quote:

---

Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
No.

---

Thanks.
Your seminars must be amazing!

 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Do you have anything other than a video titled, "WARNING! Goodbye U.S Sovereignty... Hello One World Government !" for us to look at? This doesn't exactly make one think, "well-reasoned, dispassionate explication." Rather the word "nutcase" comes to mind.

[ 11. November 2009, 00:10: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 

---

Posted by 205 (# 206) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I don't know but if someone can summarise the situation I'll happily listen.

---

Nor do I but WTH we haven't had an ACC thread for a bit.

'Improbable but it surely is bringing a lot of gravy to no small number of trains.'


And the video reminds me of the principled stand W took refusing to participate in some bogus 'treaty' no one is adhering to anyway.

IMO the guy remains misunderestimated.


 

---

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
The point of most of the climate-change discussion is that the changes will affect all countries, and that all countries will have some part in dealing with the changes or prevention of same.

That will mean that discussion must go on. If you feel that any one country can operate totally independently of what any or all other countries think, then I would suggest getting fitted for a tinfoil helmet. The country that tries to be totally free of any outside constraint is just as dangerous as the guy who brings his gun into the bar and demands the right to use it, regardless of what the other drinkers think.

If a small, lowlying country - the Maldives or Kiribati, for instance - finds that their land is simply disappearing as the waters rise or as erosion from changed wind patterns occurs, then all other countries have the problem of "where do these people go?" One alternative is to let them drown. Another is to find them a new home, either as immigrants to somewhere or as people moved to a new location en masse (as is being debated in one case)

Your solution, implicit in the OP, is to deny that the problem exists, so that there will be no reason to talk about it.

Talk is dangerous, you know - you might even change your mind on an issue, and that would obviously be the result of totalitarian thought control, because real minds don't get changed.
 

---

Posted by NJA (# 13022) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
[QB] . . . If a small, lowlying country - the Maldives or Kiribati, for instance - finds that their land is simply disappearing as the waters rise or as erosion from changed wind patterns occurs, . . .

---

quote:

---

[...]promote sustainable economic and social development and to reduce poverty, which are the first and overriding priorities of developing countries.

---

quote:

---

These adverse effects also undermine the equitable
development needs of present and future generations.

---

quote:

---

Developed country Parties must show leadership in mitigation commitments or actions, in supporting developing country Parties in undertaking adaptation measures and nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs)

---

This sounds fair until the footnote points out that NAMAs only count for developing countries. So developed country parties (that includes companies and private individuals) need to pay for the developing countries economies. Of course developed countries have their own plan detailed later in article II.

Section 19 lays out the new enforcement mechanism. It includes preparation of National Action Plans for the slow countries. It has the power to allocate resources to make sure these plans are followed. This does include "provisions for ensuring the compliance".

Section 30 suggests the full costs of NAMAs be born by a grant based system. Since these are paid for by the developed world and the overriding priorities are reduction in poverty, where's the climate change mitigation going to come from?

Section 42 contemplates programs to provide food security. Does that mean the new meta government gets to tell farmers what to plant? I think it does.

Section 45 makes all these plans, groups, and bureaucracies under the authority of a central group, the COP (Conference of Parties).

Section 52 allows for the monitoring of financial and technological resources of members. Remember members include nations and sub-units like corporations and citizens.

Section 77 contemplates making NAMAs voluntary!

This document still leaves some wiggle room and a lot depends on how it's implemented, but at it's core it allows for the suppression of freedom and the enslavement through taxation.

Lord Monkton is wrong about the U.S. being bound by it though. Currently it would override the constitution, but a simple amendment would eliminate that. Thus as a practical matter it might be used to limit the freedom of some minorities (uppity prison inmates), but if they become too oppressive, we would just leave.
 

---

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
A decent blog analysis of this issue (albeit from the perspective of a column written about Monckton) seems to indicate that this is due to the word "government" appearing in the document, so not only must it be a global government, it will also be a Communist one as well.


 

---

Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on :
 
The way I look at it is that even if climate change rhetoric did bring in a single global government - why would that be a problem? Such a government can only have a limited shelf life. Sooner or later, there would be a revolution, then things would be back to the way they were before. Unless, of course, you think that everyone might be happy with the global government so that they wouldn't want to revolt - but if the global government might turn out for the better, then why is Lord Monkton talking about it as though it would be a bad thing?

These things go round in cycles. No worldly power is immortal.

Once a government in any part of the world has managed to convince you that their collapse would be a bad thing, then it means one of two things, either (a) you are economically, socially or politically privileged in comparison to the majority of the world's population, or (b) they have brainwashed you into putting their own interests ahead of yours.

I'm with Horseman Bree on this. If global warming is really happening, then it would be global. Otherwise, they would call it "regional warming" instead.
 

---

Posted by Dumpling Jeff (# 12766) on :
 
Croesos, the treaty as currently proposed, does set up an organization that intends to hold nation states responsible for their actions. That's a fair definition of a world government.

Of course any global solution will need teeth or it's not going to work. It's a world wide problem, it needs a world wide solution.

The Shared Vision section spells out what the treaty is intended to do. It makes it clear that social rights are paramount and classic rights take a back seat. That's been a hallmark of Marxists for over a hundred years.

It's not clear to me why that part is in there. It does little to solve the problem, but it is legally binding on the signatories. If we sign it, it could be interpreted as signing away our bill of rights.

Yet that interpretation will be done by a U.S. judge in a U.S. court.

Or the courts could just read that as window dressing giving third world nations some sense of direction. It's hard to say until the final wording is in place.

Personally I think this is just more cannon fodder for the fair and balanced combat news network. It's certainly not the end of the world.
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Croesos, the treaty as currently proposed, does set up an organization that intends to hold nation states responsible for their actions. That's a fair definition of a world government.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rosa Winkel:
No.

---

Thanks.
Your seminars must be amazing!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
... an organization that intends to hold nation states responsible for their actions. That's a fair definition of a world government.

---

quote:

---

social rights are paramount and classic rights take a back seat. That's been a hallmark of Marxists for over a hundred years.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:


My summary of the video is "inaccurate, distorting, scare-mongering drivel". With the obligatory kick at Obama's gonads thrown in for good measure. IMO Lord Monckton was pandering to fear and distrust.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth", Mudfrog. [Now there's a confession]. So my opinions re the reality of climate change and the effect of human activity on climate have not actually been affected by Al Gore's movie.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth", Mudfrog. [Now there's a confession]. So my opinions re the reality of climate change and the effect of human activity on climate have not actually been affected by Al Gore's movie.

---

The first well-known politician to try to get something done about it was Margaret Thatcher, over twenty years ago. I doubt if she was infected by watching too many Al Gore movies either.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It was then tied up with trying to produce anti-coal propaganda as part of her battle with the National Union of Miners. Until that point the environmentalists had been mainly obsessed with nuclear power's environmental hazards and the greenhouse gas story was seen as a counter to that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The impact of human activity is far more substantial than just increasing the global average temperature. 'Climate Change' is more accurately used for the larger picture, 'Global Warming' is the sub-set of that larger picture that is the ongoing increase in average temperatures around the globe.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

Most, if not all, of these climate impacts are the direct or indirect consequence of increasing temperatures due to very large increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, I suppose 'global warming' could cover them, it's just that 'climate change' is much more comprehensive.

---

quote:

---

Also, the experimental data predict both the current warming and past cooling events. So, when your data is applicable to both warming and cooling it's more accurate to refer to 'climate change' in that context.

---

What experimental data? None of the models have matched the reality of actual climate change. The Hockey Schtick was the cherry on top which changed the reality of actual climate change as got by scientific observation to create a new imaginary base for manmade global warming to sit on.


Myrrh
 

---

Posted by Alwyn (# 4380) on :
 
Is the Myrrh v Alan Cresswell debate on climate change becoming an annual Ship institution? It seems to come earlier every year. I hope it doesn't get all commercialised.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
The Hockey Schtick

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Bullshit. Youze changed it to climate change because real science said climate changes and youze can't deal with it and keep funding going.

---

This is one of the wackier conspiracy theories out there. "Climate change" isn't a new term - you'd think that the name of IPCC (established 1988) would be a major hint.
 

---

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

Most, if not all, of these climate impacts are the direct or indirect consequence of increasing temperatures due to very large increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, I suppose 'global warming' could cover them, it's just that 'climate change' is much more comprehensive.

