing. And past IPCC expert reviewer Tom V. Segalstad also insisted that clouds are the real thermostat, with far more temperature regulating power than CO2.
How can the impact of clouds and precipitation be properly modeled in our "experiment" when we know so very little about them? Obviously, it can't be done in any way that will give us reliable results when input into the computer programs, but that doesn't stop the AGW folk from saying their models are accurate reproductions of the climate.
30=====================================================================================================
Recently a new theory about the interrelationship between the Sun and cloud formation has arisen that shakes up everything we know about the earth's climate and temperatures:
Wait, didn't theIPCC say that CO2 was supposed to be the driving factor in reducing clouds and letting in more heat from the sun thereby aiding in the warming? Well, as we've seen in the above video, that isn't how it works according to Dr. Ball. In 1996 Professor Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, proposed the theory that the magnetic activity of the sun blocks out cosmic radiation and that affects cloud formation which then affects temperatures:
Here is a chart that purports to show the effect of cosmic rays on temperature over time:
Why that tracks even better than those CO2 graphs doesn't it? If you've got an hour and a taste for this kind of science, go watch CERN physicist Jasper Kirkby elaborate on this theory:
31=====================================================================================================
Of course, AGW fanatics who are stuck on the concept that CO2 is the main driver behind warming are not happy with this new theory that they have ignored completely in all of their models. Therefore, to prove the hypothesis that the sun's impact on cosmic radiation reaching earth impacts clouds, scientists didn't just create a computer model, they actually created a controlled and closed experiment. In other words, unlike AGW proponents, these scientists actually did some real science:
Of course, AGW fanatics who are stuck on the concept that CO2 is the main driver behind warming are not happy with this new theory that they have ignored completely in all of their models. Therefore, to prove the hypothesis that the sun's impact on cosmic radiation reaching earth impacts clouds, scientists didn't just create a computer model, they actually created a controlled and closed experiment. In other words, unlike AGW proponents, these scientists actually did some real science:
Here is a graph of the results of the CLOUD experiment which show a direct relationship between cosmic rays and the formation of the seed droplets that create clouds:
_
The graph above does not appear in the print edition of Nature, but it does make showing at the back of the online supplementary material. The graph shows how cosmic rays promote the formation of clusters of molecules that can then grow and seed clouds in the real atmosphere.
At 03.45 am in a CLOUD experiment in Geneva, ultraviolet light began to create molecules in the cloud chamber, which approximates the air in the atmosphere. Jn above shows the neutral phase of the experiment, during which the CLOUD experiment electrically removed ions and molecular clusters. At 4.33 am, the CLOUD experiment stopped the electrical removal and allowed natural glalactic cosmic rays (Jgcr) to enter the chamber through the roof of the Geneva building, leading to a faster rate of cluster buildup.
Then, at 4.58 am, CLOUD also beamed charged pion particles (Jch) from an accelerator (these are equivalent to cosmic rays), the rate of cluster production took off, convincingly demonstrating the effect of cosmic rays on cluster growth.
So important are the findings of the CLOUD experiment on the role of cosmic rays on cloud formation that there should be no question that climate models need to be adjusted accordingly:
The graph above does not appear in the print edition of Nature, but it does make showing at the back of the online supplementary material. The graph shows how cosmic rays promote the formation of clusters of molecules that can then grow and seed clouds in the real atmosphere.
At 03.45 am in a CLOUD experiment in Geneva, ultraviolet light began to create molecules in the cloud chamber, which approximates the air in the atmosphere. Jn above shows the neutral phase of the experiment, during which the CLOUD experiment electrically removed ions and molecular clusters. At 4.33 am, the CLOUD experiment stopped the electrical removal and allowed natural glalactic cosmic rays (Jgcr) to enter the chamber through the roof of the Geneva building, leading to a faster rate of cluster buildup.
Then, at 4.58 am, CLOUD also beamed charged pion particles (Jch) from an accelerator (these are equivalent to cosmic rays), the rate of cluster production took off, convincingly demonstrating the effect of cosmic rays on cluster growth.
So important are the findings of the CLOUD experiment on the role of cosmic rays on cloud formation that there should be no question that climate models need to be adjusted accordingly:
Clearly, the science is not "settled". In fact, we are just beginning
to scratch the surface as to how complex and dynamic the earth's climate
is.
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So, what other kind of variables exist that could effect the results in our "experiment" (the computer model) ? Well, another major factor in climate are ocean currents. Scientists are now saying that the earth is going to cool for oh, say the next ten to fifteen years because of a change in ocean currents in the Atlantic. Not to worry though, this "temporary" cooling will stop and warming will resume as predicted they say. Hmmm, it seems that either the scientists neglected to correctly input variability in ocean temperatures and currents into their computer models or their knowledge of the ocean is just too limited to be of any use when making their projections about climate change. As a result, they got it all wrong.
Recently, warmists tried to explain the fact that the earth hasn't warmed in the past fifteen years by claiming that:
32======================================================================================================
So, what other kind of variables exist that could effect the results in our "experiment" (the computer model) ? Well, another major factor in climate are ocean currents. Scientists are now saying that the earth is going to cool for oh, say the next ten to fifteen years because of a change in ocean currents in the Atlantic. Not to worry though, this "temporary" cooling will stop and warming will resume as predicted they say. Hmmm, it seems that either the scientists neglected to correctly input variability in ocean temperatures and currents into their computer models or their knowledge of the ocean is just too limited to be of any use when making their projections about climate change. As a result, they got it all wrong.
Recently, warmists tried to explain the fact that the earth hasn't warmed in the past fifteen years by claiming that:
Now, it would be way too easy to poke fun at these guys for looking to any excuse they can find as to why their models are all wrong and their experiment hasn't panned out as they'd hoped. However, the very use of the word "may" as opposed to the use of stronger more defining words, just underlines the fact that scientists still don't really understand ocean currents very well.
For instance there is also a great correlation between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and temperatures:
For instance there is also a great correlation between the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and temperatures:
Another recent study has determined that the Southern Oscillation accounted for :
81% of the variance in tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling. That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation.
Does this mean that PDO and/or the AMO and the SOI are responsible for the warming of the planet? Once again the answer is that we don't know because correlation does not necessarily mean causation. What it means is that here is yet another area of science where our knowledge is in its infancy and we have virtually no clue exactly how it operates vis a vis the climate. Therefore, anyone plugging in this type of data into our little "experiment" (model) is guessing at best.
33====================================================================================================
The same is true when it comes to another greenhouse gas methane. Recently, it was discovered that massive amounts of methane were being released from the permafrost of the arctic tundra. This, of course, prompted much gnashing of the teeth and tearing of the garments amongst the alarmist community, proving that their predictions of a positive feedback loop were true and that we are on the precipice of catastrophe:
81% of the variance in tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling. That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation.
Does this mean that PDO and/or the AMO and the SOI are responsible for the warming of the planet? Once again the answer is that we don't know because correlation does not necessarily mean causation. What it means is that here is yet another area of science where our knowledge is in its infancy and we have virtually no clue exactly how it operates vis a vis the climate. Therefore, anyone plugging in this type of data into our little "experiment" (model) is guessing at best.
33====================================================================================================
The same is true when it comes to another greenhouse gas methane. Recently, it was discovered that massive amounts of methane were being released from the permafrost of the arctic tundra. This, of course, prompted much gnashing of the teeth and tearing of the garments amongst the alarmist community, proving that their predictions of a positive feedback loop were true and that we are on the precipice of catastrophe:
What is interesting about this study into methane is how little scientists actually know and understand how quickly warming temperatures release the gas. This is amplified by Palmer when he complains that there aren't enough satellites to properly measure this effect:
Palmer is right. It is an absolute disgrace that billions and billions of dollars are being pumped into AGW science and, yet those scientists don't have proper data gathering satellites and temperature stations so they can accurately depict this data in their models. It must be left to educated guesswork because the data gathering equipment is lacking and the science behind methane release from permafrost is just barely getting started.
34======================================================================================================
It should be noted that this scientist is convinced already that man is causing the warming and that this isn't a natural trend. Thus, you can hear the notes of alarmism in his voice when he postulates that we could be nearing a "tipping point" because of the positive feedback loop. But, are his claims about this correct? Is the release of methane gas into the atmosphere occurring at an alarming rate and cause for concern? Apparently not:
34======================================================================================================
It should be noted that this scientist is convinced already that man is causing the warming and that this isn't a natural trend. Thus, you can hear the notes of alarmism in his voice when he postulates that we could be nearing a "tipping point" because of the positive feedback loop. But, are his claims about this correct? Is the release of methane gas into the atmosphere occurring at an alarming rate and cause for concern? Apparently not:
As you can see, despite what the alarmist Paul Palmer would like you to believe, the increase in methane released by the melting of the permafrost in the arctic regions has not significantly affected overall methane levels, much less pushed them towards a "tipping point". In fact, levels of methane in the atmosphere are well below IPCC projections:
Speaking of methane, do you remember all those hectoring greenies and vegans telling us that eating meat was bad for the planet? Remember how they said that all of this cow flatulence caused by us evil meat lovers was giving mother earth a fever? Well it seems that they were the ones who were passing a lot of smelly wind:
_So what does this tell us? Well, it does tell us that every day
scientists are making new discoveries about things like cow farts that
dispute what was previously believed to be the "truth" as warmists told
us. The fact that methane levels are not increasing dramatically
despite the melting of the permafrost and areas of East Siberian Arctic Shelf does
throw a nice bucket of cold water on the extent to which warming is
causing a positive feedback loop. Somehow, despite all the methane
being released in the permafrost, methane levels are not going up to the
extent that AGW scientists projected. They, themselves, say that in
order to better understand methane and how it functions vis a vis the
atmosphere that we need better measuring equipment. This is a tacit
admission that once again, this area of climatology is far from settled
science and that any methane numbers AGW modelers put into their
computers are educated guesstimates at best.
35=====================================================================================================
But methane concentrations is just one of the many variables that cannot be controlled in our experiment. Some scientists say that orbital rythyms are the primary cause of climate change. Are they? We don't know. Those who say they do are usually the ones that express the greatest shock and dismay when things like this happen that change what we thought we knew and thus, change how that data needs to be interpreted to be put into the AGW models:
35=====================================================================================================
But methane concentrations is just one of the many variables that cannot be controlled in our experiment. Some scientists say that orbital rythyms are the primary cause of climate change. Are they? We don't know. Those who say they do are usually the ones that express the greatest shock and dismay when things like this happen that change what we thought we knew and thus, change how that data needs to be interpreted to be put into the AGW models:
36====================================================================================================
And what about volcanoes? As Carl Sagan reminded us earlier, the Krakatoa eruption caused so much climate chaos that summer just never happened in 1883.
"The volcanic explosion unleashed millions of tons of particles -- including sulfur dioxide -- into the stratosphere, a relatively warm layer of the atmosphere that begins about 6 miles above the ground. Stratospheric winds quickly blew the gases and other particles around the world. The sulfur dioxide interacted with oxygen and water vapor in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid, which blocked some sunlight and caused the climate to cool.
The scientists involved in the research said they were surprised how long the cold-water layer has endured. If it hadn't persisted so long, the sea-level rise driven by global warming would have been slightly higher -- about one centimeter -- than it has been.
The persistence of the deepwater cold anomaly "really stunned us," said Tom Wigley, a leading expert on global warming at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Wigley co-authored the article with four Livermore lab scientists and a researcher in England.
When Wigley analyzed the computer printout, his first reaction was, "This has got to be a mistake," he said. But after some reflection, he realized it was just another reminder of the complex ways in which the ocean and atmosphere interact."
Here we have some researchers, a leading IPCC expert on global warming, no less, and his five learned wise men of climate science, and they were just "stunned" (Stunned!) about how powerful an effect the eruption of a single volcano can have on climate and were reminded of how complex (Complex!) is the interrelationship between the ocean and the atmosphere. You'd think that this reminder would give them a bit of humility about how much they actually do understand about climate since their initial hypotheses had convinced them that the printout the computer gave them must be a mistake. But, no! Amazingly enough, these guys are actually certified Kool Aid drinkers as this statement testifies:
"The Krakatoa eruption counterbalanced the global warming trend that has been under way at least since the early-to-mid 19th century Industrial Revolution, when human burning of fossil fuels began filling the skies with greenhouse gases that warm the climate."
This sentence is a classic example of the harm caused by the politicization of science. The assertion that global warming started in the early 1800's, based upon that period's level of carbon emissions, is so preposterous that it makes these guys look like complete idiots. Yet, they can say this with a straight face because no one challenges them. They are merely repeating the gospel:
The evidence that humans are largely to blame for global warming is "overwhelming," Wigley explained, and "feedback effects" like temporary coolings induced by volcanic eruptions are comparatively minor factors. Still, scientists are trying to include volcanic phenomena in their computer models of global warming for the sake of comprehensiveness(emphasis is mine)
So, basically our boy Wigley and his buddies, who are certified “experts” about our earth’s atmosphere and climate, have just been "stunned" by how much impact one volcanic eruption has had. Yet, they are so convinced that our decadent SUV driving society is to blame for warming that they’ll only try to include volcanic phenomena into their computer models and, that, only for the "sake of comprehensiveness". What kind of science is that?
Yet, this same “scientist” cautioned: "Present models indicate that average planetary temperature will rise by 5 to 6 degrees over the next century”. Five or Six degrees! Even the IPCC won’t even go nearly that far. Do you think, perhaps, that this particular alarmist’s model showing CO2 being behind global warming might be of questionable value? If listening to this guy doesn’t convince you that these otherwise “brilliant” scientists have been drinking too much of the AGW Kool Aid, then nothing will!
To get an idea of how serious Volcanoes really are, take a gander at these photos from a recent eruption in Chile. They are mind blowing! Take a look at how much STUFF is being sent into the atmosphere. That lightning storm in the midst of the eruption is just awesome!
So, when is the next Volcano going to erupt? No one can tell you for sure. How many eruptions and how powerful have they been historically? No one has a clue. But, yet even these fools have enough honesty to admit that one single eruption can have a massive impact on our climate. So, how do they even have a clue whether we might be warming because I like to eat meat and drive fast cars or because the incidence of volcanic eruption has been in decline during this particular period? I surely don't know. But these guys don't just THINK so. They are absolutely CERTAIN! Never mind that even they are forced to admit how surprised they were that this is all very “complex”. I find the idea that these guys are "leaders" in the field of AGW theory to be very disturbing and so should we all.
Contrast Wigley and his certainty that man is causing warming to David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox two professors of physics from the University of Rochester who found that after the Mt. Penitubo eruption, temperatures returned to normal much faster than climate models predicted.
This could be explained only if there was some mechanism producing a kind of self-correcting feedback. In other words according to Douglass “ This feedback mechanism prevented the Earth from becoming much colder"...
Douglass and Knox point out that the mechanism producing the negative feedback may be the “Infrared Iris effect” due to clouds proposed by MIT professor Richard Lindzen. Clouds can both cool the Earth by reflecting light from the Sun, and warm the Earth by trapping heat between them and the ground. Since cloud formation is influenced by temperature and humidity changes in the atmosphere, the team suspects that clouds may form and dissipate in a way that tends to push the global temperatures back to steady normal.
Since the explanation of Pinatubo by the computer models was wrong in regard to the response time and the negative feedback, Douglass asks, “Are the computer models right when they consider the change to the climate caused by carbon dioxide?”
Give these men a gold star!!!
37=====================================================================================================
And what about volcanoes? As Carl Sagan reminded us earlier, the Krakatoa eruption caused so much climate chaos that summer just never happened in 1883.
"The volcanic explosion unleashed millions of tons of particles -- including sulfur dioxide -- into the stratosphere, a relatively warm layer of the atmosphere that begins about 6 miles above the ground. Stratospheric winds quickly blew the gases and other particles around the world. The sulfur dioxide interacted with oxygen and water vapor in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid, which blocked some sunlight and caused the climate to cool.
The scientists involved in the research said they were surprised how long the cold-water layer has endured. If it hadn't persisted so long, the sea-level rise driven by global warming would have been slightly higher -- about one centimeter -- than it has been.
The persistence of the deepwater cold anomaly "really stunned us," said Tom Wigley, a leading expert on global warming at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Wigley co-authored the article with four Livermore lab scientists and a researcher in England.
When Wigley analyzed the computer printout, his first reaction was, "This has got to be a mistake," he said. But after some reflection, he realized it was just another reminder of the complex ways in which the ocean and atmosphere interact."
Here we have some researchers, a leading IPCC expert on global warming, no less, and his five learned wise men of climate science, and they were just "stunned" (Stunned!) about how powerful an effect the eruption of a single volcano can have on climate and were reminded of how complex (Complex!) is the interrelationship between the ocean and the atmosphere. You'd think that this reminder would give them a bit of humility about how much they actually do understand about climate since their initial hypotheses had convinced them that the printout the computer gave them must be a mistake. But, no! Amazingly enough, these guys are actually certified Kool Aid drinkers as this statement testifies:
"The Krakatoa eruption counterbalanced the global warming trend that has been under way at least since the early-to-mid 19th century Industrial Revolution, when human burning of fossil fuels began filling the skies with greenhouse gases that warm the climate."
This sentence is a classic example of the harm caused by the politicization of science. The assertion that global warming started in the early 1800's, based upon that period's level of carbon emissions, is so preposterous that it makes these guys look like complete idiots. Yet, they can say this with a straight face because no one challenges them. They are merely repeating the gospel:
The evidence that humans are largely to blame for global warming is "overwhelming," Wigley explained, and "feedback effects" like temporary coolings induced by volcanic eruptions are comparatively minor factors. Still, scientists are trying to include volcanic phenomena in their computer models of global warming for the sake of comprehensiveness(emphasis is mine)
So, basically our boy Wigley and his buddies, who are certified “experts” about our earth’s atmosphere and climate, have just been "stunned" by how much impact one volcanic eruption has had. Yet, they are so convinced that our decadent SUV driving society is to blame for warming that they’ll only try to include volcanic phenomena into their computer models and, that, only for the "sake of comprehensiveness". What kind of science is that?
Yet, this same “scientist” cautioned: "Present models indicate that average planetary temperature will rise by 5 to 6 degrees over the next century”. Five or Six degrees! Even the IPCC won’t even go nearly that far. Do you think, perhaps, that this particular alarmist’s model showing CO2 being behind global warming might be of questionable value? If listening to this guy doesn’t convince you that these otherwise “brilliant” scientists have been drinking too much of the AGW Kool Aid, then nothing will!
To get an idea of how serious Volcanoes really are, take a gander at these photos from a recent eruption in Chile. They are mind blowing! Take a look at how much STUFF is being sent into the atmosphere. That lightning storm in the midst of the eruption is just awesome!
So, when is the next Volcano going to erupt? No one can tell you for sure. How many eruptions and how powerful have they been historically? No one has a clue. But, yet even these fools have enough honesty to admit that one single eruption can have a massive impact on our climate. So, how do they even have a clue whether we might be warming because I like to eat meat and drive fast cars or because the incidence of volcanic eruption has been in decline during this particular period? I surely don't know. But these guys don't just THINK so. They are absolutely CERTAIN! Never mind that even they are forced to admit how surprised they were that this is all very “complex”. I find the idea that these guys are "leaders" in the field of AGW theory to be very disturbing and so should we all.
Contrast Wigley and his certainty that man is causing warming to David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox two professors of physics from the University of Rochester who found that after the Mt. Penitubo eruption, temperatures returned to normal much faster than climate models predicted.
This could be explained only if there was some mechanism producing a kind of self-correcting feedback. In other words according to Douglass “ This feedback mechanism prevented the Earth from becoming much colder"...
Douglass and Knox point out that the mechanism producing the negative feedback may be the “Infrared Iris effect” due to clouds proposed by MIT professor Richard Lindzen. Clouds can both cool the Earth by reflecting light from the Sun, and warm the Earth by trapping heat between them and the ground. Since cloud formation is influenced by temperature and humidity changes in the atmosphere, the team suspects that clouds may form and dissipate in a way that tends to push the global temperatures back to steady normal.
Since the explanation of Pinatubo by the computer models was wrong in regard to the response time and the negative feedback, Douglass asks, “Are the computer models right when they consider the change to the climate caused by carbon dioxide?”
Give these men a gold star!!!
37=====================================================================================================
_Well, ok, so maybe our fabulous little computer
modelers don't have enough knowledge and information about the sun,
sunspots, methane, ground temperatures, clouds, precipitation,
atmospheric heat retention, global "wobble" and Vesta, ocean currents
and volcanoes as
they should. It's good enough for government work right? Oh yeah, I
forgot, it is government
work. However, I am sure that all their other data must be correct.
After all, Algore and his scientists are so sure that man is causing
warming that the science is settled right?
So, let's see how they are doing modeling all that other data. I have, with a little help from this excellent article (which I strongly recommend you read fully) a list of just a few of the factors (uncontrolled variables)that must be included in any reasonably accurate climate model and how much knowledge we have on the subject:
So, let's see how they are doing modeling all that other data. I have, with a little help from this excellent article (which I strongly recommend you read fully) a list of just a few of the factors (uncontrolled variables)that must be included in any reasonably accurate climate model and how much knowledge we have on the subject:
and surely many, many others, some of which haven't even been discovered yet!
Wow, that's quite a list and my knowledge of climate science isn't enough to begin to touch seriously on any of these things. If you ask me, each one of these fields in and of themselves can be subjects for a lifetime's worth of study and discovery. I doubt you would find anyone in any of those fields that can say they know conclusively the truth about exactly how their particular field of science works. You know scientists. They are forever debating the finest and most esoteric points as well as the huge and pivotal theories and hypotheses. Their journals and peer-reviewed articles are filled with the trashing of each others ideas and theories. Yet, in this one instance, we are told that the science on anthropogenic global warming is settled and there is a consensus among them about this. One would think that they must have overwhelming evidence to know for a fact that it is CO2, and CO2 alone, that is primarily responsible for warming, right?
And herein lies the nub of this whole issue. We are being told by Algore, Presiden Obama, the IPCC and their willing accomplices in the media-Matrix that mankind is causing a catastrophic warming of the planet and that we must totally and completely change the way we live to prevent it. As their only evidence, they rely on predictions generated by computer models by "experts" like our buddy Wigley. These models, as you can see, are not yet even close to being able to accurately assess the impact of just one tiny factor in the makeup of our climate: volcanoes. Even the most rudimentary examination of probabilities and statistics says that these models are completely unreliable as evidence or predictors. As James Lewis so eloquently puts it:
Imagine that all the variables about global climate are known with less than 100 percent certainty. Let's be wildly and unrealistically optimistic and say that climate scientists know each variable to 99 percent certainty! (No such thing, of course). And let's optimistically suppose there are only one-hundred x's, y's, and z's --- all the variables that can change the climate: like the amount of cloud cover over Antarctica, the changing ocean currents in the South Pacific, Mount Helena venting, sun spots, Chinese factories burning more coal every year, evaporation of ocean water (the biggest "greenhouse" gas), the wobbles of earth orbit around the sun, and yes, the multifarious fartings of billions of living creatures on the face of the earth, minus, of course, all the trillions of plants and algae that gobble up all the CO2, nitrogen-containing molecules, and sulfur-smelling exhalations spewed out by all of us animals. Got that? It all goes into our best math model.
So in the best case, the smartest climatologist in the world will know 100 variables, each one to an accuracy of 99 percent. Want to know what the probability of our spiffiest math model would be, if that perfect world existed? Have you ever multiplied (99/100) by itself 100 times? According to the Google calculator, it equals a little more than 36.6 percent.
The Bottom line: our best imaginable model has a total probability of one out of three. How many billions of dollars in Kyoto money are we going to spend on that chance?
How much indeed?
38=====================================================================================================
Wow, that's quite a list and my knowledge of climate science isn't enough to begin to touch seriously on any of these things. If you ask me, each one of these fields in and of themselves can be subjects for a lifetime's worth of study and discovery. I doubt you would find anyone in any of those fields that can say they know conclusively the truth about exactly how their particular field of science works. You know scientists. They are forever debating the finest and most esoteric points as well as the huge and pivotal theories and hypotheses. Their journals and peer-reviewed articles are filled with the trashing of each others ideas and theories. Yet, in this one instance, we are told that the science on anthropogenic global warming is settled and there is a consensus among them about this. One would think that they must have overwhelming evidence to know for a fact that it is CO2, and CO2 alone, that is primarily responsible for warming, right?
And herein lies the nub of this whole issue. We are being told by Algore, Presiden Obama, the IPCC and their willing accomplices in the media-Matrix that mankind is causing a catastrophic warming of the planet and that we must totally and completely change the way we live to prevent it. As their only evidence, they rely on predictions generated by computer models by "experts" like our buddy Wigley. These models, as you can see, are not yet even close to being able to accurately assess the impact of just one tiny factor in the makeup of our climate: volcanoes. Even the most rudimentary examination of probabilities and statistics says that these models are completely unreliable as evidence or predictors. As James Lewis so eloquently puts it:
Imagine that all the variables about global climate are known with less than 100 percent certainty. Let's be wildly and unrealistically optimistic and say that climate scientists know each variable to 99 percent certainty! (No such thing, of course). And let's optimistically suppose there are only one-hundred x's, y's, and z's --- all the variables that can change the climate: like the amount of cloud cover over Antarctica, the changing ocean currents in the South Pacific, Mount Helena venting, sun spots, Chinese factories burning more coal every year, evaporation of ocean water (the biggest "greenhouse" gas), the wobbles of earth orbit around the sun, and yes, the multifarious fartings of billions of living creatures on the face of the earth, minus, of course, all the trillions of plants and algae that gobble up all the CO2, nitrogen-containing molecules, and sulfur-smelling exhalations spewed out by all of us animals. Got that? It all goes into our best math model.
So in the best case, the smartest climatologist in the world will know 100 variables, each one to an accuracy of 99 percent. Want to know what the probability of our spiffiest math model would be, if that perfect world existed? Have you ever multiplied (99/100) by itself 100 times? According to the Google calculator, it equals a little more than 36.6 percent.
The Bottom line: our best imaginable model has a total probability of one out of three. How many billions of dollars in Kyoto money are we going to spend on that chance?
How much indeed?
38=====================================================================================================
Analyze Data
The purpose of an experiment is to test whether a hypothesis is true. In the case of man caused global warming, the experiments are the models that scientists use to predict what will happen to the climate if CO2 levels continue to rise. If the evidence of actual climate data is inconsistent with those predictions, it means that either they need to better control for variables (understand the science behind each one more completely) or if enough of the data refutes predictions, it means that the theory cannot be validated. This is science the way it is supposed to be practiced:
If this were any other field of science, indeed, if this was a science experiment at a high school or university, Professor Chaser would force us to throw our data away and start over again. The lack of adequate and reliable measurements alone should invalidate just about everything we have discovered from our experiment (climate models) so far. Measurements of temperature, CO2, methane among many others are inadequate at best. More importantly, the sheer number of variables and the sheer lack of knowledge about how they interact with each other and with the climate as a whole is also enough to call into question every single finding we can come up with. Unfortunately, since this is the only data we have, let us see whether it supports the AGW hypothesis that CO2 released by man is causing a dangerous warming of the planet.
39=====================================================================================================
The first and most obvious place to start is to see whether there is indeed a link between rising levels of CO2 and rising temperature. For those of you who were not around when the AGW alarmists first told us that the planet had a fever and that a catastrophic punishment from mother earth would result unless we mended our carbon spewing ways, I'd like to tell you the story of how a NASA scientist once upon a time got the whole AGW ball rolling using this new fangled thing called a computer to create a "model" of earth's climate.
Our story starts, not surprisingly, with some Crooks and Thieves. In this case, Democrat Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado and his Democrat buddies in the Senate who were anxious to use the issue of man made warming for their party's political and financial benefit. This would be the new environmental cause that would enable the party to target greedy big business and the evil oil companies and allow Democrats to regulate and control them. If successful, money would come rolling into the coffers of their party to "influence" the legislation they proposed and then to "influence" the regulations once enacted. Anyone who opposed this new issue, could be easily and effectively attacked as pawns of big oil and as enemies of the planet. What's more, they had a bona-fide NASA rocket scientist who would tell the country that if we didn't act fast, we were all doomed! What could be more perfect?
So like all good Democrats who understand the power of symbolism over substance and knowing they would have a sympathetic media to regurgitate and promote their spin, they staged the event for maximum effect. I'll let one of the crooks himself describe how they did that:
39=====================================================================================================
The first and most obvious place to start is to see whether there is indeed a link between rising levels of CO2 and rising temperature. For those of you who were not around when the AGW alarmists first told us that the planet had a fever and that a catastrophic punishment from mother earth would result unless we mended our carbon spewing ways, I'd like to tell you the story of how a NASA scientist once upon a time got the whole AGW ball rolling using this new fangled thing called a computer to create a "model" of earth's climate.
Our story starts, not surprisingly, with some Crooks and Thieves. In this case, Democrat Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado and his Democrat buddies in the Senate who were anxious to use the issue of man made warming for their party's political and financial benefit. This would be the new environmental cause that would enable the party to target greedy big business and the evil oil companies and allow Democrats to regulate and control them. If successful, money would come rolling into the coffers of their party to "influence" the legislation they proposed and then to "influence" the regulations once enacted. Anyone who opposed this new issue, could be easily and effectively attacked as pawns of big oil and as enemies of the planet. What's more, they had a bona-fide NASA rocket scientist who would tell the country that if we didn't act fast, we were all doomed! What could be more perfect?
So like all good Democrats who understand the power of symbolism over substance and knowing they would have a sympathetic media to regurgitate and promote their spin, they staged the event for maximum effect. I'll let one of the crooks himself describe how they did that:
Great theater, eh? But what of the testimony of Hansen? Have the last twenty five years since he testified borne out his dire predictions? Was the climate model that Hansen used to predict catastrophe for mankind accurate? Hardly:
Given that we've been living under scenario A, it looks to me like Hansen and NASA are fully an entire degree off in their calculations. And this is just over a twenty-five year period. How much does that degree of error extrapolate over a century? Hmm, seems to be about the five to eight degree rise that Algore predicts will have such dire consequences. But, hey, maybe Algore is still right. After all, Hansen may have been the most prominent early alarmist, but he is not the only one.
40=====================================================================================================
How have the other models, particularly the ones promoted by the IPCC fared? Maybe they rescue Algore and other AGW alamists from looking like fools:
40=====================================================================================================
How have the other models, particularly the ones promoted by the IPCC fared? Maybe they rescue Algore and other AGW alamists from looking like fools:
Not so much, eh? Since global CO2 emissions by humans has increased drastically, you'd expect that there would be a continued correlation with temperatures as the models predict. But that isn't the case, as we can see. Here is Alan Carlin from the EPA to explain this chart in more detail:
Okay, so NASA's and the IPCC's fancy dancy computer models are only off by a few tenths of a degree. There are millions of reasons why this could be just a statistical blip, an anomaly perhaps? AGW scientists are adamant that once all that heat is released from the deep oceans, or the PDO and the SIO and the AMO stop with the cooling ocean currents, or the earth just comes to its senses again, warming will come back with a vengeance. Yet, it is hard to deny that CO2 levels have gone up dramatically and temperature levels have remained flat and might even be trending downwards:
Well, golly gee, I don't see any correlation anymore do you? Where did it go? Oh, that's right! The ocean ate it. Again, it must be noted that we are only talking about fifteen years of divergence here. It's a drop in the bucket when it comes to climate which is measured in the hundreds and thousands of years at a minimum. Therefore, let's take a look at this chart which shows a much clearer picture over a longer (but still miniscule) timeframe and see how it stacks up against the alarmist models:
_Well, that data is certainly inconvenient for the theory of AGW isn't it? Hardly looks like we are experiencing runaway warming does it? However, even though the data is not currently supporting the concept of AGW
from CO2, that doesn't disprove the theory. It surely doesn't
support it either. Perhaps the models are wrong because climate science is
still in its infancy and we are still discovering new things every day.
Perhaps even the best supercomputer with the best data
and the most controlled variables humanly possible may never be able to
accurately predict how rising levels of CO2 affect the climate.
41====================================================================================================
However, the theory of green house warming reaching a "tipping point" of positive feedback does contain fingerprint elements that must be shown to be happening for the case for alarmism to have any validity:
41====================================================================================================
However, the theory of green house warming reaching a "tipping point" of positive feedback does contain fingerprint elements that must be shown to be happening for the case for alarmism to have any validity:
Do you see the vast discrepancy between the fingerprint that modelers expect to occur and the one that actually does occur? Ken Gregory's fine website Friends of Science explains why this is so important:
Computer models based on the theory of CO2 warming predicts that the troposphere in the tropics should warm faster than the surface in response to increasing CO2 concentrations, because that is where the CO2 greenhouse effect operates. The Sun-Cosmic ray warming will warm the troposphere more uniformly.
The UN's IPCC fourth assessment report includes a set of plots of computer model predicted rate of temperature change from the surface to 30 km altitude and over all latitudes for 5 types of climate forcings as shown below:
Computer models based on the theory of CO2 warming predicts that the troposphere in the tropics should warm faster than the surface in response to increasing CO2 concentrations, because that is where the CO2 greenhouse effect operates. The Sun-Cosmic ray warming will warm the troposphere more uniformly.
The UN's IPCC fourth assessment report includes a set of plots of computer model predicted rate of temperature change from the surface to 30 km altitude and over all latitudes for 5 types of climate forcings as shown below:
_
The six plots show predicted temperature changes due to:
a) the Sun
b) volcanic activity
c) anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gasses
d) anthropogenic ozone
e) anthropogenic sulphate aerosol particles
f) all the above forcings combined
The six plots show predicted temperature changes due to:
a) the Sun
b) volcanic activity
c) anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gasses
d) anthropogenic ozone
e) anthropogenic sulphate aerosol particles
f) all the above forcings combined
_It is apparent that plot c) of
warming caused by greenhouse gasses is strikingly distinct from other causes of
warming. Plot f) is similar to plot c) only because the IPCC assumes that CO2 is
the dominant cause of global warming.
The computer models show that greenhouse warming will cause a hot-spot at an altitude between 8 and 12 km over the tropics between 30 N and 30 S. The temperature at this hot-spot is projected to increase at a rate of two to three times faster than at the surface.
However, the Hadley Centre's real-world plot of radiosonde temperature observations shown below does not show the projected CO2 induced global warming hot-spot at all. The predicted hot-spot is entirely absent from the observational record. This shows that most of the global temperature change can not be attributed to increasing CO2 concentrations:
The computer models show that greenhouse warming will cause a hot-spot at an altitude between 8 and 12 km over the tropics between 30 N and 30 S. The temperature at this hot-spot is projected to increase at a rate of two to three times faster than at the surface.
However, the Hadley Centre's real-world plot of radiosonde temperature observations shown below does not show the projected CO2 induced global warming hot-spot at all. The predicted hot-spot is entirely absent from the observational record. This shows that most of the global temperature change can not be attributed to increasing CO2 concentrations:
__The left scale is atmosphere
pressure in hPa. The right scale is altitude in km.
Source: HadAT2 radiosonde observations, from CCSP (2006), p116, fig. 5.7E
See Greenhouse Warming? What Greenhouse Warming? by Christopher Monckton
Source: HadAT2 radiosonde observations, from CCSP (2006), p116, fig. 5.7E
See Greenhouse Warming? What Greenhouse Warming? by Christopher Monckton
42====================================================================================================
_The graph below compares the global annual temperatures of the troposphere to the surface measurements. The lower troposphere measurements from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (LT UAH). It measures the temperature of the troposphere up to approximately 8 km. The HadCRUT3 curve is the Land and Sea-Surface Temperatures data set from UK Met Office. The GISS curve is the surface temperatures from the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. The three curves are scaled so that the average of the first 5 years are the same.
_The graph below compares the global annual temperatures of the troposphere to the surface measurements. The lower troposphere measurements from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (LT UAH). It measures the temperature of the troposphere up to approximately 8 km. The HadCRUT3 curve is the Land and Sea-Surface Temperatures data set from UK Met Office. The GISS curve is the surface temperatures from the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. The three curves are scaled so that the average of the first 5 years are the same.
_The graph below compares the annual temperatures of the troposphere to the
surface measurements in the tropics. The lower troposphere measurements
from the UAH is from 20 degrees North to 20 degrees South, and the
surface temperatures from the GISS is from 24 degrees North to 24 degrees South.
_A comparison
of the records show that the surface has warmed faster than the troposphere, the
opposite of what is predicted by the theory of CO2 warming. Observations agree
with the Sun-Cosmic ray warming theory.
The response of the troposphere temperatures in the tropics is sometimes called the fingerprint of the CO2 contribution to warming.
The response of the troposphere temperatures in the tropics is sometimes called the fingerprint of the CO2 contribution to warming.
_This graph
shows two analyses of Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) satellite temperature
measurement data of the troposphere over the tropics from 20 degrees North to 20
degrees South. The UAH analysis is from the University of Alabama in Huntsville
and the RSS analysis is from Remote Sensing Systems. The two analyses use
different methods to adjust for factors such as orbital decay and
inter-satellite difference. The overall trend lines to October 2011 shows
increasing temperatures at 0.07 C/decade for UAH and 0.13 C/decade for RSS.
However, since January 2002, the temperatures have been declining at 0.08
C/decade for UAH and 0.21 C/decade for the RSS data. The IPCC projections do not
agree with the data.
And there you have it. IPCC projections of this vital fingerprint which would point to CO2 green house effect do not agree with the data. As Johnny Cochrane said during the OJ Simpson trial: "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit!"
43====================================================================================================
One former AGW proponent who understands how significant is the lack of a greenhouse finergprint is Australian David Evans. He worked at the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He has six university degrees, including a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Recently he wrote an op-ed for the Financial Post:
The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.
Let’s set a few things straight.
The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.
Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.
The disagreement comes about what happens next.
The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.
This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.
That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.
Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.
At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.
There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it.
But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to extra carbon dioxide, and is potentially unstable. It is no surprise that their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the U.S. Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.
They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.30C per decade in 1990, to 0.20C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade — yet they have the gall to tell us “it’s worse than expected.” These people are not scientists. They overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide, selectively deny evidence, and now they conceal the truth.
Given all of the evidence so far about how our climate measurement system is flawed and unreliable, how CO2 and temperatures no longer correlate in the model and the lack of the greenhouse fingerprint, I think that Evans is right and that our experiment has failed to prove the hypothesis. To continue any further, just wouldn't be science. Yet, AGW scientists can find arguments to dispute all this, so we shall endeavor to continue analyzing our results to see whether the predictions match the reality.
44===================================================================================================
Let's continue with our analysis of how well the AGW climate models analyze the impact of the sun. According to a recent peer-reviewed paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, solar activity has increased since the Little Ice Age by far more than previously assumed by IPCC models. Research by European Union Astrophysicists A.I. Shapiro et. al finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC. Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 is likely to be attributable to the Sun (called "solar forcing"), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC:
And there you have it. IPCC projections of this vital fingerprint which would point to CO2 green house effect do not agree with the data. As Johnny Cochrane said during the OJ Simpson trial: "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit!"
43====================================================================================================
One former AGW proponent who understands how significant is the lack of a greenhouse finergprint is Australian David Evans. He worked at the Australian Greenhouse Office (now the Department of Climate Change) from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010, modeling Australia’s carbon in plants, debris, mulch, soils, and forestry and agricultural products. He has six university degrees, including a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Recently he wrote an op-ed for the Financial Post:
The debate about global warming has reached ridiculous proportions and is full of micro-thin half-truths and misunderstandings. I am a scientist who was on the carbon gravy train, understands the evidence, was once an alarmist, but am now a skeptic. Watching this issue unfold has been amusing but, lately, worrying. This issue is tearing society apart, making fools out of our politicians.
Let’s set a few things straight.
The whole idea that carbon dioxide is the main cause of the recent global warming is based on a guess that was proved false by empirical evidence during the 1990s. But the gravy train was too big, with too many jobs, industries, trading profits, political careers, and the possibility of world government and total control riding on the outcome. So rather than admit they were wrong, the governments, and their tame climate scientists, now outrageously maintain the fiction that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and other things being equal, the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer the planet. Every bit of carbon dioxide that we emit warms the planet. But the issue is not whether carbon dioxide warms the planet, but how much.
Most scientists, on both sides, also agree on how much a given increase in the level of carbon dioxide raises the planet’s temperature, if just the extra carbon dioxide is considered. These calculations come from laboratory experiments; the basic physics have been well known for a century.
The disagreement comes about what happens next.
The planet reacts to that extra carbon dioxide, which changes everything. Most critically, the extra warmth causes more water to evaporate from the oceans. But does the water hang around and increase the height of moist air in the atmosphere, or does it simply create more clouds and rain? Back in 1980, when the carbon dioxide theory started, no one knew. The alarmists guessed that it would increase the height of moist air around the planet, which would warm the planet even further, because the moist air is also a greenhouse gas.
This is the core idea of every official climate model: For each bit of warming due to carbon dioxide, they claim it ends up causing three bits of warming due to the extra moist air. The climate models amplify the carbon dioxide warming by a factor of three — so two-thirds of their projected warming is due to extra moist air (and other factors); only one-third is due to extra carbon dioxide.
That’s the core of the issue. All the disagreements and misunderstandings spring from this. The alarmist case is based on this guess about moisture in the atmosphere, and there is simply no evidence for the amplification that is at the core of their alarmism.
Weather balloons had been measuring the atmosphere since the 1960s, many thousands of them every year. The climate models all predict that as the planet warms, a hot spot of moist air will develop over the tropics about 10 kilometres up, as the layer of moist air expands upwards into the cool dry air above. During the warming of the late 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the weather balloons found no hot spot. None at all. Not even a small one. This evidence proves that the climate models are fundamentally flawed, that they greatly overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide.
At this point, official “climate science” stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory — that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters.
There are now several independent pieces of evidence showing that the earth responds to the warming due to extra carbon dioxide by dampening the warming. Every long-lived natural system behaves this way, counteracting any disturbance. Otherwise the system would be unstable. The climate system is no exception, and now we can prove it.
But the alarmists say the exact opposite, that the climate system amplifies any warming due to extra carbon dioxide, and is potentially unstable. It is no surprise that their predictions of planetary temperature made in 1988 to the U.S. Congress, and again in 1990, 1995, and 2001, have all proved much higher than reality.
They keep lowering the temperature increases they expect, from 0.30C per decade in 1990, to 0.20C per decade in 2001, and now 0.15C per decade — yet they have the gall to tell us “it’s worse than expected.” These people are not scientists. They overestimate the temperature increases due to carbon dioxide, selectively deny evidence, and now they conceal the truth.
Given all of the evidence so far about how our climate measurement system is flawed and unreliable, how CO2 and temperatures no longer correlate in the model and the lack of the greenhouse fingerprint, I think that Evans is right and that our experiment has failed to prove the hypothesis. To continue any further, just wouldn't be science. Yet, AGW scientists can find arguments to dispute all this, so we shall endeavor to continue analyzing our results to see whether the predictions match the reality.
