Global Warming Scam

[a_unique_person]

warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=40



What about future climate? The Establishment has handed the baton to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In its Third Assessment Report (TAR) of 2001, IPCC “projected” 1990-2100 warming in the range of 1.4 to 5.8 oC. These low/high end-points rely, respectively, on IPCC’s implausibly-high and unimaginably-high projections of economic growth in Third World nations.

Despite the best endeavours of brave and determined economists Ian Castles (Australia) and David Henderson (UK), IPCC is retaining its outlandish TAR economic projections for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) due out in 2007. Just to show how bizarre these economics are, per-capita GDP for Australia was US$ 17,000 (market-exchange-rate basis) in 1990. In 2100, according to IPCC’s “storylines”, it will be a plausible-sounding 55-61 (US$ 1990 thousands) – compared to Afghanistan 69-78, and Zimbabwe 68-87. South Africa, with the world’s highest coal intensity (76%) in primary energy use, will do even better. In 1990, its per-capita GDP was a minuscule 2.8; and by 2100, it will be 394-470!

Apologists for IPCC, say that only those for collective supra-regional GDP projections are “approved’ – not those for individual nations. So be it; but obviously, if IPCC adjusts-down South African economic growth, in its AR4 work-sheets, another country will have to go up even more to keep whole its (pre-approved) total projected coal consumption.

IPCC’s high-end (A1FI) “scenario” has world consumption of (carbon-rich) coal increasing by an amazing 37% between 1990 and 2000. In reality, it grew just over half as fast – 21% during 1990-2004. Can real scientists accept, and use as underpinning for their own climate-related work, the emissions projections and consequent range of future global warming proffered up by IPCC? Scientists can and do. Unquestioningly – as if they were Holy Writ. (As an awful example, there is no need to look further than CSIRO’s 2070 Australian regional climates.)


canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

These changes are not small increases, but large ones. What were the levels of the forcings back then? If he is saying the sun is brighter now, that is over a long period?

The research has shown that the very small increase in the sun's output, over the past century of so, which can be measured, is not enough to account for the measured increase in global mean temperature. Modelling shows that it is only the CO2 that does that.

 

[Morrigan]

The more I read about this Steven Milloy, the more disgusted I am. The bastard's even a creationism apologist. Ugh.

 

[Jorghnassen]

The more I read about this Steven Milloy, the more disgusted I am. The bastard's even a creationism apologist. Ugh.

Ouch. I keep forgetting that one. If that doesn't utterly demolish his credibility I don't know what else will.

 

[stocks]

Fear makes the media money

I have yet to find many peer reviewed article from the 70th pretending that climat was cooling down, whereas I find plenty of JOURNALISTIC source (pretending to have a scientific shine and backing), saying that earth was cooling down and going to an ice age.

On the other hand , we have now a lot of JOURNALISTIC source pretending that global warming is not true and is contested, whereas you find a breadth of article demonstrating GW and there is a consensus for a majority of scientific that GW is true. Now the anthropomorphic origin of that GW might be contested. That is another issue.

See the different , stock, between the two cases ?

Good point. Let me back off and say the following. Journalists can't differentiate between contradictory scientific opinions, so they default to the one which causes the most fear. Fear boosts ratings, sells newspapers, and swings voters. They look for any kind of scarey story and exaggerate it for greater effect.

 

[stocks]

Crichton and Fenyman

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period

(Remember Carl Sagan's nuclear winter) -->

Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, "I really don't think these guys know what they're talking about," other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science but.who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?" And Victor Weisskopf said, "The science is terrible but---perhaps the psychology is good." The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views.
At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the "father of the H bomb."
Teller said, "While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions." Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant.


When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.
This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands."


Michael Crichton

 

[Yahzi]

6. It is a waste of money and resources trying to cut emissions before gaining a better understanding of climate change

Translation: the temperature is going up, human beings are affecting the climate more than ever, but it would be an act of irrationality to suspect the two are related...

I thought conservatives were the ones who were, you know, conservative.