---

Bullshit. Youze changed it to climate change because real science said climate changes and youze can't deal with it and keep funding going.

---

Eh? Care to run that by me again, because I simply don't understand what you're trying to say. You appear to be agreeing with me that science shows that the climate changes, and that it's not just increasing temperatures. But, if so I don't see the reason for the 'bullshit' or the 'you can't deal with it'

quote:

---

quote:

---

Also, the experimental data predict both the current warming and past cooling events. So, when your data is applicable to both warming and cooling it's more accurate to refer to 'climate change' in that context.

---

What experimental data? None of the models have matched the reality of actual climate change.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
I don't know how old you are, but it seems you are not old enough to remember Vole magazine* which raised awareness of both CFCs and "the greenhouse effect". What was not then so clear, despite the use of the word 'greenhouse', was whether the changes would cause warming or cooling.

*There is a Wikipedia entry, but I couldn't link to it because it contains a parenthesis and, apparently, that's not allowed.

Eta: my guess is that 'climate change' has become the preferred term to try to educate all those idiots who say things like: "Britain a few degrees warmer? I can live with that!"

As has been repeated to the point of tedium, if the Gulf Stream stops, we may all get a lot colder on this small insignificant island, home to selfish idiots who apparently don't care about the effects of climate change that are already devastating vulnerable communities. [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Some "environmentalists" were not so shrill we would be inclined to think a lot of the scaremongering was more scientific and less neurotic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Some "environmentalists" were not so shrill we would be inclined to think a lot of the scaremongering was more scientific and less neurotic.

---

If it was just hairy environmentalists I might agree. When a load of sober mainstream scientists and scientific organisations start to get worried, then I don't feel so confident.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Custard:
As the models have become more advanced, it's become clear that the CO2 we're producing (and so on) is messing up the global climate, but its not entirely clear exactly how that works out in terms of effects.

It is clear that the poor, especially in places where they are most vulnerable to climate change, are the people who are going to suffer most.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The problem with the Climate Change Agenda is, whether it be Mrs Thatcher or Blair/Brown/Cameron it is tailormade for politicians who see it is as a way to increase control and to give a rationale to taxing the public.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It has a danger of crowding out environmental concerns which should be faced up to such as deforestation and over-population [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It has also taken on the form of a quasi-religion in which any doubt will not be allowed and which is stamped upon as a heresy [...]

---

quote:

---

This is one of the wackier conspiracy theories out there. "Climate change" isn't a new term - you'd think that the name of IPCC (established 1988) would be a major hint.

---

quote:

---

Not being a scientist I won't voice an opinion on the science of climate change* however it occurs to me that if people are concerned that climate change will be used to create a global government** then they should petition their respective national governments to act responsibly and intelligently with regard to climate change, and to voluntarily assist whichever countries and peoples are harmed by their actions, especially those who through poverty or other characteristics are unable to easily adjust.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
OP question: answer: Yes....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The problem with the Climate Change Agenda is, whether it be Mrs Thatcher or Blair/Brown/Cameron it is tailormade for politicians who see it is as a way to increase control and to give a rationale to taxing the public.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
That's an interesting article on overpopulation and one that I mostly agree with.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zwingli:
The greater and wider the harm done by climate change, the larger the proper scope of government to restrain it, and the longer the issue is effectively ignored, the higher the chance that its effects will be rapid and serious enough to require supernational or global government.

---

Absolutely spot on.

I remember one Shipmate being appalled at the idea of building codes with mandatory insulation standards: this represented too much government influence. But by rejecting relatively minor government actions like this now, it's going to make much more drastic ones inevitable a few decades further in. It's an entirely self-fulfilling prophecy.
 

---

Posted by Jessie Phillips (# 13048) on :
 
Alwyn responds to aumbry

quote:

---

quote:

---

It has also taken on the form of a quasi-religion in which any doubt will not be allowed and which is stamped upon as a heresy [...]

---

How many religions can honestly say that their truth claims are supported by an international consensus of scientists?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Bullshit. Youze changed it to climate change because real science said climate changes and youze can't deal with it and keep funding going.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
Is the Myrrh v Alan Cresswell debate on climate change becoming an annual Ship institution? It seems to come earlier every year. I hope it doesn't get all commercialised.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:

Personally I am intrigued by the way that all this environmental doomsday stuff jumped out of the vole-hole and into the full light of day at about the same time as the Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction receded.

---

quote:

---

The trouble with both your contradictory conspiracy theories is that Thatcher got on the bandwagon in 1988 - at least three years after she'd stuffed the miners and killed the coal industry (so no reason to make any link there) but over a year before the events of 1989 (which she was probably the last major Western politician to see the significance of anyway)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
It seems to me that it wasn't until the A-bomb in 1945 that people started to take seriously the idea that Armageddon might be brought about by technological progress

---

quote:

---

But it's disingenious to use this argument against dispensationalism, if you don't use it against environmentalism as well. Environmentalism is a lot younger than dispensationalism!!

---

quote:

---

Scaremongering rhetoric about global warming doesn't persuade people to abandon dispensationalist beliefs; on the contrary, it tends to reinforce those beliefs

---

quote:

---

Why did I stop believing in global warming? Well, because I tried to do my bit, I did replace all my lightbulbs with energy saving bulbs, I tried to make other efficiencies too - but to be honest I can't see any evidence that it's made any difference. [...] Naturally, this sowed doubts in my mind.

---

quote:

---

So even in the worst-case scenario, I find it hard to believe that global warming will be any different.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Care to run that by me again, because I simply don't understand what you're trying to say. You appear to be agreeing with me that science shows that the climate changes, and that it's not just increasing temperatures. But, if so I don't see the reason for the 'bullshit' or the 'you can't deal with it'

---

quote:

---

Alan There are dozens of groups around the world experimenting with the climate - what happens if we increase CO2 by 20%? what happens if increased ocenainc temperatures release more CO2? etc., and running those experiments for past, present and potential future conditions. Those experiments match the past pretty well, for a very complex system.

---

quote:

---

Or, are you just worried that the experiments are run inside computers? Perhaps waiting a century for the data from physical experimentation with the climate (with virtually no chance of controlling the variables) would be better ... but if the computational experiments are anything to go on (and, their results for past climates tend to suggest that they are) then if we did that we'd have waited far too long to actually do anything.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn:
Climate doesn't stay the same from year to year. We knew that. So, what's all the fuss about?

CO2 has increased from zero-ish to zero-ish, while water remains the earth's favourite greenhouse gas. CO2 is zero-ish because of photosynthesis and other natural chemical processes that remove CO2 from the air.

I think we're being misled.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn:
CO2 has increased from zero-ish to zero-ish, while water remains the earth's favourite greenhouse gas. CO2 is zero-ish because of photosynthesis and other natural chemical processes that remove CO2 from the air.

---

1. "Zero-ish" is just rhetoric. Zero-ish strychnine (or even caffeine) can have a significant effect.
2. Water vapour accounts for about two-thirds of the greenhouse effect, but that doesn't make the other gases trivial.
3. Photosynthesis only has a limited ability to remove CO2 (otherwise CO2 levels wouldn't be rising).
4. Chemical weathering will remove CO2 eventually, but that's after 100,000+ years.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
How hard can getting an international consensus of scientists actually be?

---

If it's easy, let's try an experiment. Prove your point by achieving an international consensus among contemporary scientists about something that is demonstrably untrue. Here's how. Let us know when you've done it

Sure, there are some eco-fundamentalists out there - you get fruitcakes in every big human group. My point, when asking the question ... 'how many religions can say that their truth claims are supported by a global scientific consensus?' ... was that it's hard to sustain a case that belief in climate science is 'quasi-religious', rather than based on, well, science.

Trying to paint climate sceptics as victims of mad religious zealous won't work. Your opponent is not Fred Phelps, he is Alan Cresswell.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
If there's one thing I've learnt from gay rights and anti-racism campaigning, it's that those in the majority aren't always in the right. See the Wikipedia article.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
How hard can getting an international consensus of scientists actually be?