44===================================================================================================
Let's continue with our analysis of how well the AGW climate models analyze the impact of the sun. According to a recent peer-reviewed paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, solar activity has increased since the Little Ice Age by far more than previously assumed by IPCC models. Research by European Union Astrophysicists A.I. Shapiro et. al finds that the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has increased since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850) by up to 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC. Thus, much of the global warming observed since 1850 is likely to be attributable to the Sun (called "solar forcing"), rather than man-made CO2 as assumed by the IPCC:
_It would seem that, according to this scientific research done by astrophysicists at least, that the sun does play a much more powerful role than the AGW modelers had previously thought. Six times more to be exact. How does this knowledge impact how much weight modelers should give to how much CO2 impacts temperatures? Certainly, it does call into question how accurate can models be that do not recognize this level of magnitude of solar forcing .
45====================================================================================================
What about the projected rise of ocean temperatures predicted by the IPCC? Are the models accurate in this case at least? Well for the first seventeen years it appeared they were, and AGW scientists were patting themselves on the back and drinking celebratory champagne while telling us that this proved they were right all along:
45====================================================================================================
What about the projected rise of ocean temperatures predicted by the IPCC? Are the models accurate in this case at least? Well for the first seventeen years it appeared they were, and AGW scientists were patting themselves on the back and drinking celebratory champagne while telling us that this proved they were right all along:
But it appears that they popped those corks just a bit prematurely, as the next seventeen years of data indicate:
Oops, guess their theories about how AGW will impact the oceans is wrong and their models flawed. But, what about the deep ocean. That place where they claim all this excess heat is trapped and just waiting to be released to create planetary warming with a vengeance? Chillguy33 explains that there was a massive failure:
on the part of the GISS model to project warming.” The upper 2.6 meters of ocean has heat capacity equal to the entire atmosphere above it! If we analyze temperatures to 750 meters, we are accounting for 80% of Earths entire (surface) heat, based on the thermal mass of ocean. Since 2003 we have quite accurate records of ocean temperatures, thanks to the Argo buoy observations. The temperature of Earth, by this accurate observation, is not going up, as predicted by the AGW models. In fact, it is going down rather sharply.
on the part of the GISS model to project warming.” The upper 2.6 meters of ocean has heat capacity equal to the entire atmosphere above it! If we analyze temperatures to 750 meters, we are accounting for 80% of Earths entire (surface) heat, based on the thermal mass of ocean. Since 2003 we have quite accurate records of ocean temperatures, thanks to the Argo buoy observations. The temperature of Earth, by this accurate observation, is not going up, as predicted by the AGW models. In fact, it is going down rather sharply.
According to JoNova:
If there is one topic that trumps all others in climate science, it’s ocean heat.
If there is a planetary imbalance in energy, and Earth is acquiring more heat than it’s losing, we ought to be able to find that heat. Energy can not be created nor destroyed. It has to be somewhere.
On this Water-Planet, virtually every scientist agrees that the vast bulk of the extra energy ought be stored in the water. The oceans cover 70% of the surface, and are 4km deep; water has a high heat capacity (meaning it can store a lot of energy), and, because water flows quickly (unlike rock), turbulence and mixing can take that heat energy away from the surface.
Every skeptic (and taxpayer) ought to know that since 2003 (when we started measuring oceans properly) the oceans have been cooling: Douglass and Knox 2010.
Five years of planetary heating amounts to a massive amount of energy. That’s 2,000 days of the sun bearing down on an atmosphere with growing levels of CO2. According to the IPCC favored models, the extra heat stored should be 0.7 x 1022 Joules per year (or 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules per annum or 7,000 quintillion joules).
The oceans cause a lot of “noise” in our climate — the water is 4km deep and mostly close to freezing, even in the depths under the tropics. When the ocean is “stirred” cold water wells up and sucks the heat out of the atmosphere giving us a La Nina and a cooler year. When the ocean is calm, the massive stores of “cold” stay sequestered below, the surface water warms faster, and satellite record an El Nino warm spike. Figuring out the effects of CO2 with surface thermometers is difficult because of this noise and variability. But the vast oceans are the giant storage depots for heat content year after year.
The Argo buoy network uses 3,000 floating thermometers that spread through the worlds oceans and dive 2,000 m deep. They record the temperatures and radio them back when they surface every couple of weeks. It is the gold standard in measuring ocean temperatures. Argo became operational in mid-2003; before then we relied on erratic and highly uncertain measurements from boats. (See The UCSD Argo website.):
If there is one topic that trumps all others in climate science, it’s ocean heat.
If there is a planetary imbalance in energy, and Earth is acquiring more heat than it’s losing, we ought to be able to find that heat. Energy can not be created nor destroyed. It has to be somewhere.
On this Water-Planet, virtually every scientist agrees that the vast bulk of the extra energy ought be stored in the water. The oceans cover 70% of the surface, and are 4km deep; water has a high heat capacity (meaning it can store a lot of energy), and, because water flows quickly (unlike rock), turbulence and mixing can take that heat energy away from the surface.
Every skeptic (and taxpayer) ought to know that since 2003 (when we started measuring oceans properly) the oceans have been cooling: Douglass and Knox 2010.
Five years of planetary heating amounts to a massive amount of energy. That’s 2,000 days of the sun bearing down on an atmosphere with growing levels of CO2. According to the IPCC favored models, the extra heat stored should be 0.7 x 1022 Joules per year (or 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules per annum or 7,000 quintillion joules).
The oceans cause a lot of “noise” in our climate — the water is 4km deep and mostly close to freezing, even in the depths under the tropics. When the ocean is “stirred” cold water wells up and sucks the heat out of the atmosphere giving us a La Nina and a cooler year. When the ocean is calm, the massive stores of “cold” stay sequestered below, the surface water warms faster, and satellite record an El Nino warm spike. Figuring out the effects of CO2 with surface thermometers is difficult because of this noise and variability. But the vast oceans are the giant storage depots for heat content year after year.
The Argo buoy network uses 3,000 floating thermometers that spread through the worlds oceans and dive 2,000 m deep. They record the temperatures and radio them back when they surface every couple of weeks. It is the gold standard in measuring ocean temperatures. Argo became operational in mid-2003; before then we relied on erratic and highly uncertain measurements from boats. (See The UCSD Argo website.):
As you can see, the ARGO system is a modern and comprehensive method of measurement. It is probably the best temperature measuring system we have in the world. So, what does ARGO show about ocean temperatures? Has ARGO found all the missing heat? Nope, ARGO says the oceans are cooling:
However, according to James Hansen of NASA, ocean tempertures should be rising at an alarming rate. Yet, the only thing that is alarming is how wrong Hansen is:
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Do you remember the scene in Algore's movie where he shows how AGW will cause seal levels to rise with catastrophic consequences? Well, what does the evidence scientists have now gathered say about sea level rise caused by mankind's burning of fossil fuels since that movie? Let's first start with sea levels as they have been historically:
Do you remember the scene in Algore's movie where he shows how AGW will cause seal levels to rise with catastrophic consequences? Well, what does the evidence scientists have now gathered say about sea level rise caused by mankind's burning of fossil fuels since that movie? Let's first start with sea levels as they have been historically:
As you can see, levels are much lower than they were only seven thousand years ago. And they are still lower than they were just five hundred years ago during the MWP:
As we can see from the chart above, sea levels have risen steadily for the past 150 years. The trend line is completely unaffected by the burning of fossil fuels:
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As you can see, the rise in sea levels occurred hundreds of years before the burning of fossil fuel began. But, what about now? Is the increase in CO2 due to mankind causing an acceleration in the rise of the oceans? Well according to NASA"s GRACE satellites the answer is that warming (whether natural or man-made) is causing the levels to continue to rise, but not nearly at a level consistent with the alarmist levels predicted by the AGW crowd:
As you can see, the rise in sea levels occurred hundreds of years before the burning of fossil fuel began. But, what about now? Is the increase in CO2 due to mankind causing an acceleration in the rise of the oceans? Well according to NASA"s GRACE satellites the answer is that warming (whether natural or man-made) is causing the levels to continue to rise, but not nearly at a level consistent with the alarmist levels predicted by the AGW crowd:
This finding of less than 4" of sea level rise over the next century is confirmed by the European Union Envisat, which shows that the rise in sea levels has begun to slow:
Here are two more charts derived from multiple satellites that shows this trend as well:
And how does this data stack up against the alarmist AGW position that posits massive sea level rise due to man-made CO2? Will we be buying ocean front property in central Florida as Algore suggests? Hardly. Take a look at this chart which shows actual measurements as well as the predictions of the AGW crowd:
As you can see, Algore and James Hansen are living in fantasyland. Not even the IPCC is willing to go past eight inches. Hansen and Gore are talking five feet! So, yet another alarmist scare is put to rest. The question is why isn't the rapid and catastrophic sea level rise that AGW fanatics predict occurring? Well, it's because the rapid warming and melting of the ice in Greenland and the two poles is not occurring as predicted either.
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In 2009 scientist Josefino Cosimo in a paper with Eric Stieg et. al published a report for the IPCC that supported Algores claim that the Antartic ice sheets were in danger. His research showed that the continent was warming ominously. The AGW enthusiast community was delighted. There, you see! The ice sheets will calve into the ocean, sea levels will rise and doom will be upon us just like we said! Here is how Cosimo's temperature data for Antarctica is portrayed on the cover of Nature:
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In 2009 scientist Josefino Cosimo in a paper with Eric Stieg et. al published a report for the IPCC that supported Algores claim that the Antartic ice sheets were in danger. His research showed that the continent was warming ominously. The AGW enthusiast community was delighted. There, you see! The ice sheets will calve into the ocean, sea levels will rise and doom will be upon us just like we said! Here is how Cosimo's temperature data for Antarctica is portrayed on the cover of Nature:
Alarming isn't it? No wonder AGW proponents were jumping for joy at their vindication. But, as usual, they popped their champagne corks just a tad early. You see, Cosimo and his team fudged the numbers. A team of amateurs, O'Donnell et. al. checked out Cosimo and Stieg's math and statistical pattern in a peer reviewed paper and found them to be totally bogus. This is how the temperature readings on Antarctica really look:
Massive difference, eh? The findings of the O'Donnell team are supported by thirty years of NOAA satellite data that shows a slight cooling in temperatures over the past thirty years:
And meltwater has decreased accordingly:
But, what about the Antarctic Peninsula which we know is warming as was so dramatically depicted in Algore's movie? Well, according to Dr. Heinrich Miller, deputy director of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, who has been researching the Arctic and Antarctic for decades:
"Here almost nothing has changed. At least not near the surface. The average annual temperatures have remained the same. There are of course large fluctuations from year to year. If anything over the last 30 years we have a slight cooling trend. And this flies in the face of what is always immediately claimed: ‘The climate is warming and the Antarctic is melting’.”
Surprisingly enough, the massive icebergs calved from the PIGS peninsula are not the result of AGW according to our buddy Eric Steig, he of the bogus temperature numbers. Steig was forced to admit that:
"He [Steig] noted that sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific last showed significant warming in the 1940s, and the impact in the Amundsen Sea area then was probably comparable to what has been observed recently. That suggests that the 1940s tropical warming could have started the changes in the Amundsen Sea ice shelves that are being observed now...He emphasized that natural variations in tropical sea-surface temperatures associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation play a significant role."
Not CO2 induced greenhouse warming, but natural variations in sea surface temperatures. Even NASA scientists have to admit that the dire projections of ice sheet loss in Antarctica cannot be supported by the facts
"Here almost nothing has changed. At least not near the surface. The average annual temperatures have remained the same. There are of course large fluctuations from year to year. If anything over the last 30 years we have a slight cooling trend. And this flies in the face of what is always immediately claimed: ‘The climate is warming and the Antarctic is melting’.”
Surprisingly enough, the massive icebergs calved from the PIGS peninsula are not the result of AGW according to our buddy Eric Steig, he of the bogus temperature numbers. Steig was forced to admit that:
"He [Steig] noted that sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific last showed significant warming in the 1940s, and the impact in the Amundsen Sea area then was probably comparable to what has been observed recently. That suggests that the 1940s tropical warming could have started the changes in the Amundsen Sea ice shelves that are being observed now...He emphasized that natural variations in tropical sea-surface temperatures associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation play a significant role."
Not CO2 induced greenhouse warming, but natural variations in sea surface temperatures. Even NASA scientists have to admit that the dire projections of ice sheet loss in Antarctica cannot be supported by the facts
_Note the last line of this article. It seems that once again we have an area of the science in which "researchers still have a lot to learn". Looks like Algore and his AGW sycophants are all wet. Sure, ice sheet calving made for alarmingly dramatic footage in his movie, but the claims that they are in danger are grossly
misleading and untrue. The Antarctic ice sheets aren't melting as predicted because the temperatures there are getting colder much to the chagrin of Gore and his fandom. Even those
glaciers that are calving into those huge icebergs seem to be doing so for perfectly natural
reasons having nothing to do with AGW.
In fact, this year Antarctic Ice are set yet another record:
In fact, this year Antarctic Ice are set yet another record:
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Okay, fine. But, what about Greenland and the Arctic sea ice? Surely, they are melting in the dramatic and alarming way that Algore, the media and the IPCC have been warning, right? After all we've all heard that the IPCC and its scientists have predicted CO2-caused global warming would cause the Greenland area to warm, leading to a gigantic ice melt, thus flooding coastal regions around the globe. Well, if you look at the 150 year trend, it doesn't appear that CO2 has had any effect whatsoever on the melting of the Greenland glaciers:
Okay, fine. But, what about Greenland and the Arctic sea ice? Surely, they are melting in the dramatic and alarming way that Algore, the media and the IPCC have been warning, right? After all we've all heard that the IPCC and its scientists have predicted CO2-caused global warming would cause the Greenland area to warm, leading to a gigantic ice melt, thus flooding coastal regions around the globe. Well, if you look at the 150 year trend, it doesn't appear that CO2 has had any effect whatsoever on the melting of the Greenland glaciers:
_ That was then. This is now. Surely, AGW is causing a rapid melt off of the Greenland glaciers as Algore hysterically predicted. Actually, no. In 2009, N. Daniault of the Laboratoire de Physique des Océans,
Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest, France and his colleagues
did a study of the East Greenland Current to determine the level of melt
from the glaciers:
Daniault et. al found that:
Beyond this decadal variability, the researchers find no significant trend in the 1992-2009 EGIC transport time series, confirming that EGIC transport variability has not changed significantly over the past two decades."
[N. Daniault, H. Mercier, P. Lherminier 2011: Geophysical Research Letters]
Here is a chart with their data:
Beyond this decadal variability, the researchers find no significant trend in the 1992-2009 EGIC transport time series, confirming that EGIC transport variability has not changed significantly over the past two decades."
[N. Daniault, H. Mercier, P. Lherminier 2011: Geophysical Research Letters]
Here is a chart with their data:
So, basically there has been no change in the melting of the Greenland glaciers for the past twenty years. That's not what Algore and the IPCC warned us was going to happen. They said that the glaciers would melt at an ever more rapid rate. But, every day we learn more about the actual science of glaciers. For instance:
"Researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (US), TU Delft and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research have now succeeded in carrying out that correction far more accurately. They did so using combined data from the GRACE mission, GPS measurements on land and sea floor pressure measurements. These reveal that the sea floor under Greenland is falling more rapidly than was first thought. One of the researchers, Dr Bert Vermeersen of TU Delft, explains: 'The corrections for deformations of the Earth’s crust have a considerable effect on the amount of ice that is estimated to be melting each year. We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted.' The average rise in sea levels as a result of the melting ice caps is also lower."
Who knew? Certainly not Algore and the warmists who attributed all the melt to coal power plants, SUV's and meat. Further, recent GRACE satellites have also discovered some interesting trends in Greenland's glaciers:
"A paper published...in the Journal of Geophysical Research finds "the loss rate in southeast Greenland for the more recent period has become almost negligible, down from 109 ± 28 Gt/yr of just a few years ago. The rapid change in the nature of the regional ice mass in southeast and northwest Greenland, in the course of only several years, further reinforces the idea that the Greenland ice sheet mass balance is very vulnerable to regional climate conditions." Global warming allegedly due to greenhouse gases would not be expected to cause such regional interannual variability in Greenland ice loss, thus pointing to shifts in weather instead." [J. L. Chen, C. R. Wilson, B. D. Tapley 2011: Journal of Geophysical Research]
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But what about the arctic sea ice? Hey , we know that's been melting rapidly, right? We've even been warned it will disappear entirely. Perhaps as soon as 2015. Well, once again, it turns out that this may be due to natural causes. According to new research from NASA's Jet propulsion lab, it is actually arctic oscillation that causes freshwater from several large Russian rivers being relocated to certain regions in the Arctic that allows other regions to be more vulnerable to increased sea ice melt:
"A hemisphere-wide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea"..."Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation"..."In the Eurasian Basin, the change means less freshwater enters the layer known as the cold halocline and could be contributing to declines in ice in that part of the Arctic...The cold halocline normally sits like a barrier between ice and warm water that comes into the Arctic from the Atlantic Ocean. Without salt the icy cold freshwater is lighter, which is why it is able to float over the warm water...In the Beaufort Sea, the water is the freshest it’s been in 50 years of record keeping, he said. The new findings show that only a tiny fraction is from melting ice and the vast majority is Eurasian river water."
"Researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (US), TU Delft and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research have now succeeded in carrying out that correction far more accurately. They did so using combined data from the GRACE mission, GPS measurements on land and sea floor pressure measurements. These reveal that the sea floor under Greenland is falling more rapidly than was first thought. One of the researchers, Dr Bert Vermeersen of TU Delft, explains: 'The corrections for deformations of the Earth’s crust have a considerable effect on the amount of ice that is estimated to be melting each year. We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted.' The average rise in sea levels as a result of the melting ice caps is also lower."
Who knew? Certainly not Algore and the warmists who attributed all the melt to coal power plants, SUV's and meat. Further, recent GRACE satellites have also discovered some interesting trends in Greenland's glaciers:
"A paper published...in the Journal of Geophysical Research finds "the loss rate in southeast Greenland for the more recent period has become almost negligible, down from 109 ± 28 Gt/yr of just a few years ago. The rapid change in the nature of the regional ice mass in southeast and northwest Greenland, in the course of only several years, further reinforces the idea that the Greenland ice sheet mass balance is very vulnerable to regional climate conditions." Global warming allegedly due to greenhouse gases would not be expected to cause such regional interannual variability in Greenland ice loss, thus pointing to shifts in weather instead." [J. L. Chen, C. R. Wilson, B. D. Tapley 2011: Journal of Geophysical Research]
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But what about the arctic sea ice? Hey , we know that's been melting rapidly, right? We've even been warned it will disappear entirely. Perhaps as soon as 2015. Well, once again, it turns out that this may be due to natural causes. According to new research from NASA's Jet propulsion lab, it is actually arctic oscillation that causes freshwater from several large Russian rivers being relocated to certain regions in the Arctic that allows other regions to be more vulnerable to increased sea ice melt:
"A hemisphere-wide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea"..."Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation"..."In the Eurasian Basin, the change means less freshwater enters the layer known as the cold halocline and could be contributing to declines in ice in that part of the Arctic...The cold halocline normally sits like a barrier between ice and warm water that comes into the Arctic from the Atlantic Ocean. Without salt the icy cold freshwater is lighter, which is why it is able to float over the warm water...In the Beaufort Sea, the water is the freshest it’s been in 50 years of record keeping, he said. The new findings show that only a tiny fraction is from melting ice and the vast majority is Eurasian river water."
Hmm, let's see, no major antarctic melting, Greenland melting has remained stable for twenty years, Arctic sea ice loss may be partly due to entirely natural causes and ocean temperatures are much lower than IPCC models predicted. The data still does not support the hypothesis. Supposing the public and the media catch on? What's an AGW Kool-Aid drinker to do? Why, change the subject from boring data to exciting and scary consequenses.
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It's time to scare the world with talk about storms! Severe weather! Violent life destroying Hurricanes, Cyclones and Tornadoes! Your SUV is going to cause climate disruption they shout! Here is that kind of ridiculous alarmism as portrayed in the introductory film to the 2009 UN AGW conference in Copehagen:
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It's time to scare the world with talk about storms! Severe weather! Violent life destroying Hurricanes, Cyclones and Tornadoes! Your SUV is going to cause climate disruption they shout! Here is that kind of ridiculous alarmism as portrayed in the introductory film to the 2009 UN AGW conference in Copehagen:
_Scary no? Massive storms are going to destroy this poor little girl's life. That's the new AGW fear tactic to get everyone to act and act now! Since warmists can no longer claim that CO2 is warming the planet
because it isn't, they no longer use the term global warming to scare
the population. Now they say that any type of severe weather is a
result of the new buzzword of the day: climate change. This allows them
to sell every different kind of severe weather as being caused by
AGW.
Now I need to point something out here. Many kinds of severe weather and changes in the climate are caused by warming. That isn't the issue. The question is whether it is caused by man. But, within the media-Matrix this distinction is totally muddled. When media types talk about "climate change" they aren't talking about natural change, but manmade change. While this is deliberately dishonest and a disservice to the public, it is effective propaganda. Who can forget Algore attributing every major snowstorm, tornado and hurricane to AGW? Watch ABC news trying to spin a freak gust of wind that blew down a stage in Indiana to cite "weather gone wild" and use it as another excuse to promote AGW propaganda:
Now I need to point something out here. Many kinds of severe weather and changes in the climate are caused by warming. That isn't the issue. The question is whether it is caused by man. But, within the media-Matrix this distinction is totally muddled. When media types talk about "climate change" they aren't talking about natural change, but manmade change. While this is deliberately dishonest and a disservice to the public, it is effective propaganda. Who can forget Algore attributing every major snowstorm, tornado and hurricane to AGW? Watch ABC news trying to spin a freak gust of wind that blew down a stage in Indiana to cite "weather gone wild" and use it as another excuse to promote AGW propaganda:
A rare, but not unprecedented gust of wind that resulted in fatalities? Hey, that's extreme weather. That's what happens when the climate changes, don't ya know?
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Watch one of the most egregious jobs of biased reporting ever done:
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Watch one of the most egregious jobs of biased reporting ever done:
Note two things from that collection of bilge NBC has the audacity to claim is a news story. First, that they used Richard Muller of BEST fame who true to form says that the science is beyond dispute. Sorry about that, seems I've wasted all your time pointing out all of the flaws in the "science" of AGW. Every word I have written so far on this subject is obviously a lie. The science is settled. Muller and NBC news say so. Isn't so convenient that this Halloween snowstorm can be categorized as extreme weather, because I seem to recall Democrat Crooks and Thieves complaining that the lack of snow was a sign of warming:
Of course, when the opposite occurs and there is plenty of cold weather, snow and winter storms. That's climate change, too! Don't you just love how that word "change" works perfectly for them? It's a win/win. If there's no snow it's because there is warming, which is man's fault. If there is too much cold and snow, that's because we are suffering from climate change, which is also man's fault. Watch how a compliant media spins this convenient tale to the public:
So you see? Dianne Sawyer tells us the scientists say storms are going to become stronger and more frequent. Is this true? Well, Sawyer is right to say that AGW scientists think so. According to Kevin Trenberth (a name that will feature prominently in Climategate):
"Human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere and global warming is happening as a result," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at NCAR and a convening lead author of the 2007 IPCC report for the chapter on observed changes. "Global warming is manifested in many ways, some unexpected. Sea level has risen 1.25 inches in the past 10 years as a result of warming of the oceans and glacier melting. The environment in which hurricanes form is changing. The result was a hurricane in late March 2004 in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil: the first and only such hurricane in that region. Several factors go into forming hurricanes and where they track. But the evidence strongly suggests more intense storms and risk of greater flooding events, so that the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."
Not to be outdone, his IPCC colleague James McCarthy said in 2004:
"Global warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes," said James J. McCarthy, a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead author of the climate change impacts portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001). "Warmer seas fuel the large storms forming over the Atlantic and Pacific, and greater evaporation generates heavy downpours. With warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has projected larger storms, heavier rainfalls and higher peak winds."
Okay, got that? More, larger and more severe storms will result from the effects of AGW just as Diane Sawyer and ABC reported. However, after Hurricane Katrina hit (which was cause for another orgy of doom and gloom from AGW mongers and their stenographers in the press) there hasn't been a category 3+ hurricane to hit land in the USA since. In fact it seems it is a record of some sort:
"Human activities are changing the composition of the atmosphere and global warming is happening as a result," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at NCAR and a convening lead author of the 2007 IPCC report for the chapter on observed changes. "Global warming is manifested in many ways, some unexpected. Sea level has risen 1.25 inches in the past 10 years as a result of warming of the oceans and glacier melting. The environment in which hurricanes form is changing. The result was a hurricane in late March 2004 in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil: the first and only such hurricane in that region. Several factors go into forming hurricanes and where they track. But the evidence strongly suggests more intense storms and risk of greater flooding events, so that the North Atlantic hurricane season of 2004 may well be a harbinger of the future."
Not to be outdone, his IPCC colleague James McCarthy said in 2004:
"Global warming may well be causing bigger and more powerful hurricanes," said James J. McCarthy, a biological oceanographer at Harvard University and lead author of the climate change impacts portion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report (2001). "Warmer seas fuel the large storms forming over the Atlantic and Pacific, and greater evaporation generates heavy downpours. With warmer, saltier tropical seas, the IPCC has projected larger storms, heavier rainfalls and higher peak winds."
Okay, got that? More, larger and more severe storms will result from the effects of AGW just as Diane Sawyer and ABC reported. However, after Hurricane Katrina hit (which was cause for another orgy of doom and gloom from AGW mongers and their stenographers in the press) there hasn't been a category 3+ hurricane to hit land in the USA since. In fact it seems it is a record of some sort:
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Of course that kind of inconvenient truth didn't stop the alarmists from trying to blame Hurricane Irene on AGW. However, those who specialize in Hurricane science are not willing to trash their own scientific credibility and play along with the warmists because both the observed facts and the science don't match the AGW rhetoric. Even Politico was forced to concede this:
Of course that kind of inconvenient truth didn't stop the alarmists from trying to blame Hurricane Irene on AGW. However, those who specialize in Hurricane science are not willing to trash their own scientific credibility and play along with the warmists because both the observed facts and the science don't match the AGW rhetoric. Even Politico was forced to concede this:
Ah yes, that pesky science. Science, which for example shows that the numbers of Hurricanes and tropical storms are not increasing. In fact they are lessening:
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In fact according to Chinese researchers Ying et. al.:
"The authors write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001, 2007) has twice suggested that "precipitation and extreme winds associated with tropical cyclones may have become more intense." However, they note that this dual claim is "mainly based on numerical models,"...Working with tropical cyclone (TC) best track and related observational severe wind and precipitation datasets created by the Shanghai Typhoon Institute of the China Meteorological Administration...report that over the past half-century there have been no changes in the frequency of TC occurrence...they say that "during the past 50 years, there have been no significant trends in the days of TC...that "the seasonal rhythm of the TC influence on China also has not changed."...found that "the maximum sustained winds of TCs affecting the whole of China and all sub-regions have decreasing trends."...state that "the trends of extreme storm precipitation and 1-hour precipitation were all insignificant."" [Ming Ying, YuHua Yang, BaoDe Chen, Wei Zhang 2011: Science China Earth Sciences]
The authors stated that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001, 2007) has twice suggested that "precipitation and extreme winds associated with tropical cyclones may have become more intense." However, they note that this dual claim is "mainly based on numerical models," which they find lacking compared to actual real-world observations:
In fact according to Chinese researchers Ying et. al.:
"The authors write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001, 2007) has twice suggested that "precipitation and extreme winds associated with tropical cyclones may have become more intense." However, they note that this dual claim is "mainly based on numerical models,"...Working with tropical cyclone (TC) best track and related observational severe wind and precipitation datasets created by the Shanghai Typhoon Institute of the China Meteorological Administration...report that over the past half-century there have been no changes in the frequency of TC occurrence...they say that "during the past 50 years, there have been no significant trends in the days of TC...that "the seasonal rhythm of the TC influence on China also has not changed."...found that "the maximum sustained winds of TCs affecting the whole of China and all sub-regions have decreasing trends."...state that "the trends of extreme storm precipitation and 1-hour precipitation were all insignificant."" [Ming Ying, YuHua Yang, BaoDe Chen, Wei Zhang 2011: Science China Earth Sciences]
The authors stated that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001, 2007) has twice suggested that "precipitation and extreme winds associated with tropical cyclones may have become more intense." However, they note that this dual claim is "mainly based on numerical models," which they find lacking compared to actual real-world observations:
_Speaking of real world data, total and major hurricanes hitting land in the US is also decreasing as well:
As are Tornadoes in the US:
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Of course the science, facts and data about tornadoes doesn't stop idiot left-wing politicians from trying to capitalize on tragedy to promote their partisan schemes:
Of course the science, facts and data about tornadoes doesn't stop idiot left-wing politicians from trying to capitalize on tragedy to promote their partisan schemes:
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Regardless of what the moron Democrat Durbin has to say, when it comes to "severe weather", once again AGW's alarmist predictions don't match actual observed reality. Sure, given the worldwide availability of news, there are always places on earth in which extreme weather patterns exist. Because they always exist and because extreme weather makes for great news stories showing devastation which fascinate the public and, thus, boosts ratings, every single event will be covered 24/7. This gives the illusion that there are more when there actually aren't. Indeed, it isn't just specific events. Due to the natural variability of the climate, there are years that will be particularly hot, particularly cold, particularly snowy and particularly dry. That is the very nature of our existence on this planet. Are there more "wild" and "extreme" weather events worldwide resulting from CO2 as the media would like you to believe? The evidence does not indicate that this is so. Yet, you can be sure that every time something weird happens anywhere in the world, there will be an AGW fanatic and a news stenographer there to point the blame at mankind:
_As if one can extrapolate floods in China and Pakistan as being clear evidence of man caused climate change. Like I say, this whole concept of "climate change" is the ultimate heads I win/ tails you lose argument. There have always been floods, droughts, blizzards, hurricanes and there always will be. The planet IS getting warmer and that does effect the climate. The only difference is that now every single climatic event is reported and everyone in the world knows about them instantly. As long as the media plays propagandists for the AGW meme, a climate that always changes will be portrayed as being caused by that scary bugaboo: climate change. Does Algore really think that everyone is that stupid?
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Of all the observations we are tabulating in our experiment to see how much impact mankind is having on the climate by releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, the one that matters most is whether it is having a positive feedback effect as AGW proponents warn. If so, then the temperatures could rise at the five to eight degree rate, which would be alarming. If not, then a rise of one degree in temperature won't be anything to get unduly upset about. In fact in might make our planet more conducive to human, animal and plant habitation.
New evidence is being discovered daily that casts doubt on how much of a positive feedback effect CO2 has on the environment. AGW theory is based upon the notion that rising levels of greenhouse gases will reflect back infrared radiation to the earth thereby warming the planet. According to the theory, increases in CO2 (a minor greenhouse gas) will cause increases in water vapor (a.ka. humidity - a major greenhouse gas) and increases in other gases like methane, thus amplifying the greenhouse effect. This is the most critical form of positive feedback and the only one that can cause the kinds of catastrophic effects posited by Algore the IPCC and other alarmists. However, once again observational reality does not agree with theory.
Below are two charts showing NOAA data on humidity over the past sixty-five years
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Of all the observations we are tabulating in our experiment to see how much impact mankind is having on the climate by releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, the one that matters most is whether it is having a positive feedback effect as AGW proponents warn. If so, then the temperatures could rise at the five to eight degree rate, which would be alarming. If not, then a rise of one degree in temperature won't be anything to get unduly upset about. In fact in might make our planet more conducive to human, animal and plant habitation.
New evidence is being discovered daily that casts doubt on how much of a positive feedback effect CO2 has on the environment. AGW theory is based upon the notion that rising levels of greenhouse gases will reflect back infrared radiation to the earth thereby warming the planet. According to the theory, increases in CO2 (a minor greenhouse gas) will cause increases in water vapor (a.ka. humidity - a major greenhouse gas) and increases in other gases like methane, thus amplifying the greenhouse effect. This is the most critical form of positive feedback and the only one that can cause the kinds of catastrophic effects posited by Algore the IPCC and other alarmists. However, once again observational reality does not agree with theory.
Below are two charts showing NOAA data on humidity over the past sixty-five years
_These graphs both show that the relative humidity has been falling, particularly at the higher elevations which are more significant because of their role in allowing more heat to escape to space. The data from the 300 mb level shows the humidity at around the 9 km altitude. This is the area which AGW theory predicts should be the tropical troposphere hot-spot. This
is the critical elevation as this is where radiation can start to escape without
being recaptured. The average relative humidity at this altitude has
declined by twenty percent over the past sixty five years. This is exactly the opposite of what was predicted and shows a negative, not a positive feedback effect.
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Because warmer temperatures allow the air to hold more water vapor, it is assumed in AGW models that as CO2 causes warming in the air, water vapor would rise accordingly as the humidity level remained constant. Therefore, to test whether the AGW/water vapor model is correct it is essential to look at specific humidity levels at the higher altitudes as this is where most heat is either reflected back to earth (positive feedback) or released into space (negative feedback).
Here is a chart which depicts specific humidity at 400 mb:
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Because warmer temperatures allow the air to hold more water vapor, it is assumed in AGW models that as CO2 causes warming in the air, water vapor would rise accordingly as the humidity level remained constant. Therefore, to test whether the AGW/water vapor model is correct it is essential to look at specific humidity levels at the higher altitudes as this is where most heat is either reflected back to earth (positive feedback) or released into space (negative feedback).
Here is a chart which depicts specific humidity at 400 mb:
Despite the fact that AGW models predict an increase in specific humidity at this most critical high altitude level, there has been a decline of 13.5%. Interesting, no?
The NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) also shows that specific humidity levels at all altitudes have not been increasing either. This project which uses mulitple satellites and multiple sensors to determine global specific humidity. The graph below shows water vapor increases/decreases at a level of 6km to 9km at the different earth latitudes between 1988 and 2002:
The NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) also shows that specific humidity levels at all altitudes have not been increasing either. This project which uses mulitple satellites and multiple sensors to determine global specific humidity. The graph below shows water vapor increases/decreases at a level of 6km to 9km at the different earth latitudes between 1988 and 2002:
As you can see, here is another example of water vapor decreasing. Below is a chart of NVAP data that shows total global water vapor levels on land and over the ocean:
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So far, the data we have gathered does not show any positive feedback effect from increased levels of water vapor to rising temperatures or rising CO2 levels. If anything, the data shows the opposite effect. However, the best way to determine whether this is to directly compare the CO2 levels to water vapor levels in the upper atmosphere where they have by far the most effect.
The graph below shows the 13-month centered running average of monthly specific humidity at the 400 mbar pressure level (high altitudes) versus CO2 concentration by three global latitude bands. A 13-month average is necessary to remove the seasonal signal:
So far, the data we have gathered does not show any positive feedback effect from increased levels of water vapor to rising temperatures or rising CO2 levels. If anything, the data shows the opposite effect. However, the best way to determine whether this is to directly compare the CO2 levels to water vapor levels in the upper atmosphere where they have by far the most effect.
The graph below shows the 13-month centered running average of monthly specific humidity at the 400 mbar pressure level (high altitudes) versus CO2 concentration by three global latitude bands. A 13-month average is necessary to remove the seasonal signal:
As you can see, despite a rise in CO2 levels or around 25%, specific humidity levels at the all important tropics region decreased and remained relatively constant at other latitudes.
Below you can see the global specific humidity /CO2 concentration levels from 1960-2011:
Below you can see the global specific humidity /CO2 concentration levels from 1960-2011:
Note the vast difference between what the models assumed would happen and what actually happened. Finally, here is a chart that shows the same data but concentrated on the all important tropics:
As you can see, in this most critical part of the atmosphere and earth, there is an even greater spread between actual observed results and the AGW model predictions. This is because, not only does AGW theory suggest that humidity levels would remain constant (thus more total water vapor due to higher temperatures), but that because of the rise in CO2, the upper atmosphere over the tropics would be even warmer than at other latitudes, thus holding more water vapor. Obviously there is a huge discrepancy between the real world data and the predictions of the modelers.
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If, as the data suggests, that water vapor in the upper atmosphere is not increasing at the rate AGW theorists suggest, then it would logically follow that more infrared radiation was leaking out to space than the models predict as well. Recently, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. Dan Braswell published a paper in the journal Remote Sensing that found that the IPCC and other global warming researchers had vastly underestimated the amount of heat being reflected back into space. The University of Alabama at Huntsville is one of the premiere research institutes specializing in analyzing satellite data. Spencer's analysis of data from NASA's Terra satellite determined that more energy was being reflected into space than had been the conventional wisdom of climatologists, particularly those who were supporters of the theory of AGW:
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If, as the data suggests, that water vapor in the upper atmosphere is not increasing at the rate AGW theorists suggest, then it would logically follow that more infrared radiation was leaking out to space than the models predict as well. Recently, Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. Dan Braswell published a paper in the journal Remote Sensing that found that the IPCC and other global warming researchers had vastly underestimated the amount of heat being reflected back into space. The University of Alabama at Huntsville is one of the premiere research institutes specializing in analyzing satellite data. Spencer's analysis of data from NASA's Terra satellite determined that more energy was being reflected into space than had been the conventional wisdom of climatologists, particularly those who were supporters of the theory of AGW:
_Why is this so important? Well, here is Dr. Ball again to explain:
In addition to the Spencer and Braswell peer reviewed research, there is also other peer reviewed research that confirms that more infrared radiation is leaving the atmosphere then the climate models predicted. P. Jonathan Gero of the Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin—Madison, and David G. Turner of NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma, and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Madison in their paper Long-Term Trends in Downwelling Spectral Infrared Radiance over the U.S. Southern Great Plains state that:
The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site. The AERI data also show many statistically significant trends on annual, seasonal, and diurnal time scales, with different trend signatures identified in the separate scene classifications. Given the decadal time span of the dataset, effects from natural variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions. Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.
Once again, scientists working in the field give us more insight into how clouds effect temperature. As we learned, cloud science is in its infancy. One would think that this would have an impact on AGW scientists modeling of the climate. But, sadly it does not.
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Another little understood area of climate science deals with how vegetation is affected and handles rising precipitation due to warming (be it natural or AGW). Once again a study has come forth that shatters conventional wisdom on positive feedback as effectively as the Spencer/Braswell paper and the CERN/Cosmic Ray experiments. In a paper released in Geophysical Research Letters by NASA scientists L. Bounoua et al. of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center it was concluded that:
The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site. The AERI data also show many statistically significant trends on annual, seasonal, and diurnal time scales, with different trend signatures identified in the separate scene classifications. Given the decadal time span of the dataset, effects from natural variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions. Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.
Once again, scientists working in the field give us more insight into how clouds effect temperature. As we learned, cloud science is in its infancy. One would think that this would have an impact on AGW scientists modeling of the climate. But, sadly it does not.
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Another little understood area of climate science deals with how vegetation is affected and handles rising precipitation due to warming (be it natural or AGW). Once again a study has come forth that shatters conventional wisdom on positive feedback as effectively as the Spencer/Braswell paper and the CERN/Cosmic Ray experiments. In a paper released in Geophysical Research Letters by NASA scientists L. Bounoua et al. of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center it was concluded that:
So, according to these scientists their research suggests that a doubling of CO2 over the next two hundred years, would only warm the planet by two degrees celsius or less. Hardly, something to be alarmed about.
Even seemingly minor things like peat lands can change our conceptions of the positive feedback loop. According to AGW theory as described in the Wikipedia entry on peat, warming will radically increase CO2 released by these areas:
Peat (turf) is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world. By volume, there are about 4 trillion m³ of peat in the world covering a total of around 2% of global land area (about 3 million km²), containing about 8 billion terajoules of energy.[1]
Losing 5% of the 2.7m hectares of peatland in Britain would equal UK's annual carbon emissions and risk its climate targets (IUCN). The UK is amongst the top ten nations of the world in the peatland area and has 9-15% of Europe’s peatland area
If we are to believe the AGW alarmists, warming temperatures will accelerate the amount of carbon released by peat land. So much so, that if the theory is true CO2 induced warming will cause a positive feedback effect that in the case of the UK, equals their entire carbon output. That's a lot of CO2, right? AGW proponents posit that this will be the case worldwide and that this release of carbon will rival all of mankinds output of CO2. Now, that's what I call a positive feedback effect! We should all be alarmed, right?
Uh, not so fast. In a recent research paper by Z.C. Yu et. al.:
Scientists employed multi-proxy data derived from a 1073-cm sediment core they extracted in March of 2007 from Tannersville Bog, which is located near the edge of the Pocono Mountains in Monroe County, Pennsylvania (USA), in order to document the Bog's historical peat accumulation pattern and rate, as well as climate variations experienced by this "temperate tree-covered poor fen" that is located at "the extreme warm end of climate space for northern peatlands."
According to the researchers:
"carbon accumulation rates increased from 13.4 to 101.2 g C/m2/year during the last 8000 years," with a long-term average value of 27.3 g C/m2/year. This mean rate significantly exceeds the 18.6 g C/m2/year obtained for boreal, subarctic and arctic peatlands based on measurements made at 33 sites in the Northern Hemisphere (Yu et al., 2009); and they state that this relatively high accumulation rate "was likely caused by high primary production associated with a warmer and wetter temperate climate."
Cai and Yu say their study implies that "northern peatlands can continue to serve as carbon sinks under a warmer and wetter climate, providing a negative feedback to climate warming,"
So, peat lands actually serve as carbon sinks, soaking up excess carbon. This is a negative feedback effect due to warming temperatures and is exactly the opposite of what is predicted in AGW theory. What would happen to AGW alarmist projections about temperatures if this research can be proven? Well, if we eliminate all the positive feedback from peat bogs (equal to a large portion of the total Anthropogenic CO2 projected to be released) and instead subtract CO2 from the climate, you get a vastly different and opposite result. Given that kind of potential massive rethinking of conventional assumptions, it would seem that Yu's theory like so many of the other studies mentioned here are deserving of more study and research don't you think?
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That is the crux of the problem when we are trying to examine why the models don't jibe with real world observations. Professor Richard Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He suggests that the reason that the models do not agree with real world observations and measurements is that they input a positive feedback loop into the equation by design.
In actuality, according to Lindzen, when using satellite data to determine exactly how much heat is escaping the earth compared to the predicted effect that increasing levels of CO2 would have in the atmosphere (i.e. if all things were equal), the data shows that there is not a positive, but a negative feedback. This could be caused by the kinds of dynamic climate factors which have a negative effect on warming such as the one that physicists David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox found when studying the impact of the eruption of Mt. Penitubo, that Roy Spencer posits for clouds, that L. Bounoua et. al. found for plants and Yu et. al. determined for peat bogs among many others. Some of which, scientists haven't even discovered yet. However, Lindzen says that the data shows the evidence is clear that there is a negative feedback:
Even seemingly minor things like peat lands can change our conceptions of the positive feedback loop. According to AGW theory as described in the Wikipedia entry on peat, warming will radically increase CO2 released by these areas:
Peat (turf) is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetlandbogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world. By volume, there are about 4 trillion m³ of peat in the world covering a total of around 2% of global land area (about 3 million km²), containing about 8 billion terajoules of energy.[1]
Losing 5% of the 2.7m hectares of peatland in Britain would equal UK's annual carbon emissions and risk its climate targets (IUCN). The UK is amongst the top ten nations of the world in the peatland area and has 9-15% of Europe’s peatland area
If we are to believe the AGW alarmists, warming temperatures will accelerate the amount of carbon released by peat land. So much so, that if the theory is true CO2 induced warming will cause a positive feedback effect that in the case of the UK, equals their entire carbon output. That's a lot of CO2, right? AGW proponents posit that this will be the case worldwide and that this release of carbon will rival all of mankinds output of CO2. Now, that's what I call a positive feedback effect! We should all be alarmed, right?