"Annoy a conservative - conserve!"

 

[Ceritus]

Funny, isn't it, how GW deniers (much like creationists and 9/11 conspiracy nuts) almost without exception have no real background or expertise in the fields they're criticizing.

I am a meteorologist. I am not denying GW but I am denying human involvement in it.

If you also hold an advanced degree in meteorology, you should be ashamed of yourself for not putting to use what you have learned.

 

[Piggy]

Despite the often expressed opinions of right-wing pop media pundits, who view "science" as a bastion of liberal ideology, science is a profoundly conservative endeavor.

This conservatism has been exploited by various politicians, certain important members of the business community, and others to portray global warming as "controversial", or a fringe opinion, or a politically motivated fantasy.

As with Darwinian evolution and Big Bang theory, they interpret any debate at all as a sign that no one knows what's going on.

Of course, one of the difficulties with popularizing science is that technical journals are often not intelligible to a general audience, and popular media publications are more interested in moving paper than in getting it right. (Did anyone else notice how many pop media outlets used the "Einstein was right" angle to push the story of accelerated universal expansion, falsely claiming that the cosmological constant had been vindicated?)

For those demanding consensus (or at least consensus of the mainstream), I hope these 3 articles will be an informative middle ground. Hell, I even tossed in USA Today! We've had consensus for 5 years now.

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

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.

From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

As a result of an enormous scientific effort over the past 10-15 years to better understand the climate system and its relationship to human activities, there now is a growing consensus among mainstream scientists about the reality of global warming. As Dr. Robert Watson, then Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in 2001,

"The overwhelming majority of scientific experts, whilst recognizing that scientific uncertainties exist, nonetheless believe that human-induced climate change is already occurring and that future change is inevitable."

This captures the conclusions of the most recent comprehensive assessment of the state of climate change science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The UN-sponsored, international body of scientists is charged with synthesizing every five years what the scientific community has learned about our changing climate and its impacts on people and the environment.

The findings of the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report ("Climate Change 2001") unequivocally paint a collective picture of a warming world. The report forms the authoritative new benchmark of what is known about climate change science and represents an unprecedented consensus among hundreds of climate change scientists from all over the world.

UCS agrees with the world's leading climate scientists that the Earth's temperature is rising and that its climate has changed over the last century. The scientific consensus is clear that the rise in temperature and change in climate are being caused in part by human activities.

From USA Today:

While climate scientists don't agree on all of the points made, three reports issued during 2001 by working groups (or committees) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are the best place to begin understanding the current state of climate change science.

The January report on Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, from Working Group 1, which was issued in January 2001, covers the basic science of climate change. The other reports are from Working Group 2, Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, and Working Group 3, Climate Change 2001: Mitigation, came out later in 2001.

The January 2001 report from Working Group 1 said that by the end of this century, average global temperatures should increase by 2.5°F to 10°F. Many press reports at the time focused on the high-end of this range and the disasters it could bring. But, both the high and low range of the increase are the least likely to happen.

The report lists "very likely" 21st century changes as:

* Higher daily maximum temperatures and more hot days over nearly all of the Earth's land.
* Warmer overnight low temperatures.
* Fewer cold days and frost days over nearly all land.
* Reduced differences between daily highs and lows over nearly all land.
* More intense rain or snow storms over many areas.
* A higher risk of summer droughts over inland areas of the middle-latitude continents.

 

[a_unique_person]

Good point. Let me back off and say the following. Journalists can't differentiate between contradictory scientific opinions, so they default to the one which causes the most fear. Fear boosts ratings, sells newspapers, and swings voters. They look for any kind of scarey story and exaggerate it for greater effect.

True, so ignore the press for a scientific opinion, and check out the IPCC or the links collected by Varwoche.

 

[varwoche]

I am a meteorologist. I am not denying GW but I am denying human involvement in it.

If you also hold an advanced degree in meteorology, you should be ashamed of yourself for not putting to use what you have learned.

Perhaps you can provide Buckaroo with some positive examples of how one with an advanced degree in meteorology might approach the topic of climate change.