---

If it's easy, let's try an experiment. Prove your point by achieving an international consensus among contemporary scientists about something that is demonstrably untrue. Here's how. Let us know when you've done it

---

quote:

---

If there is data manipulation, it would not be a new phenomenon in the “scare” dynamic. In my studies of the first prominent UK scare – the “salmonella in eggs” scare in 1988-9, I caught out a leading government epidemiologist “reinterpreting” figures in a food poisoning outbreak to turn it from “unknown origin” into a definite egg case. Unfortunately for the man, he had already released the “uncorrected” data, to which we had access.

In my review of 60 official “egg” outbreaks – peer reviewed for my PhD – only four could be reliably attributed to eggs. Richard North Unaccountable data changes

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
It isn't science when open debate isn't allowed, it is religious persecution.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
[...] where government control can be imposed without argument then every kind of abuse of our freedoms can be implemented.

[...]it is religious persecution.

---

quote:

---

CO2 has increased from zero-ish to zero-ish, while water remains the earth's favourite greenhouse gas. CO2 is zero-ish because of photosynthesis and other natural chemical processes that remove CO2 from the air.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
It isn't science when open debate isn't allowed, it is religious persecution.

---

You're 'openly debating' it here. In what sense is what you are doing 'not allowed'? How, specifically, have you been persecuted for expressing your views?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
I should have written "when open scientific debate isn't allowed".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
RE the OP, for interest - The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam

I haven't checked this out any further. Leave it you.

---

quote:

---

Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate.

---

quote:

---

These two research papers became the bedrock of the science of global warming, even though they offered no proof that carbon dioxide was in fact a greenhouse gas.

---

People have known CO2 was a greenhouse gas since the late 19th century. There's no question about it whatsoever.

quote:

---

Cars and factories and power plants were filling the air with all sorts of pollutants. There was a valid and serious concern about the health consequences of this pollution and a strong environmental movement was developing to demand action.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
RE the OP, for interest - The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam

I haven't checked this out any further. Leave it you.

---

If you can't be bothered to read it, why link to it? Why do you think this contributes anything to the conversation? Quoting other random websites at length isn't debate. It kills debate.

---

quote:

---

The concept of global governance has been fermenting for some time. In 1991, the Club of Rome (of which Strong is, of course, a member) issued a report called The First Global Revolution, which asserted that current problems "are essentially global and cannot be solved through individual country initiatives [which] gives a greatly enhanced importance to the United Nations and other international systems." Also in 1991 Strong claimed that the Earth Summit, of which he was Secretary General, would play an important role in "reforming and strengthening the United Nations as the centerpiece of the emerging system of democratic global governance." In 1995, in Our Global Neighborhood, the CGG agreed: "It is our firm conclusion that the United Nations must continue to play a central role in global governance."

Americans should be worried by the Commission's recommendations: for instance, that some UN activities be funded through taxes on foreign-exchange transactions and multinational corporations. Economist James Tobin estimates that a 0.5 per cent tax on foreign-exchange transactions would raise $1.5 trillion annually -- nearly equivalent to the U.S. federal budget.

It also recommended that "user fees" might be imposed on companies operating in the "global commons." Such fees might be collected on international airline tickets, ocean shipping, deep-sea fishing, activities in Antarctica, geostationary satellite orbits, and electromagnetic spectrum. But the big enchilada is carbon taxes, which would be levied on all fuels made from coal, oil, and natural gas. "A carbon tax," the report deadpans, ". . . would yield very large revenues indeed." Given the UN's record of empire-building and corruption, Cato's Ted Carpenter warns: "One can only imagine the degree of mischief it could get into if it had independent sources of revenue."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:

quote:

---

Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
OP question: answer: Yes....

---

How? Please give details in your explanation so I may follow your steps of reasoning and evidence. Ta.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
I posted it because I had read it and I posted it because there is something in it relevant to the OP.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn:
I think the credibility of global warming is manufactured. I'll happily look at the raw data, if someone will show me where it is. I have looked for it, but had no luck. Perhaps I gave up too easily. I think we're expected to believe someone's interpretation of a graph. Example, I recall hearing about some data that was taken inside a city and used as proof that temperatures are going up over decades, everywhere. Scepticism is good.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn:
I think the credibility of global warming is manufactured. I'll happily look at the raw data, if someone will show me where it is.

---

quote:

---

Example, I recall hearing about some data that was taken inside a city and used as proof that temperatures are going up over decades, everywhere.

---

quote:

---

Water vapour accounts for two thirds of the greenhouse effect? Is there some raw data on that?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
It's unrealistic to expect everyone to become scientists - but, given that we're not all scientists, it's also unrealistic to expect everyone to sustain a belief that they are individually responsible for saving the world, if they don't understand the reasons why it matters. When people fail to see the evidence that their own change in personal emissions makes any difference, you can't blame them for being sceptical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
I am trying to think whether it's possible to systematize how to distinguish between someone who is a crank and someone who isn't. It's not just the consensus.

---

quote:

---

Asked what temperature rise was most likely [this century], 84 of the 182 specialists (46%) who answered the question said it would reach 3-4C by the end of the century; 47 (26%) suggested a rise of 2-3C, while a handful said 6C or more. While 24 experts predicted a catastrophic rise of 4-5C, just 18 thought it would stay at 2C or under.

Some of those surveyed who said the 2C target would be met confessed they did so more out of hope rather than belief. "As a mother of young children I choose to believe this, and work hard toward it," one said.

"This optimism is not primarily due to scientific facts, but to hope," said another.

---

quote:

---

Six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.
[...]
"Civilisation developed, and constructed extensive infrastructure, during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end," the scientists warn. Humanity cannot afford to burn the Earth's remaining underground reserves of fossil fuel. "To do so would guarantee dramatic climate change, yielding a different planet from the one on which civilisation developed and for which extensive physical infrastructure has been built," they say.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jessie Phillips:
It's unrealistic to expect everyone to become scientists - but, given that we're not all scientists, it's also unrealistic to expect everyone to sustain a belief that they are individually responsible for saving the world, if they don't understand the reasons why it matters. When people fail to see the evidence that their own change in personal emissions makes any difference, you can't blame them for being sceptical.

---

It is true that we can see the roots of environmental movements in some types of apocalyptic thought. (A reason why the conspiracy theory that it's all rooted in the interests of well-known big government apostles such as Margaret Thatcher is just so off the mark.) But if it were true you'd expect those environmentalist communities to act as canaries - they would be picking up on it first. Also, there's a lot of Romantic thought in the environmental movement. Some Romantics such as Blake might have had links with apocalyptic movements, but others not.

There's apocalyptic thought and apocalyptic thought. The environmentalist movements and the Biblical millennialist movements in modern society tend to be pretty much hostile to each other. The one's putting forward the idea that there's nothing we can do about it, and to be honest it's really a good thing; the other is putting forward the idea that if we abandon modern civilization and go back to nature we can avoid the catastrophe, which will be a really bad thing.

Ideas get out of the wilder apocalyptic communities and into mainstream discourse with considerable difficulty. That this one has done so must suggest that there's something to it.

I am trying to think whether it's possible to systematize how to distinguish between someone who is a crank and someone who isn't. It's not just the consensus. Ken and Alan Cresswell are pretty clearly not cranks. I don't think it's just their rhetorical self-presentation, or rather the rhetoric reflects a way of thinking that isn't easily impressed by bad reasoning.

As for individual action, none of us are in an individual position to do very much about it. In part, it's a tragedy of collective action and free-riding. Cutting down individual power consumption is a good first step. It's only really effective if a large percentage of our society does it, and at the moment only those who are individually highly motivated by the thought of anthropogenic climate change itself are doing that. The other problem is that a lot of the action that needs to be taken is at collective scales, and the progress there is painfully slow. (If the world's governments were really in a conspiracy to foist climate change upon us, then you'd think government action would be more than grudging and half-hearted.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
I recall that for the two or three years before 2000 we were told how planes would fall out of the sky, power stations would break down and basically more or less all the gadgets of the modern world would stop functioning due to the Millennium Bug. Doubtless a lot of this hyperbole was down to newspaper sensationalism but I don't recall many computer experts saying it was all tosh. Needless to say governments and industry spent billions on this scare and in reality the problem was miniscule.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot and in the end the real damage will be done to Environmentalism for over-egging this particular one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dafyd:
From merely the above three events, you do not know whether the government and media were wrong or whether the action was effective.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Unfortunately too many people are taken in by the likes of George Mombiot [...]