Uh, not so fast. In a recent research paper by Z.C. Yu et. al.:
Scientists employed multi-proxy data derived from a 1073-cm sediment core they extracted in March of 2007 from Tannersville Bog, which is located near the edge of the Pocono Mountains in Monroe County, Pennsylvania (USA), in order to document the Bog's historical peat accumulation pattern and rate, as well as climate variations experienced by this "temperate tree-covered poor fen" that is located at "the extreme warm end of climate space for northern peatlands."
According to the researchers:
"carbon accumulation rates increased from 13.4 to 101.2 g C/m2/year during the last 8000 years," with a long-term average value of 27.3 g C/m2/year. This mean rate significantly exceeds the 18.6 g C/m2/year obtained for boreal, subarctic and arctic peatlands based on measurements made at 33 sites in the Northern Hemisphere (Yu et al., 2009); and they state that this relatively high accumulation rate "was likely caused by high primary production associated with a warmer and wetter temperate climate."
Cai and Yu say their study implies that "northern peatlands can continue to serve as carbon sinks under a warmer and wetter climate, providing a negative feedback to climate warming,"
So, peat lands actually serve as carbon sinks, soaking up excess carbon. This is a negative feedback effect due to warming temperatures and is exactly the opposite of what is predicted in AGW theory. What would happen to AGW alarmist projections about temperatures if this research can be proven? Well, if we eliminate all the positive feedback from peat bogs (equal to a large portion of the total Anthropogenic CO2 projected to be released) and instead subtract CO2 from the climate, you get a vastly different and opposite result. Given that kind of potential massive rethinking of conventional assumptions, it would seem that Yu's theory like so many of the other studies mentioned here are deserving of more study and research don't you think?
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That is the crux of the problem when we are trying to examine why the models don't jibe with real world observations. Professor Richard Lindzen is an American atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He suggests that the reason that the models do not agree with real world observations and measurements is that they input a positive feedback loop into the equation by design.
In actuality, according to Lindzen, when using satellite data to determine exactly how much heat is escaping the earth compared to the predicted effect that increasing levels of CO2 would have in the atmosphere (i.e. if all things were equal), the data shows that there is not a positive, but a negative feedback. This could be caused by the kinds of dynamic climate factors which have a negative effect on warming such as the one that physicists David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox found when studying the impact of the eruption of Mt. Penitubo, that Roy Spencer posits for clouds, that L. Bounoua et. al. found for plants and Yu et. al. determined for peat bogs among many others. Some of which, scientists haven't even discovered yet. However, Lindzen says that the data shows the evidence is clear that there is a negative feedback:
_The basis of the approach is to see if the satellite measured outgoing radiation associated with short term fluctuations in Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is larger or smaller than what one gets for zero feedback. Remember that a positive feedback will lead to less outgoing radiation (increased blanket) while a negative feedback will lead to more.
It turns out that the model intercomparison program has the models used by the IPCC, forced by actual SST, calculate outgoing radiation. So one can use the same approach with models, while being sure that the models are subject to the same surface temperature fluctuations that applied to the observations.
When data from ERBE and CERUS are input into the equation, Lindzen comes up with these results:
It turns out that the model intercomparison program has the models used by the IPCC, forced by actual SST, calculate outgoing radiation. So one can use the same approach with models, while being sure that the models are subject to the same surface temperature fluctuations that applied to the observations.
When data from ERBE and CERUS are input into the equation, Lindzen comes up with these results:
However, AGW climate models all are predicated on positive feedbacks:
_We see that all the models are characterized by positive feedback factors (associated with amplifying the effect of changes in CO2), while the satellite data implies that the feedback should be negative. Similar results are being obtained by Roy Spencer. This is not simply a technical matter. Without positive feedbacks, doubling CO2 only produces 1C warming. Only with positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds does one get the large warmings that are associated with alarm. What the satellite data seems to show is that these positive feedbacks are model artifacts.
Model artifacts indeed!
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As we have seen, specific humidity levels in the atmosphere are going down not up. There is no increased water vapor as the IPCC models assume must be happening. The question is why are the real world observations at variance with AGW theory? Is the hypothesis wrong? Maybe the satellite measurements are inaccurate or the coverage is not complete. The truth is that no one knows for sure. The lack of adequate scientific knowledge about all of the factors that make up the climate combined with the lack of enough accurate measuring devices makes even the best computer model of questionable value as the sole source of scientific evidence to prove our hypothesis. Had the models been vindicated, this would be less of a problem. However, since the opposite is true, it calls into question the validity of the whole experiment.
AGW modelers counter that their models do fit in with current and paleo climate temperature records. In a recent Washington Post article on climate modeling, the reporter makes the following assertion based upon a conversation with Gavin Schmidt a major AGW theorist and lead IPCC author:
But scientists say that, during this time, they have only become more certain that their models work.
Put in the conditions on Earth more than 20,000 years ago: they produce an Ice Age, NASA's Schmidt said. Put in the conditions from 1991, when a volcanic eruption filled the earth's atmosphere with a sun-shade of dust. The models produce cooling temperatures and shifts in wind patterns, Schmidt said, just like the real world did.
If the models are as flawed as critics say, Schmidt said, "You have to ask yourself, 'How come they work?' "
Climate scientists in China disagree that AGW models can successfully hindcast the climate. In a paper for Science China Earth Sciences, Fu, C.-B., Qian, C. and Wu, Z.-H. state that:
The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that climate projections based on models that consider both human and natural factors provide "credible quantitative estimates of future climate change." However, as they continue, mismatches between IPCC AR4 model ensembles and observations, especially the multi-decadal variability (MDV), "have cast shadows on the confidence of the model-based decadal projections of future climate," as has also been noted by Meehl et al. (2009), who indicate that considerably more work needs to be done in this important area.
In the words of the three researchers, they determined that "most of the individual model runs fail to reproduce the MDV of past climate, which may have led to the overestimation of the projection of global warming for the next 40 years or so." More specifically, they note that simply taking into account the impact of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation or AMO, "the global average temperature could level off during the 2020s-2040s," such that the true temperature change between 2011 and 2050 "could be much smaller than the AR4 projection."
In other words, if the AGW models properly input the data for the ocean currents in the Atlantic, it would entirely change their models because the oscillation will likely cause temperatures to level off. Thus, without a proper understanding and proper input of ocean current variables, the models are useless at projecting future temperature changes.
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S. Fred Singer, founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and also Vice Chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere concurs with Fu and Wu and differs with Mr. Schmidt's assessment of the accuracy of AGW models. He says that the models only work when using questionable surface temperature data and cannot work when weather baloon and satellite data are used as well:
There are three things wrong with the IPCC argument. It depends very much on detailed and somewhat arbitrary choices of model inputs -- e.g., the properties and effects of atmospheric aerosols, and their temporal and geographic distribution. It also makes arbitrary assumptions about clouds and water vapor, which produce the most important greenhouse forcings. One might therefore say that the IPCC's evidence is nothing more than an exercise in curve-fitting. According to physicist Freeman Dyson, the famous mathematician John von Neumann stated: "Give me four adjustable parameters and I can fit an elephant. Give me one more, and I can make his trunk wiggle."
The second question: can the IPCC fit other climate records of importance besides the reported global surface record? For example, can they fit northern and southern hemisphere temperatures using the same assumptions in their models about aerosols, clouds, and water vapor? Can they fit the atmospheric temperature record as obtained from satellites, and also from radiosondes carried in weather balloons? The IPCC report does not show such results, and one therefore suspects that their curve-fitting exercise may not work, except with the global surface record.
The third problem may be the most important and likely also the most contested one. But first let me parse the IPCC conclusion, which depends crucially on the reported global surface warming between 1978 and 2000. As stated in their Summary for Policymakers (IPCC-AR4, vol 1, page 10): "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
But what if there is little to no warming between 1978 and 2000? What if the data from thousands of poorly distributed weather stations do not represent a true global warming? The atmospheric temperature record between 1978 and 2000 (both from satellites and, independently, from radiosondes) doesn't show a warming. Neither does the ocean. And even the so-called proxy record -- from tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, corals, stalagmites, etc. -- shows mostly no warming during the same period.
Lindzen, Singer, Spencer and the Chinese scientists are attempting to bring attention to the fact that IPCC models cannot and do not accurately predict the impact of CO2 on future warming because they do not fully take into account enough of the various factors that influence climate. That satellite data shows a negative feedback factor is all the real world evidence needed to indicate that the models are not accurately reflecting the climate as it actually functions.
This is a problem inherent with models:
Warren Meyer, a mechanical and aerospace engineer by training who blogs at www.climate-skeptic.com, said that climate models are highly flawed. He said the scientists who build them don't know enough about solar cycles, ocean temperatures and other things that can nudge the earth's temperature up or down. He said that because models produce results that sound impressively exact, they can give off an air of infallibility.
But, Meyer said -- if the model isn't built correctly -- its results can be both precise-sounding and wrong.
"The hubris that can be associated with a model is amazing, because suddenly you take this sketchy understanding of a process, and you embody it in a model," and it appears more trustworthy, Meyer said. "It's almost like money laundering."
Even AGW theory's most ardent supporters are forced to admit that:
"We're never going to perfectly model reality. We would need a system as complicated as the world around us," said Ken Fleischmann, a professor of information studies at the University of Maryland. He said scientists needed to make the uncertainties inherent in models clear: "You let people know: It's a model. It's not reality. We haven't invented a crystal ball." ...
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So lacking are AGW models in their ability to factor in all the natural varibles of the climate that top IPCC scientists like Dr. Jim Renwick concede that:
"Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well"
The truth is, according to lead IPCC authorKevin Trenberth (of climategate fame) that models are only "story lines":
“In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers ‘what if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios,”... “they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess."
Speaking of guesses:
All the major climate models seem to show that greenhouse gases are causing warming, climate scientists say, although they don't agree about how much. A 2007 United Nations report cited a range of estimates from 2 to 11.5 degrees over the next century. "It's an educated, scientifically based guess," said Michael Winton, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "But it's a guess nonetheless."
A guess, eh? Well, if it is a "scientifically based guess", how can that supposition be relied on as the only concrete evidence available to support AGW theory? They can't, according to climate researcher Dr Vincent Gray, of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990:
“The claims of the IPCC are dangerous unscientific nonsense... All [UN IPCC does] is make ‘projections’ and ‘estimates’. No climate model has ever been properly tested, which is what ‘validation’ means, and their ‘projections’ are nothing more than the opinions of ‘experts’ with a conflict of interest, because they are paid to produce the models. There is no actual scientific evidence for all these ‘projections’ and ‘estimates,'”
And that's the problem. Were politicians in the US and at the UN not telling us that the science is settled and that we need to take action now, a guess might be good enough to encourage further experimentation. But, when trillions of dollars and the fate of the world economy hangs in the balance, should we bet the farm on an educated guess?
What's worse for science, is that many of the top scientists when referring to their own models say things like this:
"The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful." -Dr David Frame, Climate modeler, Oxford University
Since the only evidence that we have to prove our hypothesis are these models, the admission that their "usefulness" to serve some cause other than straight science says more about the politics behind it than it does about the science itself.
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Model artifacts indeed!
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As we have seen, specific humidity levels in the atmosphere are going down not up. There is no increased water vapor as the IPCC models assume must be happening. The question is why are the real world observations at variance with AGW theory? Is the hypothesis wrong? Maybe the satellite measurements are inaccurate or the coverage is not complete. The truth is that no one knows for sure. The lack of adequate scientific knowledge about all of the factors that make up the climate combined with the lack of enough accurate measuring devices makes even the best computer model of questionable value as the sole source of scientific evidence to prove our hypothesis. Had the models been vindicated, this would be less of a problem. However, since the opposite is true, it calls into question the validity of the whole experiment.
AGW modelers counter that their models do fit in with current and paleo climate temperature records. In a recent Washington Post article on climate modeling, the reporter makes the following assertion based upon a conversation with Gavin Schmidt a major AGW theorist and lead IPCC author:
But scientists say that, during this time, they have only become more certain that their models work.
Put in the conditions on Earth more than 20,000 years ago: they produce an Ice Age, NASA's Schmidt said. Put in the conditions from 1991, when a volcanic eruption filled the earth's atmosphere with a sun-shade of dust. The models produce cooling temperatures and shifts in wind patterns, Schmidt said, just like the real world did.
If the models are as flawed as critics say, Schmidt said, "You have to ask yourself, 'How come they work?' "
Climate scientists in China disagree that AGW models can successfully hindcast the climate. In a paper for Science China Earth Sciences, Fu, C.-B., Qian, C. and Wu, Z.-H. state that:
The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that climate projections based on models that consider both human and natural factors provide "credible quantitative estimates of future climate change." However, as they continue, mismatches between IPCC AR4 model ensembles and observations, especially the multi-decadal variability (MDV), "have cast shadows on the confidence of the model-based decadal projections of future climate," as has also been noted by Meehl et al. (2009), who indicate that considerably more work needs to be done in this important area.
In the words of the three researchers, they determined that "most of the individual model runs fail to reproduce the MDV of past climate, which may have led to the overestimation of the projection of global warming for the next 40 years or so." More specifically, they note that simply taking into account the impact of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation or AMO, "the global average temperature could level off during the 2020s-2040s," such that the true temperature change between 2011 and 2050 "could be much smaller than the AR4 projection."
In other words, if the AGW models properly input the data for the ocean currents in the Atlantic, it would entirely change their models because the oscillation will likely cause temperatures to level off. Thus, without a proper understanding and proper input of ocean current variables, the models are useless at projecting future temperature changes.
63====================================================================================================
S. Fred Singer, founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service and also Vice Chair of the US National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere concurs with Fu and Wu and differs with Mr. Schmidt's assessment of the accuracy of AGW models. He says that the models only work when using questionable surface temperature data and cannot work when weather baloon and satellite data are used as well:
There are three things wrong with the IPCC argument. It depends very much on detailed and somewhat arbitrary choices of model inputs -- e.g., the properties and effects of atmospheric aerosols, and their temporal and geographic distribution. It also makes arbitrary assumptions about clouds and water vapor, which produce the most important greenhouse forcings. One might therefore say that the IPCC's evidence is nothing more than an exercise in curve-fitting. According to physicist Freeman Dyson, the famous mathematician John von Neumann stated: "Give me four adjustable parameters and I can fit an elephant. Give me one more, and I can make his trunk wiggle."
The second question: can the IPCC fit other climate records of importance besides the reported global surface record? For example, can they fit northern and southern hemisphere temperatures using the same assumptions in their models about aerosols, clouds, and water vapor? Can they fit the atmospheric temperature record as obtained from satellites, and also from radiosondes carried in weather balloons? The IPCC report does not show such results, and one therefore suspects that their curve-fitting exercise may not work, except with the global surface record.
The third problem may be the most important and likely also the most contested one. But first let me parse the IPCC conclusion, which depends crucially on the reported global surface warming between 1978 and 2000. As stated in their Summary for Policymakers (IPCC-AR4, vol 1, page 10): "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
But what if there is little to no warming between 1978 and 2000? What if the data from thousands of poorly distributed weather stations do not represent a true global warming? The atmospheric temperature record between 1978 and 2000 (both from satellites and, independently, from radiosondes) doesn't show a warming. Neither does the ocean. And even the so-called proxy record -- from tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, corals, stalagmites, etc. -- shows mostly no warming during the same period.
Lindzen, Singer, Spencer and the Chinese scientists are attempting to bring attention to the fact that IPCC models cannot and do not accurately predict the impact of CO2 on future warming because they do not fully take into account enough of the various factors that influence climate. That satellite data shows a negative feedback factor is all the real world evidence needed to indicate that the models are not accurately reflecting the climate as it actually functions.
This is a problem inherent with models:
Warren Meyer, a mechanical and aerospace engineer by training who blogs at www.climate-skeptic.com, said that climate models are highly flawed. He said the scientists who build them don't know enough about solar cycles, ocean temperatures and other things that can nudge the earth's temperature up or down. He said that because models produce results that sound impressively exact, they can give off an air of infallibility.
But, Meyer said -- if the model isn't built correctly -- its results can be both precise-sounding and wrong.
"The hubris that can be associated with a model is amazing, because suddenly you take this sketchy understanding of a process, and you embody it in a model," and it appears more trustworthy, Meyer said. "It's almost like money laundering."
Even AGW theory's most ardent supporters are forced to admit that:
"We're never going to perfectly model reality. We would need a system as complicated as the world around us," said Ken Fleischmann, a professor of information studies at the University of Maryland. He said scientists needed to make the uncertainties inherent in models clear: "You let people know: It's a model. It's not reality. We haven't invented a crystal ball." ...
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So lacking are AGW models in their ability to factor in all the natural varibles of the climate that top IPCC scientists like Dr. Jim Renwick concede that:
"Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well"
The truth is, according to lead IPCC authorKevin Trenberth (of climategate fame) that models are only "story lines":
“In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers ‘what if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios,”... “they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess."
Speaking of guesses:
All the major climate models seem to show that greenhouse gases are causing warming, climate scientists say, although they don't agree about how much. A 2007 United Nations report cited a range of estimates from 2 to 11.5 degrees over the next century. "It's an educated, scientifically based guess," said Michael Winton, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "But it's a guess nonetheless."
A guess, eh? Well, if it is a "scientifically based guess", how can that supposition be relied on as the only concrete evidence available to support AGW theory? They can't, according to climate researcher Dr Vincent Gray, of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990:
“The claims of the IPCC are dangerous unscientific nonsense... All [UN IPCC does] is make ‘projections’ and ‘estimates’. No climate model has ever been properly tested, which is what ‘validation’ means, and their ‘projections’ are nothing more than the opinions of ‘experts’ with a conflict of interest, because they are paid to produce the models. There is no actual scientific evidence for all these ‘projections’ and ‘estimates,'”
And that's the problem. Were politicians in the US and at the UN not telling us that the science is settled and that we need to take action now, a guess might be good enough to encourage further experimentation. But, when trillions of dollars and the fate of the world economy hangs in the balance, should we bet the farm on an educated guess?
What's worse for science, is that many of the top scientists when referring to their own models say things like this:
"The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful." -Dr David Frame, Climate modeler, Oxford University
Since the only evidence that we have to prove our hypothesis are these models, the admission that their "usefulness" to serve some cause other than straight science says more about the politics behind it than it does about the science itself.
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Draw Conclusion
_At the end of the day, what does the data tell us about whether our experiment (climate
models) proves that CO2 drives warming to such a degree that it also causes positive feedback
effects that could have alarming consequences? Well, the simple reality is that the models all predicted that temperatures would keep rising as the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere continued to increase. The empirical temperature data says they were wrong. That is the case for satellites, radiosondes and ground based temperature stations. In terms of temperatures, some models were outrageously wrong, others less so. But, virtually every model that predicts a positive feeback effect for CO2 is off by several orders of magnitude.
In addition, the upper atmospheric fingerprint in the Tropics that these models presuppose is the indication of a CO2 induced feeback loop does not exist. Indeed, none of the predictions for ice melt, sea level rises, sea level temperatures and atmospheric irradiance have occured. In fact the opposite is true. The models (our experiment) therefore do not present us with nearly enough (any) evidence to prove the hypothesis. This is not to say that it has been proven false. Only time will tell whether this is the case. Perhaps, AGW theorists are right and that the platueau we have reached in temperatures is only a "pause" and that once whatever extraneous factors are causing it cease, warming will resume with a vengeance. It's a huge supposition, but not one totally out of the realm of possibility.
However, in drawing a conclusion, we cannot just continue to theorize about why our experiment doesn't validate our hypothesis, we must observe proper scientific protocol:
In addition, the upper atmospheric fingerprint in the Tropics that these models presuppose is the indication of a CO2 induced feeback loop does not exist. Indeed, none of the predictions for ice melt, sea level rises, sea level temperatures and atmospheric irradiance have occured. In fact the opposite is true. The models (our experiment) therefore do not present us with nearly enough (any) evidence to prove the hypothesis. This is not to say that it has been proven false. Only time will tell whether this is the case. Perhaps, AGW theorists are right and that the platueau we have reached in temperatures is only a "pause" and that once whatever extraneous factors are causing it cease, warming will resume with a vengeance. It's a huge supposition, but not one totally out of the realm of possibility.
However, in drawing a conclusion, we cannot just continue to theorize about why our experiment doesn't validate our hypothesis, we must observe proper scientific protocol:
Since we have not proven the hypothesis to be true, only that it is either false or partially true, we must rethink our hypothesis, the experiment or the quality of the data we recorded. At this point it is imperative that we go back to the hypothesis stage and think about
what went wrong and repeat the experiment using what we learned this time to guide us in
improving it for the future. One of the first things that I think everyone on all sides of the AGW issue should agree on is that more accurate and more widespread measurement equipment is vital if our experiment is ever going to be reliable enough to base policy upon. There is no question that if we are going to conduct an accurate assessment of data we need more and better satellites and more and better located weather stations. There should never be a need for a BEST study to determine whether temperature numbers were manipulated. Whatever results we input into our climate models should be unimpeachable.
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In addition, can there be any doubt that there are far too many variables in our experiment in which we have limited knowledge of the science behind them? When it comes to cosmic rays, clouds, ocean currents, volcanoes and so many other factors that make up our climate, we are just barely scratching the surface in trying to understand how and why they impact the environment individually let alone in concert. One would think that before we draw any conclusions that either prove or disprove our hypothesis, we need more time to perfect our knowledge of the science of each of these individual factors that affect the earth's dynamic climate.
Also, it should be noted that it has been a mere twenty years since we have seriously been looking into the effects of anthropogenic CO2 on the environment. That is simply not enough time to make any determination as to whether the AGW theory is correct or not. While it is surely true that the evidence of the past decade does not validate AGW theory, we could very well be in the midst of a climate anomaly that when it has run its course will lead to more warming and positive feedbacks in the way that AGW theory predicts. But, again, only time will tell. We don't have actual data to back up that hypothesis either.
If we are to adhere strictly to the principles of the scientific method, we should have ended our experiment once we realized that our measurement equipment was not up to the task. However, it must be conceded that the alarming nature of the hypothesis was enough to convince us to make do with what we have available. But, having done so, the scientific method would also dictate that we needed to use all of the measuring devices available for our experiment and not just cherry pick the ones that most closely emulated our favored hypothesis. For this reason, to totally discard the use of satellite and radiosonde (weather balloon) data as well as the worldwide ARGO buoy sea temperature data from the experiment is totally unacceptable if our goal is to produce sound and convincing evidence in support of our hypothesis.
Because the real world evidence does not validate the theory, we should be totally rethinking our experiment and our hypothesis. New information and new theories should be considered. Resources should be allocated more towards gathering as much data on the climate as possible, rather than continuing forward with models that will never be able to accurately reflect reality until our knowledge of the science is more sound. In other words, we need the time and the resources to do this right. Otherwise, we may arrive at a conclusion, but it won't be based on science.
Given this, one would think that this would cause all climate scientists to go back to their drawing boards and gather the knowledge necessary to get their models right. You'd think that anyone who values the scientific method would be reticent about drawing any conclusion at all until they could do so in a way that is even remotely provable and verifiable. After all, it would be one thing if the data validated the AGW hypothesis, but it is another thing entirely when it so clearly fails to do so.
It is difficult to accept a computer simulation as proper scientific evidence to begin with. It is a bridge too far to suggest that real world observational data that contradicts the model "doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models." as Prof. Chris Follan of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research suggests. This comment by Professor Follan sums it all up unfortunately. In the end, it was never the experiment that mattered to the AGW community, only the conclusion. As far as they are concerned, real world observations and hard satellite data be damned. Their models say the earth has a fever. Man is causing it. The hypothesis is correct. The science is settled!
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In addition, can there be any doubt that there are far too many variables in our experiment in which we have limited knowledge of the science behind them? When it comes to cosmic rays, clouds, ocean currents, volcanoes and so many other factors that make up our climate, we are just barely scratching the surface in trying to understand how and why they impact the environment individually let alone in concert. One would think that before we draw any conclusions that either prove or disprove our hypothesis, we need more time to perfect our knowledge of the science of each of these individual factors that affect the earth's dynamic climate.
Also, it should be noted that it has been a mere twenty years since we have seriously been looking into the effects of anthropogenic CO2 on the environment. That is simply not enough time to make any determination as to whether the AGW theory is correct or not. While it is surely true that the evidence of the past decade does not validate AGW theory, we could very well be in the midst of a climate anomaly that when it has run its course will lead to more warming and positive feedbacks in the way that AGW theory predicts. But, again, only time will tell. We don't have actual data to back up that hypothesis either.
If we are to adhere strictly to the principles of the scientific method, we should have ended our experiment once we realized that our measurement equipment was not up to the task. However, it must be conceded that the alarming nature of the hypothesis was enough to convince us to make do with what we have available. But, having done so, the scientific method would also dictate that we needed to use all of the measuring devices available for our experiment and not just cherry pick the ones that most closely emulated our favored hypothesis. For this reason, to totally discard the use of satellite and radiosonde (weather balloon) data as well as the worldwide ARGO buoy sea temperature data from the experiment is totally unacceptable if our goal is to produce sound and convincing evidence in support of our hypothesis.
Because the real world evidence does not validate the theory, we should be totally rethinking our experiment and our hypothesis. New information and new theories should be considered. Resources should be allocated more towards gathering as much data on the climate as possible, rather than continuing forward with models that will never be able to accurately reflect reality until our knowledge of the science is more sound. In other words, we need the time and the resources to do this right. Otherwise, we may arrive at a conclusion, but it won't be based on science.
Given this, one would think that this would cause all climate scientists to go back to their drawing boards and gather the knowledge necessary to get their models right. You'd think that anyone who values the scientific method would be reticent about drawing any conclusion at all until they could do so in a way that is even remotely provable and verifiable. After all, it would be one thing if the data validated the AGW hypothesis, but it is another thing entirely when it so clearly fails to do so.
It is difficult to accept a computer simulation as proper scientific evidence to begin with. It is a bridge too far to suggest that real world observational data that contradicts the model "doesn't matter. We're not basing our recommendations on the data. We're basing them on the climate models." as Prof. Chris Follan of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research suggests. This comment by Professor Follan sums it all up unfortunately. In the end, it was never the experiment that mattered to the AGW community, only the conclusion. As far as they are concerned, real world observations and hard satellite data be damned. Their models say the earth has a fever. Man is causing it. The hypothesis is correct. The science is settled!
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Report Your Results
_Given that the data so directly refutes the hypothesis, why are AGW supporters so adamant about reporting such a definitive conclusion? When the IPCC says in its 2007 report to the UN that:
"Most [50%] of the warming in the latter half of the 20th century is very likely [>90%] due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
They are making a very clear statement that there is, in fact, a causal relationship between global warming and mankind's use of carbon based energy. Since they can only point to theory and models and cannot point to any overwhelming observable evidence to back their claims, it would seem to be scientific malpractice to be so definitive. Ninety percent is pretty darn certain, don't you think? Yet the IPCC seems perfectly willing to do just that. Why?
All you need to know in order to understand this is that the IPCC is not run by scientists. It is run by Crooks and Thieves. Think about this for a second, if you will. The IPCC is the invention of UN bureaucrats. These are the same people who gave us the oil for food scandal. If it can be determined that man is causing earth's temperature to rise then clearly this is a global problem and thus, the solution must be global. Therefore, any action that need be taken collectively by humanity to combat the problem will naturally fall under their auspices. How convenient, eh?
Think about how many bureaucratic jobs that can create at the UN for the friends and cronies of the Crooks and Thieves who run the place. Why, in the last two rounds of international climate talks in Copenhagan and Durban, the idea of a one hundred billion dollar slush fund was bandied about. This tidy little sum would be extracted from the rich nations to given to the developing ones to help them deal with the costs associated with combating climate change. Can you just imagine the bureaucrats in the UN salivating over how they could make sure that money got distributed in ways that enriched themselves and their cronies? It would be oil for food on a grand scale indeed! Likely, with the same level of corruption and greed.
Think about how much power that will give the Crooks and Thieves at the UN compared to what they have now. Why, global carbon regulations could lead to global governance. Now that's power! Think I am getting carried away? That I am being too cynical? Believe that these kindly public servants are solely concerned with saving our planet?
Well, here is what Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group III, and a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report had to say to German news magazine NZZ AM Sonntag:
(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
(NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.
(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. (emphasis mine)
So, as you can see, according to Herr Edenhofer the science has nothing to do with it. Why this is about economic policy. And who will administer this vast redistribution of wealth? Why all the Crooks and Thieves at the UN, that's who. Imagine that! I bet, Herr Edenhofer's buddies are already lining up in anticipation of all the feeding they are going to be doing at the UN trough.
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Unfortunately, Edenhofer is not alone in his desire to use science as a justification for more power for the UN and world government. The science doesn't even have to be sound as long as it advances the interests of the Crooks and Thieves:
A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect. - Richard Benedik, former U.S./UN bureaucrat:
No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.- Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy. - Timothy Wirth, former US Under Sec of State, current Head of the UN Foundation
Isn't it just so convenient that the actual validity of the science is irrelevant as long as it can be used to bolster the pursuit of ideology and greed for power:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself. - Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, consultants to the UN
The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government. - Mikhail Gorbachev, Club of Rome member, State of the World Forum, 1996
We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis...- David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member
As you can see, the Club of Rome is anxiously awaiting the "new world order" of global government and the "right crisis" to bring it about and they have politicians who are eager as well:
A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis. - Gordon Brown, former British prime minister
Climate Change is the greatest threat that human civilisation has ever faced. - Angela Merkel, German Chancellor
...climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster. - Barack Obama, President of the United States
But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change, and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global government and global agreements - Algore, former Vice President of the United States
For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument [Kyoto Protocol] of global governance,”..."By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace. - Jacques Chirac, former French President
So, with all the world's leaders on board the Climate Change express and more responsibility for the UN and "global governance", you can bet that more power will find itself in the hands of the Crooks and Thieves:
I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while. - Sir James Lovelock, known as founder of 'Gaia' concept
The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. - UN Commission for Global Governance report (1999)
In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways. - Dr Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?- Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP
Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level. - excerpt, UN Agenda 21
A deal must include an equitable global governance structure. All countries must have a voice in how resources are deployed and managed. - Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General
I pledge allegiance to the Earth and all its sacred parts. Its water, land and living things and all its human hearts - Daily Earth Pledge by the Global Education Associates, an environmental education group
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Wow, I pledge allegiance to the earth! Just what our kids need to be reciting in school, don't you think? It's all part of the new world order that's coming, don't ya know and the kids are being propagandized and programmed to be the first generation of that new world. As Algore has said to our children:
"there are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know".
Because us old folk are idiots. Only the advanced minds of the uneducated and inexperienced youth can truly grasp what's at stake here, eh? All the Crooks and Thieves need do is wait till these wise children who have been spoon fed Uncle Algore's movie all their lives finally grow up and vote! In the meantime, look at all those UN bigwigs and bureaucrats quoted above just chomping at the bit to obtain more power. Absolute power, in the case of many of them. Can there be any doubt then, that when the Crooks and Thieves at the UN created the IPCC, that they would pick exactly those scientists who would give them the conclusion they wanted? Namely, that man is the cause of warming and that global action under the auspices of the UN is critical if humanity is to survive. These scientists were hired to provide the scientific "evidence" that will provide just the crisis David Rockefeller was seeking in order to bring about world government. And can you blame Rockefeller or the other crooks, thieves and elitists in the Club of Rome? After all, having power and influence in their own countries is one thing, but when you are talking about controlling the entire world? Paradise! And it will all be for the good of humanity, saving the planet don't you know?
So can it be any surprise that this new rubber stamping body would be called the Intergovernmental Panel on... get ready for it... here's the drum roll..... CLIMATE CHANGE! Ah, yes, that perfectly phrased concept that allows the perfect win/win argument. After all, they don't even have to be right. Everything that happens can be blamed on man. Because, after all, regardless of what mankind does, the climate always changes. We've seen how their propagandists like Diane Sawyer of ABC News can take even the most bizarre freak happening of Mother Nature and turn it into a story about how fossil fuels are destroying the planet with the implicit suggestion that something must be done (by government) about it.
And so it was. After Tim Wirth and his Democratic buddies staged the Congressional Hearing on the hottest day in the summer and deliberately shut off the Air Conditioners so that a sweaty James Hansen could tell the world we were all going to die unless something was done. Well, here was that first something: The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change.
I'll let Christopher Booker, author of The Real Global Warming Disaster, tell what happened next:
It is a story that has unfolded in three stages. The first began back in the Seventies when a number of scientists noticed that the world’s temperatures had been falling for 30 years, leading them to warn that we might be heading for a new ice age. Then, in the mid-Seventies, temperatures started to rise again, and by the mid-Eighties, a still fairly small number of scientists – including some of those who had been predicting a new ice age – began to warn that we were now facing the opposite problem: a world dangerously heating up, thanks to our pumping out CO2 and all those greenhouse gases inseparable from modern civilisation. In 1988, a handful of the scientists who passionately believed in this theory won authorisation from the UN to set up the body known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This was the year when the scare over global warming really exploded into the headlines, thanks above all to the carefully staged testimony given to a US Senate Committee by Dr James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), also already an advocate for the theory that CO2 was causing potentially catastrophic warming.
The disaster-movie scenario that rising levels of CO2 could lead to droughts, hurricanes, heatwaves and, above all, that melting of the polar ice caps, which would flood half the world’s major cities, struck a rich chord. The media loved it. The environmentalists loved it. More and more politicians, led by Al Gore in the United States, jumped on the bandwagon. But easily their most influential allies were the scientists running the new IPCC, led by a Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin and Dr John Houghton, head of the UK Met Office.
The IPCC, through its series of weighty reports, was now to become the central player in the whole story. But rarely has the true nature of any international body been more widely misrepresented. It is commonly believed that the IPCC consists of “1,500 of the world’s top climate scientists”, charged with weighing all the scientific evidence for and against “human-induced climate change” in order to arrive at a “consensus”.
In fact, the IPCC was never intended to be anything of the kind. The vast majority of its contributors have never been climate scientists. Many are not scientists at all. And from the start, the purpose of the IPCC was not to test the theory, but to provide the most plausible case for promoting it. This was why the computer models it relied on as its chief source of evidence were all programmed to show that, as CO2 levels continued to rise, so temperatures must inevitably follow.
One of the more startling features of the IPCC is just how few scientists have been centrally involved in guiding its findings. They have mainly been British and American, led for a long time by Dr Houghton (knighted in 1991) as chairman of its scientific working group, who in 1990 founded the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for research into climate change. The centre has continued to play a central role in selecting the IPCC’s contributors to this day, and along with the Climate Research Unit run by Professor Philip Jones at the University of East Anglia, controls HadCrut, one of the four official sources of global temperature data (another of the four, GIStemp, is run by the equally committed Dr Hansen and his British-born right-hand man, Dr Gavin Schmidt).
With remarkable speed, from the time of its first report in 1990, the IPCC and its computer models won over many of the world’s politicians, led by those of the European Union. In 1992, the UN staged its extraordinary Earth Summit in Rio, attended by 108 prime ministers and heads of state, which agreed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and this led in 1997 to the famous Kyoto Protocol, committing the world’s governments to specific targets for reducing CO2.
Up to this point, the now officially accepted global-warming theory seemed only too plausible. Both CO2 levels and world temperatures had continued to rise, exactly as the IPCC’s computer models predicted. We thus entered the second stage of the story, lasting from 1998 to 2006, when the theory seemed to be carrying everything before it.
The politicians, most notably in the EU, were now beginning to adopt every kind of measure to combat the supposed global-warming menace, from building tens of thousands of wind turbines to creating elaborate schemes for buying and selling the right to emit CO2, the gas every plant in the world needs for life.
But however persuasive the case seemed to be, there were just beginning to be rather serious doubts about the methods being used to promote it. More and more questions were being asked about the IPCC’s unbalanced approach to evidence – most notably in its promotion of the so-called “hockey stick” graph, produced in time for its 2001 report by a hitherto obscure US scientist Dr Michael Mann, purporting to show how global temperatures had suddenly been shooting up to levels quite unprecedented in history.
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But the hockey stick controversy was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of IPCC misrepresentation of science. We now know how completely discredited Mann's hockey stick graph is, but it was presented as scientific fact by the IPCC for years after 2001. By the time of the most recent (the Fourth Assessment Report) in 2007, the IPCC was making the case for the Crooks and Thieves in the UN with all guns blazing. They went out on a limb and stated that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", and "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." As we have seen, to say that warming is very likely due to mankind's minuscule contribution to a trace gas like CO2 as compared to the sun and cosmic rays, ocean currents, natural variability, the continuation of a long warming trend among many other explanations is really stretching it from a purely scientific perspective.
However, the next great conference on climate was to be in Copenhagen in 2009. This was where a great treaty could be signed that would ensure the Crooks and Thieves at the UN more power and money than they ever dreamed possible. Therefore, the powers that be in the UN and in the alarmist community wanted to ramp up the pressure on the world's politicians to a fever pitch. First, would come the propaganda. That was Algore's job. Concurrently , the Fourth Assessment of the IPCC report would be released. Both the movie and the report needed to be as alarming as possible for the dreams of the Crooks and Thieves at the UN to come true. And, indeed, the movie and the report were extremely alarming. They were also intentionally riddled with errors, data manipulation and just plain bad science. Yet, both Algore and the IPCC would receive the ultimate validation for their work and ideas when they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Imagine that coincidence, eh?
As far as the actual science is concerned, the most egregious and most important were major and seemingly deliberate errors found in IPCC report dealt with the most important factor in debate: the recording of global temperatures. We already had the evidence of how far the IPCC had previously been willing to go to literally and figuratively cook the climate numbers given what we learned from the first and most egregious attempt at temperature data manipulation by our old buddy Michael Mann and his infamous hockey stick:
"Most [50%] of the warming in the latter half of the 20th century is very likely [>90%] due to the observed increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."
They are making a very clear statement that there is, in fact, a causal relationship between global warming and mankind's use of carbon based energy. Since they can only point to theory and models and cannot point to any overwhelming observable evidence to back their claims, it would seem to be scientific malpractice to be so definitive. Ninety percent is pretty darn certain, don't you think? Yet the IPCC seems perfectly willing to do just that. Why?
All you need to know in order to understand this is that the IPCC is not run by scientists. It is run by Crooks and Thieves. Think about this for a second, if you will. The IPCC is the invention of UN bureaucrats. These are the same people who gave us the oil for food scandal. If it can be determined that man is causing earth's temperature to rise then clearly this is a global problem and thus, the solution must be global. Therefore, any action that need be taken collectively by humanity to combat the problem will naturally fall under their auspices. How convenient, eh?
Think about how many bureaucratic jobs that can create at the UN for the friends and cronies of the Crooks and Thieves who run the place. Why, in the last two rounds of international climate talks in Copenhagan and Durban, the idea of a one hundred billion dollar slush fund was bandied about. This tidy little sum would be extracted from the rich nations to given to the developing ones to help them deal with the costs associated with combating climate change. Can you just imagine the bureaucrats in the UN salivating over how they could make sure that money got distributed in ways that enriched themselves and their cronies? It would be oil for food on a grand scale indeed! Likely, with the same level of corruption and greed.
Think about how much power that will give the Crooks and Thieves at the UN compared to what they have now. Why, global carbon regulations could lead to global governance. Now that's power! Think I am getting carried away? That I am being too cynical? Believe that these kindly public servants are solely concerned with saving our planet?
Well, here is what Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group III, and a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report had to say to German news magazine NZZ AM Sonntag:
(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
(EDENHOFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
(NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.
(EDENHOFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. (emphasis mine)
So, as you can see, according to Herr Edenhofer the science has nothing to do with it. Why this is about economic policy. And who will administer this vast redistribution of wealth? Why all the Crooks and Thieves at the UN, that's who. Imagine that! I bet, Herr Edenhofer's buddies are already lining up in anticipation of all the feeding they are going to be doing at the UN trough.
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Unfortunately, Edenhofer is not alone in his desire to use science as a justification for more power for the UN and world government. The science doesn't even have to be sound as long as it advances the interests of the Crooks and Thieves:
A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect. - Richard Benedik, former U.S./UN bureaucrat:
No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.- Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment
We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy. - Timothy Wirth, former US Under Sec of State, current Head of the UN Foundation
Isn't it just so convenient that the actual validity of the science is irrelevant as long as it can be used to bolster the pursuit of ideology and greed for power:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill ... All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself. - Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, consultants to the UN
The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government. - Mikhail Gorbachev, Club of Rome member, State of the World Forum, 1996
We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis...- David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive member
As you can see, the Club of Rome is anxiously awaiting the "new world order" of global government and the "right crisis" to bring it about and they have politicians who are eager as well:
A New World Order is required to deal with the Climate Change crisis. - Gordon Brown, former British prime minister
Climate Change is the greatest threat that human civilisation has ever faced. - Angela Merkel, German Chancellor
...climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster. - Barack Obama, President of the United States
But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change, and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global government and global agreements - Algore, former Vice President of the United States
For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument [Kyoto Protocol] of global governance,”..."By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace. - Jacques Chirac, former French President
So, with all the world's leaders on board the Climate Change express and more responsibility for the UN and "global governance", you can bet that more power will find itself in the hands of the Crooks and Thieves:
I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while. - Sir James Lovelock, known as founder of 'Gaia' concept
The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. - UN Commission for Global Governance report (1999)
In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, I perceive the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government. There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways. - Dr Robert Muller, UN Assistant Secretary General
Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?- Maurice Strong, former Secretary General of UNEP
Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level. - excerpt, UN Agenda 21
A deal must include an equitable global governance structure. All countries must have a voice in how resources are deployed and managed. - Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General
I pledge allegiance to the Earth and all its sacred parts. Its water, land and living things and all its human hearts - Daily Earth Pledge by the Global Education Associates, an environmental education group
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Wow, I pledge allegiance to the earth! Just what our kids need to be reciting in school, don't you think? It's all part of the new world order that's coming, don't ya know and the kids are being propagandized and programmed to be the first generation of that new world. As Algore has said to our children:
"there are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know".
Because us old folk are idiots. Only the advanced minds of the uneducated and inexperienced youth can truly grasp what's at stake here, eh? All the Crooks and Thieves need do is wait till these wise children who have been spoon fed Uncle Algore's movie all their lives finally grow up and vote! In the meantime, look at all those UN bigwigs and bureaucrats quoted above just chomping at the bit to obtain more power. Absolute power, in the case of many of them. Can there be any doubt then, that when the Crooks and Thieves at the UN created the IPCC, that they would pick exactly those scientists who would give them the conclusion they wanted? Namely, that man is the cause of warming and that global action under the auspices of the UN is critical if humanity is to survive. These scientists were hired to provide the scientific "evidence" that will provide just the crisis David Rockefeller was seeking in order to bring about world government. And can you blame Rockefeller or the other crooks, thieves and elitists in the Club of Rome? After all, having power and influence in their own countries is one thing, but when you are talking about controlling the entire world? Paradise! And it will all be for the good of humanity, saving the planet don't you know?