Maybe Buckaroo could cite a random bozo who works in the coal mining industry -- the <cough> illustrious Monte Hieb no less -- rather than actual expert scientists. Is this the sort of thing you envision?

 

[exarch]

I am a meteorologist. I am not denying GW but I am denying human involvement in it.

If you think humans didn't cause it, do you think we could stop it? Or at least slow it down?

And do you think it would be a bad idea to figure out ways to reduce CO2 emissions and become less reliant on fossil fuel? Regardless of whether these are responsible for global warming or not?

 

[Buckaroo]

Stocks, I seriously doubt that quoting the hack author of Travels (a memoir in which he claims to have bent a spoon with with his brain and astally projected) is going to win you any points on a skeptical forum.

 

[Piggy]

Stocks, I seriously doubt that quoting the hack author of Travels (a memoir in which he claims to have bent a spoon with with his brain and astally projected) is going to win you any points on a skeptical forum.

Ad hominem!

(I've been waiting for a chance to do that. )

Actually Buck, I hardly see that this matters. I mean, what's really important is that if nuclear winter was bogus, then global warming can't be right.

Why, it's plain as balls on a dog.

I mean, really, we should stick to the legitimate arguments here.

 

[Buckaroo]

Ad hominem!

(I've been waiting for a chance to do that. )

Actually Buck, I hardly see that this matters. I mean, what's really important is that if nuclear winter was bogus, then global warming can't be right.

Why, it's plain as balls on a dog.

I mean, really, we should stick to the legitimate arguments here.

Hee, hee.

Kinda off topic, but Crichton's point fails even here, 'cuz nuclear winter was hardly discredited. Much like GW, though there are disagreements over the details, the basic science is sound (though there are admittedly larger uncertainties in NW than in GW). We see it in small scale every time there's a large volcanic eruption.

 

[varwoche]

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Maybe Crichton is not the cretin he appears to be. Maybe we need to re-think the moon=cheese issue and not be suckered in by those pesky scientists.

 

[Piggy]

I love this bit:

Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Yeah, man... that round earth scam... it's gonna cost you!

 

[Buckaroo]

I am a meteorologist. I am not denying GW but I am denying human involvement in it.

If you also hold an advanced degree in meteorology, you should be ashamed of yourself for not putting to use what you have learned.

WHOA!! I didn't see this until just now. Not only is this statement presumptuous and rude in the extreme, the implication is that it's obvious to all REAL meteorologists that humans aren't causing global warming, which is clearly incorrect and arrogant to boot. As for my level of shame, I'm pretty f***ing happy with where my career has ended up and how I've employed my scientific background. How about you?

Ceritus, unless you have done serious climatology research (and the meteorologists who actually do this call themselves climatologists), you're in the same boat I am -- lacking the expertise to make pronouncements about the subject without relying on the informed judgement of people who know more than I do. Do you know something they don't? Put up or shut up.

 

[Ceritus]

As for my level of shame, I'm pretty f***ing happy with where my career has ended up and how I've employed my scientific background. How about you?

No. I should have chosen something less interesting that makes more money.

Ceritus, unless you have done serious climatology research (and the meteorologists who actually do this call themselves climatologists), you're in the same boat I am -- lacking the expertise to make pronouncements about the subject without relying on the informed judgement of people who know more than I do. Do you know something they don't? Put up or shut up.

I have done some serious work with climatology and forecast model development to include helping develop the WRF.

Your claim of AGW is astounding and because of that, it requires astounding evidence.

I would be happy to provide a rebuttal for each reason that persuades you to believe in AGW. Please provide it in a segmented format I.E. step by step so I can get to them in a timely matter when I finish my work.

I don't have enough time to write every single reason AGW is rediculous but I think I can manage to refute each reason you think it is true.

 

[DeviousB]

Your claim of AGW is astounding and because of that, it requires astounding evidence.

Now, that's a straw man!

 

[Ceritus]

Now, that's a straw man!

Explain how? AGW is about as woo as it gets.