---

Yeah, don't you hate it when people are 'taken in' by intelligent, multi award-winning journalists whose work is recognised by several universities and who take the time to research and think about what they write:

"[George Monbiot] has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), Oxford Brookes (planning) and East London (environmental science). He has honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews and the University of Essex and an Honorary Fellowship from Cardiff University.

In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award." (source; see also his Wikipedia entry)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
So what?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
He is a climate change polemicist

---

Shall we disregard the views of everyone who has strong views and expresses them? That argument works both ways.

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?

Climate sceptics claim that climate scientists ...
- aren't supported by the science
- defend a 'quasi-religious' view
- are polemicists

... pot, meet kettle
 

---

Posted by aumbry (# 436) on :
 
Have a look at his own website if you think he is a paragon of balanced argument: "transatlantic flights as unacceptable as child abuse"

Julie Burchill had Mombiot's number. He is basically a type of privileged Englishman educated beyond his intelligence who believes he has the right to tell others what they can and can't do whilst his own indulging in flights and cars overrides environmental considerations because what HE does is so important.

Before the collapse of "scientific socialism" he would have postured from the viewpoint of nannying leftism - now he finds more fruitful ground in the purlieus of environmentalism.
 

---

Posted by Alwyn (# 4380) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
[...]if you think he is a paragon of balanced argument

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Julie Burchill had Mombiot's number.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Just had a laugh [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
[...] it is pissing with rain and freezing cold [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Alan, when I want data I don't mean all the data points. I want to know how these climate models work. What assumptions were make? What equations were used?

---

• Simple Models of Climate Change
• General Circulation Models of Climate

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
We currently live in a world controlled by a shadow government run by OPEC and their ilk. Perhaps rule by power mad scientists is worse. Perhaps it's not. But Bush and his friends really screwed the pooch so people want something new.

---

Well if the world is run by OPEC then we really are screwed (regardless of what Dubya did to Barney)!!
 

---

Posted by Inger (# 15285) on :
 
I have lurked on the Ship for a very long time (by the way, I think you should have a standard acronym for this phrase à la ITTWACW, since it seems to be used by virtually every new member). I'm finally prompted to join because I think there is one point in this debate I can throw some light on, even if I never post again.

It's about the change in usage from 'global warming' to 'climate change'. Clearly the IPCC used it from the start, but I think it's true that in common parlance GW was commoner until some years ago. But contrary to what is regularly asserted by sceptics, this change, far from originating in green circles, was deliberately promoted by the Bush administration, so comes very much from the opposite camp.

It appears to date back to 2002, to a notorious memo from Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, to the Bush administration. In it he advocated the use of 'climate change' instead of 'global warming':

“Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming
within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.”

“Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”

“It’s time for us to start talking about ‘climate change’ instead of global warming and ‘conservation’ instead of preservation. ‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming’. As one focus group participant noted, climate change 'sounds like you’re going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale.’ While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.”

(From the memo; my emphasis)

"The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, when the memo was produced"

From the Guardian

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning myself, that CC sounds less frightening than GW, but that's another matter. It does seem to me reasonable to talk of 'climate change caused by global warming', since warming may not be a universal outcome, at least initially.
 

---

Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
I posted it because I had read it and I posted it because there is something in it relevant to the OP.

---

If you'd read it, that's even worse.

---

quote:

---

Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas?

---

quote:

---

And did you notice that even this conspiracy theorist article has to admit "carbon dioxide has increased from 215 to 385 parts per million", contradicting claims you're making here?

---

quote:

---

There are intelligent sceptics around, and there are real issues worth discussing. Regurgitating paranoid anti-AGW websites, regardless of how flawed the claims or biased the authors, doesn't further the discussion IMO.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
Thank you, Myrrh, for explaining more of your thinking and for the links. Let me see if I understand your position.

You're saying that there is no science proving that climate change occurs because of human activity. You see (if you agree with the Libertarian Alliance comments that you linked to) climate change as an attempt by environmentalists to sustain their movement and for Maurice Strong to "fulfill his dream of one-world government". For you (or at least, for the Libertarian Alliance), this is "bad science [...] driving big government". Have I represented your view correctly? I may well have missed significant points.

---

quote:

---

Maybe I'm just realising the importance of this particular thread title now (I'm a slow learner, sometimes.) How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?

---

quote:

---

When climate scientists talk about their evidence, are climate sceptics simply hearing demands for bigger government and higher taxes? Maybe both sides feel that they're not being heard about issues that matter.

---

quote:

---

Suppose that measures to reduce climate change could be achieved through private initiatives and voluntary action. Suppose climate change measures could be introduced without significant tax increases. How much difference (if any) would that make to sceptics' level of concern about climate science?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas?

---

Yes.

Hence back to my one question which continues to go unanswered because agw's don't have an answer. "Prove that CO2 drives global warming".

---

quote:

---

Let me put it another way, is there anyone who can disprove the arguments that it can't? There seem to be rather a lot of these and they make more sense to me, uneducated as I am in climatology, than rants that CO2 drives global warming when the only correlation between the two shows CO2 lags temperature rises by around 800 years. Consistently. For hundreds of thousands of years.

---

quote:

---

CO2 Absorption Spectrum - There is no Valid Mechanism for CO2 Creating Global Warming

CO2 Charlatanism

You have a go.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Maybe I'm just realising the importance of this particular thread title now (I'm a slow learner, sometimes.) How much of the concern of sceptics linked to a perception that climate science is a Trojan Horse for bigger government and higher taxes?

---

That wasn't my interest in it. I had never given the subject any thought until I found, from Hiro's earlier thread, that there were arguments about it. I think, from the quite extensive searches I've made, that those objecting are doing so because the science stinks.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Anyway, there is definitely some real heavyweight control at the top

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Inger:
I have lurked on the Ship for a very long time (by the way, I think you should have a standard acronym for this phrase à la ITTWACW, since it seems to be used by virtually every new member).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Inger:
It's about the change in usage from 'global warming' to 'climate change'. [...] But contrary to what is regularly asserted by sceptics, this change, far from originating in green circles, was deliberately promoted by the Bush administration, so comes very much from the opposite camp.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
... the science stinks ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Do you stand by the author's claim that Revelle should have proved CO2 is a greenhouse gas?

---

Yes.

Hence back to my one question which continues to go unanswered because agw's don't have an answer. "Prove that CO2 drives global warming".

---

You should be aware that "is CO2 a greenhouse gas?" and "does CO2 drive global warming?" are different questions. You'd probably save a lot of confusion if you don't conflate the two questions too much.

A simple experiment that I'd expect most people to be able to do in their home (if they can source a few components) will show that CO2 absorbs IR, and if you have a spectroscopy system you can even measure what IR wavelengths are most strongly absorbed. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the experiment doesn't allow any other interpretation.

---

quote:

---

Whether CO2 drives global warming requires additional data and interpretation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh [quoting Alan Cresswell]:
Whether CO2 drives global warming requires additional data and interpretation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Whether CO2 drives global warming requires additional data and interpretation. [... he provides details ...] These are the questions, and others like them, that climate scientists grapple with ... and reach the conclusion that CO2 is a major driver of global warming and associated climate changes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
I'm still waiting.

---

quote:

---

In some places, the ice was 500 feet thick. The huge sheet of ice passed over hills and valleys, bringing with it great loads of rock, gravel, sand, and clay that were ground and scraped from the surface of the land they traversed. Boulders of red quartzite and granite, dragged from Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota can be found throughout eastern Kansas.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

Most, if not all, of these climate impacts are the direct or indirect consequence of increasing temperatures due to very large increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. So, I suppose 'global warming' could cover them, it's just that 'climate change' is much more comprehensive.

---

Bullshit. Youze changed it to climate change because real science said climate changes and youze can't deal with it and keep funding going.
Myrrh

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff#Family

I'm not sure what to make of this. Opinions, please.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:


Myrrh, your CO2 Absorption Spectrum link makes some errors that appear intentional. First the graph is labeled wrong in a seriously misleading manner. Second the CO2 spectrums will not be little blocks, they will spread out some just as the black body radiation does.

---

quote:

---

Finally (and this might be simple ignorance) the energy in a photon goes up as the wavelength shortens. If the wavelength ever did reach zero, as shown on your linked graph, the energy would be infinite. This is important because much of the actual energy is clustered near the CO2 blocking frequencies.