So can it be any surprise that this new rubber stamping body would be called the Intergovernmental Panel on... get ready for it... here's the drum roll..... CLIMATE CHANGE! Ah, yes, that perfectly phrased concept that allows the perfect win/win argument. After all, they don't even have to be right. Everything that happens can be blamed on man. Because, after all, regardless of what mankind does, the climate always changes. We've seen how their propagandists like Diane Sawyer of ABC News can take even the most bizarre freak happening of Mother Nature and turn it into a story about how fossil fuels are destroying the planet with the implicit suggestion that something must be done (by government) about it.
And so it was. After Tim Wirth and his Democratic buddies staged the Congressional Hearing on the hottest day in the summer and deliberately shut off the Air Conditioners so that a sweaty James Hansen could tell the world we were all going to die unless something was done. Well, here was that first something: The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change.
I'll let Christopher Booker, author of The Real Global Warming Disaster, tell what happened next:
It is a story that has unfolded in three stages. The first began back in the Seventies when a number of scientists noticed that the world’s temperatures had been falling for 30 years, leading them to warn that we might be heading for a new ice age. Then, in the mid-Seventies, temperatures started to rise again, and by the mid-Eighties, a still fairly small number of scientists – including some of those who had been predicting a new ice age – began to warn that we were now facing the opposite problem: a world dangerously heating up, thanks to our pumping out CO2 and all those greenhouse gases inseparable from modern civilisation. In 1988, a handful of the scientists who passionately believed in this theory won authorisation from the UN to set up the body known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This was the year when the scare over global warming really exploded into the headlines, thanks above all to the carefully staged testimony given to a US Senate Committee by Dr James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), also already an advocate for the theory that CO2 was causing potentially catastrophic warming.
The disaster-movie scenario that rising levels of CO2 could lead to droughts, hurricanes, heatwaves and, above all, that melting of the polar ice caps, which would flood half the world’s major cities, struck a rich chord. The media loved it. The environmentalists loved it. More and more politicians, led by Al Gore in the United States, jumped on the bandwagon. But easily their most influential allies were the scientists running the new IPCC, led by a Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin and Dr John Houghton, head of the UK Met Office.
The IPCC, through its series of weighty reports, was now to become the central player in the whole story. But rarely has the true nature of any international body been more widely misrepresented. It is commonly believed that the IPCC consists of “1,500 of the world’s top climate scientists”, charged with weighing all the scientific evidence for and against “human-induced climate change” in order to arrive at a “consensus”.
In fact, the IPCC was never intended to be anything of the kind. The vast majority of its contributors have never been climate scientists. Many are not scientists at all. And from the start, the purpose of the IPCC was not to test the theory, but to provide the most plausible case for promoting it. This was why the computer models it relied on as its chief source of evidence were all programmed to show that, as CO2 levels continued to rise, so temperatures must inevitably follow.
One of the more startling features of the IPCC is just how few scientists have been centrally involved in guiding its findings. They have mainly been British and American, led for a long time by Dr Houghton (knighted in 1991) as chairman of its scientific working group, who in 1990 founded the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for research into climate change. The centre has continued to play a central role in selecting the IPCC’s contributors to this day, and along with the Climate Research Unit run by Professor Philip Jones at the University of East Anglia, controls HadCrut, one of the four official sources of global temperature data (another of the four, GIStemp, is run by the equally committed Dr Hansen and his British-born right-hand man, Dr Gavin Schmidt).
With remarkable speed, from the time of its first report in 1990, the IPCC and its computer models won over many of the world’s politicians, led by those of the European Union. In 1992, the UN staged its extraordinary Earth Summit in Rio, attended by 108 prime ministers and heads of state, which agreed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and this led in 1997 to the famous Kyoto Protocol, committing the world’s governments to specific targets for reducing CO2.
Up to this point, the now officially accepted global-warming theory seemed only too plausible. Both CO2 levels and world temperatures had continued to rise, exactly as the IPCC’s computer models predicted. We thus entered the second stage of the story, lasting from 1998 to 2006, when the theory seemed to be carrying everything before it.
The politicians, most notably in the EU, were now beginning to adopt every kind of measure to combat the supposed global-warming menace, from building tens of thousands of wind turbines to creating elaborate schemes for buying and selling the right to emit CO2, the gas every plant in the world needs for life.
But however persuasive the case seemed to be, there were just beginning to be rather serious doubts about the methods being used to promote it. More and more questions were being asked about the IPCC’s unbalanced approach to evidence – most notably in its promotion of the so-called “hockey stick” graph, produced in time for its 2001 report by a hitherto obscure US scientist Dr Michael Mann, purporting to show how global temperatures had suddenly been shooting up to levels quite unprecedented in history.
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But the hockey stick controversy was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of IPCC misrepresentation of science. We now know how completely discredited Mann's hockey stick graph is, but it was presented as scientific fact by the IPCC for years after 2001. By the time of the most recent (the Fourth Assessment Report) in 2007, the IPCC was making the case for the Crooks and Thieves in the UN with all guns blazing. They went out on a limb and stated that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal", and "most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." As we have seen, to say that warming is very likely due to mankind's minuscule contribution to a trace gas like CO2 as compared to the sun and cosmic rays, ocean currents, natural variability, the continuation of a long warming trend among many other explanations is really stretching it from a purely scientific perspective.
However, the next great conference on climate was to be in Copenhagen in 2009. This was where a great treaty could be signed that would ensure the Crooks and Thieves at the UN more power and money than they ever dreamed possible. Therefore, the powers that be in the UN and in the alarmist community wanted to ramp up the pressure on the world's politicians to a fever pitch. First, would come the propaganda. That was Algore's job. Concurrently , the Fourth Assessment of the IPCC report would be released. Both the movie and the report needed to be as alarming as possible for the dreams of the Crooks and Thieves at the UN to come true. And, indeed, the movie and the report were extremely alarming. They were also intentionally riddled with errors, data manipulation and just plain bad science. Yet, both Algore and the IPCC would receive the ultimate validation for their work and ideas when they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Imagine that coincidence, eh?
As far as the actual science is concerned, the most egregious and most important were major and seemingly deliberate errors found in IPCC report dealt with the most important factor in debate: the recording of global temperatures. We already had the evidence of how far the IPCC had previously been willing to go to literally and figuratively cook the climate numbers given what we learned from the first and most egregious attempt at temperature data manipulation by our old buddy Michael Mann and his infamous hockey stick:
But, Mann's work needed other corroboration in order that there were multiple sources showing the same temperature trends. This was essential in order to convince people that recent temperature increases were unprecedented and therefore alarming. It came to be that the IPCC boys figured that they could repeat Mann's "tricks" to mask the fact that recent temperatures showed the inconvenient truth that they were actually declining. Oh, no! Can't have that, said the IPCC cabal, we need to keep the hockey stick illusion alive! Let's manipulate the data to "hide the decline":
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So what's the big deal behind "hide the decline"? Well, these guys actually got caught red handed cooking the books. It turns out that when the CRU email system was hacked and the electronic correspondence between IPCC hotshots was made public, there was this gem:
So what's the big deal behind "hide the decline"? Well, these guys actually got caught red handed cooking the books. It turns out that when the CRU email system was hacked and the electronic correspondence between IPCC hotshots was made public, there was this gem:
So what was our buddy Phil Jones talking about? He was discussing how he used Mike's nature trick (the fudging of numbers and cherry picking data in tree rings) to manipulate his and fellow IPCC crony Keith Briffa's data to create this chart that they could all use to backstop Mann's Hockey Stick:
Looks great, eh? By using Mann's "nature trick" , Jones is now able to show three seperate temperature analyses that show unprecedented and dramatic warming in the 20'th century. Voila! Clear and alarming proof of the AGW theory!
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What Jones wasn't expecting was that people would actually want to see the raw data from the three temperature sets. For years Mann had refused to release his data (we'll get to that and other amazing cover-ups later on). However, Keith Briffa used much of Mann's tree ring data to create his own temperature data set and he chose to publish it in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Journal. As Marc Sheppard relates in The American Thinker:
As the journal adheres to its strict data archiving rules, McIntyre convinced one of its editors to help get Briffa’s data released. And late last month, the data was indeed published at CRU.
Last week, McIntyre analyzed the CRU archive Yamal data and proved that Briffa et al. had cherry-picked and manipulated data, intentionally omitting records not friendly to their position. In fact, when Briffa’s hand-selected figures were replaced by a broader dataset for the same Polar Ural region (much of which he had deliberately dropped), the Hockey-Stick suddenly disappeared, revealing no significant trend in the 20th century whatsoever!
In Steve’s new graph, below, the Red represents the original 12 cherry picked Yamal trees, while the Black incorporates the broader Polar Ural dataset.
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What Jones wasn't expecting was that people would actually want to see the raw data from the three temperature sets. For years Mann had refused to release his data (we'll get to that and other amazing cover-ups later on). However, Keith Briffa used much of Mann's tree ring data to create his own temperature data set and he chose to publish it in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Journal. As Marc Sheppard relates in The American Thinker:
As the journal adheres to its strict data archiving rules, McIntyre convinced one of its editors to help get Briffa’s data released. And late last month, the data was indeed published at CRU.
Last week, McIntyre analyzed the CRU archive Yamal data and proved that Briffa et al. had cherry-picked and manipulated data, intentionally omitting records not friendly to their position. In fact, when Briffa’s hand-selected figures were replaced by a broader dataset for the same Polar Ural region (much of which he had deliberately dropped), the Hockey-Stick suddenly disappeared, revealing no significant trend in the 20th century whatsoever!
In Steve’s new graph, below, the Red represents the original 12 cherry picked Yamal trees, while the Black incorporates the broader Polar Ural dataset.
Notice how the red Briffa and Mann numbers shoot straight up while the broader Ural dataset shows temperatures vitually unchanged for the century, with a huge drop in temperature at the very end. Here is what an accurate and full use of the data set really shows:
Looking at this chart, you can see very clearly why Jones was frantic to throw all pretenses of proper science out the window in order to "hide his and Keith's decline". Otherwise, there goes the hockey stick and with it goes the "incontrovertible" case for unprecedented 20th century warming caused by man's use of fossil fuels. Note also that there is no mideival warm period, of which there is abundant evidence.
So egregious was Jones' scientific malpractice, that physicist Richard Muller of Berkley, a huge supporter of AGW theory, felt it incumbent on himself to denounce the trickery in an attempt to save the reputation of the AGW movement. That this denunciation of Jones, Mann and Briffa led to his being named to head the group (BEST) that would eventually whitewash all of this and confirm IPCC numbers was pure coincidence of course. Yeah, sure.
Be that as it may, Muller's explanation of "hide the decline" is spot on:
So egregious was Jones' scientific malpractice, that physicist Richard Muller of Berkley, a huge supporter of AGW theory, felt it incumbent on himself to denounce the trickery in an attempt to save the reputation of the AGW movement. That this denunciation of Jones, Mann and Briffa led to his being named to head the group (BEST) that would eventually whitewash all of this and confirm IPCC numbers was pure coincidence of course. Yeah, sure.
Be that as it may, Muller's explanation of "hide the decline" is spot on:
_So, we can take two things away from Muller's execellent trashing of Mann, Jones and Briffa. According to him, these three top IPCC scientists all lied to everyone in order to maintain the fiction of 20th century warming and that nothing these people ever say or write again should be believed. Yet, despite this, in preparation for the critical 2007 fourth assessment report, who do you think was running the show? Why it was the exact same set of scientists. Any guesses as to whether they would attempt to manipulate the data again?73===================================================================================================
It turns out that the IPCC three, weren't the only ones with a desire to cook the books in order to create world wide alarm and consensus prior to the big Copenhagen climate conference. It turns out that NASA and NOAA here in the United States were busy as well. It seems that some of the satellite data that they were basing their temperature readings on and sharing with other scientists througout the world was compromised. Conveniently for NASA, the errors were making the temperature numbers warmer, a lot warmer. Take a gander at this temperature map derived from NOAA Satellite-16 posted online in coordination with f Michigan State University as part of the NOAA "Sea Grant" program:
If you look at the lower left hand corner of the image, you will see that the temperature was 604 degrees in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin. Everyone was fried instantly and died! Well, ok, no they didn't. However, this data was not only published by Michigan State University's Coastwatch program, it was also sold to and used by many agencies studying weather and climate around the world including the US goverment. And guess what happened when that data was automatically input into NASA's , NOAA's an CRU's datasets? That's right, it showed an extra warming that didn't really exist. Some say as much as ten to fifteen degrees added into the national and worldwide satellite temperature mix:
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After John O' Sullivan began looking into this story and questioning the NOAA, they very quickly removed the images from the seawatch website and told the public that this satellite's sensors were degraded and not to use the info:
After John O' Sullivan began looking into this story and questioning the NOAA, they very quickly removed the images from the seawatch website and told the public that this satellite's sensors were degraded and not to use the info:
Notice how they say that the images will be removed from the archive, but they say nothing about whether the temperature readings will then be removed from the datasets. According to NOAA these systemic problems with their NOAA-16 satellite were unknown to them before Mr. O'Sullivan pointed it out to them. They claim that because the readings from the satellite went automatically into the database that no one bothered to check. Really, they said that! Of course, had the readings shown sub zero readings throwing off global temperatures by the opposite amount, you can be sure someone would have bothered to look into it. It isn't as if they weren't warned of this:
Dr. Roy Spencer commented, “Obviously, whatever happened to NOAA-16 AVHRR (or the software) introduced HUGE errors. We always had trouble with NOAA-16 AMSU, and dropped it long ago. It had calibration drifts that made it unsuitable for climate monitoring.”
Dr. Christy particularly addressed faults exclusively with the AMSU instrumentation and not problems with the AVHRR system. He advised me, “We spent a lot of time in 2006 trying to deal with the issues of NOAA-16, but the errors were so erratic, we ended up eliminating it as one of the backbones of our dataset.”
...
But it wasn’t just a handful of skeptical climatologists sounding the alarm.The National Academy of Sciences, in its 2007 455-page report concluded that because of degradation in the U.S. satellite network, the country’s ability to monitor the climate and severe weather was “at great risk.”
In fact it was later uncovered by Suzanne Bohan that at least five climate measuring satellites were compromised:
While NOAA's Nero fiddles 'Rome' continues to burn and the satellite network just keeps on falling apart. After NOAA-16 bit the dust last week NOAA-17 became rated 'poor' due to 'scan motor degradation" while NOAA-18's gyro's are regarded by many now as good as dead. However, these satellites that each cross the U.S. twice per day at twelve-hour intervals are still giving "direct readout"(HRPT or APT) or central processing to customers. So please, NOAA, tell us - is this GIGO still being fed into official climate models?
NOAA-17 appears in even worse condition. On February 12 and 19 2010 NOAA-17 concedes it has " AVHRR Scan Motor Degradation" with "Product(s) or Data Impacted."
Beleaguered NOAA customers have been told, "direct readout users are going to have to deal with the missing data gaps as best they can." ...
Dr. Anderson sums up saying; "It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth."
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Unfortunately, ignoring the warnings that their satellites were giving false readings and contining to use the bad datasets even after they found out was just the tip of the iceberg for NASA and the NOAA. Here is John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel explaining how these government agencies manipulated land based weather station temperature data to show the planet was warming and fast:
Dr. Roy Spencer commented, “Obviously, whatever happened to NOAA-16 AVHRR (or the software) introduced HUGE errors. We always had trouble with NOAA-16 AMSU, and dropped it long ago. It had calibration drifts that made it unsuitable for climate monitoring.”
Dr. Christy particularly addressed faults exclusively with the AMSU instrumentation and not problems with the AVHRR system. He advised me, “We spent a lot of time in 2006 trying to deal with the issues of NOAA-16, but the errors were so erratic, we ended up eliminating it as one of the backbones of our dataset.”
...
But it wasn’t just a handful of skeptical climatologists sounding the alarm.The National Academy of Sciences, in its 2007 455-page report concluded that because of degradation in the U.S. satellite network, the country’s ability to monitor the climate and severe weather was “at great risk.”
In fact it was later uncovered by Suzanne Bohan that at least five climate measuring satellites were compromised:
- Landsat 7 (currently in orbit) is broken leaving data gaps. Scientists do not get all the information they should.
- NPOESS (National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite) will not have any sensors that measure the sun’s energy output on the 2nd and 4th satellites.
- GOES-R (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R Series) has had 14 sensors cancelled. No data for cloud base height, ozone layer, ocean color, ocean turbidity and cloud imagery, snow cover, etc. Effectively neutered.
- No sensor for movement of greenhouse gases and pollutants. No sensor to monitor temperature changes on Earth over time. (NOAA didn’t even bother to try to get the funding to keep the eliminated sensors!).
- The sensor to measure how Earth’s temperature reacts to changes in Solar energy was cancelled by the Obama Administration at the end of June 2010.
While NOAA's Nero fiddles 'Rome' continues to burn and the satellite network just keeps on falling apart. After NOAA-16 bit the dust last week NOAA-17 became rated 'poor' due to 'scan motor degradation" while NOAA-18's gyro's are regarded by many now as good as dead. However, these satellites that each cross the U.S. twice per day at twelve-hour intervals are still giving "direct readout"(HRPT or APT) or central processing to customers. So please, NOAA, tell us - is this GIGO still being fed into official climate models?
NOAA-17 appears in even worse condition. On February 12 and 19 2010 NOAA-17 concedes it has " AVHRR Scan Motor Degradation" with "Product(s) or Data Impacted."
Beleaguered NOAA customers have been told, "direct readout users are going to have to deal with the missing data gaps as best they can." ...
Dr. Anderson sums up saying; "It is now perfectly clear that there are no reliable worldwide temperature records and that we have little more than anecdotal information on the temperature history of the Earth."
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Unfortunately, ignoring the warnings that their satellites were giving false readings and contining to use the bad datasets even after they found out was just the tip of the iceberg for NASA and the NOAA. Here is John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel explaining how these government agencies manipulated land based weather station temperature data to show the planet was warming and fast:
How bad is the temperature data really? Well, it seems that
it is bad on purpose and that the kinds of cherry picking of data goes
on throughout the temperature numbers reported by NOAA, NASA and CRU which later become the official IPCC numbers. Remember earlier when we saw an article where, as a result of satellite issues and scandals with their homogenization of temperature data, NASA said that it's temperature records were
flawed and should not be relied upon and that, therefore, scientists
should use the temperature records of UK based Climate Research
Institute (CRU)? Well, it turns out that CRU was busy cooking the
temperatue books for the IPCC in conjunction with the Americans. CRU head Phil Jones (yes, that
same guy - fraudulent Phil) wrote a research paper
whose data was used in the IPCC report of 2007 to discredit the concept
of the Urban Heat Island Effect. The problem is that as he is wont to
do, he played around with the numbers until they achieved his desired
result. This latest fraud by Jones and the CRU is related in this story
broken by the liberal pro-AGW UK daily The Guardian:
So, IPCC bigwig Phil Jones and head temperature guru writes a paper for the IPCC that becomes one of its key reference points for disputing the charge that its weather stations are unduly influenced by the Urban Heat Island effect and it turns out that they basically made up the numbers to fit their theory. Then, to cover this fraud up, they refused to release the raw data for years. Reminds you of what he, Mann and Briffa did with the "hide the decline" data doesn't it?
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This is science? Well, appearently it was good enough for the IPCC to base their UHI assumptions on. But wait... The story gets better. You see, it turns out that our buddies at the IPCC do actually believe in the UHI when they think no one's paying attention. So, in order to increase the temperature numbers to show the desired amount of warming, they systematically began to eliminate the number of weather stattions they use to construct their temperature data sets. And lo and behold, they systematically removed stations in colder more isolated areas and interpolated the data for them. How did this work out. Well, according to D'Aleo and Smith in this excelletn pdf :
Most of the warming in the global data analyses is in higher latitude areas like Russia and Canada and in higher mountainous regions. These areas have seen significant dropout of stations. The warming comes from interpolations from regions further south, at lower elevations and more urbanized.
* In Canada the number of stations dropped from 600 to 35 in 2009. The percentage of stations in the lower elevations (below 300 feet) tripled and those at higher elevations above 3000 feet were reduced in half. Canada’s semi-permanent depicted warmth comes from interpolating from more southerly locations to fill northerly vacant grid boxes, even as a pure average of the available stations shows a COOLING. Just 1 thermometer remains for everything north of latitude 65N – that station is Eureka. Eureka according to Wikipedia has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” due to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Winters are frigid but summers are slightly warmer than at other places in the Canadian Arctic.
Other areas have major problems that have been documented.
* In the United States, 87% of the first 1000+of the 1221 US Climate stations surveyed by Anthony Watts and his team of volunteers at surfacestations.org were rated poor to very poorly sited with warm bias exceeding 1C according to the government’s own criteria. International surveys have begun are showing the same biases due to location on or near tarmacs, next to buildings, on paved driveways and roads, in waste treatment plants, on rooftops, near air conditioner exhausts and more.
* China had 100 stations in 1950, over 400 in 1960 then only 35 by 1990. Temperatures reflected these station distribution changes. CRU’s own Phil Jones showed in 2008 peer review paper that contamination by urbanization in China was 1.8F per century. Neither NOAA nor CRU adjusts for this contamination. NASA to their credit, makes an attempt to adjust for urbanization, but outside the United States, the lack of updated population data has NASA adjusting cities with data from other cities with about as many stations warming as cooling (see here).
* High elevation stations have disappeared from the data base. Stations in the Andes and Bolivia have vanished. Temperatures for these areas are now determined by interpolation from stations hundreds of miles away on the coast or in the Amazon.
Though the population of the world has increased from 1.5 to 6.7 billion people and dozens of peer review papers have established that urbanization introduces a warm bias, the main data bases of NOAA and CRU have no adjustment for urbanization. By using airport stations, the data centers claim they have rural data included, but instruments have been documented in airports near tarmacs, runways and airplane exhaust.
In order to make sure that their numbers for Russia showed significant warming, they manipulated the data similarly to the way they did above. They ignored the coldest rural parts and cherry picked which weather stations to use in order to create more warming than actually occurred:
76===================================================================================================
This is science? Well, appearently it was good enough for the IPCC to base their UHI assumptions on. But wait... The story gets better. You see, it turns out that our buddies at the IPCC do actually believe in the UHI when they think no one's paying attention. So, in order to increase the temperature numbers to show the desired amount of warming, they systematically began to eliminate the number of weather stattions they use to construct their temperature data sets. And lo and behold, they systematically removed stations in colder more isolated areas and interpolated the data for them. How did this work out. Well, according to D'Aleo and Smith in this excelletn pdf :
Most of the warming in the global data analyses is in higher latitude areas like Russia and Canada and in higher mountainous regions. These areas have seen significant dropout of stations. The warming comes from interpolations from regions further south, at lower elevations and more urbanized.
* In Canada the number of stations dropped from 600 to 35 in 2009. The percentage of stations in the lower elevations (below 300 feet) tripled and those at higher elevations above 3000 feet were reduced in half. Canada’s semi-permanent depicted warmth comes from interpolating from more southerly locations to fill northerly vacant grid boxes, even as a pure average of the available stations shows a COOLING. Just 1 thermometer remains for everything north of latitude 65N – that station is Eureka. Eureka according to Wikipedia has been described as “The Garden Spot of the Arctic” due to the flora and fauna abundant around the Eureka area, more so than anywhere else in the High Arctic. Winters are frigid but summers are slightly warmer than at other places in the Canadian Arctic.
Other areas have major problems that have been documented.
* In the United States, 87% of the first 1000+of the 1221 US Climate stations surveyed by Anthony Watts and his team of volunteers at surfacestations.org were rated poor to very poorly sited with warm bias exceeding 1C according to the government’s own criteria. International surveys have begun are showing the same biases due to location on or near tarmacs, next to buildings, on paved driveways and roads, in waste treatment plants, on rooftops, near air conditioner exhausts and more.
* China had 100 stations in 1950, over 400 in 1960 then only 35 by 1990. Temperatures reflected these station distribution changes. CRU’s own Phil Jones showed in 2008 peer review paper that contamination by urbanization in China was 1.8F per century. Neither NOAA nor CRU adjusts for this contamination. NASA to their credit, makes an attempt to adjust for urbanization, but outside the United States, the lack of updated population data has NASA adjusting cities with data from other cities with about as many stations warming as cooling (see here).
* High elevation stations have disappeared from the data base. Stations in the Andes and Bolivia have vanished. Temperatures for these areas are now determined by interpolation from stations hundreds of miles away on the coast or in the Amazon.
Though the population of the world has increased from 1.5 to 6.7 billion people and dozens of peer review papers have established that urbanization introduces a warm bias, the main data bases of NOAA and CRU have no adjustment for urbanization. By using airport stations, the data centers claim they have rural data included, but instruments have been documented in airports near tarmacs, runways and airplane exhaust.
In order to make sure that their numbers for Russia showed significant warming, they manipulated the data similarly to the way they did above. They ignored the coldest rural parts and cherry picked which weather stations to use in order to create more warming than actually occurred:
_Here are the disturbing details from the Russian State News Agency Rianovosti:
77====================================================================================================
_But were these isolated mistakes? Was it just a few dishonest scientists who were stinking up the whole barrel of climate science? Apparently not. Because they claim that their original data is so bad and unreliable, The U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC (NASA) feels the need to alter the historical records of the Iceland Met Office in order to make pre-industrial years colder and post-industrial years warmer for both Iceland and Greenland. How convenient, eh? So what does such data manipulation look like? Well, check out this chart uncovered for us by Paul Homewood and you can see how the trend line changes when NASA monkeys with the numbers to achieve their desired result:
_But were these isolated mistakes? Was it just a few dishonest scientists who were stinking up the whole barrel of climate science? Apparently not. Because they claim that their original data is so bad and unreliable, The U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC (NASA) feels the need to alter the historical records of the Iceland Met Office in order to make pre-industrial years colder and post-industrial years warmer for both Iceland and Greenland. How convenient, eh? So what does such data manipulation look like? Well, check out this chart uncovered for us by Paul Homewood and you can see how the trend line changes when NASA monkeys with the numbers to achieve their desired result:
_ Note, how the unadjusted numbers show viturally no warming for the past sixty years, but the adjusted one shows a trend line to two full degrees of warming. That's a large "correction" don't you think? More importantly, do you see in the bottom chart how the numbers pre-1960 have all been "revised" downwards while after that date, they all are "revised" upwards? Amazing how doing that will show an alarming rise in temperatures. This chart show how far NASA is willing to go to masage the data. For example, here are some temperature charts for Reykjavic:
The middle graph are the numbers from the Iceland Met Office. The other two graphs are NASA's adjusted (doctored) graphs which show that 2003 had higher temperatures than both 1939 and 1941. Not so, say the Icelanders,
“The GHCN “corrections” are grossly in error in the case of Reykjavik”.
So, who are you going to believe, NASA's AGW zealots with a world to convince, or the Icelanders who actually take the temperature readings every day? Now you know why I say NASA is doctoring the numbers.
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Why do I believe that this is actually evidence that they are purposely manipulatiing the data to serve the AGW agenda? Because, you never see a "correction" that makes the temperatures cooler even in cold years. Case in point: New Zealand. It turns out the number for New Zealand were also manipulated to show warming that didn't exist:
“The GHCN “corrections” are grossly in error in the case of Reykjavik”.
So, who are you going to believe, NASA's AGW zealots with a world to convince, or the Icelanders who actually take the temperature readings every day? Now you know why I say NASA is doctoring the numbers.
78====================================================================================================
Why do I believe that this is actually evidence that they are purposely manipulatiing the data to serve the AGW agenda? Because, you never see a "correction" that makes the temperatures cooler even in cold years. Case in point: New Zealand. It turns out the number for New Zealand were also manipulated to show warming that didn't exist:
Here's how majorly the AGW cabal messed with New Zealand's numbers:
Okay, that's New Zealand, but what about the United States? Clearly, as a highly industrialized techonologically elite nation, we have excellent temperature data that doesn't need to be massaged by NASA, right? Of course not! In their great need to show a pattern of warming, the folk at NASA feel that they must change and "filter" the original data to be more accurate. Here's what that kind of "filtering" looks like in one small city:
And what about the country as a whole? Well, do you remember James Hansen of NASA who warned the world we would be boiling hot by now and he needed billions in funding to prevent it? At one time this guy used to say that industrialization caused particles to enter the atmosphere that would reflect back the suns rays cooling the planet and that he needed billions to study this phenomenon. Note that it is always mankind that is causing the cooling/warming and that the only way to stop it was to give him billions for research. This same guy put out NASA's official temperature chart in 1990 and then had NASA "filter" the numbers and released a "revised" chart ten years later. I wonder which direction the temperatures are going to go, don't you?
Well lookee here. Cooling becomes warming. Notice how the data manipulation always seems to show a warming occurring even when the actual temperature records taken at the sites show a different story.
79====================================================================================================
79====================================================================================================
This new chart, along with all of the other problems with data manipulation and bad satellites caused NASA to disavow its validity, and as we know refer the world to the supposedly more accurate CRU datasets. The IPCC tells us the planet has a fever, but given all we've just seen, can we believe them? Here's Joe D'Aleo to sum all of this disturbing information up:
Here is a perfect example of selective and biased temperature readjustment done by the National Climate Data Center:
__Once again, pre-1930's data is readjusted down and everything else is adjusted upwards to show an alarming spike in temperatures. How convenient. As you can see, the evidence that NASA , NOAA and CRU might be cooking the books to show more warming than was actually occurring was mounting. When taken in conjunction with evidence of poorly sited and poorly performing weather stations, 42% of which according to even the NOAA don't meet government standards:
80====================================================================================================
_It is easy to understand why so many in the scientific community were beginning to have doubts about the IPCC temperature datasets. As we have seen, Professor Richard Muller was so upset about the absolute fraud perpetrated by Jones, Mann and Briffa that he was very vocal about the damage they were doing to the field of science in general. Naturally, as a result of this, he was labelled an AGW sekptic even though he was fully on boardwith AGW theory having written about climate change and what needed to be done about it thirty years ago. Partially funded by the libertarian Koch brothers, his Berkley Earth Surface Temperature team of of scientists would go over all of the available records and try to provide a full temperature dataset with full access to all records and information so as to take away any taint from the IPCC three, NOAA and NASA.
In 2011, Muller himself would do something to taint his own project. In scientific circles, the best journals will not accept your paper if you have released any of the details and findings before it has a chance to be peer reviewed. For all of Muller's lecturing of the IPCC Three for shoddy scientific ethics, he had no problem leaking his findings to the press before he submitted them to formal peer review. This greatly angered his head climatologist, Judith Curry who thought such behavior totally unprofessional. So why would this respected scientists, known for slamming others ethics and methods do something so hypocritical? Because the Durban Climate Conference was the next month that's why! Coincidence? I don't think so.
Given that, what would you imagine the results were? Why, surpise, surprise, he says the earth is warming alarmingly! Better yet for the Crooks and Thieves at the IPCC getting ready to open their climate conference in Durban, his dataset is almost exactly the same as the tainted ones from CRU, NOAA and NASA. Imagine that! But, before we condemn Muller as an IPCC shill, we must recognize that his study basically confirmed everything we already know. The earth is, after all warming. Unfortunately for Muller's credibility he also told the BBC that :
"We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down"
Unfortunately for Muller, his lead climatologist Judith Curry does not agree at all:
There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped. To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’
Unscientific maybe? Hmmm, let's see Curry is upset with Muller for going outside of standard scientific procedure by leaking the results and for making statements with no basis in science. I wonder why our boy Muller would do something like that? After all, as we have seen in this chart before, his alarmist statement is manifestly untrue:
_It is easy to understand why so many in the scientific community were beginning to have doubts about the IPCC temperature datasets. As we have seen, Professor Richard Muller was so upset about the absolute fraud perpetrated by Jones, Mann and Briffa that he was very vocal about the damage they were doing to the field of science in general. Naturally, as a result of this, he was labelled an AGW sekptic even though he was fully on boardwith AGW theory having written about climate change and what needed to be done about it thirty years ago. Partially funded by the libertarian Koch brothers, his Berkley Earth Surface Temperature team of of scientists would go over all of the available records and try to provide a full temperature dataset with full access to all records and information so as to take away any taint from the IPCC three, NOAA and NASA.
In 2011, Muller himself would do something to taint his own project. In scientific circles, the best journals will not accept your paper if you have released any of the details and findings before it has a chance to be peer reviewed. For all of Muller's lecturing of the IPCC Three for shoddy scientific ethics, he had no problem leaking his findings to the press before he submitted them to formal peer review. This greatly angered his head climatologist, Judith Curry who thought such behavior totally unprofessional. So why would this respected scientists, known for slamming others ethics and methods do something so hypocritical? Because the Durban Climate Conference was the next month that's why! Coincidence? I don't think so.
Given that, what would you imagine the results were? Why, surpise, surprise, he says the earth is warming alarmingly! Better yet for the Crooks and Thieves at the IPCC getting ready to open their climate conference in Durban, his dataset is almost exactly the same as the tainted ones from CRU, NOAA and NASA. Imagine that! But, before we condemn Muller as an IPCC shill, we must recognize that his study basically confirmed everything we already know. The earth is, after all warming. Unfortunately for Muller's credibility he also told the BBC that :
"We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down"
Unfortunately for Muller, his lead climatologist Judith Curry does not agree at all:
There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped. To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’
Unscientific maybe? Hmmm, let's see Curry is upset with Muller for going outside of standard scientific procedure by leaking the results and for making statements with no basis in science. I wonder why our boy Muller would do something like that? After all, as we have seen in this chart before, his alarmist statement is manifestly untrue:
81====================================================================================================
_The telling part of this whole saga is revealed in an op-ed by Muller in The Wall Street Journal announcing his findings. Muller writes:
The temperature-station quality is largely awful. The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.
Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
We know that cities show anomalous warming, caused by energy use and building materials; asphalt, for instance, absorbs more sunlight than do trees. Tokyo's temperature rose about 2ºC in the last 50 years. Could that rise, and increases in other urban areas, have been unreasonably included in the global estimates? That warming may be real, but it has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect and can't be addressed by carbon dioxide reduction.
Moreover, the three major temperature analysis groups (the U.S.'s NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.K.'s Met Office and Climatic Research Unit) analyze only a small fraction of the available data, primarily from stations that have long records. There's a logic to that practice, but it could lead to selection bias. For instance, older stations were often built outside of cities but today are surrounded by buildings. These groups today use data from about 2,000 stations, down from roughly 6,000 in 1970, raising even more questions about their selections.
On top of that, stations have moved, instruments have changed and local environments have evolved. Analysis groups try to compensate for all this by homogenizing the data, though there are plenty of arguments to be had over how best to homogenize long-running data taken from around the world in varying conditions. These adjustments often result in corrections of several tenths of one degree Celsius, significant fractions of the warming attributed to humans.
And that's just the surface-temperature record. What about the rest? The number of named hurricanes has been on the rise for years, but that's in part a result of better detection technologies (satellites and buoys) that find storms in remote regions. The number of hurricanes hitting the U.S., even more intense Category 4 and 5 storms, has been gradually decreasing since 1850. The number of detected tornadoes has been increasing, possibly because radar technology has improved, but the number that touch down and cause damage has been decreasing. Meanwhile, the short-term variability in U.S. surface temperatures has been decreasing since 1800, suggesting a more stable climate.
Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.
Muller then goes on to describe how his awesome team and absolutely impeccable methods and theories have extrapolated billions of temperature readings and given us an unassailable temperature record which shows the earth is warming. Then he goes on to exonorate the IPCC three he had so gleefully taken down before and called liars:
When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
82====================================================================================================
While it is an important and telling admission that Muller makes no assessment that AGW theory is true, that didn't stop the left wing press from once again claiming the debate was over:
_The telling part of this whole saga is revealed in an op-ed by Muller in The Wall Street Journal announcing his findings. Muller writes:
The temperature-station quality is largely awful. The most important stations in the U.S. are included in the Department of Energy's Historical Climatology Network. A careful survey of these stations by a team led by meteorologist Anthony Watts showed that 70% of these stations have such poor siting that, by the U.S. government's own measure, they result in temperature uncertainties of between two and five degrees Celsius or more. We do not know how much worse are the stations in the developing world.
Using data from all these poor stations, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates an average global 0.64ºC temperature rise in the past 50 years, "most" of which the IPCC says is due to humans. Yet the margin of error for the stations is at least three times larger than the estimated warming.
We know that cities show anomalous warming, caused by energy use and building materials; asphalt, for instance, absorbs more sunlight than do trees. Tokyo's temperature rose about 2ºC in the last 50 years. Could that rise, and increases in other urban areas, have been unreasonably included in the global estimates? That warming may be real, but it has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect and can't be addressed by carbon dioxide reduction.
Moreover, the three major temperature analysis groups (the U.S.'s NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.K.'s Met Office and Climatic Research Unit) analyze only a small fraction of the available data, primarily from stations that have long records. There's a logic to that practice, but it could lead to selection bias. For instance, older stations were often built outside of cities but today are surrounded by buildings. These groups today use data from about 2,000 stations, down from roughly 6,000 in 1970, raising even more questions about their selections.
On top of that, stations have moved, instruments have changed and local environments have evolved. Analysis groups try to compensate for all this by homogenizing the data, though there are plenty of arguments to be had over how best to homogenize long-running data taken from around the world in varying conditions. These adjustments often result in corrections of several tenths of one degree Celsius, significant fractions of the warming attributed to humans.
And that's just the surface-temperature record. What about the rest? The number of named hurricanes has been on the rise for years, but that's in part a result of better detection technologies (satellites and buoys) that find storms in remote regions. The number of hurricanes hitting the U.S., even more intense Category 4 and 5 storms, has been gradually decreasing since 1850. The number of detected tornadoes has been increasing, possibly because radar technology has improved, but the number that touch down and cause damage has been decreasing. Meanwhile, the short-term variability in U.S. surface temperatures has been decreasing since 1800, suggesting a more stable climate.
Without good answers to all these complaints, global-warming skepticism seems sensible. But now let me explain why you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer.
Muller then goes on to describe how his awesome team and absolutely impeccable methods and theories have extrapolated billions of temperature readings and given us an unassailable temperature record which shows the earth is warming. Then he goes on to exonorate the IPCC three he had so gleefully taken down before and called liars:
When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that. They managed to avoid bias in their data selection, homogenization and other corrections.
Global warming is real. Perhaps our results will help cool this portion of the climate debate. How much of the warming is due to humans and what will be the likely effects? We made no independent assessment of that.
82====================================================================================================
While it is an important and telling admission that Muller makes no assessment that AGW theory is true, that didn't stop the left wing press from once again claiming the debate was over:
_Do you see how clever the whole AGW propaganda operation is? All Muller has done is confirm what everybody has known. There has been warming over the past century. We don't know why it is happening or how it fits or doesn't fit into a longer trend of a planet coming out of a mini ice age, but we do know it is taking place. Just like when the climate naturally changes AGW spinmeisters have set themselves up to be able to claim, hey, the climate is changing , we are right. And here, here is a century's worth of global warming, we are right. However, in both cases neither event proves in any way shape or form the AGW theory. In fact, the real news from the BEST data is that for the past fifteen years warming has stopped. This is completely at odds with what the models and AGW theory predicted would happen. However, why let facts and science get in the way of good propaganda, eh?
The real issue that Muller's study raises isn't whether his methods are correct or what his results show. That will be determined by the peer review process that I am sure will be hotly debated. To Muller's credit, unlike the disgraced IPCC three, all of the data will be instantly available and made public to anyone who wants to peruse it. However, the most important thing to learn from Muller and BEST is that this whole effort should have been scrapped the moment they determined that the "temperature-station quality is largely awful." No matter how well you try to stick lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. Garbage in, garbage out.
It is truly amazing that knowing how bad the data was, the BEST team still chose to use the "awful" temerpature station data anyhow and "interpolated" numbers of missing and unreliable stations and data as best they could. How is that any different than what Jones, Mann and Briffa did? They used bad numbers to create a new data set that was supposedly more "accurate", but is still totally invalid because the original numbers are totally suspect. And the BEST study only covers land stations. Therefore, it has no temperature data for the climate above the oceans which cover far more of earth's surface area than the land does. The BEST data also totally ignores Satellite and Radiosonde data. Once again, this is all the evidence you need to understand how totally unserious top climate scientists are when it comes to the integrity of the data. Instead of warning everyone about the catastrophe to come based on garbage temperature data, you'd have thought that Muller would have used his op-ed moment in the sun to call for massive funding for a vast, comprehensive and unimpeachable network of world wide weather stations, radiosondes and satellites. But, that would be practicing good sicence and, as we have seen, good science and AGW don't exist well together.
83====================================================================================================
It's worse when you don't even bother to use actual science to come up with scientific conclusions. In their desire to make the 2007 report as dire and alarming as possible that's just what the IPCC did. In the words of the lead author of Working Group 2, Stephen Schneider in a 1989 interview in Discover Magazine:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.
Scary and dramatic, eh Mr. Schneider? How about this one. In the 2007 AR4 report, the IPCC warned that the Himalayan Glaciers would be completely melted by 2035! Wow, that's surely scary and dramatic. That's the kind of thing you are talking about, right Steve? But, you also said that as scientists you were ethically bound to the scientific method. So, do you think that the Himalaya claim holds up to rigorous scientific scrutiny? Hardly. It turns out that this statement was completely made up out of whole cloth:
The real issue that Muller's study raises isn't whether his methods are correct or what his results show. That will be determined by the peer review process that I am sure will be hotly debated. To Muller's credit, unlike the disgraced IPCC three, all of the data will be instantly available and made public to anyone who wants to peruse it. However, the most important thing to learn from Muller and BEST is that this whole effort should have been scrapped the moment they determined that the "temperature-station quality is largely awful." No matter how well you try to stick lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig. Garbage in, garbage out.
It is truly amazing that knowing how bad the data was, the BEST team still chose to use the "awful" temerpature station data anyhow and "interpolated" numbers of missing and unreliable stations and data as best they could. How is that any different than what Jones, Mann and Briffa did? They used bad numbers to create a new data set that was supposedly more "accurate", but is still totally invalid because the original numbers are totally suspect. And the BEST study only covers land stations. Therefore, it has no temperature data for the climate above the oceans which cover far more of earth's surface area than the land does. The BEST data also totally ignores Satellite and Radiosonde data. Once again, this is all the evidence you need to understand how totally unserious top climate scientists are when it comes to the integrity of the data. Instead of warning everyone about the catastrophe to come based on garbage temperature data, you'd have thought that Muller would have used his op-ed moment in the sun to call for massive funding for a vast, comprehensive and unimpeachable network of world wide weather stations, radiosondes and satellites. But, that would be practicing good sicence and, as we have seen, good science and AGW don't exist well together.
83====================================================================================================
It's worse when you don't even bother to use actual science to come up with scientific conclusions. In their desire to make the 2007 report as dire and alarming as possible that's just what the IPCC did. In the words of the lead author of Working Group 2, Stephen Schneider in a 1989 interview in Discover Magazine:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.
Scary and dramatic, eh Mr. Schneider? How about this one. In the 2007 AR4 report, the IPCC warned that the Himalayan Glaciers would be completely melted by 2035! Wow, that's surely scary and dramatic. That's the kind of thing you are talking about, right Steve? But, you also said that as scientists you were ethically bound to the scientific method. So, do you think that the Himalaya claim holds up to rigorous scientific scrutiny? Hardly. It turns out that this statement was completely made up out of whole cloth:
_ Of course, IPCC head Dr. Rajendr Pachauri's first reaction to the story was to deny that anything was wrong with the science of the report.