---

quote:

---

In any case the idea is that a small change in temperature brought on by more CO2 is amplified by water vapor which is by far the dominant greenhouse gas. This is because warm air holds more water vapor.

I can't accept that at face value because any warming at all (even a sunny day) would lead to runaway warming if it were true. There must be other factors at play. Until we have a complete understanding of why this doesn't happen, we don't understand the system.

---

quote:

---

This is where the treaty might be a mistake. Under the treaty we would be legally required to reduce our world population by force. Our large agricultural belts growing wheat would need to be shut down. Northern dry land crops such as oats and barley would be limited while wetland crops such as rice and sugar could continue. We might even need to poison large areas turning them to deserts.

Of course this would be insane, but so was Stalin's deliberately starving his farmers to death. Stranger things have happened when law and politics interact.

....

Still, overall I support the proposed treaty with some modifications and clarifications.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
... the science stinks ...

---

Thank you, Myrrh, for your response. What about:-

1. The precautionary principle

If I'm wrong, I'll look stupid. If you're wrong, and if we don't act, what will happen? Does that bother you?

---

quote:

---

2. The effects of climate change that are visible now

If you search online for 'visible effects of climate change' there are some interesting results, such as:-

---

quote:

---

OK, again I'm not sure what you mean here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Myrrh wrote,

quote:

---

OK, again I'm not sure what you mean here.

---

Clearly you are not. The surprising thing is you show so much certainty after admitting ignorance.

You go on to explain how CO2 acts exactly like a blanket (not producing any heat and all) while stating it's not like a blanket at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
[description of greenhouse effect on Venus, Mars, and Earth]
The real miracle is that we have a stable climate at all. Nothing the climate experts have said convinces me they know why we do.

---

quote:

---

In any case the idea is that a small change in temperature brought on by more CO2 is amplified by water vapor which is by far the dominant greenhouse gas. This is because warm air holds more water vapor.

I can't accept that at face value because any warming at all (even a sunny day) would lead to runaway warming if it were true.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:


Myrrh, your CO2 Absorption Spectrum link makes some errors that appear intentional. First the graph is labeled wrong in a seriously misleading manner. Second the CO2 spectrums will not be little blocks, they will spread out some just as the black body radiation does.

---

I don't know what you mean by labelled wrongly. The little blocks I took to be representational, i.e. more clearly seen than a thin line, this is of a type of graphical representation.

---

quote:

---

CO2 anyway is only capable of absorbing a certain amount of heat, after the cut off point it doesn't matter how much heat is thrown at it, it pulls down the shutters and says no thanks.

---

quote:

---

he says here:

"Some supposed experts insist that CO2 will absorb and instantly re-emit at the same wavelength in the atmosphere. They are wrong, but if they were right, it would be irrelevant, because instantly re-emitting at the same wavelength is no different from not absorbing at all. No heat is produced."

I don't know why he's saying that's an argument from pro agw's, I think it's an argument for antis.

---

quote:

---

When radiation is re-emitted in the atmosphere, it moves in all directions. The energy does not move closer to space, because it is not directional. The way heat moves toward the outer atmosphere is either through convectional currents or long wave infrared radiation which is not affected by greenhouse gasses.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Dave, any positive feedback must at some point be balanced by at least as much negative feedback or a system is unstable.

Since water vapor dominates the greenhouse effect and it's a strong positive feedback mechanism there must be as strong a negative feedback mechanism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:
Fine - but we know of strong negative feedback mechanisms in the climate system. (The most obvious is that objects radiate more heat at higher temperatures.)

---

• +1C -> -5% ice
• -5% ice -> +0.5C
• +0.5C -> -2.5% ice
• -2.5% ice -> +0.25C
• +0.25C -> -1.25% ice
• ...etc...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
So not all positive feedbacks cause runaway effects.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
Also, does a system always need negative feedback to stabilise?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
CO2 anyway is only capable of absorbing a certain amount of heat, after the cut off point it doesn't matter how much heat is thrown at it, it pulls down the shutters and says no thanks.

---

Actually, that's totally wrong. CO2 absorbs IR (which isn't exactly the same as heat), which causes molecular bonds to excite and heats the atmosphere as those vibrations are transfered to motion through collisions with other molecules. While the bonds are in an excited state the molecule won't be able to absorb an IR photon (at least, not at the same energy, some of the other excitation modes may still be accessible), but the bond is only excited for a very short time ... once it's de-excited it can absorb another IR photon.

---

quote:

---

There is a limit to how hot the total volume of air can get - it's the point at which heat loss (via black body radiation and convection) and energy input (IR absorption) balance. For a given body of air, if you increase the number of greenhouse gas molecules then the amount of IR absorbed will increase. That will increase the equilibrium temperature.

---

quote:

---

he says here:

"Some supposed experts insist that CO2 will absorb and instantly re-emit at the same wavelength in the atmosphere. They are wrong, but if they were right, it would be irrelevant, because instantly re-emitting at the same wavelength is no different from not absorbing at all. No heat is produced."

I don't know why he's saying that's an argument from pro agw's, I think it's an argument for antis.

---

quote:

---

Frankly, to me it's primarily an argument that displays his ignorance. His un-named so-called experts are, of course, talking bullshit. If he could cite anyone who had actually claimed that then I'd be surprised if they had any formal science education beyond school - and, if I was an A level physics teacher and one of my pupils came up with such hogwash I'd be embarrassed because they should know better. The same would be true of some of the other 'esoteric' ideas he demolishes. He can easily demolish them because they're garbage - I've never come across any of them before reading that page!

---

quote:

---

Still, CO2 does get hotter than normal air according to the first experiment. So I thought it would be prudent to take a closer look at CO2 and other substances. The following are some specific heat coefficients (J/g*deg. K) from highest to lowest:

Water--4.1813
Methane--2.34
Nitrogen gas--1.040
Oxygen gas--.918
Aluminum--.897
CO2--.839
Carbon--.644
Copper--.385
Mercury--.1395

Notice that the greenhouse gases are high on the list. They absorb heat slowly and lose it slowly. Thus they can prevent heat from earth from escaping to outer space. Water is the highest and water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas.

Mercury is last on the list. This is not surprising since mercury gains and loses heat the fastest. In fact all metals gain and lose heat quickly. You might say they are anti-greenhouse.

After water on the list, comes methane--another powerful greenhouse gas with a coefficient of 2.34! Then comes nitrogen gas. Most air consists of nitro--HEY! Wait a minute?! After nitrogen comes oxygen? What?!

....


The experimenter neglected to put the jars in the freezer to see which jar would cool the fastest. According to Q = cm(T1-T2), the jar containing CO2 would cool faster than the jar containing air.

On a warm day CO2 will heat up faster than the other air molecules, but on a cold day it will cool faster and lose its heat. So how exactly is CO2 supposed to warm the planet if it loses its heat?

The greenhouse theory proposes the sun's radiation enters Earth's atmosphere in small frequency waves that are not absorbed by CO2. These waves are absorbed by the earth's surface. Longer infrared waves are reflected back towards outer space.

William Pinn Page 3

---

quote:

---

He does, however get part way there in some almost right statements:

quote:

---

When radiation is re-emitted in the atmosphere, it moves in all directions. The energy does not move closer to space, because it is not directional. The way heat moves toward the outer atmosphere is either through convectional currents or long wave infrared radiation which is not affected by greenhouse gasses.

---

He is, of course, right that re-emitted radiation is in all directions. That means that half of that energy is towards space (actually, a wee bit more because the earth isn't flat). And, some of that will be in the part of the IR spectrum with very little absorption by the atmosphere (it'll still be black body radiation). That means that CO2 (and the other greenhouse gases) won't be a 100% blanket. His whole "it's absorbed in a very short distance, so adding more will make no difference" argument is spurious, because re-iradiation is allowing IR to penetrate long distances - even if the path length of individual photons is very short.

---

quote:

---

The 1971 version of the climate models assumed the global cooling of the time was caused by particulate matter from fossil fuels reducing the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth.
This was incorporated as a parameter in the climate models, and based on the continued increase in fossil fuel usage, the models predicted 50 years of further cooling!
Suddenly just four years later and in spite of the continued increase in fossil fuel usage, in 1975 global cooling ended proving the premise of the climate models to be wrong.
Somehow Hansen managed to quietly remove this parameter based on effects to the incoming solar energy, and replaced it with a new forcing parameter based on effects to the outgoing thermal energy from the Earth.
He ignored all the physical properties of CO2 and created a parameter based solely on the false assumption that 100ppmv CO2 concentration increase caused a 0.6°C global temperature increase (ignoring the fact that 0.5°C of this was due to natural warming since the Little Ice Age).
This model started the whole global warming scam in 1988, but just a decade later with increases in CO2 emissions continuing, global warming stopped, and all predictions of this revised model have subsequently been wrong. From Norm Kalmanovitch, October 10, 2009

---

quote:

---

You're correct; if you apply a positive feedback to an otherwise stable system, it's the size of the feedback (actually the loop gain) that determines whether the modified system will be stable or not.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Global temperatures have remained more or less constant for billions of years.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Odd how the only satellite sent up to measure CO2 crashed, so soon after showing what?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It never really occured to me that some people would be desperate to undermine the science because they were seeing a 'global government' agenda.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Odd how the only satellite sent up to measure CO2 crashed, so soon after showing what?

---

You're suggesting scientists spent $278 million and many years developing a satellite and state-of-the-art equipment to track carbon, then deliberately crashed it as part of the global conspiracy?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
IR (infrared radiation) is heat as commonly thought of, infrared heaters and night vision glasses which pick up the heat. That long wave IR is exciting my molecules may well be what's actually happening when I touch a car that's been standing around in the sun and say ouch that's hot

---

quote:

---

CO2 absorbs black body infrared radiation from the earth and keeps it and gets hotter and hotter driving up the temperature. Though if you say it can't actually absorb this while in an excited state that would go some way to explain the argument that for the most part it doesn't, that IR simply bypasses CO2 as that graph showed, only certain frequencies getting through.

---

quote:

---

Well, I came across it as basic physics when I was looking for the properties of CO2.

---

quote:

---

It's with reference to "heat capacity"

---

quote:

---

It is not a basic property of CO2 (or any other material) that IR energy absorbed is re-emitted at exactly the same wavelength.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
This raises an interesting question. How responsible is CO2 for increasing water vapor in the air? CO2 is at the lower tail of the outgoing radiation on the graph. Aren't local climate variables far more influential?

Does this mean warm weather farming in desert regions like the Imperial Valley, the Aswan High Dam, and the Aral sea region far more likely to be culprits than CO2 emissions?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Odd how the only satellite sent up to measure CO2 crashed, so soon after showing what?

---

You're suggesting scientists spent $278 million and many years developing a satellite and state-of-the-art equipment to track carbon, then deliberately crashed it as part of the global conspiracy?

---

You didn't understand crashed as in crashed data? Although I did have a picture in mind of them shooting it out of the sky...


I'm going to give you a teensybit of information here, see what else you can find.

quote:

---

AIRS - the quintessential greenhouse gas sensor of our time AIRS Data - Available to all

AIRS is a "facility instrument", meaning it is part of the Earth Observing System Facility and there is no Principal Investigator. As such, data coming from the instrument is freely available to all who request it. And AIRS data is truly free. In contrast to data from many other instruments, there is no fee to use the data. In addition, the AIRS Project is here to support the AIRS data users.

---

quote:

---

An encouraging response on satellite CO2 measurement from the AIRS Team

Recently we’ve been discussing products from the AIRS satellite instrument
I wrote to the AIRS team to inquire about when the satellite data on CO2, and other relevant products might be made public. All that has been released so far are occasional snippets of data and imagery, such as the short slide show above.

Here is the response I got from them:

Thank you for your interest in the AIRS CO2 data product.

We are still in the validation phase in developing this new product. It will be part of the Version 6 data release, but for now those of us working on it are intensively validating our results using in situ measurements by aircraft and upward looking fourier transform IR spectrometers (TCCON network and others).

The AIRS CO2 product is for the mid-troposphere. For quite some time it was accepted theory that CO2 in the free troposphere is “well-mixed”, i.e., the difference that might be seen at that altitude would be a fraction of a part per million (ppmv). Models, which ingest surface fluxes from known sources, have long predicted a smooth (small)variation with latitude, with steadily diminishing CO2 as you move farther South. We have a “two-planet” planet – land in the Northern Hemisphere and ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Synoptic weather in the NH can be seen to control the distribution of CO2 in the free troposphere. The SH large-scale action is mostly zonal.

Since our results are at variance with what is commonly accepted by he scientific community, we must work especially hard to validate them.
We have just had a paper accepted by Geophysical Research Letters that will be published in 6-8 weeks, and are preparing a validation paper.

We have global CO2 retrievals (day and night, over ocean and land, for clear and cloudy scenes) spanning the time period from Sept 2002 to the present. Those data will be released as we satisfactorily validate them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
IR (infrared radiation) is heat as commonly thought of, infrared heaters and night vision glasses which pick up the heat. That long wave IR is exciting my molecules may well be what's actually happening when I touch a car that's been standing around in the sun and say ouch that's hot

---

Sorry, I was a bit sloppy and confused heat and temperature. Heat is, as you say, the energy transferred between systems - and includes IR.

---

quote:

---

When you touch a hot object you're not feeling the IR given off by it (not primarily anyway). You're feeling the heat of the object, vibrations and motion in the molecules and solids of the object are tranferred directly to your hand. Put your hand near a hot object, and you'll feel the heat of the air (directly heated by convection from the hot object, and indirectly by IR) and some IR directly heating your hand.

---

quote:

---

Well, I came across it as basic physics when I was looking for the properties of CO2.

---

quote:

---

Well, in that case you need to find your basic physics from a reliable source. It is not a basic property of CO2 (or any other material) that IR energy absobed is re-emitted at exactly the same wavelength. The energy isn't re-emitted by the absorbing molecule, it's transferred to the surrounding mass of gas and increases the temperature. The warm body of air will emit black body radiation, of course.

---

quote:

---

It's with reference to "heat capacity"

---

quote:

---

Heat capacity is relevant, but the specific heat capacity of CO2 (or other atmospheric gases) is largely irrelevant except to the extent that it contributes to the total heat capacity of the system (the particular body of air). As CO2 is such a small component in air, it's specific heat capacity isn't relevant at all - the heat capacity of air is dominated by nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour in humid air.

---

quote:

---

"Consistency of Modelled and Observed Temperature

Trends in the Tropical Troposphere", by B.D. Santer et al.

Abstract

Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer model simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science - the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics.

---

quote:

---

Firstly, this paper is not science, it is advocacy. The paper you want that demolishes it utterly is: “An updated comparison of model ensemble and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere” Stephen McIntyre(1), Ross McKitrick (2) here.

---

quote:

---

Other surface property changes can affect climate through processes that cannot be quantified by RF; these have a very low level of scientific understanding. (p 132)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Since their results were at variance with the scientific community, what do you think they mean by having to validate them?

---

quote:

---

Let's clear this up shall we? We seem to be talking past each other here. Heat is IR. IR is heat.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
The precautionary principal works both ways.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
... if the climate change advocates are wrong we will have cost people their lives work wasted on combatting a nonexistent problem.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
We will have denied freedom to people who deserve it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
All of this seems to be being spent to limit flooding in coastal areas. [...]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
For all the talk about the poor being most affected, in my view coastal areas are the playgrounds for rich people ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
... This is a tragedy. But it will be offset by the poor in the interior seeing the value of their land rise.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
If CO2 absorbs IR, which is heat, and as a black body emits IR, which is heat, then it is giving away what it received.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

It's with reference to "heat capacity"

---

quote:

---

Heat capacity is relevant, but the specific heat capacity of CO2 (or other atmospheric gases) is largely irrelevant except to the extent that it contributes to the total heat capacity of the system (the particular body of air). As CO2 is such a small component in air, it's specific heat capacity isn't relevant at all - the heat capacity of air is dominated by nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour in humid air.

---

If it is in a cooler surrounding then it will emit it as quickly as it receives it. Makes it highly relevant to this subject.

---

quote:

---

Makes CO2 totally irrelevant to greenhouse theory which says greenhouse gases keep heat, IR, longer.

---

quote:

---

And as you also say, or rather as I'll stress, CO2 is very much insignificant in air.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dumpling Jeff:
Dave thanks for that link. It would be more useful if the didn't keep saying that the things I'm discussing have a low level of scientific understanding.

quote:

---

Other surface property changes can affect climate through processes that cannot be quantified by RF; these have a very low level of scientific understanding. (p 132)

---

On this we spend a trillion dollars?