When a journalist working for Science told him several times that glaciologists had
refuted the completely ridiculous IPCC assertion about the Himalayan glaciers and that there was
absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that such a rapid melting was even
conceivable, Dr Pachauri dissmissed it as "voodoo science" and
added: "We have a very clear idea of what is happening in the
Himalayas." Of course, as we now know, Dr. Pauchauri was full of a lot of you know what.
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So here we have the head of the IPCC caught red handed helping himself and his buddies to the tune of a three and a half a million dollars based on bogus science. A nice little score, eh? Remember what I was saying about how the Crooks and Thieves at the UN are using the AGW issue to enrich themselves and their cronies? Well here you have a classic en flagrante example of it. How bad was science that enabled this theivery? It has to be read to be believed:
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So here we have the head of the IPCC caught red handed helping himself and his buddies to the tune of a three and a half a million dollars based on bogus science. A nice little score, eh? Remember what I was saying about how the Crooks and Thieves at the UN are using the AGW issue to enrich themselves and their cronies? Well here you have a classic en flagrante example of it. How bad was science that enabled this theivery? It has to be read to be believed:
So if a lead author in charge of the section thought the science was bunk and given that all real world observations were showing the contrary:
_Why did (other than pocketing the money of course) Pauchauri green light
this erroneous allegation and allow it to make its way into the final
official report? Well, one must remember that getting India and the
nations around the Himalayas on board the program to support the UN AGW
agenda in Copenhagen was critical to putting the UN in charge of the
redistribution of hundreds of billions of dollars from rich nations to
poor ones:
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Perhaps this was just an isolated incident right? Maybe the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding and this particular claim just fell through the cracks of the large bureaucracy over at the IPCC. On the other hand, maybe it was part of a plan to scare as many people in as many parts of the world as possible. Which might help explain why the IPCC bogusly claimed that the burning of fossil fuels would endanger 40% of the Amazon rainforest. From the 2007 AR4 report:
Perhaps this was just an isolated incident right? Maybe the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding and this particular claim just fell through the cracks of the large bureaucracy over at the IPCC. On the other hand, maybe it was part of a plan to scare as many people in as many parts of the world as possible. Which might help explain why the IPCC bogusly claimed that the burning of fossil fuels would endanger 40% of the Amazon rainforest. From the 2007 AR4 report:
And who were these great scientific minds that made this alarming prediction about the Amazon?
Ah, a policy analyst and an anti-smoking nazi with ties to Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund made this shocking non-peer reviewed claim. Once again the IPCC was forced to retract this ridiculous and unscientific assessment. Oops! Do you think the fact that both of these totally baseless and unscientific claims of disaster were both put out by lead author of Working Group 2 Stephen "scary and dramatic" Schneider is just mere coincidence? I didn't think so.
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We have already seen how lead author Josefino Comiso's Steig et. al report on catastrophic Antarctica ice sheet melting has been repeatedly disputed by O'Donnell et. al, NASA scientists, satellite readings and by world reknowned expert on the continent, Dr. Heinrich Miller. Then the IPCC tried to scare everyone in Southeast Asia with Glaciergate. Then everyone in South America with bogus claims about the Amazon being destroyed. Hmm, three continents down, four to go. How about we try Australia? Do you think the IPCC might want to add them to the list of nations clamoring to give them power in order to save them from dire consequences? I'd say that you could probably bet your last dollar on that one. For Asutralia, it would be catastophic droughts!
We learn more from Marc Sheppard of The American Thinker:
In Section 9.1.2, the IPCC states that:
[emphasis mine throughout][P]recipitation and temperature are ordinarily inversely correlated in some regions, with increases in temperature corresponding to drying conditions. Thus, a warming trend in such a region that is not associated with rainfall change may indicate an external influence on the climate of that region (Nicholls et al., 2005; Section 9.4.2.3).
That statement is attributed to the same Neville Nicholls who wrote in his 2004 paper, The Changing Nature of Australian Droughts,that:
The relatively warm temperatures in 2002 were partly the result of a continued warming evident in Australia since the middle of the 20th century. The possibility that the enhanced greenhouse effect is increasing the severity of Australian droughts, by raising temperatures and hence increasing evaporation, even if the rainfall does not decrease, needs to be considered.
Later in the paper, Nicholls concluded that “the warming has meant that the severity and impacts of the most recent drought have been exacerbated by enhanced evaporation and evapotranspiration.”
Not surprisingly, as with many other AR4 irregularities that have recently surfaced, this too has a non-peer-reviewed World Wildlife Fund link to it. Nicholls’ was an extension of the work of fellow Aussie alarmist, David Karoly, whose 2003 WWF report, Global warming contributes to Australia's worst drought [PDF], studied the 2002 drought in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin and found that:
"This drought has had a more severe impact than any other drought since at least 1950, because the temperatures in 2002 have also been significantly higher than in other drought years (see Table 1 and 2). The higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates, which sped up the loss of soil moisture and the drying of vegetation and watercourses. This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed."
So then, the basis for the claim that anthropogenic warming causes droughts put forth in the IPCC’s AR4 was a WWF report and its follow-up written the next year.
But that basis, conclude Natalie Lockart, Dmitri Kavetski and Stewart W. Franks, authors of On the recent warming in the Murray-Darling Basin: Land surface interactions misunderstood, is bogus. As stated in its opening, their study “demonstrates that significant misunderstanding of known processes of land surface – atmosphere interactions has led to the incorrect attribution of the causes of the anomalous temperatures, as well as significant misunderstanding of their impact on evaporation within the Murray-Darling Basin.” And after deconstructing the claims of both Nicholls and Karoly, concludes that:
All presented results demonstrate that potential evaporation under dry conditions is elevated not as a result of the air temperature, but as a result of the lack of actual evaporation. This is accompanied by increased sensible heat fluxes which increases air temperatures. This is an entirely natural consequence of the dynamics of drought. Importantly, it is shown that antecedent temperature increases do not lead to significant increases in actual or potential evapotranspiration.
As coauthor Stewart Franks explained to me in an email, “this is a confusion of the well known physics of evaporation - as higher air temperatures are driven by the lack of evaporation (as occurs during drought).” He explained further in a subsequent correspondence: Of course, when there is a deficit of rainfall, this tends to be accompanied by less cloud-cover, hence more sunshine, which does increase the energy available for evaporation, but as soil moisture is low, the bulk of the energy goes into heating the near-surface atmosphere and hence higher air temperatures. But amazingly, the story doesn’t end with how wrong the chapter was.
Professor Franks also pointed out that Neville Nicholls was one of the chapter’s Lead Authors, and David Karoly, whose work was also heavily cited in WG1 Chapter 9, was its Review Editor.
Quipped Franks: “Hence they cite and review their own papers as part of the clearly flawed IPCC process.”
Unbelievable.
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We have already seen how lead author Josefino Comiso's Steig et. al report on catastrophic Antarctica ice sheet melting has been repeatedly disputed by O'Donnell et. al, NASA scientists, satellite readings and by world reknowned expert on the continent, Dr. Heinrich Miller. Then the IPCC tried to scare everyone in Southeast Asia with Glaciergate. Then everyone in South America with bogus claims about the Amazon being destroyed. Hmm, three continents down, four to go. How about we try Australia? Do you think the IPCC might want to add them to the list of nations clamoring to give them power in order to save them from dire consequences? I'd say that you could probably bet your last dollar on that one. For Asutralia, it would be catastophic droughts!
We learn more from Marc Sheppard of The American Thinker:
In Section 9.1.2, the IPCC states that:
[emphasis mine throughout][P]recipitation and temperature are ordinarily inversely correlated in some regions, with increases in temperature corresponding to drying conditions. Thus, a warming trend in such a region that is not associated with rainfall change may indicate an external influence on the climate of that region (Nicholls et al., 2005; Section 9.4.2.3).
That statement is attributed to the same Neville Nicholls who wrote in his 2004 paper, The Changing Nature of Australian Droughts,that:
The relatively warm temperatures in 2002 were partly the result of a continued warming evident in Australia since the middle of the 20th century. The possibility that the enhanced greenhouse effect is increasing the severity of Australian droughts, by raising temperatures and hence increasing evaporation, even if the rainfall does not decrease, needs to be considered.
Later in the paper, Nicholls concluded that “the warming has meant that the severity and impacts of the most recent drought have been exacerbated by enhanced evaporation and evapotranspiration.”
Not surprisingly, as with many other AR4 irregularities that have recently surfaced, this too has a non-peer-reviewed World Wildlife Fund link to it. Nicholls’ was an extension of the work of fellow Aussie alarmist, David Karoly, whose 2003 WWF report, Global warming contributes to Australia's worst drought [PDF], studied the 2002 drought in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin and found that:
"This drought has had a more severe impact than any other drought since at least 1950, because the temperatures in 2002 have also been significantly higher than in other drought years (see Table 1 and 2). The higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates, which sped up the loss of soil moisture and the drying of vegetation and watercourses. This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed."
So then, the basis for the claim that anthropogenic warming causes droughts put forth in the IPCC’s AR4 was a WWF report and its follow-up written the next year.
But that basis, conclude Natalie Lockart, Dmitri Kavetski and Stewart W. Franks, authors of On the recent warming in the Murray-Darling Basin: Land surface interactions misunderstood, is bogus. As stated in its opening, their study “demonstrates that significant misunderstanding of known processes of land surface – atmosphere interactions has led to the incorrect attribution of the causes of the anomalous temperatures, as well as significant misunderstanding of their impact on evaporation within the Murray-Darling Basin.” And after deconstructing the claims of both Nicholls and Karoly, concludes that:
All presented results demonstrate that potential evaporation under dry conditions is elevated not as a result of the air temperature, but as a result of the lack of actual evaporation. This is accompanied by increased sensible heat fluxes which increases air temperatures. This is an entirely natural consequence of the dynamics of drought. Importantly, it is shown that antecedent temperature increases do not lead to significant increases in actual or potential evapotranspiration.
As coauthor Stewart Franks explained to me in an email, “this is a confusion of the well known physics of evaporation - as higher air temperatures are driven by the lack of evaporation (as occurs during drought).” He explained further in a subsequent correspondence: Of course, when there is a deficit of rainfall, this tends to be accompanied by less cloud-cover, hence more sunshine, which does increase the energy available for evaporation, but as soil moisture is low, the bulk of the energy goes into heating the near-surface atmosphere and hence higher air temperatures. But amazingly, the story doesn’t end with how wrong the chapter was.
Professor Franks also pointed out that Neville Nicholls was one of the chapter’s Lead Authors, and David Karoly, whose work was also heavily cited in WG1 Chapter 9, was its Review Editor.
Quipped Franks: “Hence they cite and review their own papers as part of the clearly flawed IPCC process.”
Unbelievable.
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Unbelievable indeed, but par for the course it seems. Well, four continents down, three to go. Let's see, let's try Africa. Any takers on whether the IPCC would attempt to scare the bejesus out of Africans? All of you? I think the picture is becoming quite clear. Why, yes indeed the IPCC had a real scary and dramatic prediction for Africa and once again it had absolutely no basis in science:
Unbelievable indeed, but par for the course it seems. Well, four continents down, three to go. Let's see, let's try Africa. Any takers on whether the IPCC would attempt to scare the bejesus out of Africans? All of you? I think the picture is becoming quite clear. Why, yes indeed the IPCC had a real scary and dramatic prediction for Africa and once again it had absolutely no basis in science:
Oh my, what have we here. Another paper of non peer reviewed science put forth by yet another advocacy group. I am sure they are non biased there!
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Well, the IPCC has scared five continents with bogus science, what would they do about Europe? Hmmm, what could they possibly do to scare Europeans? How about sea level rise so massive that it would destroy Holland? The AR4 reported that:
The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea-level rise and river flooding because 55% of its territory is below sea level where 60% of its population lives and 65% of its Gross National Product (GNP) is produced.
So there you go. The IPCC says that rising sea levels caused by the burning of fossil fuels will absolutely devastate the Netherlands. But, of course, like so many things the IPCC claims to be based on scholarly scientific study, this isn't true either:
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Well, the IPCC has scared five continents with bogus science, what would they do about Europe? Hmmm, what could they possibly do to scare Europeans? How about sea level rise so massive that it would destroy Holland? The AR4 reported that:
The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea-level rise and river flooding because 55% of its territory is below sea level where 60% of its population lives and 65% of its Gross National Product (GNP) is produced.
So there you go. The IPCC says that rising sea levels caused by the burning of fossil fuels will absolutely devastate the Netherlands. But, of course, like so many things the IPCC claims to be based on scholarly scientific study, this isn't true either:
Ah, more sloppy, sloppy science. Well that's six continents down and one to go: North America, home of the United States. What can the IPCC do to scare the Americans? Hey, didn't they have a huge Hurricane that destroyed one of her cities? How about that their driving of SUV's will cause more and stronger hurricanes. That'll definitely scare the dickens out of them, eh?
Hmm, they fed out false and non credible science about North America too. Imagine that! Seven out of seven continents and in every one it would appear that the IPCC used junk science to try to scare everyone into going along with the UN proposal at Copenhagen to put them in charge of climate change and the handling of hundreds of billions of dollars of "redistribution" money.
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Are the serious allegations of fraud that I am making really true or just more of my cynical suspicion of the motives of Crooks and Thieves? Well, most of the scary and dramatic fearmongering came from Working Group 2 and we know what lead author Stephen Schneider has said he has no problems "exaggerating" things and ignoring proper science because as a human being he feels the need to save the planet. But what is even more damning to the IPCC is their use of activist groups like the World Wildlife Fund to provide the basis of their science. That isn't something that is done by accident. Given that their report was supposed to be straight and unbiased science that would seem to be an odd choice to make if your main aim was the credibility of AR4. As Donna Laframboise so eloquently articulates, this type of behvior is prevalent in AR4 and is the opposite of good science:
More Dodgy Citations in the Nobel-Winning Climate Report
At its heart, the Himalayan glacier scandal that has recently shaken the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) involves a document created by the WWF.
The WWF is an activist organization. Much of its funding comes from public donations. The more successful the WWF is at persuading the public that there's a crisis, the more likely people are to give it money. (In North America, WWF stands for World Wildlife Fund. Elsewhere, it stands for World Wide Fund for Nature.)
Many of those associated with the WWF are lovely human beings. But that doesn't change the fact that the WWF is not a neutral, disinterested party. It has an agenda, an ax to grind, a definite point-of-view. Rather than being a scientific organization, it is a political one. In the UK, the media aptly calls the WWF a "pressure-group."
The IPCC, on the other hand, describes itself as "a scientific body" that provides "the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change" by assessing "the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information." [bold added]
Many people would consider it improper for a science-focused organization to rely on a document created by an oil company, since the oil company can't be counted on to provide the whole story. Surely, therefore, it is equally improper for the IPCC to consider a statement to be true solely because an activist group says it is.
Surely scientists working for a scientific body - and tasked with producing a scientific assessment - would endeavor to keep their distance from political spin of all kinds.
But that is not how the IPCC behaves. AR4 is the shorthand name for the 2007 Nobel-winning IPCC report. When one types "WWF" into an AR4 search box dozens of results are returned.
For example, a WWF report is cited twice on this page as the only supporting proof of IPCC statements about coastal developments in Latin America. A WWF report is referenced twice by the IPCC's Working Group II in its concluding statements. There, the IPCC depends on the WWF to define what the global average per capita "ecological footprint" is compared to the ecological footprint of central and Eastern Europe.
Elsewhere, when discussing "mudflows and avalanches" linked to melting glaciers, the oh-so-scientifically-circumspect IPCC relies on two sources to make its point - an apparently still unpublished paper delivered to a conference five years earlier (Bhadra, 2002) and a WWF document.
Similarly, the only reason the IPCC can declare that "Changes in climate are affecting many mountain glaciers, with rapid glacier retreat documented in the Himalayas, Greenland, the European Alps, the Andes Cordillera and East Africa" is because a WWF report makes this claim.
In a section on coral reefs and mangroves, a WWF report is the IPCC's sole reason for believing that, in "the Mesoamerican reef there are up to 25 times more fish of some species on reefs close to mangrove areas than in areas where mangroves have been destroyed."
When the IPCC advises world leaders that "climate change is very likely to produce significant impacts on selected marine fish and shellfish (Baker, 2005)" it doesn't call attention to the fact that the sole authority on which this statement rests is a WWF workshop project report (see the "Baker" document below).
All told, an extensive list of documents created or co-authored by the WWF is cited by this Nobel-winning IPCC report.
This, apparently, is how you win a Nobel prize
Ah, yes such wonderful symbiosis. The WWF helps the crooks and thieves at the UN convince the world to let it "manage" one hundred billion dollars a year and the UN pays the WWF for its reports. Then the UN presents their work as actual science and the propaganda media-Matrix machine screams out those scary warnings and headlines of imminent catastrophe which helps the WWF increase contributions from a donorbase which is now scared to death. It's a total win/win situation!
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However, while all of these things together make an almost airtight circumstantial case that proves the IPCC was lying on purpose, the final nail that seals the case is this smoking gun:
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Are the serious allegations of fraud that I am making really true or just more of my cynical suspicion of the motives of Crooks and Thieves? Well, most of the scary and dramatic fearmongering came from Working Group 2 and we know what lead author Stephen Schneider has said he has no problems "exaggerating" things and ignoring proper science because as a human being he feels the need to save the planet. But what is even more damning to the IPCC is their use of activist groups like the World Wildlife Fund to provide the basis of their science. That isn't something that is done by accident. Given that their report was supposed to be straight and unbiased science that would seem to be an odd choice to make if your main aim was the credibility of AR4. As Donna Laframboise so eloquently articulates, this type of behvior is prevalent in AR4 and is the opposite of good science:
More Dodgy Citations in the Nobel-Winning Climate Report
At its heart, the Himalayan glacier scandal that has recently shaken the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) involves a document created by the WWF.
The WWF is an activist organization. Much of its funding comes from public donations. The more successful the WWF is at persuading the public that there's a crisis, the more likely people are to give it money. (In North America, WWF stands for World Wildlife Fund. Elsewhere, it stands for World Wide Fund for Nature.)
Many of those associated with the WWF are lovely human beings. But that doesn't change the fact that the WWF is not a neutral, disinterested party. It has an agenda, an ax to grind, a definite point-of-view. Rather than being a scientific organization, it is a political one. In the UK, the media aptly calls the WWF a "pressure-group."
The IPCC, on the other hand, describes itself as "a scientific body" that provides "the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change" by assessing "the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information." [bold added]
Many people would consider it improper for a science-focused organization to rely on a document created by an oil company, since the oil company can't be counted on to provide the whole story. Surely, therefore, it is equally improper for the IPCC to consider a statement to be true solely because an activist group says it is.
Surely scientists working for a scientific body - and tasked with producing a scientific assessment - would endeavor to keep their distance from political spin of all kinds.
But that is not how the IPCC behaves. AR4 is the shorthand name for the 2007 Nobel-winning IPCC report. When one types "WWF" into an AR4 search box dozens of results are returned.
For example, a WWF report is cited twice on this page as the only supporting proof of IPCC statements about coastal developments in Latin America. A WWF report is referenced twice by the IPCC's Working Group II in its concluding statements. There, the IPCC depends on the WWF to define what the global average per capita "ecological footprint" is compared to the ecological footprint of central and Eastern Europe.
Elsewhere, when discussing "mudflows and avalanches" linked to melting glaciers, the oh-so-scientifically-circumspect IPCC relies on two sources to make its point - an apparently still unpublished paper delivered to a conference five years earlier (Bhadra, 2002) and a WWF document.
Similarly, the only reason the IPCC can declare that "Changes in climate are affecting many mountain glaciers, with rapid glacier retreat documented in the Himalayas, Greenland, the European Alps, the Andes Cordillera and East Africa" is because a WWF report makes this claim.
In a section on coral reefs and mangroves, a WWF report is the IPCC's sole reason for believing that, in "the Mesoamerican reef there are up to 25 times more fish of some species on reefs close to mangrove areas than in areas where mangroves have been destroyed."
When the IPCC advises world leaders that "climate change is very likely to produce significant impacts on selected marine fish and shellfish (Baker, 2005)" it doesn't call attention to the fact that the sole authority on which this statement rests is a WWF workshop project report (see the "Baker" document below).
All told, an extensive list of documents created or co-authored by the WWF is cited by this Nobel-winning IPCC report.
This, apparently, is how you win a Nobel prize
Ah, yes such wonderful symbiosis. The WWF helps the crooks and thieves at the UN convince the world to let it "manage" one hundred billion dollars a year and the UN pays the WWF for its reports. Then the UN presents their work as actual science and the propaganda media-Matrix machine screams out those scary warnings and headlines of imminent catastrophe which helps the WWF increase contributions from a donorbase which is now scared to death. It's a total win/win situation!
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However, while all of these things together make an almost airtight circumstantial case that proves the IPCC was lying on purpose, the final nail that seals the case is this smoking gun:
_Note that they say We thought it would put political pressure on world leaders. Not, I, but we. When the second round of climategate emails were released, there was even more smoking gun evidence that the IPCC and their scientists were purposely intending to decieve:
One nervous scientist wrote: 'The figure you sent is very deceptive.'
'I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,' wrote another.
The lead author of one of the reports, Jonathan Overpeck, wrote, 'The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html#ixzz1pEbbwXTw
Well, doesn't that just say it all. All of these revelations of corruption, dishonesty and sloppy science was too much even for the head of Greenpeace UK John Sauven who demanded IPCC chief Pachauri's resignation saying:
The IPCC needed a new chairman who would hold public confidence by introducing more rigorous procedures. The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri [as chairman]? I don’t think so. We need someone held in high regard who has extremely good judgment and is seen by the global public as someone on their side.
“If we get a new person in with an open mind, prepared to fundamentally review how the IPCC works, we would regain confidence in the organisation.”
The late Professor Frederick Seitz, a former president of the US National Academy of Sciences, wrote that in all his 60 years as a scientist he had never seen "a more disturbing corruption" of the scientific process, and that if the IPCC was "incapable of following its most basic procedures", it was best it should be "abandoned".
Regardless of your position on AGW, I don't think that there can be any doubt that the IPCC was engaged in the politicization of science in order to achieve their objectives. Whether you believe that individuals within the IPCC did this with the best of intentions in the best interests of saving the planet from a catastrophic fate or you believe that this was mainly driven by the desire of the Crooks and Thieves at the UN to get their hands on funding, power and the hundreds of billions in "redistribution" money or some combination of both, it is clear that the 2007 AR4 report is not faithful to a true adherence to the scientific method. Having come to a questionable conclusion based upon questionable real world evidence, they proceeded to go beyond that to publish these conclusions in a manner that was unprofessional at best and unscientific at worst. This is the same IPCC that President Obama called the "gold standard" of international climate science? And that his EPA is going to base their decision of whether or not to do carbon caps? One shudders at the thought.
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To make matters worse for the IPCC, e-mails between many of its top climate scientists were hacked by unknown individuals and made public. What they show is that not only did the lead authors give the false impression that many of their determinations were based on peer reviewed science, but it also became apparent that the enite editing process including the actual climate datasets was completely biased in favor of rigging the report to reflect the AGW agenda. For example, Peter Thorne who worked at the Met Office in the Climate Monitoring and Attribution group for Phil Jones wrote him and fellow lead author Kevin Trenberth an email in which he states:
<1939> Thorne/MetO: Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...]
Dangerous? To whom? Only to the theory of AGW and its adherents. As we know, the absence of a temperature rise throughout the tropical troposphere was a direct refutation of global warming theory. Yet, despite this e-mail, the IPCC accepted the "one single study" as being representative of all the science on the subject.
Not only that, but the data, particularly Mann's/Jones/Briffa hockey stick temperature chart was so bad and so scientifically faulty that even some of the elite scientists working on the IPCC reports were disgusted by it. One of them, Raymond S. Bradley who according to Wikipedia:
was a contributing author to the IPCCTAR[1]. Bradley worked on reconstructing the temperature record of the past 1000 years with Michael E. Mann and Malcolm K. Hughes, an eminent dendrologist. This work (for which is he is publicly best known, although scientifically his contributions to assembling surface temperature records are only rivaled by Phil Jones) figured prominently in the IPCC TAR (Third Assessment Report).
In an email exchange with Keith Briffa, he says:
<3373>Furthermore, the model output is very much determined by the time series of forcing that is selected, and the model sensitivity which essentially scales the range. Mike only likes these because they seem to match his idea of what went on inthe last millennium, whereas he would savage them if they did not. Also--& I'm sure you agree--the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don't want to be associated with that 2000 year "reconstruction".
In other words Mann and Jones, only used data that would support their predertermined hypotheses that there was no Mideival Warm Period, and, he, Bradley, didn't want his good name associated with such sloppy science anymore. Yet, the IPCC's Third Assessment Report featured the Mann/Jones/Briffa Hockey Stick that "never should have been published" and that Al Gore made the centerpiece of his inaccurate movie. Amazing, eh?
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Unfortunately, that's just the beginning of all the things these "scientists" would reveal when they thought no one else would ever see what they were really thinking. In an e-mail exchange about why temperatures were not rising like AGW theory predicted between Kevin Trenberth and all the top bigwigs of the IPCC including Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Stephen Schneider, Tom Wigley, Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen, he says:
<0248> we should be able to track it with CERES [NASA satellite]data. The CERES data are unfortunately wonting and so too are the cloud data. The ocean data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.
In this e-mail, he admits that basically they can't find out why the earth isn't warming as predicted because they don't have either the instrumentation or the knowledge on ocean currents and clouds to make a determination. Then he goes further and says:
The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't
So, here is this scientist, Kevin Trenberth , who is redoubling his confirmation that the measuring equipment and knowledge of science that all these wise men of science have at their disposal is inadequate to understand why the earth isn't performing as they'd hoped. Yet, Michael Mann and Phil Jones would totally ignore Trenberth's warnings about the lack of actual real world observable evidence, even though he was the expert in this area in the final CR4 report.
That is because the big guns at the IPCC had already determined what AR4 would say beforehand. Science be damned. Professor Timothy Carter of Finnish Environment Institute's Research complained about this:
<1611> Carter: It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.
Exactly! It seems that Professor Carter is going to be one of the lead authors of the upcoming Fifth Assessment Report. Hopefully he cleans house and gets back to some real science. Because it seems the cabal of Phil (the dog ate my homework) Jones, Michael (hide the decline) Mann, Stephen (dramatic and scary) Schneider, Tom (got to be a mistake) Wigley, Kieth (inappropriate) Briffa, Kevin (travesty) Trenberth, Gavin (true, but...) Schmidt and James (we're all going to die) Hansen have no desire to do anything but make sure that anything and everything will be done in order to bolster "the cause" of AGW theory.
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However, more disturbing even than the unscientific bias of their published conclusion was the IPCC's top climate scientists utter disregard for the process of peer review. A defining characteristic of science is the open sharing of scientific data, theories and procedures so that independent parties, and especially skeptics of a particular theory or hypothesis, can replicate and validate asserted experiments or observations. This process of validation of results is known as the peer review process and it is an essential element of the scientific method. Without it, any scientist can report anything he wants and everyone else will have to take him/her at their word. Only by publishing the results and data from an experiment can other scientists determine whether these results are indeed valid.
How is this supposed to work? Well, here is a definition of peer review:
Peer review is the evaluation of creative work or performance by other people in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work or performance in that field1.
It is based on the concept that a larger and more diverse group of people will usually find more weaknesses and errors in a work or performance and will be able to make a more impartial evaluation of it than will just the person or group responsible for creating the work or performance.
Peer review utilizes the independence, and in some cases the anonymity, of the reviewers in order to discourage cronyism (i.e., favoritism shown to relatives and friends) and obtain an unbiased evaluation. Typically, the reviewers are not selected from among the close colleagues, relatives or friends of the creator or performer of the work, and potential reviewers are required to disclose of any conflicts of interest.
Peer review helps maintain and enhance quality both directly by detecting weaknesses and errors in specific works and performance and indirectly by providing a basis for making decisions about rewards and punishment that can provide a powerful incentive to achieve excellence. These rewards and punishments are related to prestige, publication, research grants, employment, compensation, promotion, tenure and disciplinary action.
Peer review is used extensively in a variety of professional fields, including academic and scientific research, medicine, law, accounting and computer software development. Even trial by jury is a form of peer review. Peer review is legislatively mandated in some situations, particularly in law and medicine. In others it is required by tradition and/or by administrative rules, such as in academia. In some fields, such as software development, it occurs naturally without any formal structure or requirements.
In the case of peer reviewed journals, which are usually academic and scientific periodicals, peer review generally refers to the evaluation of articles prior to publication. But in a broader sense, it could also refer to articles following publication, as such articles often continue to be studied and debated for a longer period and by a much wider audience.
It is here, in the case of peer review, that the IPCC and its cabal of AGW believers completely broke with any semblance of adherence to the scientific method and any notion of academic profesionalim:
One nervous scientist wrote: 'The figure you sent is very deceptive.'
'I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run,' wrote another.
The lead author of one of the reports, Jonathan Overpeck, wrote, 'The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guide what’s included and what is left out.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2066240/Second-leak-climate-emails-Political-giants-weigh-bias-scientists-bowing-financial-pressure-sponsors.html#ixzz1pEbbwXTw
Well, doesn't that just say it all. All of these revelations of corruption, dishonesty and sloppy science was too much even for the head of Greenpeace UK John Sauven who demanded IPCC chief Pachauri's resignation saying:
The IPCC needed a new chairman who would hold public confidence by introducing more rigorous procedures. The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri [as chairman]? I don’t think so. We need someone held in high regard who has extremely good judgment and is seen by the global public as someone on their side.
“If we get a new person in with an open mind, prepared to fundamentally review how the IPCC works, we would regain confidence in the organisation.”
The late Professor Frederick Seitz, a former president of the US National Academy of Sciences, wrote that in all his 60 years as a scientist he had never seen "a more disturbing corruption" of the scientific process, and that if the IPCC was "incapable of following its most basic procedures", it was best it should be "abandoned".
Regardless of your position on AGW, I don't think that there can be any doubt that the IPCC was engaged in the politicization of science in order to achieve their objectives. Whether you believe that individuals within the IPCC did this with the best of intentions in the best interests of saving the planet from a catastrophic fate or you believe that this was mainly driven by the desire of the Crooks and Thieves at the UN to get their hands on funding, power and the hundreds of billions in "redistribution" money or some combination of both, it is clear that the 2007 AR4 report is not faithful to a true adherence to the scientific method. Having come to a questionable conclusion based upon questionable real world evidence, they proceeded to go beyond that to publish these conclusions in a manner that was unprofessional at best and unscientific at worst. This is the same IPCC that President Obama called the "gold standard" of international climate science? And that his EPA is going to base their decision of whether or not to do carbon caps? One shudders at the thought.
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To make matters worse for the IPCC, e-mails between many of its top climate scientists were hacked by unknown individuals and made public. What they show is that not only did the lead authors give the false impression that many of their determinations were based on peer reviewed science, but it also became apparent that the enite editing process including the actual climate datasets was completely biased in favor of rigging the report to reflect the AGW agenda. For example, Peter Thorne who worked at the Met Office in the Climate Monitoring and Attribution group for Phil Jones wrote him and fellow lead author Kevin Trenberth an email in which he states:
<1939> Thorne/MetO: Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...]
Dangerous? To whom? Only to the theory of AGW and its adherents. As we know, the absence of a temperature rise throughout the tropical troposphere was a direct refutation of global warming theory. Yet, despite this e-mail, the IPCC accepted the "one single study" as being representative of all the science on the subject.
Not only that, but the data, particularly Mann's/Jones/Briffa hockey stick temperature chart was so bad and so scientifically faulty that even some of the elite scientists working on the IPCC reports were disgusted by it. One of them, Raymond S. Bradley who according to Wikipedia:
was a contributing author to the IPCCTAR[1]. Bradley worked on reconstructing the temperature record of the past 1000 years with Michael E. Mann and Malcolm K. Hughes, an eminent dendrologist. This work (for which is he is publicly best known, although scientifically his contributions to assembling surface temperature records are only rivaled by Phil Jones) figured prominently in the IPCC TAR (Third Assessment Report).
In an email exchange with Keith Briffa, he says:
<3373>Furthermore, the model output is very much determined by the time series of forcing that is selected, and the model sensitivity which essentially scales the range. Mike only likes these because they seem to match his idea of what went on inthe last millennium, whereas he would savage them if they did not. Also--& I'm sure you agree--the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don't want to be associated with that 2000 year "reconstruction".
In other words Mann and Jones, only used data that would support their predertermined hypotheses that there was no Mideival Warm Period, and, he, Bradley, didn't want his good name associated with such sloppy science anymore. Yet, the IPCC's Third Assessment Report featured the Mann/Jones/Briffa Hockey Stick that "never should have been published" and that Al Gore made the centerpiece of his inaccurate movie. Amazing, eh?
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Unfortunately, that's just the beginning of all the things these "scientists" would reveal when they thought no one else would ever see what they were really thinking. In an e-mail exchange about why temperatures were not rising like AGW theory predicted between Kevin Trenberth and all the top bigwigs of the IPCC including Phil Jones, Michael Mann, Stephen Schneider, Tom Wigley, Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen, he says:
<0248> we should be able to track it with CERES [NASA satellite]data. The CERES data are unfortunately wonting and so too are the cloud data. The ocean data are also lacking although some of that may be related to the ocean current changes and burying heat at depth where it is not picked up. If it is sequestered at depth then it comes back to haunt us later and so we should know about it.
In this e-mail, he admits that basically they can't find out why the earth isn't warming as predicted because they don't have either the instrumentation or the knowledge on ocean currents and clouds to make a determination. Then he goes further and says:
The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't
So, here is this scientist, Kevin Trenberth , who is redoubling his confirmation that the measuring equipment and knowledge of science that all these wise men of science have at their disposal is inadequate to understand why the earth isn't performing as they'd hoped. Yet, Michael Mann and Phil Jones would totally ignore Trenberth's warnings about the lack of actual real world observable evidence, even though he was the expert in this area in the final CR4 report.
That is because the big guns at the IPCC had already determined what AR4 would say beforehand. Science be damned. Professor Timothy Carter of Finnish Environment Institute's Research complained about this:
<1611> Carter: It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.
Exactly! It seems that Professor Carter is going to be one of the lead authors of the upcoming Fifth Assessment Report. Hopefully he cleans house and gets back to some real science. Because it seems the cabal of Phil (the dog ate my homework) Jones, Michael (hide the decline) Mann, Stephen (dramatic and scary) Schneider, Tom (got to be a mistake) Wigley, Kieth (inappropriate) Briffa, Kevin (travesty) Trenberth, Gavin (true, but...) Schmidt and James (we're all going to die) Hansen have no desire to do anything but make sure that anything and everything will be done in order to bolster "the cause" of AGW theory.
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However, more disturbing even than the unscientific bias of their published conclusion was the IPCC's top climate scientists utter disregard for the process of peer review. A defining characteristic of science is the open sharing of scientific data, theories and procedures so that independent parties, and especially skeptics of a particular theory or hypothesis, can replicate and validate asserted experiments or observations. This process of validation of results is known as the peer review process and it is an essential element of the scientific method. Without it, any scientist can report anything he wants and everyone else will have to take him/her at their word. Only by publishing the results and data from an experiment can other scientists determine whether these results are indeed valid.
How is this supposed to work? Well, here is a definition of peer review:
Peer review is the evaluation of creative work or performance by other people in the same field in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work or performance in that field1.
It is based on the concept that a larger and more diverse group of people will usually find more weaknesses and errors in a work or performance and will be able to make a more impartial evaluation of it than will just the person or group responsible for creating the work or performance.
Peer review utilizes the independence, and in some cases the anonymity, of the reviewers in order to discourage cronyism (i.e., favoritism shown to relatives and friends) and obtain an unbiased evaluation. Typically, the reviewers are not selected from among the close colleagues, relatives or friends of the creator or performer of the work, and potential reviewers are required to disclose of any conflicts of interest.
Peer review helps maintain and enhance quality both directly by detecting weaknesses and errors in specific works and performance and indirectly by providing a basis for making decisions about rewards and punishment that can provide a powerful incentive to achieve excellence. These rewards and punishments are related to prestige, publication, research grants, employment, compensation, promotion, tenure and disciplinary action.
Peer review is used extensively in a variety of professional fields, including academic and scientific research, medicine, law, accounting and computer software development. Even trial by jury is a form of peer review. Peer review is legislatively mandated in some situations, particularly in law and medicine. In others it is required by tradition and/or by administrative rules, such as in academia. In some fields, such as software development, it occurs naturally without any formal structure or requirements.
In the case of peer reviewed journals, which are usually academic and scientific periodicals, peer review generally refers to the evaluation of articles prior to publication. But in a broader sense, it could also refer to articles following publication, as such articles often continue to be studied and debated for a longer period and by a much wider audience.
It is here, in the case of peer review, that the IPCC and its cabal of AGW believers completely broke with any semblance of adherence to the scientific method and any notion of academic profesionalim:
As Professor Ball points out, the top climate scientists at the IPCC have refused to release the methodology and datasets for their temperature numbers for years. We all know that Michael Mann refuses to release the data for his "hockey stick" chart even to this day. Once his methodology was released when Keith Briffa was forced to show his work by the Royal Soceity, Mann's work was discredited.
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Thus, it was no suprise that his colleague and head of the CRU, Phil Jones would do the same. What was a surprise, was how far he and his IPCC cohorts were willing to go to keep them secret:
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Thus, it was no suprise that his colleague and head of the CRU, Phil Jones would do the same. What was a surprise, was how far he and his IPCC cohorts were willing to go to keep them secret:
Exactly, if the public were to find out that the temperature numbers were totally bogus, and that warming might be a "multidecadal natural fluctuation", they'd string you all up. Therefore, Professor Jones was willing to go to just about any length to hide the data. His first inclination was to suppress it:
But Jones was not done trying to suppress the publication of his data and his methods:
“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,”writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)...
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”
The original Climategate emails contained similar evidence of destroying information and data that the public would naturally assume would be available according to freedom of information principles. “Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]?” Jones wrote to Penn State University scientist Michael Mann in an email released in Climategate 1.0. “Keith will do likewise. … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!”
Ah, well, deleting e-mails. Hey, we all do that. Wouldn't want anything incriminating lying around. Someone might get the wrong idea. But, Professor Jones was willing to go even further than that, he was willing to break the law:
“I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process,”writes Phil Jones, a scientist working with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)...
“Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden,” Jones writes in another newly released email. “I’ve discussed this with the main funder (U.S. Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data.”
The original Climategate emails contained similar evidence of destroying information and data that the public would naturally assume would be available according to freedom of information principles. “Mike, can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4 [UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment]?” Jones wrote to Penn State University scientist Michael Mann in an email released in Climategate 1.0. “Keith will do likewise. … We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise. I see that CA [the Climate Audit Web site] claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!”
Ah, well, deleting e-mails. Hey, we all do that. Wouldn't want anything incriminating lying around. Someone might get the wrong idea. But, Professor Jones was willing to go even further than that, he was willing to break the law:
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But, all of Professor Jones' efforts were for nought. Eventually, the law was brought to bear on him and he was legally required to turn over his "secret" formulas that created his witches brew of climate catastrophe. However, Jones came up with another plan. He conveniently "lost" all the data. The dog ate his homework. Imagine that! It's almost too funny to be true. Unfortunately for science, it is:
But, all of Professor Jones' efforts were for nought. Eventually, the law was brought to bear on him and he was legally required to turn over his "secret" formulas that created his witches brew of climate catastrophe. However, Jones came up with another plan. He conveniently "lost" all the data. The dog ate his homework. Imagine that! It's almost too funny to be true. Unfortunately for science, it is:
Exactly! I couldn't have said it better myself. Even Jones' own colleagues in the IPCC cabal werer getting worried about how this clear breach of scientific ethics would reflect on them. Here is Tom Wigley's take on what Jones is doing:
<125475694 > And the issue of with-holding data is still a hot potato, one that affects both you and Keith (and Mann). Yes, there are reasons -- but many *good* scientists appear to be unsympathetic to these. The trouble here is that with-holding data looks like hiding something,
and hiding means (in some eyes) that it is bogus science that is being hidden.
Only in some eyes, eh Tom? Only in the eyes of "good" scientists? This is as clear an indication of the politicization of science as you will ever see. Wigley doesn't care whether proper scientific protocols are being used, only that it looks bad.
Usually when something smells really bad, it is rotten. Jones efforts to hide his data and methods stink to high heaven and he knew it looked horrible. So, why did he do it? Well, as we know from the Mann "hockey stick" fiasco, part of it was to hide the manipulation of temperature records that showed unprecedented warming in the twentieth century and that hid the decline in temperatures since 1998. One was good for the AGW cause and one was bad. Therefore, the only solution was to use only evidence beneficial to AGW theory and disregard everything else.
Jones wasn't just involved with temperature reconstruction charts. He also worked on the Urban Heat Island effect and his conclusions were used to dismiss their impact for the AR4 report. But as with his paleoclimatolgy work, Jones UHI work was manipulated too and needed to be hidden so no one would be the wiser. As the left wing UK Guardian reports:
The Guardian has learned that crucial data obtained by American scientists from Chinese collaborators cannot be verified because documents containing them no longer exist. And what data is available suggests that the findings are fundamentally flawed...
The story has a startling postscript. In 2008, Jones prepared a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research re-examining temperatures in eastern China. It found that, far from being negligible, the urban heat phenomenon was responsible for 40% of the warming seen in eastern China between 1951 and 2004.
This does not flatly contradict Jones's 1990 paper. The timeframe for the new analysis is different. But it raises serious new questions about one of the most widely referenced papers on global warming, and about the IPCC's reliance on its conclusions.
Another instance where the dog ate the homework, eh? This time rover munched all the data from one of the most important papers that bolster the IPCC's version of the negligible effect of the Urban Heat Islans effect. An incredible coincidence, eh?
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But, of all the reasons for Phil Jones to stonewall access to the data from the CRU none is more important than preventing anyone from seeing how atrocious was the code used to create IPCC temperature datasets and models. This presumably precise data is the backbone of climate sciences, but it was purely amateur hour over at the CRU:
<125475694 > And the issue of with-holding data is still a hot potato, one that affects both you and Keith (and Mann). Yes, there are reasons -- but many *good* scientists appear to be unsympathetic to these. The trouble here is that with-holding data looks like hiding something,
and hiding means (in some eyes) that it is bogus science that is being hidden.
Only in some eyes, eh Tom? Only in the eyes of "good" scientists? This is as clear an indication of the politicization of science as you will ever see. Wigley doesn't care whether proper scientific protocols are being used, only that it looks bad.
Usually when something smells really bad, it is rotten. Jones efforts to hide his data and methods stink to high heaven and he knew it looked horrible. So, why did he do it? Well, as we know from the Mann "hockey stick" fiasco, part of it was to hide the manipulation of temperature records that showed unprecedented warming in the twentieth century and that hid the decline in temperatures since 1998. One was good for the AGW cause and one was bad. Therefore, the only solution was to use only evidence beneficial to AGW theory and disregard everything else.