BTW, the study only considers stratospheric water vapor (in this chapter, that I saw). I'm not sure why. Perhaps lower level vapor is considered a surface effect?

---

quote:

---

Radiative forcing from anthropogenic sources of tropospheric water vapour is not evaluated here, since these sources affect surface temperature more significantly through these non-radiative processes, and a strict use of the RF is problematic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I didn't have time to respond to everything this morning.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
If CO2 absorbs IR, which is heat, and as a black body emits IR, which is heat, then it is giving away what it received.

---

Molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouses gases) in the air absorb IR. The mass of air those molecules are in emit black body radiation. The broad spectrum of IR photons from the black body do not correspond to the discrete photon energy of the absorbed IR. If the air mass has the same temperature as the body that emitted the absorbed photon (the ground near the surface, more often other air masses) then the spectra will have the same shape. If there's a temperature difference then there will be a corresponding shift in the black body spectrum.

---

quote:

---

MyrrhIt's with reference to "heat capacity"

---

quote:

---

AlanHeat capacity is relevant, but the specific heat capacity of CO2 (or other atmospheric gases) is largely irrelevant except to the extent that it contributes to the total heat capacity of the system (the particular body of air). As CO2 is such a small component in air, it's specific heat capacity isn't relevant at all - the heat capacity of air is dominated by nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour in humid air.

---

quote:

---

MyrrhIf it is in a cooler surrounding then it will emit it as quickly as it receives it. Makes it highly relevant to this subject.

---

quote:

---

AlanYou're still not understanding the difference between a large body of gas and the constituent molecules.

The rate at which a large body of gas (or, solid or liquid for that matter) heats or cools is a function of the heat capacity of that gas. If the gas is a composition of different molecular species then the heat capacity is function of the specific heat capacities of those constituents weighted according to their abundance. In air, that means it's dominated by nitrogen, oxygen and water vapour (which is variable). The contribution of CO2 to the heat capacity is negligable because there's so little of it - whether there was 300, 400, 600 ppm CO2 would make no practical difference to the heat capacity.

---

quote:

---

Makes CO2 totally irrelevant to greenhouse theory which says greenhouse gases keep heat, IR, longer.

---

quote:

---

No, greenhouse gases do not retain energy longer. Except for water vapour, their contribution to the heat capacity of air is insignificant. Greenhouse gases absorb IR energy more efficiently than other gases. An increase in greenhouse gas concentration thus increases the rate at which heat is captured by a mass of air. The heat capacity hasn't changed (unless the greenhouse gas is water vapour) so the rate of heat loss from the mass of air won't change for a fixed temperature. So, if you increase heat input and there's no corresponding increase in heat loss the only outcome is an increase in temperature. The warmer air will release heat faster than cooler air, so a new equilibrium temperature will be reached that's warmer than before the greenhouse gas was increased.

---

quote:

---

"Global Warming
Carbon dioxide contributes to global warming by absorbing heat energy from the earth, trapping it and preventing its release into space."
How does CO2 cause global warming

"Global warming is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This carbon overload is caused mainly when we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas or cut down and burn forests. There are many heat-trapping gases (from methane to water vapor), but CO2 puts us at the greatest risk of irreversible changes if it continues to accumulate unabated in the atmosphere. There are two key reasons why.

CO2 has caused most of the warming and its influence is expected to continue. CO2, more than any other cf driver, has contributed the most to climate change between 1750 and 2005.[1, 2, 3] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a global climate assessment in 2007 that compared the relative influence exerted by key heat-trapping gases, tiny particles known as aerosols, and land use change of human origin on our climate between 1750 and 2005.[3] By measuring the abundance of heat-trapping gases in ice cores, the atmosphere, and other climate drivers along with models, the IPCC calculated the “radiative forcing” (RF) of each climate driver—in other words, the net increase (or decrease) in the amount of energy reaching Earth’s surface attributable to that climate driver. Positive RF values represent average surface warming and negative values represent average surface cooling. CO2 has the highest positive RF (see Figure 1) of all the human-influenced climate drivers compared by the IPCC. Other gases have more potent heat-trapping ability molecule per molecule than CO2 (e.g. methane), but are simply far less abundant in the atmosphere and being added more slowly."
Global warming faq

---

quote:

---

"The GISS "SI2000" climate model provided a convincing demonstration that global temperature change of the past half-century is mainly a response to climate forcing agents, or imposed perturbations of the Earth's energy balance. This is especially true of human-made forcings, such as carbon dioxide and methane, which trap the Earth's heat radiation as a blanket traps body heat; thus they cause warming."
Nasa

---

quote:

---

Myrrh
And as you also say, or rather as I'll stress, CO2 is very much insignificant in air.

---

quote:

---

AlanInsignificant in relation to heat capacity. Very significant in relation to IR absorption.

---

quote:

---

AIRS - the quintessential greenhouse gas sensor of our time

It comes as a surprise to many, but water vapor is the most dominant greenhouse gas in the Earth's atmosphere. It accounts for about 60% of the greenhouse effect of the global atmosphere, far exceeding the total combined effects of increased carbon dioxide, methane, ozone and other greenhouse gases. AIRS advanced technology makes it the most advanced water vapor sensor ever built. Beyond water vapor, AIRS measures all the other primary greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, the largest source of anthropogenic greenhouse gas, carbon monoxide, methane, and ozone. What is AIRS

---

quote:

---

3rd Law, heat cannot be trapped.

---

quote:

---

This, to my mind, shows it's not a lot of use as a greenhouse gas and this plus it has a max absorption plus it's not exponential, but algorithmic, makes it not the not even a driver of global warming.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:

quote:

---

This, to my mind, shows it's not a lot of use as a greenhouse gas and this plus it has a max absorption plus it's not exponential, but algorithmic, makes it not the not even a driver of global warming.

---

Really? "Algorithmic"? Not exponential but "algorithmic"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:
And what is this:

quote:

---

3rd Law, heat cannot be trapped.

---

supposed to mean?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Most of the atmosphere is Oxygen and Nitrogen. Atmosphere

21% Oxygen 78% Nitrogen = 99% of the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide is 0.03%

That's not even a fishing net, let alone blanket.

---

quote:

---

The Earth receives energy from the Sun mostly in the form of visible light and nearby wavelengths. About 50% of the sun's energy is absorbed at the Earth's surface. Like all bodies with a temperature above absolute zero the Earth's surface radiates energy in the infrared range. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb most of the infrared radiation emitted by the surface and pass the absorbed heat to other atmospheric gases through molecular collisions. The greenhouse gases also radiate in the infrared range. Radiation is emitted both upward, with part escaping to space, and downward toward Earth's surface. The surface and lower atmosphere are warmed by the part of the energy that is radiated downward, making our life on earth possible.[5]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:
Myrhh, you seem to be confusing the ability of CO2 to interact with infrared radiation with its heat capacity.

---

quote:

---

These are two very distinct things; it is the former effect which distinguishes greenhouse gases, and which your quotes from the Union of Concerned Scientists and NASA refer to as "heat trapping."

---

quote:

---

This is rather an important point; the major constituent gases of the atmosphere, O2 and N2, are by contrast practically transparent to infrared radiation. Saying greenhouse gases can't have a significant effect because there are a lot more of these other molecules is like saying the weight of a rock is insignificant because it's in a room with a lot of soap bubbles.

---

quote:

---

And what is this:

quote:

---

3rd Law, heat cannot be trapped.

---

supposed to mean?

---

quote:

---

And in this:

quote:

---

This, to my mind, shows it's not a lot of use as a greenhouse gas and this plus it has a max absorption plus it's not exponential, but algorithmic, makes it not the not even a driver of global warming.

---

Really? "Algorithmic"? Not exponential but "algorithmic"?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
Is 'arithmetic' the correct word? E.g. The greenhouse effect is directly proportional to the percentage of CO2 (rather than exponentially or quadratically).

---

quote:

---

Of course, an increase in greenhouse effect that is directly proportional to the increase in CO2 would still be a factor in climate warming.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
CO2 is a much more effective greenhouse gas per molecule than water vapour, so that despite its much lower concentration it has a greenhouse effect of the same order of magnitude as water vapour, if somewhat lower. This is why changes to its concentration are significant.