Jones wasn't just involved with temperature reconstruction charts. He also worked on the Urban Heat Island effect and his conclusions were used to dismiss their impact for the AR4 report. But as with his paleoclimatolgy work, Jones UHI work was manipulated too and needed to be hidden so no one would be the wiser. As the left wing UK Guardian reports:
The Guardian has learned that crucial data obtained by American scientists from Chinese collaborators cannot be verified because documents containing them no longer exist. And what data is available suggests that the findings are fundamentally flawed...
The story has a startling postscript. In 2008, Jones prepared a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research re-examining temperatures in eastern China. It found that, far from being negligible, the urban heat phenomenon was responsible for 40% of the warming seen in eastern China between 1951 and 2004.
This does not flatly contradict Jones's 1990 paper. The timeframe for the new analysis is different. But it raises serious new questions about one of the most widely referenced papers on global warming, and about the IPCC's reliance on its conclusions.
Another instance where the dog ate the homework, eh? This time rover munched all the data from one of the most important papers that bolster the IPCC's version of the negligible effect of the Urban Heat Islans effect. An incredible coincidence, eh?
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But, of all the reasons for Phil Jones to stonewall access to the data from the CRU none is more important than preventing anyone from seeing how atrocious was the code used to create IPCC temperature datasets and models. This presumably precise data is the backbone of climate sciences, but it was purely amateur hour over at the CRU:
What's truly amazing here is that in the beginning of the interview, the "expert" programmer says that the NASA code is much more professional than the CRU code, but NASA says that the CRU's numbers are more reliable. This basically confirms that all the temperature data that the IPCC uses is awful. How awful? Well, what the BBC showed in that interview only scratches at the surface of this mess. As we dig further into the source code and the programmer's comments we find more evidence that the CRU's datasets and models are worthless:
- "But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)
- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)
- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)
- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)
- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)
- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)
- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)
- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)
- "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations."
- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)
- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)
- "False codes will be obtained by multiplying the legitimate code (5 digits) by 100, then adding 1 at a time until a number is found with no matches in the database. THIS IS NOT PERFECT but as there is no central repository for WMO codes – especially made-up ones – we’ll have to chance duplicating one that’s present in one of the other databases. In any case, anyone comparing WMO codes between databases – something I’ve studiously avoided doing except for tmin/tmax where I had to – will be treating the false codes with suspicion anyway. Hopefully."
- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)
- "Oh, GOD. What is going on? Are we data sparse and just looking at the climatology? How can a synthetic dataset derived from tmp and dtr produce the same statistics as an ‘real’ dataset derived from observations?"
- "I DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!!!"
- "Oh, sod it. It’ll do. I don’t think I can justify spending any longer on a dataset, the previous version of which was completely wrong (misnamed) and nobody noticed for five years."
- “Bear in mind that there is no working synthetic method for cloud, because Mark New lost the coefficients file and never found it again (despite searching on tape archives at UEA) and never recreated it. This hasn’t mattered too much, because the synthetic cloud grids had not been discarded for 1901-95, and after 1995 sunshine data is used instead of cloud data anyway.”
- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).
- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
And this is the code for the datasets/models that the AGW crowd at the IPCC expects us to base political and economic decisions costing trillions upon trillions of dollars on? Really?!!? Now you know why Phil Jones hid his data, defied all FOIA requests all the way up to the point of breaking the law, threatened to delete his data rather than allow it to be scrutinized, encouraged his colleagues to delete records and emails, claimed he "lost" his data, and generally broke every single rule of the scientific method. As one of his IPCC colleagues so eloquently pointed out, if the public were to know the true extent to which the validity of the science practiced at the CRU/IPCC has been called into question by its refusal to participate in proper peer review: "They'll kill us all!".
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Believe it or not, refusal to release their data for public and scientifec scrutiny is one of the least of the IPCC cabal's offenses against the peer review process. As we can see, not only was the real world observational data not agreeing with their AGW models, but the datasets those models were based upon coudn't even stand the slightest scientific scrutiny. To prevent that, not only did they do everything in their power to prevent the release of the data, they rigged the peer review process so that only "their" scientists would examine their work.
With the release of the Climategate e-mails, we can see how far these corrupt scientists were and are willing to go to subborn proper science in the service of "the cause". As Rober Tracinski relates in an article on the website Real Clear Politcs:
what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the "peer review" process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing. And that is precisely what we find.
In response to an article challenging global warming that was published in the journal Climate Research, CRU head Phil Jones complains that the journal needs to "rid themselves of this troublesome editor"-hopefully not through the same means used by Henry II's knights. Michael Mann replies:
I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.
Note the circular logic employed here. Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by scientific articles in "legitimate peer-reviewed journals." But if a journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition not "legitimate."
You can also see from these e-mails the scientists' panic at any dissent appearing in the scientific literature. When another article by a skeptic was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Michael Mann complains, "It's one thing to lose Climate Research. We can't afford to lose GRL." Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted." That's exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that "The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there."
Not content to block out all dissent from scientific journals, the CRU scientists also conspired to secure friendly reviewers who could be counted on to rubber-stamp their own work. Phil Jones suggests such a list to Kevin Trenberth, with the assurance that "All of them know the sorts of things to say...without any prompting."
So it's no surprise when another e-mail refers to an attempt to keep inconvenient scientific findings out of a UN report: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow-even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Think of all of this the next time you hear someone invoke the authority of peer review-or of the UN's IPCC reports-as backing for claims about global warming.
This scandal goes beyond scientific journals and into other media used to promote the global warming dogma. For example, RealClimate.org has been billed as an objective website at which global warming activists and skeptics can engage in an impartial debate. But in the CRU e-mails, the global warming establishment boasts that RealClimate is in their pocket.
I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through.... We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.
[T]hink of RC as a resource that is at your disposal.... We'll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics don't get to use the RC comments as a megaphone.
And anyone doubting that the mainstream media is in on it, too, should check out New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin's toadying apologia for the CRU e-mails, masquerading as a news report.
The picture that emerges is simple. In any discussion of global warming, either in the scientific literature or in the mainstream media, the outcome is always predetermined. Just as the temperature graphs produced by the CRU are always tricked out to show an upward-sloping "hockey stick," every discussion of global warming has to show that it is occurring and that humans are responsible. And any data or any scientific paper that tends to disprove that conclusion is smeared as "unscientific" precisely because it threatens the established dogma.
For more than a decade, we've been told that there is a scientific "consensus" that humans are causing global warming, that "the debate is over" and all "legitimate" scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this "consensus" really means. What it means is: the fix is in.
Climatologist Tim Ball goes further saying:
“What you’ve got here is confirmation of the small group of scientists who, by the way, Professor Wegman who was asked to arbitrate in the debate about the hockey stick, he identified 42 people who were publishing together and also peer-reviewing each other’s literature." Dr Ball explains.
"So there’s a classic example of the kind of thing that bothered me. About twenty years ago, I started saying ‘Well why are they pushing the peer review?’... And now of course we realise it’s because they had control of their own process."
This notion of the IPCC cabal acting as gatekeepers to make sure that only the science and scientsits they agreed with had any say over the peer review literature, journals and ultimately the IPCC final reports should be a siren call for their immediate expulsion from the halls of respectable scientists according to one of the climatoligists they tried so hard to blackball:
- "But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)
- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)
- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)
- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)
- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)
- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)
- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)
- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)
- "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seem to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. There are hundreds if not thousands of pairs of dummy stations."
- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)
- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)
- "False codes will be obtained by multiplying the legitimate code (5 digits) by 100, then adding 1 at a time until a number is found with no matches in the database. THIS IS NOT PERFECT but as there is no central repository for WMO codes – especially made-up ones – we’ll have to chance duplicating one that’s present in one of the other databases. In any case, anyone comparing WMO codes between databases – something I’ve studiously avoided doing except for tmin/tmax where I had to – will be treating the false codes with suspicion anyway. Hopefully."
- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)
- "Oh, GOD. What is going on? Are we data sparse and just looking at the climatology? How can a synthetic dataset derived from tmp and dtr produce the same statistics as an ‘real’ dataset derived from observations?"
- "I DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!!!"
- "Oh, sod it. It’ll do. I don’t think I can justify spending any longer on a dataset, the previous version of which was completely wrong (misnamed) and nobody noticed for five years."
- “Bear in mind that there is no working synthetic method for cloud, because Mark New lost the coefficients file and never found it again (despite searching on tape archives at UEA) and never recreated it. This hasn’t mattered too much, because the synthetic cloud grids had not been discarded for 1901-95, and after 1995 sunshine data is used instead of cloud data anyway.”
- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).
- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
And this is the code for the datasets/models that the AGW crowd at the IPCC expects us to base political and economic decisions costing trillions upon trillions of dollars on? Really?!!? Now you know why Phil Jones hid his data, defied all FOIA requests all the way up to the point of breaking the law, threatened to delete his data rather than allow it to be scrutinized, encouraged his colleagues to delete records and emails, claimed he "lost" his data, and generally broke every single rule of the scientific method. As one of his IPCC colleagues so eloquently pointed out, if the public were to know the true extent to which the validity of the science practiced at the CRU/IPCC has been called into question by its refusal to participate in proper peer review: "They'll kill us all!".
97====================================================================================================
Believe it or not, refusal to release their data for public and scientifec scrutiny is one of the least of the IPCC cabal's offenses against the peer review process. As we can see, not only was the real world observational data not agreeing with their AGW models, but the datasets those models were based upon coudn't even stand the slightest scientific scrutiny. To prevent that, not only did they do everything in their power to prevent the release of the data, they rigged the peer review process so that only "their" scientists would examine their work.
With the release of the Climategate e-mails, we can see how far these corrupt scientists were and are willing to go to subborn proper science in the service of "the cause". As Rober Tracinski relates in an article on the website Real Clear Politcs:
what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the "peer review" process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing. And that is precisely what we find.
In response to an article challenging global warming that was published in the journal Climate Research, CRU head Phil Jones complains that the journal needs to "rid themselves of this troublesome editor"-hopefully not through the same means used by Henry II's knights. Michael Mann replies:
I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.
Note the circular logic employed here. Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by scientific articles in "legitimate peer-reviewed journals." But if a journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition not "legitimate."
You can also see from these e-mails the scientists' panic at any dissent appearing in the scientific literature. When another article by a skeptic was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Michael Mann complains, "It's one thing to lose Climate Research. We can't afford to lose GRL." Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted." That's exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that "The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there."
Not content to block out all dissent from scientific journals, the CRU scientists also conspired to secure friendly reviewers who could be counted on to rubber-stamp their own work. Phil Jones suggests such a list to Kevin Trenberth, with the assurance that "All of them know the sorts of things to say...without any prompting."
So it's no surprise when another e-mail refers to an attempt to keep inconvenient scientific findings out of a UN report: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow-even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Think of all of this the next time you hear someone invoke the authority of peer review-or of the UN's IPCC reports-as backing for claims about global warming.
This scandal goes beyond scientific journals and into other media used to promote the global warming dogma. For example, RealClimate.org has been billed as an objective website at which global warming activists and skeptics can engage in an impartial debate. But in the CRU e-mails, the global warming establishment boasts that RealClimate is in their pocket.
I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through.... We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.
[T]hink of RC as a resource that is at your disposal.... We'll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics don't get to use the RC comments as a megaphone.
And anyone doubting that the mainstream media is in on it, too, should check out New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin's toadying apologia for the CRU e-mails, masquerading as a news report.
The picture that emerges is simple. In any discussion of global warming, either in the scientific literature or in the mainstream media, the outcome is always predetermined. Just as the temperature graphs produced by the CRU are always tricked out to show an upward-sloping "hockey stick," every discussion of global warming has to show that it is occurring and that humans are responsible. And any data or any scientific paper that tends to disprove that conclusion is smeared as "unscientific" precisely because it threatens the established dogma.
For more than a decade, we've been told that there is a scientific "consensus" that humans are causing global warming, that "the debate is over" and all "legitimate" scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this "consensus" really means. What it means is: the fix is in.
Climatologist Tim Ball goes further saying:
“What you’ve got here is confirmation of the small group of scientists who, by the way, Professor Wegman who was asked to arbitrate in the debate about the hockey stick, he identified 42 people who were publishing together and also peer-reviewing each other’s literature." Dr Ball explains.
"So there’s a classic example of the kind of thing that bothered me. About twenty years ago, I started saying ‘Well why are they pushing the peer review?’... And now of course we realise it’s because they had control of their own process."
This notion of the IPCC cabal acting as gatekeepers to make sure that only the science and scientsits they agreed with had any say over the peer review literature, journals and ultimately the IPCC final reports should be a siren call for their immediate expulsion from the halls of respectable scientists according to one of the climatoligists they tried so hard to blackball:
98====================================================================================================
There is no greater proof of the politicization of science than the fact that all of these same bad actors from Climategate are still running the show over at the IPCC. For far too many, the concept of man caused global warming isn't about the science, it is about "the cause". Michael Mann made that clear to everyone when the second batch of Climategate e-mails were released:
<3115> Mann: By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.
<3940> Mann: They will (see below) allow us to provide some discussion of the synthetic example, referring to the J. Cimate paper (which should be finally accepted upon submission of the revised final draft), so that should help the cause a bit.
<0810> Mann: I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she think’s she’s doing, but its not helping the cause [...]
The cause. Can you imagine someone working in the field of particle physics or molecular biology ever using words like that? Of course not. Michael Mann even went so far as to suggest that:
"I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests. Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy."
This e-mail shows how dastardly low these AGW zealots are willing to go in order to silence their critics. Can you imagine an astronomer talking about hiring a private investigator to "expose" one of his skeptical peers? This isn't science as a field of rational intellectual study. This is advocacy science where any kind of behavior is acceptable as long as it is in the interests of promoting their version of reality. No wonder the IPCC felt so comfortable substituting World Wildlife Fund propaganda tracts with serious peer reviewed studies.
Albert Einstein once said that:
“Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
That goes doubly true for anyone who calls themselves a scientist. However, as we have witnessed, from hiding and manipulating data to rigging the peer review process, the IPCC believes that the truth must be subordinated to "the cause". Thus, the effort to convince the world that AGW is real and an ominous threat to the planet is more like a political movement than anything remotely tied to adherence to the scientific method. As far as the bureaucrats and scientists at the UN are concerned, no exaggeration is too great, no manipulation of evidence goes too far and no tactic is too outrageous as long as they can convince the world that a great catastrophe will occur if their leaders do not act as they've been instructed to by the "experts".
99===================================================================================================
Therefore, it is essential to understand that what the IPCC and AGW proponents are engaged in isn't science, it is a political campaign. The most essential element of that effort is to convince everyone that there is a "consensus" among scientists that AGW theory is fact and the the debate is over. In this way they are relieved of the perilous path of having to argue the actual real world evidence behind the science. Instead, all they need do is to claim that all the "experts" agree and that anyone who dissents is some kind of nutjob scientist completely outside of the mainstream. This is the kind of thing the left does all the time. For instance, in order to protect the huge entitlement state, they eschew an actual debate over the causes of massive deficits. Instead, they deflect attention from the "science" of the budget in terms of the actual numbers and causes of the crisis by attacking the dissenters of the entitlement state (Tea Party) as being extremists who are holding the nation hostage and, thus, so outside of the mainstream that they should be ignored and shunned.
There are two major ways that the AGW zealots use to accomplish their goal of creating a "consensus" of scientists and scientific associations. The first, and probably the most important is that AGW proponents have used their political connections to ensure that they are the only ones who will serve as the gatekeepers for the hundreds of billions of dollars in research grants. Those research grants are then allocated only to those studies which will boost their alarmist cause. It is another win/win situation for those scientists, bureaucrats and government officials who are involved in promoting "the cause". After all, the more alarmist the research, the more fear takes root in the public's mind, the more money will be allocated towards even more research to assuage these manufactured fears among politicians and their constituents. That this additional funding also means more jobs for the bureaucrats handling the money and overseeing the research is the icing on the cake for everyone. If you are a "good" little scientist and play along nicely, you can get a nice fat grant from either your national government or from the UN and it's friends. If your research also leads to legislation granting greater power for the bureaucrats, there will be even more money to spread around to everyone involved in this neat little scam.
But, wait! It gets even better. You see, if a world wide cap and trade system is enacted it will make billions upon billions of dollars for the cronies of the politicians in the financial markets:
There is no greater proof of the politicization of science than the fact that all of these same bad actors from Climategate are still running the show over at the IPCC. For far too many, the concept of man caused global warming isn't about the science, it is about "the cause". Michael Mann made that clear to everyone when the second batch of Climategate e-mails were released:
<3115> Mann: By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.
<3940> Mann: They will (see below) allow us to provide some discussion of the synthetic example, referring to the J. Cimate paper (which should be finally accepted upon submission of the revised final draft), so that should help the cause a bit.
<0810> Mann: I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she think’s she’s doing, but its not helping the cause [...]
The cause. Can you imagine someone working in the field of particle physics or molecular biology ever using words like that? Of course not. Michael Mann even went so far as to suggest that:
"I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose McIntyre, and his thus far unexplored connections with fossil fuel interests. Perhaps the same needs to be done w/ this Keenan guy."
This e-mail shows how dastardly low these AGW zealots are willing to go in order to silence their critics. Can you imagine an astronomer talking about hiring a private investigator to "expose" one of his skeptical peers? This isn't science as a field of rational intellectual study. This is advocacy science where any kind of behavior is acceptable as long as it is in the interests of promoting their version of reality. No wonder the IPCC felt so comfortable substituting World Wildlife Fund propaganda tracts with serious peer reviewed studies.
Albert Einstein once said that:
“Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
That goes doubly true for anyone who calls themselves a scientist. However, as we have witnessed, from hiding and manipulating data to rigging the peer review process, the IPCC believes that the truth must be subordinated to "the cause". Thus, the effort to convince the world that AGW is real and an ominous threat to the planet is more like a political movement than anything remotely tied to adherence to the scientific method. As far as the bureaucrats and scientists at the UN are concerned, no exaggeration is too great, no manipulation of evidence goes too far and no tactic is too outrageous as long as they can convince the world that a great catastrophe will occur if their leaders do not act as they've been instructed to by the "experts".
99===================================================================================================
Therefore, it is essential to understand that what the IPCC and AGW proponents are engaged in isn't science, it is a political campaign. The most essential element of that effort is to convince everyone that there is a "consensus" among scientists that AGW theory is fact and the the debate is over. In this way they are relieved of the perilous path of having to argue the actual real world evidence behind the science. Instead, all they need do is to claim that all the "experts" agree and that anyone who dissents is some kind of nutjob scientist completely outside of the mainstream. This is the kind of thing the left does all the time. For instance, in order to protect the huge entitlement state, they eschew an actual debate over the causes of massive deficits. Instead, they deflect attention from the "science" of the budget in terms of the actual numbers and causes of the crisis by attacking the dissenters of the entitlement state (Tea Party) as being extremists who are holding the nation hostage and, thus, so outside of the mainstream that they should be ignored and shunned.
There are two major ways that the AGW zealots use to accomplish their goal of creating a "consensus" of scientists and scientific associations. The first, and probably the most important is that AGW proponents have used their political connections to ensure that they are the only ones who will serve as the gatekeepers for the hundreds of billions of dollars in research grants. Those research grants are then allocated only to those studies which will boost their alarmist cause. It is another win/win situation for those scientists, bureaucrats and government officials who are involved in promoting "the cause". After all, the more alarmist the research, the more fear takes root in the public's mind, the more money will be allocated towards even more research to assuage these manufactured fears among politicians and their constituents. That this additional funding also means more jobs for the bureaucrats handling the money and overseeing the research is the icing on the cake for everyone. If you are a "good" little scientist and play along nicely, you can get a nice fat grant from either your national government or from the UN and it's friends. If your research also leads to legislation granting greater power for the bureaucrats, there will be even more money to spread around to everyone involved in this neat little scam.
But, wait! It gets even better. You see, if a world wide cap and trade system is enacted it will make billions upon billions of dollars for the cronies of the politicians in the financial markets:
This little circle of scientific corruption doesn't just start and end with the Crooks and Thieves in government looking for excuses for huge power grabs and more funding for their schemes and Wall Street greedheads looking for a piece of the action . As noted before, activist groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace garner hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from people "alarmed" by the prospect of catastrophic warming. These activist organizations then take that money and use it to reward their pet scientists.
100===================================================================================================
So how does this work? Well let's take the World Wildlife Fund as an example. In the United States alone they operate with a budget of about a quarter of a billion dollars. From that they hire:
In late 2004, around the time that work was beginning on what would become the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, the WWF launched a recruitment drive. It established a parallel body – the Climate Witness Scientific Advisory Panel – and then systematically targeted IPCC-affiliated scientists.
It’s not clear what the courtship process involved, precisely – or who joined in what year or in what order – but by late 2008 the WWF says it had recruited 130 leading climate scientists mostly, but not exclusively, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change… [see p. 2 of this PDF]
An eight-page document prepared in 2008 advised scientists whom the WWF was still wooing that there were “opportunities for further involvement in a number of other WWF activities” including “attendance at conferences, forums or workshops and interaction with the media.” Moreover, “future collaboration between WWF and research institutions” was a possibility....
That's paid junkets at choice locations to party and hobnob with their fellow travelers in climate science, free publicity for their work from friendly media people and an additional source of funding for their work though their research institutions. In other words, all kinds of goodies for our "friends". Ah, but if the scientists weren't exactly clear about how explicit the WWF was being in terms of how financially beneficial a relationship with them would be, here's the kicker:
WWF is also seeking opportunities to promote new climate change research so please feel free to contact the Climate Witness Manager for more information.
Join our little project and we can send some our three quarters of a billion dollars in your direction. But, just in case any of these scientists thought that anyone espousing any theory on climate science could apply, the WWF made clear what it's price will be to attend their little party. The purpose of this little outreach program to climate scientists was to:
"inspire stronger action on climate change in the community. We aim to build a movement of individuals…who want to be active in addressing this threat."
As Donna Laframboise, who broke this story says:
No one, therefore, lied to these “leading climate scientists.” No one soft-peddled what was really going on. The WWF explicitly told them it wanted their help in frightening the public so that the WWF could build a movement.
So how many IPCC scientists decided to join WWF's little soiree? The WWF says that they created a panel of 130 "leading climate scientists" who were "mostly, but not exclusively from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
Ms. Laframboise comments:
The IPCC, however, is supposed to be a neutral, objective scientific body. A judge presiding over a murder trial cannot party with the prosecution team during the evening. Similarly, IPCC personnel who are entrusted with the job of determining whether or not humanity is responsible for climate change should remain aloof from the lynch mob outside the jailhouse door...
What does this mean for the celebrated 2007 IPCC report – the one that secured the IPCC its Nobel Peace Prize? Let me give you a quick snapshot:
It means that nearly two-thirds of the 2007 Climate Bible’s chapters – 28 out of 44 (which works out to 64%) – have at least one individual on their roster who is affiliated with the WWF.
It means that WWF-affiliated scientists helped write every last chapter in Working Group 2 – all 20 of them.
It means that 15 chapters in the 2007 Climate Bible were led by WWF-affiliated scientists – their coordinating lead authors are members of the WWF’s panel. In three cases, chapters were led by two WWF-affiliated coordinating lead authors. In one instance eight personnel in a single chapter have WWF links. In another there are six.
It means, ladies and gentlemen, that the IPCC has been infiltrated. It has been wholly and entirely compromised.
This explains why so much of the alamrmist warnings of the IPCC's 2007 AR4 report were totally debunked. The WWF wined and dined their chosen scientists, put a little cash in their back pockets and bought themesleves a report that would "inspire stronger action on climate change in the community". Not a report that validated the science of AGW theory, mind you. But, a report that with the hoped for patina of scientific credibility of the United Nations would compel world leaders to embrace their radical green agenda.
101===================================================================================================
While one activist group bought IPCC Working Group Two, another set of activists, industrialists and government officials concentrated on Working Group Three which was devoted to renewable energy. According to the pro-AGW UK Guardian:
100===================================================================================================
So how does this work? Well let's take the World Wildlife Fund as an example. In the United States alone they operate with a budget of about a quarter of a billion dollars. From that they hire:
- a Director of International Climate Policy
- a Managing Director of Climate Change
- a Managing Director of Climate Adaptation
- a Director of Climate Change Communications
- a Senior Scientist, Climate Adaptation and
- a lead specialist on Climate Change
In late 2004, around the time that work was beginning on what would become the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, the WWF launched a recruitment drive. It established a parallel body – the Climate Witness Scientific Advisory Panel – and then systematically targeted IPCC-affiliated scientists.
It’s not clear what the courtship process involved, precisely – or who joined in what year or in what order – but by late 2008 the WWF says it had recruited 130 leading climate scientists mostly, but not exclusively, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change… [see p. 2 of this PDF]
An eight-page document prepared in 2008 advised scientists whom the WWF was still wooing that there were “opportunities for further involvement in a number of other WWF activities” including “attendance at conferences, forums or workshops and interaction with the media.” Moreover, “future collaboration between WWF and research institutions” was a possibility....
That's paid junkets at choice locations to party and hobnob with their fellow travelers in climate science, free publicity for their work from friendly media people and an additional source of funding for their work though their research institutions. In other words, all kinds of goodies for our "friends". Ah, but if the scientists weren't exactly clear about how explicit the WWF was being in terms of how financially beneficial a relationship with them would be, here's the kicker:
WWF is also seeking opportunities to promote new climate change research so please feel free to contact the Climate Witness Manager for more information.
Join our little project and we can send some our three quarters of a billion dollars in your direction. But, just in case any of these scientists thought that anyone espousing any theory on climate science could apply, the WWF made clear what it's price will be to attend their little party. The purpose of this little outreach program to climate scientists was to:
"inspire stronger action on climate change in the community. We aim to build a movement of individuals…who want to be active in addressing this threat."
As Donna Laframboise, who broke this story says:
No one, therefore, lied to these “leading climate scientists.” No one soft-peddled what was really going on. The WWF explicitly told them it wanted their help in frightening the public so that the WWF could build a movement.
So how many IPCC scientists decided to join WWF's little soiree? The WWF says that they created a panel of 130 "leading climate scientists" who were "mostly, but not exclusively from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change".
Ms. Laframboise comments:
The IPCC, however, is supposed to be a neutral, objective scientific body. A judge presiding over a murder trial cannot party with the prosecution team during the evening. Similarly, IPCC personnel who are entrusted with the job of determining whether or not humanity is responsible for climate change should remain aloof from the lynch mob outside the jailhouse door...
What does this mean for the celebrated 2007 IPCC report – the one that secured the IPCC its Nobel Peace Prize? Let me give you a quick snapshot:
It means that nearly two-thirds of the 2007 Climate Bible’s chapters – 28 out of 44 (which works out to 64%) – have at least one individual on their roster who is affiliated with the WWF.
It means that WWF-affiliated scientists helped write every last chapter in Working Group 2 – all 20 of them.
It means that 15 chapters in the 2007 Climate Bible were led by WWF-affiliated scientists – their coordinating lead authors are members of the WWF’s panel. In three cases, chapters were led by two WWF-affiliated coordinating lead authors. In one instance eight personnel in a single chapter have WWF links. In another there are six.
It means, ladies and gentlemen, that the IPCC has been infiltrated. It has been wholly and entirely compromised.
This explains why so much of the alamrmist warnings of the IPCC's 2007 AR4 report were totally debunked. The WWF wined and dined their chosen scientists, put a little cash in their back pockets and bought themesleves a report that would "inspire stronger action on climate change in the community". Not a report that validated the science of AGW theory, mind you. But, a report that with the hoped for patina of scientific credibility of the United Nations would compel world leaders to embrace their radical green agenda.
101===================================================================================================
While one activist group bought IPCC Working Group Two, another set of activists, industrialists and government officials concentrated on Working Group Three which was devoted to renewable energy. According to the pro-AGW UK Guardian:
The lead author of the report is the renewable energy director at Greenpeace? And this is passed off as neutral scientific study by the IPCC? Incredible, eh? But, if that isn't enough to turn your stomach about the lack of scientific crediblity at the IPCC, just wait till you see who else and how much money is involved in making sure the report supports the alarmists solutions to the problem. If you go down the list of supporting lead authors here, you will find that they all either work for private energy and policy consulting companies, activist groups, academia and goverment/intergovernmnt groups. But, surely these are totally disinterested parties who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the outcome, right? Yeah, sure.
The types of people involved should give you a clue as to where all the money is coming from. The co-author of the report is The European Renewable Energy Council (EREC). They claim that they are:
the umbrella organisation of the European renewable energy industry, trade and research associations active in the sectors of photovoltaics, small hydropower, solar thermal, bioenergy, geothermal, concentrated solar power and wind energy. EREC represents an industry with an annual turnover of EUR 70 billion and providing over 550.000 jobs.
Seventy Billion Euros! 550,000 jobs! Do you think they might have had an opinion about what the IPCC should tell the world about the efficacy of their industry? But if you think that EREC is just a trade group for the renewable energy industrialists, you only know half the story. As reported by respected climate blogger Ben Pile, the collusion between private industrialists, NGO's and government in the service of the AGW agenda is of truly astounding proportions:
The question now is, what exactly is the EREC? It appears to be a council of trades associations, each representing a technology sector within the renewable energy industry. But it also seems to have been given a para-governmental role by the EU, to 'map renewable energy pathways' for EU member nations. Meanwhile -- literally, at the same time -- it produces seemingly independent research with Greenpeace. This report is taken by one of its authors to IPCC WGIII, where he is also a lead author on the renewable energy report. That report in turn seems to be intended as advice to policy-makers, including those within the EU.
Many have questioned the IPCC's credibility for having allowed an NGO with such a naked political agenda as Greenpeace to influence its statements and advice. But the problem here is far deeper. Trade associations are not only lobbying for their members' interests, they are being paid to lobby the EU to lobby in favour of the policies the EU has already determined it wants. It pays them also to set the parameters of its policies, and to suggest means by which they can be delivered. At the same time, the EREC publishes research which benefits the EU's preferred policies at the global, intergovernmental level. And this research seemingly has the backing of a non-governmental organisation, Greenpeace, which prides itself on taking no money from business or government.
The next question to ask is this... Can an organisation that represents commercial enterprises really offer governmental organisations impartial policy advice? Imagine the furore that would ensue, were oil companies so instrumental in the design of EU policies and their implementation. Lobbying is one thing; such proximity to policy-making is quite another.
The organisations involved make no secret of the fact that they enjoy a privileged relationship with EU policy-makers. EREC member, the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF), for instance, proudly states that,
ESTIF has actively participated in the development of the Directive on the promotion of the use of Energy from Renewable Sources (RES) thus ensuring a favourable legal framework for the Solar Thermal sector.
Indeed. And the EU paid ESTIF €2,000,000 between 2007-9, so that it could better ensure favours for the sector it represents. The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), boasts 600 member organisations across the EU. Yet these members seem to be so hard-up (in spite of the massive subsidies they enjoy) that the EU gave the EWEA €1.8 million so that its 'lobbying activities' (their own words) would continue to 'help create a suitable legal framework within which members can successfully develop their businesses.' The EREC and its members enjoyed gifts of at least €8.2 million between 2007-9 so that they could lobby MEPs, and do research in favour of the policies the EU had already determined it wanted.
And it gets worse. Look into the partner organisations of REPAP2020, and the reports that have been published, and there is evidence of yet further funding from the EU. At the top of the 'Renewable Energy Roadmap' produced by the UK's Renewable Energy Association, for instance, are the words 'With the support of Intelligent Energy Europe' -- yet another mysterious EU organisation. An EU press release from earlier this year proudly announces that,
With € 730 million funds available between 2007 and 2013, the Intelligent Energy – Europe (IEE) programme reinforces EU’s efforts to meet its 2020 energy targets to ensure a secure and cost competitive supply of energy while fighting climate change.
€730 million is a great deal of money for research and lobbying. But it is nothing compared to the billions more that EU sustainable energy directives will cost the population of the EU. Renewable energy firms are being allowed to design and lobby for the policies which will put cash in their pockets, nodded (or is that nudged and winked?) through by democratic representatives and NGOs. And within each member of the EU, the story is the same. Organisations with unclear public functions, and opaque funding arrangements such as the UK's Carbon Trust, and the Energy Saving Trust are established between government, industry, and NGOs to further the sustainable energy agenda, all without accountability and scrutiny.
The lines between governments, companies, trades associations, 'non-governmental' organisations such as Greenpeace, and supranational organisations such as the IPCC under the FCCC are now fully blurred. A greedy ecosystem of organisations have been created across the EU, each with the appearance of independence, working in cahoots with radical environmental NGOs and governments. Yet few, if any, of these organisations offer accounts of their funding sources, let alone explain what kind of organisation they are: how accountable they are, how independent from government they are, and who they really represent. It is as if no membrane delimits their functions from the functioning of the state, except to conceal its operations.
So where does that leave the report from Greenpeace and the EREC? Greenpeace are proud of their independence from government and industry. Yet here we see them working with a trade association in the development of advice to policy-makers that will benefit that industry. The advice it produces will further the agendas of those policy-makers. The suggestion here is not that money has changed hands -- Greenpeace doesn't need the money; what it gets for the favours it does the establishment is influence. The service it provides is to give government-funded, agenda-ridden 'research' the superficial appearance of independence and legitimacy: ideological money-laundering. It makes clean the millions of Euros of public money given to the renewable energy sector for its PR.
It is no surprise that the EU and governments, spurious quasi-autonomous organisations and NGOs are in cahoots. It has long been known that organisations such as Friends of the Earth and WWF are paid by the EU to lobby the EU in favour of the policies that the EU wants. And it is no surprise that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change takes research that benefits the agendas of governments. We all knew this much.
What is surprising is the sheer scale of this shameless enterprise. We all knew that 'grey literature' -- non-scientific and non-peer reviewed 'research' -- found its way into IPCC reports. What surprises is the extent to which 'grey organisations' -- para-govermental institutions with public functions, but little or no democratic accountability or transparency -- are involved in the production of policy and evidence-making, benefitting a narrow industrial sector and serving a particular political agenda.
But what really grates is that to ask questions about this process is to identify oneself as a 'denier', in hock to fossil energy interests and 'well-funded' PR organisations. Pointing out the implications for democracy and the economy when self-interested NGOs and industry-associations enjoy such privilege from government is characterised as 'denying scientific evidence'.
It seems like the European Crooks and Theives have got themselves a fine little scam going. They've colluded with industry and NGO's to literally have the government pay them to lobby the government. Like I say, everyone wins. Except the taxpayers of course. But who cares about the money of hard working citizens when billions of euros can be divided amongst them and their friends. And all that money pays for plenty of scientists and bureaucrats in governments and the UN to produce "research" favorable to "the cause". But, lest you think that Europe is alone in this little scam, we've got the same thing going on here in the USA.
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We all know how the Obama administration has hooked up all it's friends and campaign contributers in the renewable energies business with taxpayer cash. Even sons and daughters of Congressmen are gettting in on the loot. But, the government also spends billions of dollars a year on "climate" research. Here is a chart from The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on federal spending on "climate change":
The types of people involved should give you a clue as to where all the money is coming from. The co-author of the report is The European Renewable Energy Council (EREC). They claim that they are:
the umbrella organisation of the European renewable energy industry, trade and research associations active in the sectors of photovoltaics, small hydropower, solar thermal, bioenergy, geothermal, concentrated solar power and wind energy. EREC represents an industry with an annual turnover of EUR 70 billion and providing over 550.000 jobs.
Seventy Billion Euros! 550,000 jobs! Do you think they might have had an opinion about what the IPCC should tell the world about the efficacy of their industry? But if you think that EREC is just a trade group for the renewable energy industrialists, you only know half the story. As reported by respected climate blogger Ben Pile, the collusion between private industrialists, NGO's and government in the service of the AGW agenda is of truly astounding proportions:
The question now is, what exactly is the EREC? It appears to be a council of trades associations, each representing a technology sector within the renewable energy industry. But it also seems to have been given a para-governmental role by the EU, to 'map renewable energy pathways' for EU member nations. Meanwhile -- literally, at the same time -- it produces seemingly independent research with Greenpeace. This report is taken by one of its authors to IPCC WGIII, where he is also a lead author on the renewable energy report. That report in turn seems to be intended as advice to policy-makers, including those within the EU.
Many have questioned the IPCC's credibility for having allowed an NGO with such a naked political agenda as Greenpeace to influence its statements and advice. But the problem here is far deeper. Trade associations are not only lobbying for their members' interests, they are being paid to lobby the EU to lobby in favour of the policies the EU has already determined it wants. It pays them also to set the parameters of its policies, and to suggest means by which they can be delivered. At the same time, the EREC publishes research which benefits the EU's preferred policies at the global, intergovernmental level. And this research seemingly has the backing of a non-governmental organisation, Greenpeace, which prides itself on taking no money from business or government.
The next question to ask is this... Can an organisation that represents commercial enterprises really offer governmental organisations impartial policy advice? Imagine the furore that would ensue, were oil companies so instrumental in the design of EU policies and their implementation. Lobbying is one thing; such proximity to policy-making is quite another.
The organisations involved make no secret of the fact that they enjoy a privileged relationship with EU policy-makers. EREC member, the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF), for instance, proudly states that,
ESTIF has actively participated in the development of the Directive on the promotion of the use of Energy from Renewable Sources (RES) thus ensuring a favourable legal framework for the Solar Thermal sector.
Indeed. And the EU paid ESTIF €2,000,000 between 2007-9, so that it could better ensure favours for the sector it represents. The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), boasts 600 member organisations across the EU. Yet these members seem to be so hard-up (in spite of the massive subsidies they enjoy) that the EU gave the EWEA €1.8 million so that its 'lobbying activities' (their own words) would continue to 'help create a suitable legal framework within which members can successfully develop their businesses.' The EREC and its members enjoyed gifts of at least €8.2 million between 2007-9 so that they could lobby MEPs, and do research in favour of the policies the EU had already determined it wanted.
And it gets worse. Look into the partner organisations of REPAP2020, and the reports that have been published, and there is evidence of yet further funding from the EU. At the top of the 'Renewable Energy Roadmap' produced by the UK's Renewable Energy Association, for instance, are the words 'With the support of Intelligent Energy Europe' -- yet another mysterious EU organisation. An EU press release from earlier this year proudly announces that,
With € 730 million funds available between 2007 and 2013, the Intelligent Energy – Europe (IEE) programme reinforces EU’s efforts to meet its 2020 energy targets to ensure a secure and cost competitive supply of energy while fighting climate change.
€730 million is a great deal of money for research and lobbying. But it is nothing compared to the billions more that EU sustainable energy directives will cost the population of the EU. Renewable energy firms are being allowed to design and lobby for the policies which will put cash in their pockets, nodded (or is that nudged and winked?) through by democratic representatives and NGOs. And within each member of the EU, the story is the same. Organisations with unclear public functions, and opaque funding arrangements such as the UK's Carbon Trust, and the Energy Saving Trust are established between government, industry, and NGOs to further the sustainable energy agenda, all without accountability and scrutiny.
The lines between governments, companies, trades associations, 'non-governmental' organisations such as Greenpeace, and supranational organisations such as the IPCC under the FCCC are now fully blurred. A greedy ecosystem of organisations have been created across the EU, each with the appearance of independence, working in cahoots with radical environmental NGOs and governments. Yet few, if any, of these organisations offer accounts of their funding sources, let alone explain what kind of organisation they are: how accountable they are, how independent from government they are, and who they really represent. It is as if no membrane delimits their functions from the functioning of the state, except to conceal its operations.
So where does that leave the report from Greenpeace and the EREC? Greenpeace are proud of their independence from government and industry. Yet here we see them working with a trade association in the development of advice to policy-makers that will benefit that industry. The advice it produces will further the agendas of those policy-makers. The suggestion here is not that money has changed hands -- Greenpeace doesn't need the money; what it gets for the favours it does the establishment is influence. The service it provides is to give government-funded, agenda-ridden 'research' the superficial appearance of independence and legitimacy: ideological money-laundering. It makes clean the millions of Euros of public money given to the renewable energy sector for its PR.
It is no surprise that the EU and governments, spurious quasi-autonomous organisations and NGOs are in cahoots. It has long been known that organisations such as Friends of the Earth and WWF are paid by the EU to lobby the EU in favour of the policies that the EU wants. And it is no surprise that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change takes research that benefits the agendas of governments. We all knew this much.
What is surprising is the sheer scale of this shameless enterprise. We all knew that 'grey literature' -- non-scientific and non-peer reviewed 'research' -- found its way into IPCC reports. What surprises is the extent to which 'grey organisations' -- para-govermental institutions with public functions, but little or no democratic accountability or transparency -- are involved in the production of policy and evidence-making, benefitting a narrow industrial sector and serving a particular political agenda.
But what really grates is that to ask questions about this process is to identify oneself as a 'denier', in hock to fossil energy interests and 'well-funded' PR organisations. Pointing out the implications for democracy and the economy when self-interested NGOs and industry-associations enjoy such privilege from government is characterised as 'denying scientific evidence'.
It seems like the European Crooks and Theives have got themselves a fine little scam going. They've colluded with industry and NGO's to literally have the government pay them to lobby the government. Like I say, everyone wins. Except the taxpayers of course. But who cares about the money of hard working citizens when billions of euros can be divided amongst them and their friends. And all that money pays for plenty of scientists and bureaucrats in governments and the UN to produce "research" favorable to "the cause". But, lest you think that Europe is alone in this little scam, we've got the same thing going on here in the USA.
102===================================================================================================
We all know how the Obama administration has hooked up all it's friends and campaign contributers in the renewable energies business with taxpayer cash. Even sons and daughters of Congressmen are gettting in on the loot. But, the government also spends billions of dollars a year on "climate" research. Here is a chart from The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on federal spending on "climate change":
Notice not just the billions, yes billions with a B, that the government is spending every year, but at the percentage increases from the previous years budget. This at a time when we are 16 Trillion dollars in debt and borrowing forty cents of every dollar from the Red Chinese. Now, you will often hear it argued that Big Oil spends billions to buy scientists friendly to its postion. However, the largest skeptic NGO is the Heartland Institute whose budget for last year was a mere $10 million dollars. Here is a comparison of direct research spending by AGW supporters and skeptics:
Surely, there are other NGO's that toe the line for the fossil fuel industry. However, the amount of money that the renewable industry and the Federal and State governments spend on funding "climate" research dwarfs it by several magnitudes. The bottom line is that there is a huge funding pipeline available worldwide for those scientists who are in agreement with "the cause" and virtually none if you are not. If you are studying coral reefs, change your research grant proposal ever so slightly and say that you are now studying the effects of global warming on coral reefs and you've just increased your chance of being funded greatly. You don't even have to stretch your scientific credibility all that much. After all, the earth is warming whether the cause is manmade or natural. No one can dispute that. In this way, the Crooks and Thieves who look at the AGW issue as a way to gain power and profit and the true believers out to save the planet are able to use their immense combined funding machine to buy off thousands and thousands of the worlds top scientists. If you want to get funded and advance in your field, all you need to do is to go with the flow.
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Conversely, if you are skeptical of global warming theory or just have another theory of your own, you are going to end up at the back of the line of scientists feeding at the trough. While the control of the funding pipeline does wonders for increasing the number of scientists dependent on the beneficence of AGW's grand poobah's, it also stifles anyone who has any theory different than the prevailing climate orthodoxy. That's why it took the scientists who proposed the cosmic ray/cloud seeding theory ten years to get the funding and the lab time to do their experiment.
These "heretics" who dare to be skeptical of AGW theory aren't just scrambling for scarce funds, they are also under assault from their academic colleagues. Anyone who knows anything about modern academe, knows that they are bastions of leftist thought and dogma. Currently, AGW theory is a major priority of that community. To be against AGW, is the same as being a homophobe or a racist as far as they are concerned. Those who disagree are apostates and are people to be shunned and disinvited to campus cocktail parties. If you don't have tenure yet, it isn't likely you are ever going to get it. Promoted? Are you kidding?
Leftists long ago learned how to use the tenure process and social peer pressure to make our universities and colleges bastions of political correctness and conformity. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by sixteen of the world's top climate scientists it was pointed out that:
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.
Obviously, no one is being sent to death camps. Yet... However, the suppression of scientific thought and dissent is eerily similar. The aim of AGW alarmists is not about promoting or defending the science, but rather about winning the propaganda war. Instead of having to prove their theory like all other scientists in every other field of science which in the case of AGW is very problematic, they wish to change the terms of the debate. Thus, the point of buying like minded and/or ambitous scientists while defunding and intimidating skeptics into silence and irrelevance is to create the illusion of a consensus that switches the burden of proof to the dissenters. After all, as far as the lay public is concerned, if all scientists are agreed on this, it must be true. Who are you to doubt all of these esteemed academicians?
As James Lewis of The American Thinker notes, this is not how proper science is conducted:
Putting the burden of proof on the doubters is a perversion of normal, healthy science. It's as if Jeremiah Wright demanded that all white folks must prove to him that they're not blue-eyed devils. If politically correct ideas are true by default, the Al Gores can prove anything.
In normal science the burden of proof is on the proposer. Albert Einstein had to prove in his historic 1905 paper that there was a fundamental flaw in classical physics. The distinctive predictions of Relativity Theory had to be verified for decades afterwards. Some are still being tested today. His predecessor Max Planck remarked that he encountered so much skepticism that he had to wait for the older generation of physicists to die off before his work was accepted. Darwin said the same thing.
A healthy scientific community is extremely skeptical. It needs to see more and more evidence, over and over and over again, before it adopts some wild-eyed new idea. It takes all the time it needs; good science is very patient. Einstein himself was a complete skeptic about quantum mechanics, and never accepted it over the last forty years of his life. He had a perfect right to question it, as long as he had rational arguments, and he did. (He was wrong on QM, but he was right on Relativity.)
104===================================================================================================
In the pursuit of creating the illusion of consensus, AGW proponents do everything in their power to disguise the fact that only a very few voices in the scientific community are actually heard when it comes to climate science at the IPCC. We've seen that there are only a few individuals in the IPCC that matter and we've seen the levels to which they are willing to sink in terms of manipulating data and stifling dissent in the furtherance of "the cause". This is particularly true in the section that does the climate modeling which provides the only "evidence" for AGW theory and without which no other part of the IPCC reports would be necessary. However, as far as the world is concerned they've been informed by the media constantly that the IPCC reports are the consensus opinions of 2500 of the world's top climate scientists. We know this to be a load of excrement. The truth is:
103===================================================================================================
Conversely, if you are skeptical of global warming theory or just have another theory of your own, you are going to end up at the back of the line of scientists feeding at the trough. While the control of the funding pipeline does wonders for increasing the number of scientists dependent on the beneficence of AGW's grand poobah's, it also stifles anyone who has any theory different than the prevailing climate orthodoxy. That's why it took the scientists who proposed the cosmic ray/cloud seeding theory ten years to get the funding and the lab time to do their experiment.
These "heretics" who dare to be skeptical of AGW theory aren't just scrambling for scarce funds, they are also under assault from their academic colleagues. Anyone who knows anything about modern academe, knows that they are bastions of leftist thought and dogma. Currently, AGW theory is a major priority of that community. To be against AGW, is the same as being a homophobe or a racist as far as they are concerned. Those who disagree are apostates and are people to be shunned and disinvited to campus cocktail parties. If you don't have tenure yet, it isn't likely you are ever going to get it. Promoted? Are you kidding?
Leftists long ago learned how to use the tenure process and social peer pressure to make our universities and colleges bastions of political correctness and conformity. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by sixteen of the world's top climate scientists it was pointed out that:
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.
Obviously, no one is being sent to death camps. Yet... However, the suppression of scientific thought and dissent is eerily similar. The aim of AGW alarmists is not about promoting or defending the science, but rather about winning the propaganda war. Instead of having to prove their theory like all other scientists in every other field of science which in the case of AGW is very problematic, they wish to change the terms of the debate. Thus, the point of buying like minded and/or ambitous scientists while defunding and intimidating skeptics into silence and irrelevance is to create the illusion of a consensus that switches the burden of proof to the dissenters. After all, as far as the lay public is concerned, if all scientists are agreed on this, it must be true. Who are you to doubt all of these esteemed academicians?
As James Lewis of The American Thinker notes, this is not how proper science is conducted:
Putting the burden of proof on the doubters is a perversion of normal, healthy science. It's as if Jeremiah Wright demanded that all white folks must prove to him that they're not blue-eyed devils. If politically correct ideas are true by default, the Al Gores can prove anything.
In normal science the burden of proof is on the proposer. Albert Einstein had to prove in his historic 1905 paper that there was a fundamental flaw in classical physics. The distinctive predictions of Relativity Theory had to be verified for decades afterwards. Some are still being tested today. His predecessor Max Planck remarked that he encountered so much skepticism that he had to wait for the older generation of physicists to die off before his work was accepted. Darwin said the same thing.
A healthy scientific community is extremely skeptical. It needs to see more and more evidence, over and over and over again, before it adopts some wild-eyed new idea. It takes all the time it needs; good science is very patient. Einstein himself was a complete skeptic about quantum mechanics, and never accepted it over the last forty years of his life. He had a perfect right to question it, as long as he had rational arguments, and he did. (He was wrong on QM, but he was right on Relativity.)
104===================================================================================================
In the pursuit of creating the illusion of consensus, AGW proponents do everything in their power to disguise the fact that only a very few voices in the scientific community are actually heard when it comes to climate science at the IPCC. We've seen that there are only a few individuals in the IPCC that matter and we've seen the levels to which they are willing to sink in terms of manipulating data and stifling dissent in the furtherance of "the cause". This is particularly true in the section that does the climate modeling which provides the only "evidence" for AGW theory and without which no other part of the IPCC reports would be necessary. However, as far as the world is concerned they've been informed by the media constantly that the IPCC reports are the consensus opinions of 2500 of the world's top climate scientists. We know this to be a load of excrement. The truth is:
More confirmation of this can be found here, here, and here. In addition, to further create the impression of an overwhelming consensus of scientists, AGW propagandists try to claim that virtually every single peer reviewed paper supports AGW theory. In the prestigious journal Science, alarmist Naomi Oreskes, whose claim to fame is trashing every dissenting opinion as being bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, claims that:
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
None, eh Naomi? Not even one? Here is a woman who talks about "normative" climate theology. I guess that means if you don't believe in her religion, you are some kind of crazy heretic. That said, Oreskes is totally and completely wrong about this. According to S. Fred Singer:
she missed more than 11,000 papers [oops!] through an incorrect Internet search. She published a discreet "Correction"; yet she has never retracted her ideologically based claim about consensus. Al Gore still quotes her result, which has been contradicted by several, more competent studies (by Peiser, Schulte, Bray and von Storch; Lemonick in SciAm, etc).
Mark Alexander of The Patriot Post chimes in:
A 2007 analysis of peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published studies contesting one or more of Gore's apocalyptic prognosis. In fact, more than 300 of those scientists reported evidence that normal 1,500-year climate cycles since the last Ice Age have produced more than a dozen global warming trends similar to the current trend, and that current warming trends are strongly linked to variances in the Sun's irradiance. These variances occur because the Earth's orbit around the Sun varies from a round to elliptical shape cyclically.
In addition studies like the CERN experiment with cosmic rays and this report by Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab which concludes that the Earth's climate is only one third as sensitive to CO2 as the IPCC believes show the game changing nature of some of these adavances in our knowledge of climate. If Schwartz's study is validated, this would mean less than a half a degree temperature rise caused by a doubling of CO2. In other words, nothing to give another thought about. However, you can be sure that attempts to validate that theory won't get a lot of funding from the gatekeepers of climate cash. The point is that every day scientists are learning something new about the climate that changes the way we understand it. The claim that there is a consensus of scientists or that consensus opinion is proper science is ridiculous.
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While that may be true for "science" it is the exact opposite for PR. A good public relations campaign is about creating a momentum for what you want to sell and to convince everyone to buy it because all the "experts" say it is fantastic. If the smart people like it. It must be good. Therefore, a critical aspect of AGW supporters program of creating the illusion of consensus is to do everything in their power to pressure the Scientific Associations like the ones Oreskes described above to take strong positions in favor of "normative" climate science.
For instance, a pro-AGW activist group called "Forecast The Facts" (I'm not kidding) pressured the American Meteorological Society to get with the program. They were alarmed that a recent study by George Mason University in March 2010 found that:
63% of T.V. meteorologists think climate change is due to natural causes, and a full 27% think global warming is a scam
Oh the horror! We can't have the people that Americans trust to give them the weather every day believe warming is caused by natural forces. Perish the thought! They must be brought to heel and serve "the cause" by "educating" the American people with the politically correct view:
"This is an important moment in the history of the AMS," said Daniel Souweine, the campaign's director. "It's well known that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change deniers. It's essential that the AMS Council resist pressure from these deniers and pass the strong statement currently under consideration."
In the coming months the campaign plans to launch a full-fledged initiative to educate and activate communities at the local level. Grassroots outreach efforts will include a robust and creative online and offline engagement campaign, including video, advertising, and activist tool-kits, among other interactive elements.
Did the pressure campaign work, or did the 63% of the member of the AMS prevail? Are you kidding me? Like there was even a contest? Here is the new and current position of the AMS:
Despite the uncertainties noted above, there is adequate evidence from observations and interpretations of climate simulations to conclude that the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; that humans have significantly contributed to this change; and that further climate change will continue to have important impacts on human societies, on economies, on ecosystems, and on wildlife through the 21st century and beyond.
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Political pressure on scientists in all fields has been applied constantly and vigorously since the late Eighties to get everyone to conform to create a false consensus for the idea of man induced warming. Combined with the money behind the grant funding machine, intimidation and pressue and the all out propaganda war in favor of AGW theory, one scientific body after another has assumed the politically correct position. Last September, Nobel Prize winning physicist, Ivar Giaever finally had enough of AGW othodoxy at The American Physical Society. Giaever was one of President Obama's key scientific supporters in 2008. He joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorsing Obama in an October 29, 2008 open letter. Despite this seeming ideological connection to one of the world's most vocal AGW believers, Gieaver, along with many other highly respected members resigned in protest to the APS's public stance that manmade warming was an "incontrovertible fact. Gieaver lamented that climate science was somehow special and not in need of following traditional scientific practices and standards:
“In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”
Whether you agree with Gieaver or not, it cannot be argued that he is absolutely correct in asserting that the same level of scrutiny and validation is not being given to climate science as to other fields like physics. The propaganda war and the pressure for everyone to conform is clearly more like a political movement than real science:
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
None, eh Naomi? Not even one? Here is a woman who talks about "normative" climate theology. I guess that means if you don't believe in her religion, you are some kind of crazy heretic. That said, Oreskes is totally and completely wrong about this. According to S. Fred Singer:
she missed more than 11,000 papers [oops!] through an incorrect Internet search. She published a discreet "Correction"; yet she has never retracted her ideologically based claim about consensus. Al Gore still quotes her result, which has been contradicted by several, more competent studies (by Peiser, Schulte, Bray and von Storch; Lemonick in SciAm, etc).
Mark Alexander of The Patriot Post chimes in:
A 2007 analysis of peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published studies contesting one or more of Gore's apocalyptic prognosis. In fact, more than 300 of those scientists reported evidence that normal 1,500-year climate cycles since the last Ice Age have produced more than a dozen global warming trends similar to the current trend, and that current warming trends are strongly linked to variances in the Sun's irradiance. These variances occur because the Earth's orbit around the Sun varies from a round to elliptical shape cyclically.
In addition studies like the CERN experiment with cosmic rays and this report by Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab which concludes that the Earth's climate is only one third as sensitive to CO2 as the IPCC believes show the game changing nature of some of these adavances in our knowledge of climate. If Schwartz's study is validated, this would mean less than a half a degree temperature rise caused by a doubling of CO2. In other words, nothing to give another thought about. However, you can be sure that attempts to validate that theory won't get a lot of funding from the gatekeepers of climate cash. The point is that every day scientists are learning something new about the climate that changes the way we understand it. The claim that there is a consensus of scientists or that consensus opinion is proper science is ridiculous.
105===================================================================================================
While that may be true for "science" it is the exact opposite for PR. A good public relations campaign is about creating a momentum for what you want to sell and to convince everyone to buy it because all the "experts" say it is fantastic. If the smart people like it. It must be good. Therefore, a critical aspect of AGW supporters program of creating the illusion of consensus is to do everything in their power to pressure the Scientific Associations like the ones Oreskes described above to take strong positions in favor of "normative" climate science.
For instance, a pro-AGW activist group called "Forecast The Facts" (I'm not kidding) pressured the American Meteorological Society to get with the program. They were alarmed that a recent study by George Mason University in March 2010 found that:
63% of T.V. meteorologists think climate change is due to natural causes, and a full 27% think global warming is a scam
Oh the horror! We can't have the people that Americans trust to give them the weather every day believe warming is caused by natural forces. Perish the thought! They must be brought to heel and serve "the cause" by "educating" the American people with the politically correct view:
"This is an important moment in the history of the AMS," said Daniel Souweine, the campaign's director. "It's well known that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change deniers. It's essential that the AMS Council resist pressure from these deniers and pass the strong statement currently under consideration."
In the coming months the campaign plans to launch a full-fledged initiative to educate and activate communities at the local level. Grassroots outreach efforts will include a robust and creative online and offline engagement campaign, including video, advertising, and activist tool-kits, among other interactive elements.
Did the pressure campaign work, or did the 63% of the member of the AMS prevail? Are you kidding me? Like there was even a contest? Here is the new and current position of the AMS:
Despite the uncertainties noted above, there is adequate evidence from observations and interpretations of climate simulations to conclude that the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; that humans have significantly contributed to this change; and that further climate change will continue to have important impacts on human societies, on economies, on ecosystems, and on wildlife through the 21st century and beyond.
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Political pressure on scientists in all fields has been applied constantly and vigorously since the late Eighties to get everyone to conform to create a false consensus for the idea of man induced warming. Combined with the money behind the grant funding machine, intimidation and pressue and the all out propaganda war in favor of AGW theory, one scientific body after another has assumed the politically correct position. Last September, Nobel Prize winning physicist, Ivar Giaever finally had enough of AGW othodoxy at The American Physical Society. Giaever was one of President Obama's key scientific supporters in 2008. He joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorsing Obama in an October 29, 2008 open letter. Despite this seeming ideological connection to one of the world's most vocal AGW believers, Gieaver, along with many other highly respected members resigned in protest to the APS's public stance that manmade warming was an "incontrovertible fact. Gieaver lamented that climate science was somehow special and not in need of following traditional scientific practices and standards:
“In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”
Whether you agree with Gieaver or not, it cannot be argued that he is absolutely correct in asserting that the same level of scrutiny and validation is not being given to climate science as to other fields like physics. The propaganda war and the pressure for everyone to conform is clearly more like a political movement than real science:
_The understanding of how truly political the AGW movement is as James Delingpole suggests is essential in understanding their strategy and tactics and why science has taken a back seat to politics and ideology. For those on the left, as Obama's hero Saul Alinsky opined:
The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work...
The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means....
For the true believers in AGW theory, the struggle to save the planet from human emisions of CO2 is the equivalent of war. Therefore, any means necessary to achieve that goal must be utilized. So, someone as eloquent and convincing as Mr. Delingpole is in exposing their true aims and corruption must be silenced:
The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work...
The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means....
For the true believers in AGW theory, the struggle to save the planet from human emisions of CO2 is the equivalent of war. Therefore, any means necessary to achieve that goal must be utilized. So, someone as eloquent and convincing as Mr. Delingpole is in exposing their true aims and corruption must be silenced:
_ Apparently, the underlying science behind AGW theory is so weak
that it cannot withstand scrutiny and debate. Therefore, anyone who
disagrees with the AGW orthodoxy must be destroyed and silenced. The messianic delusions caused by the Kool Aid that the climate Cassandras are drinking is so powerful it destroys any sense of perspective and rational thought. These fine caring souls are out to save the world, you see, and if that means that they must use whatever means at their disposal to eliminate any dissent then so be it. The earth will be saved by any means necessary and they will brook no opposition:
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The extreme level of demagoguery and politicization of science on this subject and the total intolerance of dissent that the left are willing to resort to should seriously make you question their intentions. They want to do to the debate on climate change what they have succeeded doing on college campuses: stifle free speech in the name of political correctness. But, these climate zealots aren't just content with silencing and ostracizing their critics. Why, just the other day, Dr. James Hanson let go with this whopper:
The extreme level of demagoguery and politicization of science on this subject and the total intolerance of dissent that the left are willing to resort to should seriously make you question their intentions. They want to do to the debate on climate change what they have succeeded doing on college campuses: stifle free speech in the name of political correctness. But, these climate zealots aren't just content with silencing and ostracizing their critics. Why, just the other day, Dr. James Hanson let go with this whopper:
Can you believe that? Sounds to me like the AGW left want to usher in a new era of communist-style purges! If that alone isn't enough to make you question how completely out of control these people are, nothing will. And they call the Tea Party extremist!
Notice that according to Hansen, "revolutionary" policies will be necessary to save the world. This has been the siren call from the left for the past fifty years. First it was Rachel Carson and her thoroughly debunked attack on DDT which caused the needless death of millions. Then there were the dire warnings of a demographic catastrophe made famous by Paul Ehrlich in his book The Population Bomb. In this book, Ehrlich suggested that the rate of population growth would quickly outstrip the growth in the supply of food and resources causing massive famines and scarcity. Then in the Seventies there was global cooling. And now, there is manmade global warming that is going to kill us all. In each and every one of these cases, an intellectual elite determined that their advanced brains and enlightened points of view could spot the problem (human progress) and create a solution (a massive increase in government power and control over people's lives by their betters).
108==================================================================================================
One need look no further to President Obama's science advisor John Holdren to see how this leftist charade has played out over the last fifty years and, thus how it is playing out now. That's because Holdren has had a starring role in each and every one of these attempted leftist power grabs. Earlier in his career Holdren worked with Paul Ehrlich on books warning about how overpopulation would kill us all. According to Ehrlich:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
- Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, (New York: Ballentine Books, 1968), p. 13.
Yikes! Did it happen? Well, no. Actually the opposite occurred because of the work of Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the "Green Revolution". And what was Ehrlich's buddy John Holdren's opinion of Borlaug a man who is one of only five people ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Talking to a reporter in 1970, Holdren dismissed Boralaug's new crops as a disaster and not suitable to Africa and Asia saying:
“We cannot use the same technological bludgeon on the underdeveloped countries that we have used on our own, seriously deteriorating our environment”
Oops! Had we listened to Holdren, Billions of people might have starved. You'd think that a guy with that kind of egg on his face would have learned a little humility, but you'd be wrong. Both Holdren and Ehrlich would spend their careers making astonishingly erroneous predictions:
“We can be reasonably sure . . . that within the next quarter of a century [by 2000] mankind will be looking elsewhere than in oil wells for its main source of energy.”
- Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, The End of Affluence (Rivercity, Mass.: Rivercity Press, 1974, 1975), p. 49.
This, of course, was where Jimmy Carter got that idiotic idea in his head that the world would be out of oil by 2000. Of course, that prediction didn't pan out too well either. Oil is still king and will be for the foreseeable future. And how about this whopper:
“We are not, of course, optimistic about our chances of success. Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century. (The inability to forecast exactly which one – whether plague, famine, the poisoning of the oceans, drastic climatic change, or some disaster entirely unforeseen – is hardly grounds for complacency.)”
- John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, ‘What We Must Do, and the Cost of Failure’, in Holdren and Ehrlich, Global Ecology, p. 279
So popular was Paul Ehrlich amongst the leftist intelligentsia and so incredibly wrong in reality (reminds you a bit of Obama, no?), that Julian Simon professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute decided to challenge Ehrlich to a bet. Simon allowed Ehrlich to choose five commodity metals and bet him that the price would go down on all of them. Ehrlich chose copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten. Is there any doubt in your mind what happened? Of course not, the price for all five went down in price.
Prophetically, Holdren in trying to defend his audacious predictions and pat himself on the back for the courageous stand he took in making them said:
“We have been warned by our more cautious colleagues that those who discuss threats of sociological and ecological disaster run the risk of being ‘discredited’ if those threats fail to materialize on schedule.”
- John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, eds., Global Ecology (1971), p. 6.
Looks like these guys should have listened to their "cautious" colleagues, eh? I show you all of this, not to once again point out that what sounds good in theory and in the classroom doesn't necessarily work in reality (the greatest failing of the left), but to show you how spectacularly misguided these two gentlemen are. And, yet, they would become two of the most important thinkers and shapers of leftist thought and action.
109===================================================================================================
These two leftist doom mongers were and still are true believers that man is a cancer on the planet and he is doomed to commit "ecocide". At first, Ehrlich and Holdren wrote together about the crisis of overpopulation. At that time the population of the world was 3.6 billion people. To give you an idea of how ludicrous their warnings of famine and resource scarcity was, the population of the world has doubled to over 7 billion people. Yet, none of the dire predictions of these two men have come true.
However, back in the heady days of the late Sixties and early Seventies, before reality would make a mockery of them, they were very concerned about the fate of the planet. Something must be done about the population explosion, they warned, or their will be a catastrophe. What was their solution to the population problem? From Holdren's book Ecoscience (that name says it all doesn't it?):
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, environment (1977) p. 837
“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone...It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.” p.786
“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.
…
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.” pp.786-87
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.” pp.787-88
If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns--providing they are not denied equal protection. p.838
Notice that according to Hansen, "revolutionary" policies will be necessary to save the world. This has been the siren call from the left for the past fifty years. First it was Rachel Carson and her thoroughly debunked attack on DDT which caused the needless death of millions. Then there were the dire warnings of a demographic catastrophe made famous by Paul Ehrlich in his book The Population Bomb. In this book, Ehrlich suggested that the rate of population growth would quickly outstrip the growth in the supply of food and resources causing massive famines and scarcity. Then in the Seventies there was global cooling. And now, there is manmade global warming that is going to kill us all. In each and every one of these cases, an intellectual elite determined that their advanced brains and enlightened points of view could spot the problem (human progress) and create a solution (a massive increase in government power and control over people's lives by their betters).
108==================================================================================================
One need look no further to President Obama's science advisor John Holdren to see how this leftist charade has played out over the last fifty years and, thus how it is playing out now. That's because Holdren has had a starring role in each and every one of these attempted leftist power grabs. Earlier in his career Holdren worked with Paul Ehrlich on books warning about how overpopulation would kill us all. According to Ehrlich:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
- Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb, (New York: Ballentine Books, 1968), p. 13.
Yikes! Did it happen? Well, no. Actually the opposite occurred because of the work of Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the "Green Revolution". And what was Ehrlich's buddy John Holdren's opinion of Borlaug a man who is one of only five people ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Talking to a reporter in 1970, Holdren dismissed Boralaug's new crops as a disaster and not suitable to Africa and Asia saying:
“We cannot use the same technological bludgeon on the underdeveloped countries that we have used on our own, seriously deteriorating our environment”
Oops! Had we listened to Holdren, Billions of people might have starved. You'd think that a guy with that kind of egg on his face would have learned a little humility, but you'd be wrong. Both Holdren and Ehrlich would spend their careers making astonishingly erroneous predictions:
“We can be reasonably sure . . . that within the next quarter of a century [by 2000] mankind will be looking elsewhere than in oil wells for its main source of energy.”
- Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, The End of Affluence (Rivercity, Mass.: Rivercity Press, 1974, 1975), p. 49.
This, of course, was where Jimmy Carter got that idiotic idea in his head that the world would be out of oil by 2000. Of course, that prediction didn't pan out too well either. Oil is still king and will be for the foreseeable future. And how about this whopper:
“We are not, of course, optimistic about our chances of success. Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century. (The inability to forecast exactly which one – whether plague, famine, the poisoning of the oceans, drastic climatic change, or some disaster entirely unforeseen – is hardly grounds for complacency.)”
- John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, ‘What We Must Do, and the Cost of Failure’, in Holdren and Ehrlich, Global Ecology, p. 279
So popular was Paul Ehrlich amongst the leftist intelligentsia and so incredibly wrong in reality (reminds you a bit of Obama, no?), that Julian Simon professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute decided to challenge Ehrlich to a bet. Simon allowed Ehrlich to choose five commodity metals and bet him that the price would go down on all of them. Ehrlich chose copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten. Is there any doubt in your mind what happened? Of course not, the price for all five went down in price.
Prophetically, Holdren in trying to defend his audacious predictions and pat himself on the back for the courageous stand he took in making them said:
“We have been warned by our more cautious colleagues that those who discuss threats of sociological and ecological disaster run the risk of being ‘discredited’ if those threats fail to materialize on schedule.”
- John Holdren and Paul Ehrlich, eds., Global Ecology (1971), p. 6.
Looks like these guys should have listened to their "cautious" colleagues, eh? I show you all of this, not to once again point out that what sounds good in theory and in the classroom doesn't necessarily work in reality (the greatest failing of the left), but to show you how spectacularly misguided these two gentlemen are. And, yet, they would become two of the most important thinkers and shapers of leftist thought and action.
109===================================================================================================
These two leftist doom mongers were and still are true believers that man is a cancer on the planet and he is doomed to commit "ecocide". At first, Ehrlich and Holdren wrote together about the crisis of overpopulation. At that time the population of the world was 3.6 billion people. To give you an idea of how ludicrous their warnings of famine and resource scarcity was, the population of the world has doubled to over 7 billion people. Yet, none of the dire predictions of these two men have come true.
However, back in the heady days of the late Sixties and early Seventies, before reality would make a mockery of them, they were very concerned about the fate of the planet. Something must be done about the population explosion, they warned, or their will be a catastrophe. What was their solution to the population problem? From Holdren's book Ecoscience (that name says it all doesn't it?):
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, environment (1977) p. 837
“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone...It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.” p.786
“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.
…
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.” pp.786-87
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.” pp.787-88
If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns--providing they are not denied equal protection. p.838
Unbelievable, eh? compulsory abortion, forcing women to marry, abort or give the child up for abortion, forced sterilization and secretly adding sterilants to the drinking water. All this, and a requirement to exercise "responsibility in their resource consumption pattern". No big car for you! Here's a nice little motor scooter!
You'd think Holdren must have skipped his classes on the bill of rights and the Constitution. Unbelievably, he does expend considerable effort in twisting logic and legalisms in trying to make the case that the dire nature of the |
emergency would actually make these kinds of laws constitutionally viable. However, there can be no doubt that Holdren believes that individual freedom means nothing when compared to the needs of the collective. Especially when, in his mind, it is the irresponsible behavior of individuals that is causing the crisis.
110===================================================================================================
While all of these "cures" are far more alarming even than the dire predictions of these two academics, their theories were very popular in leftist circles. However, no one in government was doing anything about it. I can't imagine why, can you? It was then that the two men hooked up with Stephen Schneider. Yes, the same Schneider of IPCC and "dramatic and scary" fame. Schneider told them about a new theory he had which predicted that man's industrialization would cause global cooling which would lead to a new ice age. Ehrlich and Holdren immediately saw the possibilities this might have in moving forward with their population control agenda.
Journalist Jerome Corsi describes how Ehrlich and Holdren pivoted to reflect Schneider's dire predictions:
Warning the world was headed for a new ice age unless the government mandated urgent measures to control population, including the possibility of involuntary birth control measures such as forced sterilizations, Holdren predicted “ecocide” or the “destruction of all life on this planet” were a possible consequence of inaction.
In an essay contained in the textbook entitled “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide,” Holdren and Ehrlich predicted on pages 76-77 a “world cooling trend” they estimated at measuring “about 2 degrees Celsius in the world mean surface temperature over the past century.”
Holdren and Ehrlich attributed the cause of global cooling to “a reduced transparency of the atmosphere to incoming light as a result of urban air pollutions (smoke, aerosols), agriculture air pollution (dust), and volcanic oil.” (Parenthesis in original text.)
The authors worried “a mere 1 percent increase in low cloud cover would decrease the surface temperature by .8°C” and that “a decrease of 4°C would probably be sufficient to cause another ice age.”
Holdren and Ehrlich warned, “The effects of a new ice age on agriculture and the supportability of large populations scarcely need elaboration here.”
They continued: “Even more dramatic results are possible, however; for instance, a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”
The authors then predicted global cooling could “give way to global warming,” writing: “If man survives the comparatively short-term threat of making the planet too cold, there is every indication he is quite capable of making it too warm not long thereafter.”
Why? Because overpopulation would lead to increased energy consumption and energy consumption would produce more heat, the authors argued.
Holdren and Ehrlich explained, “The present rate of increase in energy use, if continued, will bring us in about a century to the point where our heat input could have drastic global consequences. Again, the exact form such consequences might take is unknown; the melting of the icecaps with a concomitant 150 foot increase in sea level might be one of them.”
Interestingly, Holdren predicted the “short-term” nature of a coming new ice age was not caused by increased population putting increased carbon dioxide greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, but simply because of the heat output of energy use itself.
Schneider, Ehrlich's and Holdren's warnings of a new ice age was immediately picked up by a sympathetic press. The New York Times warned that global cooling was "widely" seen as inevitable and Time Magazine spent five years covering global cooling and by 1977 thought it so important they gave it a double issue:
110===================================================================================================
While all of these "cures" are far more alarming even than the dire predictions of these two academics, their theories were very popular in leftist circles. However, no one in government was doing anything about it. I can't imagine why, can you? It was then that the two men hooked up with Stephen Schneider. Yes, the same Schneider of IPCC and "dramatic and scary" fame. Schneider told them about a new theory he had which predicted that man's industrialization would cause global cooling which would lead to a new ice age. Ehrlich and Holdren immediately saw the possibilities this might have in moving forward with their population control agenda.
Journalist Jerome Corsi describes how Ehrlich and Holdren pivoted to reflect Schneider's dire predictions:
Warning the world was headed for a new ice age unless the government mandated urgent measures to control population, including the possibility of involuntary birth control measures such as forced sterilizations, Holdren predicted “ecocide” or the “destruction of all life on this planet” were a possible consequence of inaction.
In an essay contained in the textbook entitled “Overpopulation and the Potential for Ecocide,” Holdren and Ehrlich predicted on pages 76-77 a “world cooling trend” they estimated at measuring “about 2 degrees Celsius in the world mean surface temperature over the past century.”
Holdren and Ehrlich attributed the cause of global cooling to “a reduced transparency of the atmosphere to incoming light as a result of urban air pollutions (smoke, aerosols), agriculture air pollution (dust), and volcanic oil.” (Parenthesis in original text.)
The authors worried “a mere 1 percent increase in low cloud cover would decrease the surface temperature by .8°C” and that “a decrease of 4°C would probably be sufficient to cause another ice age.”
Holdren and Ehrlich warned, “The effects of a new ice age on agriculture and the supportability of large populations scarcely need elaboration here.”
They continued: “Even more dramatic results are possible, however; for instance, a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”
The authors then predicted global cooling could “give way to global warming,” writing: “If man survives the comparatively short-term threat of making the planet too cold, there is every indication he is quite capable of making it too warm not long thereafter.”
Why? Because overpopulation would lead to increased energy consumption and energy consumption would produce more heat, the authors argued.
Holdren and Ehrlich explained, “The present rate of increase in energy use, if continued, will bring us in about a century to the point where our heat input could have drastic global consequences. Again, the exact form such consequences might take is unknown; the melting of the icecaps with a concomitant 150 foot increase in sea level might be one of them.”
Interestingly, Holdren predicted the “short-term” nature of a coming new ice age was not caused by increased population putting increased carbon dioxide greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, but simply because of the heat output of energy use itself.
Schneider, Ehrlich's and Holdren's warnings of a new ice age was immediately picked up by a sympathetic press. The New York Times warned that global cooling was "widely" seen as inevitable and Time Magazine spent five years covering global cooling and by 1977 thought it so important they gave it a double issue:
And magically, the things you could do to make a difference was to exercise "responsibility" for your resource consumption patterns! Imagine that! Maybe Holdren and Ehrlich couldn't get everyone to change their lifestyles to save the world from overpopulation, but another ice age might just scare enough people to make their dream of elitist management of society a reality. Therefore, they and their allies in the left launched a major propaganda campaign to make the case that the cold weather everyone was experiencing would only get worse unless things changed. A lot worse!
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For many years during the Seventies, Americans were constantly told by the major newspapers and magazines that "scientists", the experts, were telling us that we needed to repent of our high living off of things like fossil fuels or the end would be nigh. How eerily similar to what we have today with the prescriptions of the AGW alarmists, eh? This has not gone unnoticed in the halls of Congress:
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For many years during the Seventies, Americans were constantly told by the major newspapers and magazines that "scientists", the experts, were telling us that we needed to repent of our high living off of things like fossil fuels or the end would be nigh. How eerily similar to what we have today with the prescriptions of the AGW alarmists, eh? This has not gone unnoticed in the halls of Congress:
What is fascinating about this video isn't that Holdren's dire warnings about a catastrophe that didn't come true, but how Holdren manages to peddle the exact same climate scare story as if no one remembers how fantastically wrong he was the last time. Indeed, Holdren presents the same case for a positive feedback loop and warns of similar catastrophic events caused by polar ice and the oceans. The only difference now is that he has substituted heat for ice. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?
So, what was Holdren's and Ehrlich's solution to global cooling in the Seventies? Why exactly the same things that AGW alarmists are calling for now:
“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States…De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation.
…The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.”
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (1973)
Hmm, de-development? That sounds a lot like cap and trade and carbon caps and rationing. The redistribution of wealth from rich nations to poorer ones? That sounds a lot like the $100 billion dollars a year the UN wants to take from developed countries in order to give it to the less developed nations of the world in a new climate treaty. And the elimination of carbon based energy proposed by the IPCC would have the same "de-developing" effect too. Coincidence? Not likely.
How did Holdren envision that change of this magnitude could be made to occur? Why, with the same solution the left has for everything:
“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, environment (1977) pp. 942-43
If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, environment (1977) p.917
My, my, my! Talk about a big government solution. Holdren and Ehrlich propose nothing less than United Nations control over all of the national resources of the earth in addition to compulsory population control enforced by an international police force. And people wonder why the "black helicopter" crowd is so paranoid. But, when you think about it, UN control over carbon emissions as the AGW crrowd is currently calling for is only a step or two below this grand proposal.
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Unfortunately for Holdren and his allies on the left, nothing came of the global cooling or the population scares. The means may have died, but the ends remained the same. Thus, when Stephen Schneider and James Hansen of NASA went from saying modern society was causing global cooling to predicting that modern society was giving the earth a fever, Holdren was quickly on board this newest scheme to de-develop the United States and surrender power to the United Nations. Instead of global cooling, the new leftist flavor of the day would be global warming or, as Holdren likes to categorize it: Climate Disruption.
For Holdren, whatever the flavor may be, whether it is a population bomb, a new ice age, or the planet having a fever, the predictions are equally dire and the solutions almost identical: more power for global governance and a lower standard of living for all. To further that end, he managed to maneuver himself to become President of the American Association For The Advancement Of Science.
If you want to understand how totally political and corrupt these scientific associations are, then realize that they would elect as their president a man who had spent a career being notoriously wrong in virtually every one of his scientific prognostications. Somehow, despite his failure as a scientist, he was very well thought of by the leftist academics and he had some very powerful friends in the political world greasing the skids for him. The AAAS is probably the most powerful scientific association in the world. According to their website:
AAAS serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million.
So, Holdren had siezed control of the most powerful and important political office in all of science. He now had the ability to "educate", pressure, cajole, bribe with research grants and propagandize to virtually every scientist and scientific organization in America. Imagine what someone with a strong radical agenda could accomplish from that position of power. Realize that in service to "the cause", he did that and much much more. This time he would realize his life's work. The issue may have changed, but Holdren's song always remains the same:
So, what was Holdren's and Ehrlich's solution to global cooling in the Seventies? Why exactly the same things that AGW alarmists are calling for now:
“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States…De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation.
…The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.”
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (1973)
Hmm, de-development? That sounds a lot like cap and trade and carbon caps and rationing. The redistribution of wealth from rich nations to poorer ones? That sounds a lot like the $100 billion dollars a year the UN wants to take from developed countries in order to give it to the less developed nations of the world in a new climate treaty. And the elimination of carbon based energy proposed by the IPCC would have the same "de-developing" effect too. Coincidence? Not likely.
How did Holdren envision that change of this magnitude could be made to occur? Why, with the same solution the left has for everything:
“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, environment (1977) pp. 942-43
If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.
- John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich and Ann Ehrlich, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, environment (1977) p.917
My, my, my! Talk about a big government solution. Holdren and Ehrlich propose nothing less than United Nations control over all of the national resources of the earth in addition to compulsory population control enforced by an international police force. And people wonder why the "black helicopter" crowd is so paranoid. But, when you think about it, UN control over carbon emissions as the AGW crrowd is currently calling for is only a step or two below this grand proposal.
112====================================================================================================
Unfortunately for Holdren and his allies on the left, nothing came of the global cooling or the population scares. The means may have died, but the ends remained the same. Thus, when Stephen Schneider and James Hansen of NASA went from saying modern society was causing global cooling to predicting that modern society was giving the earth a fever, Holdren was quickly on board this newest scheme to de-develop the United States and surrender power to the United Nations. Instead of global cooling, the new leftist flavor of the day would be global warming or, as Holdren likes to categorize it: Climate Disruption.
For Holdren, whatever the flavor may be, whether it is a population bomb, a new ice age, or the planet having a fever, the predictions are equally dire and the solutions almost identical: more power for global governance and a lower standard of living for all. To further that end, he managed to maneuver himself to become President of the American Association For The Advancement Of Science.
If you want to understand how totally political and corrupt these scientific associations are, then realize that they would elect as their president a man who had spent a career being notoriously wrong in virtually every one of his scientific prognostications. Somehow, despite his failure as a scientist, he was very well thought of by the leftist academics and he had some very powerful friends in the political world greasing the skids for him. The AAAS is probably the most powerful scientific association in the world. According to their website:
AAAS serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million.
So, Holdren had siezed control of the most powerful and important political office in all of science. He now had the ability to "educate", pressure, cajole, bribe with research grants and propagandize to virtually every scientist and scientific organization in America. Imagine what someone with a strong radical agenda could accomplish from that position of power. Realize that in service to "the cause", he did that and much much more. This time he would realize his life's work. The issue may have changed, but Holdren's song always remains the same:
It got even better for Mr. Holdren and his allies. Despite all of his erroneous predictions and misguided and unconstitutional solutions to problems that never were, John Holdren finds himself in the position of being the chief scientist of the United States. Apparently, as far as the left and President Obama are concerned, past performance is not always indicative of future failure. But, then that's just par for the course for this president and the entire progressive movement.
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Now that he is the Science Czar, Holdren is free to orchestrate his schemes from within the government. A huge part of that is coordinating the propaganda campaign and shaping the argument in favor of AGW theory and its solutions. For instance in the 2008 election Obama and the left sold America on all the "green jobs" that they will create for Holdren's new post-carbon world. Three years later they still continue to chant the "green jobs" mantra despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is a classic misdirection play. To alleviate the many obvious concerns about the de-devoloping of the world or carbon caps as the case may be, the shrewd political move is to tout all the new jobs that will somehow be created in the conversion. It is an excellent tactic to draw peoople's attention away from the obvious fact that you are asking them to share an artificial scarcity and portion out through rationing that which individuals and society at large have in abundance. Individuals natural and logical tendency would be to think that this might have a negative impact on employment and prosperity. Holdren was one of the early pioneers of this orchestrated deception:
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Now that he is the Science Czar, Holdren is free to orchestrate his schemes from within the government. A huge part of that is coordinating the propaganda campaign and shaping the argument in favor of AGW theory and its solutions. For instance in the 2008 election Obama and the left sold America on all the "green jobs" that they will create for Holdren's new post-carbon world. Three years later they still continue to chant the "green jobs" mantra despite all the evidence to the contrary. It is a classic misdirection play. To alleviate the many obvious concerns about the de-devoloping of the world or carbon caps as the case may be, the shrewd political move is to tout all the new jobs that will somehow be created in the conversion. It is an excellent tactic to draw peoople's attention away from the obvious fact that you are asking them to share an artificial scarcity and portion out through rationing that which individuals and society at large have in abundance. Individuals natural and logical tendency would be to think that this might have a negative impact on employment and prosperity. Holdren was one of the early pioneers of this orchestrated deception:
Less energy can mean more employment! That's an even bigger crock than Obama's "green jobs" nonsense. It is, therefore, not surprising that Holdren is in regular contact with Michael (nature trick) Mann whose "hockey stick" graphs were equally rubbish in service to "the cause". In an e-mail to our old friends Mann and Tom (I am stunned!) Wigley uncovered in the Climategate scandal, Holdren talks to Mann about a dialogue he was having in defense of the hockey stick. Michelle Malkin reports that Holdren wrote to his chums:
“I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my “Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or less self-explanatory.”
I have engaged in over the past few days trying to educate a Soon/Baliunas supporter who originally wrote to me asking how I could think that Soon and Baliunas are wrong and Mann et al. are right (a view attributed to me, correctly, in the Harvard Crimson). This individual apparently runs a web site on which he had been touting the Soon/Baliunas position.”
The exchange Holdren refers to is a challenge by Nick Schulz editor of Tech Central Station (TCS). On August 9, 2003 Schulz wrote;
“In a recent Crimson story on the work of Soon and Baliunas, who have written for my website techcentralstation.com, you are quoted as saying: My impression is that the critics are right. It s unfortunate that so much attention is paid to a flawed analysis, but that’s what happens when something happens to support the political climate in Washington. Do you feel the same way about the work of Mann et. al.? If not why not?”
After the first response Schulz replies,
“I guess my problem concerns what lawyers call the burden of proof. The burden weighs heavily, much more heavily, given the claims on Mann et.al. than it does on Soon/Baliunas. Would you agree?”
Of course, Holdren doesn’t agree. He replies,
“But, in practice, burden of proof is an evolving thing-it evolves as the amount of evidence relevant to a particular proposition grows.”
No it doesn’t evolve; it is either on one side or the other. This argument is in line with what has happened with AGW. He then demonstrates his lack of understanding of science and climate science by opting for Mann and his hockey stick over Soon and Baliunas. His entire defense and position devolves to a political position. His attempt to belittle Soon and Baliunas in front of colleagues is a measure of the man’s blindness and political opportunism that pervades everything he says or does…
That Holdren chose to side with the later discredited Mann over the now vindicated scientists Baliunas and Soon who were authors of excellent work confirming the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) from a multitude of sources, shows that our Science Czar is at least consistent. He is consitently wrong about just about everything. What Ms. Malkin says though is critical. The burden of proof in science does not "evolve". Political positions may evolve, but science does not. The left has had fifty yeears to hone their arguments and to learn from their mistakes in their efforts to transfer world power to the UN. The idea that consensus is relevant at all or that Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability is somehow no longer valid for this one particular area of science is antithetical to anything remotely resembling true science. It is however an excellent method of political persuasion.
114===================================================================================================
When President Obama nominated John P. Holdren to be his Science Adviser, he stated "promoting science isn’t just about providing resources" but "ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology." Can you believe the chutzpah? When it comes to John Holdren and the left's fifty year war to politicize science for their own ends, nothing could be further from the truth.
I have spent so much time discussing Holdren because his life's journey shows us the roadmap that the left is using to fool the world into surrendering its rights in the idea that doing so will save the planet. Always it is a "consensus" of scientific experts who have seen a crisis coming that the rest of us lesser beings didn't notice. If only we surrender our national and personal autonomy to them, all will be well and the planet will be saved.
Back in the Seventies the left was unable to bring enough scientists into the fold to create a "consensus" momentum. Back then, the most comprehensive study on climate change (and the closest thing to a scientific consensus at the time) was the 1975 US National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Report. They concluded that:
"…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…"
This time, John Holdren and his radical leftist buddies would not make the same mistake. They have gathered their forces and fifty years of leftist learning in how to successfully dominate the government bureaucracies, the NGO's, academia and the entertainment and news media world. They have successfully bought, persuaded, bullied and intimidated scientists into treating their holy grail of manmade global warmng as something that should be treated seperately and differently than all other fields of science. No longer does it matter that the real world observable evidence does not match the hypothesis. No longer does it matter that the burden of proof has shifted from their theory to those skeptical of it. No longer is the integrity of the peer review process or the reliability of measuring instruments and data of any relevance to validating the theory. This time the argument will be won on the politics, not the science.
John Holdren and his allies in every sector of the left are going to "educate" the American people and let them know that once again their "betters" have forseen a problem and are coming to the rescue with solutions that will save the planet. All they ask is that you surrender just a little bit of your prosperity and freedom into their hands and they'll make everything right.
Is it not truly ironic that John Holdren, who has made a career out of making alarmist predictions that never came true, is once again ressurecting his Chicken Little routine and screaming that once again the sky is falling? Perhaps, but this time he has his act down pat:
“I’m forwarding for your entertainment an exchange that followed from my being quoted in the Harvard Crimson to the effect that you and your colleagues are right and my “Harvard” colleagues Soon and Baliunas are wrong about what the evidence shows concerning surface temperatures over the past millennium. The cover note to faculty and postdocs in a regular Wednesday breakfast discussion group on environmental science and public policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is more or less self-explanatory.”
I have engaged in over the past few days trying to educate a Soon/Baliunas supporter who originally wrote to me asking how I could think that Soon and Baliunas are wrong and Mann et al. are right (a view attributed to me, correctly, in the Harvard Crimson). This individual apparently runs a web site on which he had been touting the Soon/Baliunas position.”
The exchange Holdren refers to is a challenge by Nick Schulz editor of Tech Central Station (TCS). On August 9, 2003 Schulz wrote;
“In a recent Crimson story on the work of Soon and Baliunas, who have written for my website techcentralstation.com, you are quoted as saying: My impression is that the critics are right. It s unfortunate that so much attention is paid to a flawed analysis, but that’s what happens when something happens to support the political climate in Washington. Do you feel the same way about the work of Mann et. al.? If not why not?”
After the first response Schulz replies,
“I guess my problem concerns what lawyers call the burden of proof. The burden weighs heavily, much more heavily, given the claims on Mann et.al. than it does on Soon/Baliunas. Would you agree?”
Of course, Holdren doesn’t agree. He replies,
“But, in practice, burden of proof is an evolving thing-it evolves as the amount of evidence relevant to a particular proposition grows.”
No it doesn’t evolve; it is either on one side or the other. This argument is in line with what has happened with AGW. He then demonstrates his lack of understanding of science and climate science by opting for Mann and his hockey stick over Soon and Baliunas. His entire defense and position devolves to a political position. His attempt to belittle Soon and Baliunas in front of colleagues is a measure of the man’s blindness and political opportunism that pervades everything he says or does…
That Holdren chose to side with the later discredited Mann over the now vindicated scientists Baliunas and Soon who were authors of excellent work confirming the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) from a multitude of sources, shows that our Science Czar is at least consistent. He is consitently wrong about just about everything. What Ms. Malkin says though is critical. The burden of proof in science does not "evolve". Political positions may evolve, but science does not. The left has had fifty yeears to hone their arguments and to learn from their mistakes in their efforts to transfer world power to the UN. The idea that consensus is relevant at all or that Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability is somehow no longer valid for this one particular area of science is antithetical to anything remotely resembling true science. It is however an excellent method of political persuasion.
114===================================================================================================
When President Obama nominated John P. Holdren to be his Science Adviser, he stated "promoting science isn’t just about providing resources" but "ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology." Can you believe the chutzpah? When it comes to John Holdren and the left's fifty year war to politicize science for their own ends, nothing could be further from the truth.
I have spent so much time discussing Holdren because his life's journey shows us the roadmap that the left is using to fool the world into surrendering its rights in the idea that doing so will save the planet. Always it is a "consensus" of scientific experts who have seen a crisis coming that the rest of us lesser beings didn't notice. If only we surrender our national and personal autonomy to them, all will be well and the planet will be saved.
Back in the Seventies the left was unable to bring enough scientists into the fold to create a "consensus" momentum. Back then, the most comprehensive study on climate change (and the closest thing to a scientific consensus at the time) was the 1975 US National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Report. They concluded that:
"…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…"
This time, John Holdren and his radical leftist buddies would not make the same mistake. They have gathered their forces and fifty years of leftist learning in how to successfully dominate the government bureaucracies, the NGO's, academia and the entertainment and news media world. They have successfully bought, persuaded, bullied and intimidated scientists into treating their holy grail of manmade global warmng as something that should be treated seperately and differently than all other fields of science. No longer does it matter that the real world observable evidence does not match the hypothesis. No longer does it matter that the burden of proof has shifted from their theory to those skeptical of it. No longer is the integrity of the peer review process or the reliability of measuring instruments and data of any relevance to validating the theory. This time the argument will be won on the politics, not the science.
John Holdren and his allies in every sector of the left are going to "educate" the American people and let them know that once again their "betters" have forseen a problem and are coming to the rescue with solutions that will save the planet. All they ask is that you surrender just a little bit of your prosperity and freedom into their hands and they'll make everything right.
Is it not truly ironic that John Holdren, who has made a career out of making alarmist predictions that never came true, is once again ressurecting his Chicken Little routine and screaming that once again the sky is falling? Perhaps, but this time he has his act down pat:
115===================================================================================================
You've got to hand it to Holdren and the left. They have turned a unique rhetorical trick here with this whole consensus/heretic business. Please, Mr. Chairman, forget about the fact that just a few years ago in a 2006 BBC television interview that I gave in my capacity as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where I suggested that there could be a “catastrophic” rise in seal level of up to 4 meters (or 13 feet) by roughly 2100. Okay, it is true that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that sea level rise this century would be more like seven inches to 23 inches making my prediction look less like science and more like alarmism. And please, Mr. Chairman forget about all the times my friends and I have warned you about a global calamity to come if you don't listen to us. This time we are right! And how do you know? Because "everyone" in the scientific community says so! Believe me, I spent my time as President of the AAAS making sure with all the means at my disposal that everyone would toe the AGW line. So, forget about how wrong I've been in the past. Trust me this time! There is a consensus! Anyone who thinks otherwise is a heretic!
A heretic...A heritic...hmmm, when was the last time I remember someone being called a heretic. Oh, yeah. That's right! When the Catholic Church told that heretic Copernicus and that heretic Galileo that they were no better than scientists who said tobacco was good for you. Silly scientists! Everyone knows that the Universe revolves around the earth. It's settled science. There's a consensus!
Obviously I am being overly sarcastic to make a point, but anyone who says that we should start energy rationing and switch over our electricity productions to costly and unproven technologies had better have something more to say than "trust us" there's a consensus! Especially after so many false warnings, so much manipulated science and so many egregious examples of interest group scare mongering substituting for valid and peer reviewed science. And that, in a nutshell, is why even they understand that the case cannot be made based upon the science. The case must be made based on the myth of a consensus and the Alinsky modeled ridicule and marginalization of critics. It must be made through control of the media-Matrix.
116===================================================================================================
Even the false facade of consensus is beginning to fall apart. Faced with many members who objected to the politicization of climate science and who recognize that warming is too complex a subject to be reduced to the simplistic formula that CO2 will cause a positive feedback loop which will doom us all, the Royal Society has decided that maybe things are less than certain:
You've got to hand it to Holdren and the left. They have turned a unique rhetorical trick here with this whole consensus/heretic business. Please, Mr. Chairman, forget about the fact that just a few years ago in a 2006 BBC television interview that I gave in my capacity as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where I suggested that there could be a “catastrophic” rise in seal level of up to 4 meters (or 13 feet) by roughly 2100. Okay, it is true that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that sea level rise this century would be more like seven inches to 23 inches making my prediction look less like science and more like alarmism. And please, Mr. Chairman forget about all the times my friends and I have warned you about a global calamity to come if you don't listen to us. This time we are right! And how do you know? Because "everyone" in the scientific community says so! Believe me, I spent my time as President of the AAAS making sure with all the means at my disposal that everyone would toe the AGW line. So, forget about how wrong I've been in the past. Trust me this time! There is a consensus! Anyone who thinks otherwise is a heretic!
A heretic...A heritic...hmmm, when was the last time I remember someone being called a heretic. Oh, yeah. That's right! When the Catholic Church told that heretic Copernicus and that heretic Galileo that they were no better than scientists who said tobacco was good for you. Silly scientists! Everyone knows that the Universe revolves around the earth. It's settled science. There's a consensus!
Obviously I am being overly sarcastic to make a point, but anyone who says that we should start energy rationing and switch over our electricity productions to costly and unproven technologies had better have something more to say than "trust us" there's a consensus! Especially after so many false warnings, so much manipulated science and so many egregious examples of interest group scare mongering substituting for valid and peer reviewed science. And that, in a nutshell, is why even they understand that the case cannot be made based upon the science. The case must be made based on the myth of a consensus and the Alinsky modeled ridicule and marginalization of critics. It must be made through control of the media-Matrix.
116===================================================================================================
Even the false facade of consensus is beginning to fall apart. Faced with many members who objected to the politicization of climate science and who recognize that warming is too complex a subject to be reduced to the simplistic formula that CO2 will cause a positive feedback loop which will doom us all, the Royal Society has decided that maybe things are less than certain:
The Royal Society is not alone. Remember that when Nobel Prize winning physicist Ivar Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society he was not alone. Many members did likewise including Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California who in rejecting the APS (Holdren) appoved statement on climate change said:
It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the slightest doubt that this is so should read the Climategate documents, which lay it bare. I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that word revulsion a definition of the word scientist. So what has the APS, as an organization done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it...
I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. Your own Physics department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Michael Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise.
These dissenting members of their scientific organizations,these heretics as Holdren calls them have banded together to reject the IPCC's science:
More than 1,000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2010 321-page Climate Depot Special Report -- updated from the 2007 groundbreaking U.S. Senate Report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming "consensus" -- features the skeptical voices of over 1,000 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. This updated 2010 report includes a dramatic increase of over 300 additional (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the last update in March 2009.
In addition, did you know that 31,072 scientists have signed a petition stating that:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate.
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In fact, so many scientists are joining the ranks of the "heretics" and so many people have had their minds changed about the validity, honesty and accuracy of the science as a result of the numerous climategates, that the facade of the vaunted "consensus" is falling apart. This enraged Algore who went on a profanity laced rant in anger over this unforseen obstacle to their propaganda campaign:
It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the slightest doubt that this is so should read the Climategate documents, which lay it bare. I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that word revulsion a definition of the word scientist. So what has the APS, as an organization done in the face of this challenge? It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it...
I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. Your own Physics department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Michael Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise.
These dissenting members of their scientific organizations,these heretics as Holdren calls them have banded together to reject the IPCC's science:
More than 1,000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2010 321-page Climate Depot Special Report -- updated from the 2007 groundbreaking U.S. Senate Report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming "consensus" -- features the skeptical voices of over 1,000 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. This updated 2010 report includes a dramatic increase of over 300 additional (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the last update in March 2009.
In addition, did you know that 31,072 scientists have signed a petition stating that:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate.
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In fact, so many scientists are joining the ranks of the "heretics" and so many people have had their minds changed about the validity, honesty and accuracy of the science as a result of the numerous climategates, that the facade of the vaunted "consensus" is falling apart. This enraged Algore who went on a profanity laced rant in anger over this unforseen obstacle to their propaganda campaign:
Viewer Warning! Algore engages in the use of strong language not suitable for "polite" society
But, of course all of these people are paid by the oil lobby and are no better than scientists who shill for tobacco companies. They are heretics all. After all anyone who disagrees with man caused warming is a "flat earther" and a "denier". John Holdren and his allies have the unmitigated gall to to compare skeptics of their particular theory to someone who denies the undisputed and heinous historical fact that at least six million Jews were killed by Adolph Hitler's Nazis. But, that does fit in perfectly with their Alinsky political tactics to turn those who disagree with them not only into neanderthals and lackwits who think the moon is made of green cheese:
But, also into people who are so wrong, so evil that as Hansen says they should be arrested and thrown in the gulag. Or in the case of Holdren and his faculty buddies, shunned and not invited to be included in "proper" social circles.
In fact, Senator Barbara Boxer (D) California, who is Chairman of the Environment and Public Works committee in the Senate makes no bones about the fact that "deniers" are evil:
“The message I have for climate deniers is this: you are endangering humankind,” Boxer said during a press conference in the Capitol. “It is time for climate deniers to face reality, because the body of evidence is overwhelming and the world’s leading scientists agree.”
Forget about how mistaken this woman is on the "body of evidence" being overwhelming or her categorical statement that the world's "leading" scientists agree, what Senator Boxer is doing is the same thing the Catholic Church did to Copernicus and Galileo. She is equating those who don't follow the "consensus" with evildoers whose crimes are so heinous that their sins will endanger all of humankind. She is not making a scientific case for action, she is making a moral one. In this she is echoed by Henry Waxman (D) California who chaired a similar committee in the House of Representatives and was Co-Author of the Waxman/Markey Cap and Trade legislation:
In fact, Senator Barbara Boxer (D) California, who is Chairman of the Environment and Public Works committee in the Senate makes no bones about the fact that "deniers" are evil:
“The message I have for climate deniers is this: you are endangering humankind,” Boxer said during a press conference in the Capitol. “It is time for climate deniers to face reality, because the body of evidence is overwhelming and the world’s leading scientists agree.”
Forget about how mistaken this woman is on the "body of evidence" being overwhelming or her categorical statement that the world's "leading" scientists agree, what Senator Boxer is doing is the same thing the Catholic Church did to Copernicus and Galileo. She is equating those who don't follow the "consensus" with evildoers whose crimes are so heinous that their sins will endanger all of humankind. She is not making a scientific case for action, she is making a moral one. In this she is echoed by Henry Waxman (D) California who chaired a similar committee in the House of Representatives and was Co-Author of the Waxman/Markey Cap and Trade legislation:
A debate about climate science is equivalent to civil rights? It is not a debate based on reason, logic and evidence, but one of moral struggle? I have no idea what other fields of science would allow people speaking in their names to engage in such an assault on the intellectual and moral qualities of those who dissent from the current "consensus" of modern thinking. If that had been the case for science in the past, there would have been no Newton, Planck, Curie, Darwin or Einstein. Science isn't about consensus, it is about provable experiments and a lively peer review process where all opinions are debated and argued. But, as we have seen, Climate Science has been hijacked by politicians with agendas that have nothing to do with details like the scientific method. Thus, science has become a tool of propaganda. In that light then, AGW theory isn't any ordinary science. It is special. It is about saving the earth!
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Therefore behavior that is totally unacceptable in cellular biology or physics is totally acceptable in this case. Can you imagine Einstein or Planck, both skeptics of conventional wisdom in their fields of phsyics being attacked as being the equivalent of Bull Connor during the Civil Rights struggle? Of course not, but sceintists like Richard Lindzen of MIT and many other eminent scientists are constantly demeaned in this way. As I have attempted to demonstrate, because of the importance of AGW theory both politically and ideologically to the left, no attack, no tactic, no bastardization of the scientific method is too extreme in their effort to silence the opposition and convince everyone to march in lock step with them. This is true even to the point of pushing those who disagree with them to the margins of society and branding them, as heretics, deniers, evildoers and the enemy of mankind. No one more exemplifies the perfidy of this type of thought suppression more than Algore:
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Therefore behavior that is totally unacceptable in cellular biology or physics is totally acceptable in this case. Can you imagine Einstein or Planck, both skeptics of conventional wisdom in their fields of phsyics being attacked as being the equivalent of Bull Connor during the Civil Rights struggle? Of course not, but sceintists like Richard Lindzen of MIT and many other eminent scientists are constantly demeaned in this way. As I have attempted to demonstrate, because of the importance of AGW theory both politically and ideologically to the left, no attack, no tactic, no bastardization of the scientific method is too extreme in their effort to silence the opposition and convince everyone to march in lock step with them. This is true even to the point of pushing those who disagree with them to the margins of society and branding them, as heretics, deniers, evildoers and the enemy of mankind. No one more exemplifies the perfidy of this type of thought suppression more than Algore:
Watch only the first few minutes if that is all you can stomach
Hmm, deniers (nazis!) and racists (KKK), eh Al? Note, that he says that the conversation must be won based on the "depth of your convictions" and the "stength of your passion". When has that ever been relevant in science? Regardless of what political motives people may have in the debate about whether man is causing warming and whether something should be done about it, a rational decision can only be reached based on the science. Conviction and passion are irrelevant.
However, Algore doesn't want to have a scientific debate. He'd prefer to just shut the other side up because they are immoral. That's why he is equating "deniers" with racists. According to Algore, one should deal with "deniers" in the same way his generation dealt with bigots. Hey man, why do you talk that way (how dare you spout objection to AGW theory!)? It's wrong (evil!) Don't talk that way around me (or in any polite society!). In other words, shut up! Algore calls this "winning the conversation" on climate. I call it what it is: thought suppression. The idea that there is any kind of parallell between racism and an opinion about the state of AGW science is just ludicrous. Thus, Algore wants to win the argument on moral and cultural grounds, not on the facts. Could anything say more about the weakness of his case than that? If you have the winning side of a factual argument you don't need to resort to silencing your opposition. Indeed you welcome a full debate of the facts conducted in the open light of day.
This is the man that AGW supporters have made their "spokeman"? I cannot think of any more flawed pitchman for anything having even remotely to do with science than Algore:
However, Algore doesn't want to have a scientific debate. He'd prefer to just shut the other side up because they are immoral. That's why he is equating "deniers" with racists. According to Algore, one should deal with "deniers" in the same way his generation dealt with bigots. Hey man, why do you talk that way (how dare you spout objection to AGW theory!)? It's wrong (evil!) Don't talk that way around me (or in any polite society!). In other words, shut up! Algore calls this "winning the conversation" on climate. I call it what it is: thought suppression. The idea that there is any kind of parallell between racism and an opinion about the state of AGW science is just ludicrous. Thus, Algore wants to win the argument on moral and cultural grounds, not on the facts. Could anything say more about the weakness of his case than that? If you have the winning side of a factual argument you don't need to resort to silencing your opposition. Indeed you welcome a full debate of the facts conducted in the open light of day.
This is the man that AGW supporters have made their "spokeman"? I cannot think of any more flawed pitchman for anything having even remotely to do with science than Algore:
Here is a human being that talks the talk but fails miserably in walking the walk. He is a hypocrite extraordinaire. Turns out that his Tennessee Mansion uses as much electricity in one month as most homes do in a year. That's not even counting his huge natural gas consumption. And while he claims to have installed all kinds of things into his house this past year to make it more “green”, it turns out that his energy usage went up another 10% . He claims his lavish lifestyle is not inconsistent with his pleas for the rest of us to consume less because he buys carbon offsets (from companies he owns mind you) and is, thus, carbon neutral. Yeah, right.
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Algore claims that his only interest is in the "science" of AGW and that he only wants to warn mankind in time to stop the apocalypse. Yet, like all Crooks and Theives he has set himself up to profit handsomely to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars from his advocacy:
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Algore claims that his only interest is in the "science" of AGW and that he only wants to warn mankind in time to stop the apocalypse. Yet, like all Crooks and Theives he has set himself up to profit handsomely to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars from his advocacy:
Just like in every other facet of his life, Algore is being totally disengenuous here. Though no one knows exactly what Algore donates to his "charity", an organization, The Alliance For Climate Protection, it is clear that this is a charity whose reason for existence is to serve Algore. It provides him with all the advantages of a 501(C)3 to dodge capital gains taxes with and serves as a massive lobbying firm to push for his green agenda. In fact, it once employed former EPA head Carol Browner who later moved on to the Obama administration as Climate Czar (imagine that!) and former H.W. Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. How convenient that all that taxable income goes into his "foundation". It's an incredibly clever way to claim you are just giving the money to "charity" when you are really creating a propaganda/lobbying/networking machine designed solely to to advance your ideological and financial agenda. But however complicated is the financial web that Algore weaves, it is clear he is profiting massively from his advocacy to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. That's because in addition to his partnership with Kleiner/Perkins, Gore is also co-founder and chairman of London based General Investment Management and he also invested $35 million in a hedge fund, Capricorn Investment Group LLC.
The inconvenient truth is that like most other crooks and thieves who are connected into the "system", Algore has been making money hand over fist because of his high profile promotion of AGW:
The inconvenient truth is that like most other crooks and thieves who are connected into the "system", Algore has been making money hand over fist because of his high profile promotion of AGW:
Algore's tangled web on investment companies, lobbyists and connections within the government and the bureaucracy enable he and his friends to enrich themselves at the public trough by knowing exactly which direction Federal money is going to be invested and how much:
Wow, what a coincidence, eh? $567 million dollars just managed to find its way to a company Algore has a financial stake in.
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And that's not all, why Algore knew just the right electric car manufacturer to invest in too:
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And that's not all, why Algore knew just the right electric car manufacturer to invest in too:
Well, well, what do you know? Another half a billion dollars loan from the taxpayers and it goes to a firm that our buddy Al has invested in. Gore's whole scam is so transparently obvious that Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly have nothing but scorn and derision for his claims of pure motivations:
Isn't it ironic that this man with his multitudes of conflicts of interest and IPCC head Pichauri whose reports are riddled with manipulated science, psuedo science and out and out mistakes were given the Nobel Prize for their leadership in climate change? If that doesn't say it all about AGW science, I don't know what does.
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But how do they get away with it? Why is Algore the face of AGW theory, when his move is chock full of chock full of inaccuracies and downright falsehoods. So much so, that a UK judge has ruled that they can only be taught in public schools with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. Remember, this is a movie in which Gore's main piece of evidence is the totally debunked Mann Hockey Stick chart. Even Richard Muller, AGW advocate and the head of the BEST team thinks Gore's movie is utter nonsense:
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But how do they get away with it? Why is Algore the face of AGW theory, when his move is chock full of chock full of inaccuracies and downright falsehoods. So much so, that a UK judge has ruled that they can only be taught in public schools with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination. Remember, this is a movie in which Gore's main piece of evidence is the totally debunked Mann Hockey Stick chart. Even Richard Muller, AGW advocate and the head of the BEST team thinks Gore's movie is utter nonsense:
They get away with it because they have the full support and backing of the media-Matrix:
Algore? A prophet? Surely, you jest! But, no... The media-Matrix have turned this climate charlatan into a hero who should lead the nation in a crusade to save the planet:
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So why have I spent so much time talking about the disingenuous fraud that is Algore? To show that it is politics, not science that is driving the AGW debate. The conclusion that mankind is causing the climate to change in ways that could be catastrophic cannot be supported by real world data. The only scientific evidence whatsoever that exists to make this correlation are computer climate models whose accuracy and reliability have been shown to be lacking. As I have shown, the science of AGW cannot even survive a cursory analysis using the scientific method. As Feynman Chaser says, if the data does not match the hypothesis, it is wrong.
Therefore, since the case cannot be made on scientific grounds, it is being fought in the political arena. Is this the place for legitimate science to be debated? Perhaps not particle physics. But, then, quantum theory, at least at the present time, isn't about a fundamental transformation of human existence for the sake of a theory. That is why normal scientific rigor and procedures can be dismissed and why the science needs to be politicized. It is no longer the scientists who are driving the debate over AGW, but those who stand to profit from it.
These power hungry elites have decided that they will do whatever is necessary to convince people that the AGW theory is true. Therefore, those who can aid “the cause” and help to persuade the world that they should surrender their freedoms and property to a tiny cabal of Crooks and Thieves with exaggerated and fictitious claims of catastrophe and peril are to be hailed as “prophets” and given Nobel Peace Prizes for movies and reports filled with outright lies and misinformation. In the name of “the cause”, AGW proponents and their allies who run the media-Matrix are more than willing to play slick rhetorical games to hide the fact that the science doesn't match the data. When the earth was heating up, they called it global warming and man was to blame. Since the earth was indeed warming over the past century, the media-Matrix could dutifully report the consequences and pretend that this was all the result of man’s burning of fossil fuels. Why, all the scientists said so!
When the earth began to unexpectedly cool and winters became cold and the idea of global warming was ridiculed by the “ignorant hoi poloi”, a new name was needed. Before you could snap your fingers an even better name was invented that solved the pesky problem that the earth was not cooperating with their infallible climate models. The new term was coined climate change and what a great rhetorical trick it is. Any time the climate changes, which it always and naturally does, it can be portrayed as but further evidence that what the alarmist scientists are saying is true.
Therefore, no matter what happens, whether it is particularly hot summer or cold winter or a season with many hurricanes or no hurricanes it is all evidence that man is destroying the planet. It is a heads I win, tails you lose argument that allows them to win every time. Thus, AGW theory has been manufactured by the media-Matrix machine into a crisis with catastrophic consequences. The media, the scientists and the politicians ratchet up the fear and the hype and tell the world that we must act now or we are collectively doomed. But, where, pray tell, is the evidence of that? Even James Lovelock, author of the Gaia Theory, can no longer pretend that these dire warnings are anything more than hoax:
So why have I spent so much time talking about the disingenuous fraud that is Algore? To show that it is politics, not science that is driving the AGW debate. The conclusion that mankind is causing the climate to change in ways that could be catastrophic cannot be supported by real world data. The only scientific evidence whatsoever that exists to make this correlation are computer climate models whose accuracy and reliability have been shown to be lacking. As I have shown, the science of AGW cannot even survive a cursory analysis using the scientific method. As Feynman Chaser says, if the data does not match the hypothesis, it is wrong.
Therefore, since the case cannot be made on scientific grounds, it is being fought in the political arena. Is this the place for legitimate science to be debated? Perhaps not particle physics. But, then, quantum theory, at least at the present time, isn't about a fundamental transformation of human existence for the sake of a theory. That is why normal scientific rigor and procedures can be dismissed and why the science needs to be politicized. It is no longer the scientists who are driving the debate over AGW, but those who stand to profit from it.
These power hungry elites have decided that they will do whatever is necessary to convince people that the AGW theory is true. Therefore, those who can aid “the cause” and help to persuade the world that they should surrender their freedoms and property to a tiny cabal of Crooks and Thieves with exaggerated and fictitious claims of catastrophe and peril are to be hailed as “prophets” and given Nobel Peace Prizes for movies and reports filled with outright lies and misinformation. In the name of “the cause”, AGW proponents and their allies who run the media-Matrix are more than willing to play slick rhetorical games to hide the fact that the science doesn't match the data. When the earth was heating up, they called it global warming and man was to blame. Since the earth was indeed warming over the past century, the media-Matrix could dutifully report the consequences and pretend that this was all the result of man’s burning of fossil fuels. Why, all the scientists said so!
When the earth began to unexpectedly cool and winters became cold and the idea of global warming was ridiculed by the “ignorant hoi poloi”, a new name was needed. Before you could snap your fingers an even better name was invented that solved the pesky problem that the earth was not cooperating with their infallible climate models. The new term was coined climate change and what a great rhetorical trick it is. Any time the climate changes, which it always and naturally does, it can be portrayed as but further evidence that what the alarmist scientists are saying is true.
Therefore, no matter what happens, whether it is particularly hot summer or cold winter or a season with many hurricanes or no hurricanes it is all evidence that man is destroying the planet. It is a heads I win, tails you lose argument that allows them to win every time. Thus, AGW theory has been manufactured by the media-Matrix machine into a crisis with catastrophic consequences. The media, the scientists and the politicians ratchet up the fear and the hype and tell the world that we must act now or we are collectively doomed. But, where, pray tell, is the evidence of that? Even James Lovelock, author of the Gaia Theory, can no longer pretend that these dire warnings are anything more than hoax:
Ah, there it is. Scientists just don't know. Nothing like a refreshing dose of honesty. That's the problem with the politicization of science. It becomes more about ideology and less about truth. It seems to me that if the AGW debate was actually about the science, the main emphasis of the UN, world governments and the scientific community should be primarily focused on financing the necessary measurement equipment needed to do a proper and accurate analysis of climate data. Numerous satellites capable of measuring temperature, gases and other necessary climate information should be purchased and launched. Land temperature stations should be massively increased to cover the entire globe and sited in a manner and a fashion that is beyond the faintest hint of reproach or bias. But that isn't happening, is it? If the AGW debate is really based on science and not politics, then ask yourself why not.
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If the debate over "climate change" is really about the science, all of the data collected and used in models (experiments) should be transparent, duly reported and the peer review process should be open and vibrant. If it is about the science, no one should say the science is settled and no one should say that skeptics should be silenced or killed. If it is about the science, researchers should tell the world the truth about how fast the earth is actually warming. They should inform everyone that current data about how fast temperatures are rising gives us at least fifty years to study and perfect our understanding of the climate before action needs to be taken. Therefore, there is still plenty of time to gather proper data and hastily crafted and ill conceived measures that transfer global governance power to the UN are unnecessary. If the AGW debate is really about the science, research dollars should fund a broad array of projects and solutions rather than only projects that support a predetermined conclusion. Valuable research funding should be spent to enlarge our knowledge and understanding of all of the many variables that affect climate. If it is about the science, then the pipedream of windmills and solar energy should be quickly and logically eliminated as solutions and others more likely to solve the problem should be proposed and researched. But none of these things are happening, are they?
In fact, the exact opposite is true. There has been no concerted effort to spend the billions necessary to fund a proper and verifiable data gathering system that would help prove the hypothesis. Instead, AGW funds have gone into research and modeling that have questionable credibility because of that very lack of reliable data. In every way imaginable, the proponents of AGW theory have violated the scientific method particularly in the areas of proper data collection, transparency and the peer review process. Instead of an open, honest and heated debate amongst those in the field of climate science, we have a politicization of the research and a demonization of those who have the audacity to dissent.
In the end, if the debate is solely about the science of AGW, then the IPCC's last report that was presented to world leaders and populations should be able to stand the full scrutiny of the scientific method and survive a vigorous peer review. Because it can't stand this kind of analysis, the fact that AGW proponents claim a consensus of certainty makes it clear that the debate is not about science. It is obviously about something else. (More on that in the next chapter) The truth is that if the data matched the hypothesis, none of this shoddy science in the name of advancing AGW theory would be necessary.
Thus, the AGW debate isn’t about science. Let's face facts, all of the effort and energy that is being spent to support AGW theory has nothing to do with legitimate scientific inquiry. It is about greed: greed for power, greed for money and greed for ideology. It is about ideologues who believe man is a cancer and believe that only through world government and population control can the planet be saved from the scourge of humankind. It is about uber-leftists and modern day luddites who hate free enterprise and industrialization and see the cause of AGW as a means of destroying the capitalist system through the sharing of scarcity. It is about Crooks and Thieves in governments all across the globe and at the UN just itching to acquire the enormous amounts of power that the control and distribution of the world’s energy wealth will give them. It is about poor nations hoping they are going to receive massive subsidies from the wealthy nations in the name of climate and social justice. It is about financial services greedheads counting the billions they’ll skim off the top of the carbon credits that will be traded on world markets. It is about all the pigs that feed at the AGW trough. All the environmentalist organizations, the lobbyists, the scientists and all the hangers on are all imagining how big a slice of the billions that will be spent on the AGW research pie they can carve up for themselves. AGW theory is about huge crony corporations in bed with the powers that be. Corporations like GE and the European “clean” energy companies imagine the vast profits they will reap at the expense of the fossil fuel companies when policies are changed to their benefit and profit. The AGW debate is about a lot of things. The one thing it isn’t about is science.
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Do you know what? I have absolutely no idea whether man is causing the earth to warm. Nobody can know this. Anybody that says they do is either a liar or a dupe of conformity. Personally, I have no skin in the game either way. Science is science. If, in the end, after careful and proper experimentation fully compliant with the scientific method it is determined that the earth has a fever and man is the cause, I’ll happily help in the search for a cure. However, until politics is taken out of climate science and until the evidence is in, we should reject any attempts to convince us to surrender our money, our freedoms and our sovereignty on the basis of flimsy science, a bought and paid for consensus and media-Matrix scare propaganda. We should not fundamentally transform our economy and/or our governmental system on the basis of a hypothesis that cannot be substantiated by real world evidence. In short, we should not bet the farm on an unproven theory:
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If the debate over "climate change" is really about the science, all of the data collected and used in models (experiments) should be transparent, duly reported and the peer review process should be open and vibrant. If it is about the science, no one should say the science is settled and no one should say that skeptics should be silenced or killed. If it is about the science, researchers should tell the world the truth about how fast the earth is actually warming. They should inform everyone that current data about how fast temperatures are rising gives us at least fifty years to study and perfect our understanding of the climate before action needs to be taken. Therefore, there is still plenty of time to gather proper data and hastily crafted and ill conceived measures that transfer global governance power to the UN are unnecessary. If the AGW debate is really about the science, research dollars should fund a broad array of projects and solutions rather than only projects that support a predetermined conclusion. Valuable research funding should be spent to enlarge our knowledge and understanding of all of the many variables that affect climate. If it is about the science, then the pipedream of windmills and solar energy should be quickly and logically eliminated as solutions and others more likely to solve the problem should be proposed and researched. But none of these things are happening, are they?
In fact, the exact opposite is true. There has been no concerted effort to spend the billions necessary to fund a proper and verifiable data gathering system that would help prove the hypothesis. Instead, AGW funds have gone into research and modeling that have questionable credibility because of that very lack of reliable data. In every way imaginable, the proponents of AGW theory have violated the scientific method particularly in the areas of proper data collection, transparency and the peer review process. Instead of an open, honest and heated debate amongst those in the field of climate science, we have a politicization of the research and a demonization of those who have the audacity to dissent.
In the end, if the debate is solely about the science of AGW, then the IPCC's last report that was presented to world leaders and populations should be able to stand the full scrutiny of the scientific method and survive a vigorous peer review. Because it can't stand this kind of analysis, the fact that AGW proponents claim a consensus of certainty makes it clear that the debate is not about science. It is obviously about something else. (More on that in the next chapter) The truth is that if the data matched the hypothesis, none of this shoddy science in the name of advancing AGW theory would be necessary.
Thus, the AGW debate isn’t about science. Let's face facts, all of the effort and energy that is being spent to support AGW theory has nothing to do with legitimate scientific inquiry. It is about greed: greed for power, greed for money and greed for ideology. It is about ideologues who believe man is a cancer and believe that only through world government and population control can the planet be saved from the scourge of humankind. It is about uber-leftists and modern day luddites who hate free enterprise and industrialization and see the cause of AGW as a means of destroying the capitalist system through the sharing of scarcity. It is about Crooks and Thieves in governments all across the globe and at the UN just itching to acquire the enormous amounts of power that the control and distribution of the world’s energy wealth will give them. It is about poor nations hoping they are going to receive massive subsidies from the wealthy nations in the name of climate and social justice. It is about financial services greedheads counting the billions they’ll skim off the top of the carbon credits that will be traded on world markets. It is about all the pigs that feed at the AGW trough. All the environmentalist organizations, the lobbyists, the scientists and all the hangers on are all imagining how big a slice of the billions that will be spent on the AGW research pie they can carve up for themselves. AGW theory is about huge crony corporations in bed with the powers that be. Corporations like GE and the European “clean” energy companies imagine the vast profits they will reap at the expense of the fossil fuel companies when policies are changed to their benefit and profit. The AGW debate is about a lot of things. The one thing it isn’t about is science.
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Do you know what? I have absolutely no idea whether man is causing the earth to warm. Nobody can know this. Anybody that says they do is either a liar or a dupe of conformity. Personally, I have no skin in the game either way. Science is science. If, in the end, after careful and proper experimentation fully compliant with the scientific method it is determined that the earth has a fever and man is the cause, I’ll happily help in the search for a cure. However, until politics is taken out of climate science and until the evidence is in, we should reject any attempts to convince us to surrender our money, our freedoms and our sovereignty on the basis of flimsy science, a bought and paid for consensus and media-Matrix scare propaganda. We should not fundamentally transform our economy and/or our governmental system on the basis of a hypothesis that cannot be substantiated by real world evidence. In short, we should not bet the farm on an unproven theory:
Love of theory is the root of all evil... I can't say it better than that. This is exactly what I've spent the entirety of this book trying to say. Words are nice. Barack Obama is great with words. Theories are great. Lot's of people have died because they hoped that unproven theories would turn out to be true when practiced in reality. Therefore, the only thing that I really care about are facts, evidence and results. I swallowed the red pill because living in a fantasy is nice, but the truth shall set you free.
I have found that those on the left have always been great with words and they always have fantastic theories about how the world could become a utopia if only we'd surrender our freedoms so they can make their theories a reality. But, in my opinion, the only political theory that has stood the test of time is that man is endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights and that government's job is to protect them. That theory formed the foundation of the greatest nation the world has ever known. That's a theory whose results have stood the test of time.
But, those grand theories on the left? Well, they didn't work out so well. Remember the theory that we could eradicate poverty by spending lots of money? Failed. What about the theory that we could improve the test scores of our children by spending lots of money? Failed. What about the theory that we could spend our way out of this recession? Failed. With that kind of record, I am very cautious about falling for another left wing theory.
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When it comes to politicized science, I am even more cautious and skeptical. Can you blame me? When I was a kid, they theorized that the population bomb would cause world wide famine, disease and war. Later they tried to sell the theory that the earth was headed into another ice age. I remember Jimmy Carter telling us all that we'd run out of oil by the year 2000. All bunk. Now, they are trying to tell us that we should completely change our entire economic system through the sharing of scarcity and surrender our sovereignty to the United Nations based upon a theory cooked up by the exact same people who were dead wrong about every apocalypse scenario since I was a child. So, I went to find out whether there was any evidence to back their claims of an environmental catastrophe on the horizon. I gave it the red pill test. I found out the same thing I found out about President Obama. The emperor has no clothes.
Oh, the illusion is all there. The storyline is very convincing and for many of us the idea that all the gasses we are emitting into the atmosphere because of our high living and great wealth might be destroying the planet seems reasonable. But, when you realize that man's contribution to what is essentially a trace gas in our climate is one drop per day in a three hundred gallon barrel of water, it kind of changes your perspective. When you realize how bad our climate measuring instruments are and how little we actually know about the innumerable variables that impact the climate, it sobers you a bit. The fact that the organization in charge of finding out the truth about the climate lies about the science, purposely hides and destroys the evidence, and intimidates dissenters is disturbing. That the same old cast of characters who were wrong about every other global scare are also behind this one is frightening. But, for me the thing that convinced me utterly and surely that we have all been taken for a ride by the Crooks and Thieves is that the data doesn't fit the hypothesis and, yet, the scientists say they are certain of their conclusions anyway. That isn't fact based science. That is the triumph of theory over reality. As Bill Whittle eloquently expressed, that is the road to ruin.
Given that the stakes in the debate over AGW theeory are so high, shouldn't the burden of proof be on those who are asking us to make major changes in our society and our lives? Shouldn't the science be airtight? Shouldn't it be beyond reproach? Shouldn't the data match the hypothesis?
Shouldn't it stand the scrutiny of the scientific method? In the end, is AGW theory actually science or is it just another of a long line of vehicles that the left has used to try to scare us into acceding to their one world government utopia?
I have found that those on the left have always been great with words and they always have fantastic theories about how the world could become a utopia if only we'd surrender our freedoms so they can make their theories a reality. But, in my opinion, the only political theory that has stood the test of time is that man is endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights and that government's job is to protect them. That theory formed the foundation of the greatest nation the world has ever known. That's a theory whose results have stood the test of time.
But, those grand theories on the left? Well, they didn't work out so well. Remember the theory that we could eradicate poverty by spending lots of money? Failed. What about the theory that we could improve the test scores of our children by spending lots of money? Failed. What about the theory that we could spend our way out of this recession? Failed. With that kind of record, I am very cautious about falling for another left wing theory.
125===================================================================================================
When it comes to politicized science, I am even more cautious and skeptical. Can you blame me? When I was a kid, they theorized that the population bomb would cause world wide famine, disease and war. Later they tried to sell the theory that the earth was headed into another ice age. I remember Jimmy Carter telling us all that we'd run out of oil by the year 2000. All bunk. Now, they are trying to tell us that we should completely change our entire economic system through the sharing of scarcity and surrender our sovereignty to the United Nations based upon a theory cooked up by the exact same people who were dead wrong about every apocalypse scenario since I was a child. So, I went to find out whether there was any evidence to back their claims of an environmental catastrophe on the horizon. I gave it the red pill test. I found out the same thing I found out about President Obama. The emperor has no clothes.
Oh, the illusion is all there. The storyline is very convincing and for many of us the idea that all the gasses we are emitting into the atmosphere because of our high living and great wealth might be destroying the planet seems reasonable. But, when you realize that man's contribution to what is essentially a trace gas in our climate is one drop per day in a three hundred gallon barrel of water, it kind of changes your perspective. When you realize how bad our climate measuring instruments are and how little we actually know about the innumerable variables that impact the climate, it sobers you a bit. The fact that the organization in charge of finding out the truth about the climate lies about the science, purposely hides and destroys the evidence, and intimidates dissenters is disturbing. That the same old cast of characters who were wrong about every other global scare are also behind this one is frightening. But, for me the thing that convinced me utterly and surely that we have all been taken for a ride by the Crooks and Thieves is that the data doesn't fit the hypothesis and, yet, the scientists say they are certain of their conclusions anyway. That isn't fact based science. That is the triumph of theory over reality. As Bill Whittle eloquently expressed, that is the road to ruin.
Given that the stakes in the debate over AGW theeory are so high, shouldn't the burden of proof be on those who are asking us to make major changes in our society and our lives? Shouldn't the science be airtight? Shouldn't it be beyond reproach? Shouldn't the data match the hypothesis?
Shouldn't it stand the scrutiny of the scientific method? In the end, is AGW theory actually science or is it just another of a long line of vehicles that the left has used to try to scare us into acceding to their one world government utopia?