---

quote:

---

When it is said that greenhouse gases trap IR, this is shorthand for saying that they absorb IR (e.g. that radiating from the earth) and transfer the heat energy to the other parts of the atmosphere, including non greenhouse gases such as O2 and N2, by molecular collision.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:
And what is this:

quote:

---

3rd Law, heat cannot be trapped.

---

supposed to mean?

---

It's clearly the Third Law of Myrhhmeneutics. Because, the more obvious interpretation that he's talking about the Third Law of Thermodynamics makes no sense. That the entropy of a system at absolute zero is minimum (zero for perfect solids) has no relation to heat being trapped.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Myrrh, it's clear to me (and others) that you're confusing CO2's heat capacity (how quickly its temperature rises as heat is applied) with its characteristics as a partial barrier to infrared radiation.

---

quote:

---

A wire fence in a field may be a barrier to sheep without taking on any characteristics of the sheep. Such a fence may be no barrier to rabbits or mice as they can go through, while people could step over it. Gases filter or reflect varying proportions of different wavelengths of radiation. As Alan pointed out many months ago, it's a simple lab experiment to measure such characteristics of gases; it's well-established, measurable, repeatable and beyond any doubt. I expect it's been done at different temperatures and any effects will be part of the understanding and the climate models.

---

quote:

---

You also seem to think that because the amount of CO2 is small ("insignificant" in your opinion) that your admitted lack of knowledge on science topics somehow trumps the expertise of those who do know something (or a lot) and you can discount its influence as a serious greenhouse gas in direct opposition to those who know a lot about it.

---

quote:

---

Some might say that's an odd point of view.
.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
Myrrh, contrary to a previous decision I made not to become involved in AGW threads here, I would offer a couple of things in the hope that they might clarify your thinking. I'm not trying to change your mind, just to offer information, as it appears from your post you misunderstand how the greenhouse effect works.

Dave W. said some good things in his post, but I thought I'd add some more detail to explain why what he said is true.

Although some accounts in the popular press talk about a "blanket," this is a poor analogy.

---

quote:

---

It's not the thermal conductivity or heat capacity of the atmosphere that's the issue, it's the fact that some gasses absorb infra-red radiation and re-emit it. To quote from Wikipedia:

quote:

---

The Earth receives energy from the Sun mostly in the form of visible light and nearby wavelengths. About 50% of the sun's energy is absorbed at the Earth's surface. Like all bodies with a temperature above absolute zero the Earth's surface radiates energy in the infrared range. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb most of the infrared radiation emitted by the surface and pass the absorbed heat to other atmospheric gases through molecular collisions. The greenhouse gases also radiate in the infrared range. Radiation is emitted both upward, with part escaping to space, and downward toward Earth's surface. The surface and lower atmosphere are warmed by the part of the energy that is radiated downward, making our life on earth possible.[5]

---

(emphasis mine). It this absorption and re-emission of IR which makes the greenhouse effect work, not anything to do with heat capacity. If you've read the argument about heat capacity on a website, I wouldn't trust that website.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
This is relevant to your point about the composition of the atmosphere as well. It's true that CO2 is a much smaller proportion of the atmosphere than Nitrogen or Oxygen, but it's also true that (as Dave W said) they are almost entirely transparent to IR radiation, whereas CO2 isn't.

---

quote:

---

Light can be thought of as an oscillating electromagnetic field. Infra-red is of the same range of frequencies as molecular vibration, and in order for a molecule to interact with the light's electrical oscillation, the vibration must give rise to an oscillating electrical charge of its own (in molecules, this is called the dipole moment). In short, if a molecule's vibrations can't cause an oscillating electrical dipole, it can't absorb the infra-red light. There's some more information on this here.

---

quote:

---

Oxygen and Nitrogen are both similar in that their molecules consist of two atoms joined by a chemical bond. The only thing that bond can do is stretch, but because the atoms at either end are the same, that stretching doesn't give rise to a change in dipole moment. They can thus not absorb the the infra-red. CO2 on the other hand is a triatomic molecule, and its bending and asymmetric stretching modes do change the dipole moment. Because of this, it's capable of absorbing IR whereas O2 and N2 aren't.

---

quote:

---

Although it's only a small proportion of the atmosphere, the presence of CO2 can have an unexpectedly large effect. This is true for a lot of atmospheric chemistry: just look at the effect the very small percentage of CFCs in the atmosphere had on the ozone layer.

---

quote:

---

You point about water vapour in the atmosphere is valid in that water vapour is a greenhouse gas (as a bent triatomic, all of its vibrational modes are IR active).

---

quote:

---

However, it is referred to a a feedback rather than a forcing by climate scientists.

---

quote:

---

The reason for this [referred to as a feedback rather than a forcing] is that, if one could remove all the water vapour from the atmosphere right now, it would be replaced by evaporation from the oceans (etc) in around a month. The lifetime for CO2 in the atmosphere OTOH is thousands of years.

---

quote:

---

I'm sorry if this all sounds like a lot of Chemistry. The problem is that if you want to dispute how the greenhouse effect works you really have to know the background science, or you have no hope of grasping the answer. You could just trust the people that say "CO2 is a greenhouse gas," - but if you don't trust them for whatever reason this is the sort of thing you will have to learn about to verify it for yourself.

All the best,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Myrrh - one of the reasons I find the 'scientific concensus' so plausible is because in the early days whenever I read the debates on the web almost always those who knew the most science were those who backed the IPCC position (see for example Alan and several others on this thread). When a poster doesn't make school boy errors then you gradually build up more trust of their position than those who clearly don't understand some of the very basic science.

---

quote:

---

The other reason - which is related I know - is that the climate change deniers (for want of a better label) almost never nuanced their answers. Everything was black and white - there was no evidence of 'in this area the arguement is strongest whilst there is greater uncertainty in this area' type of thinking. I cannot remember any of the deniers pointing out the greatest challenges to their way of thinking because accordint to them everything about their opponents' position was rubbish.

---

quote:

---

This is one (just one!) of the reasons why your position is so unpersuasive.

Luigi

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Inger:
There is also the point that the science of AGW has been accepted by every major scientific organisation in the world. There is a list of them available, in case you haven't come across it (not likely, I know).

---

quote:

---

The scientists in those organisations may not be experts on climate, but they are, I'm sure, quite capable of recognising poor science when they come across it.

---

quote:

---

It's often alleged that this is all about research grants, but if that were the case, it would give scientists in other fields, who will be in competition for a limited pool of money, an additional reason to be sceptical, or at least pretend to be. The fact remains that they aren't.

---

It's amazing what variety of fields can be included in the objectives of AGW when applying, when it's re global warming. I don't blame them, if you had an opportunity to be paid to go out and study your life's interest, say geology, and all that was expected of you was to put a paragraph at the end saying how interesting this all is in respect of and maybe it has a bearing on global warming..? But we do get the data, unless of course it has a direct relevance to AGW and contradicts it.

I think what you'll find more of, is that those who do know it's junk science aren't in a position to object even when it's re their own field, because those at the top have control of it. At least that's what I've seen more of.

And you posted:

quote:

---

The latest alarming news.

---

quote:

---

World on course for catastrophic 6° rise, reveal scientists

Fast-rising carbon emissions mean that worst-case predictions for climate change are coming true

By Steve Connor and Michael McCarthy

The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation.

This means that the most extreme scenario envisaged in the last report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, is now the one for which society is set, according to the 31 researchers from seven countries involved in the Global Carbon Project.

....

Professor Le Quéré emphasised that there are still many uncertainties over carbon sinks, such as the ability of the oceans to absorb dissolved CO2, but all the evidence suggests that there is now a cycle of "positive feedbacks", whereby rising carbon dioxide emissions are leading to rising temperatures and a corresponding rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

"Our understanding at the moment in the computer models we have used – and they are state of the art – suggests that carbon-cycle climate feedback has already kicked in," she said.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:
And what is this:

quote:

---

3rd Law, heat cannot be trapped.

---

supposed to mean?

---

It's physics.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

And in this:

quote:

---

This, to my mind, shows it's not a lot of use as a greenhouse gas and this plus it has a max absorption plus it's not exponential, but algorithmic, makes it not the not even a driver of global warming.

---

Really? "Algorithmic"? Not exponential but "algorithmic"?

---

Yes, really. Shock horror.

Myrrh

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
Is 'arithmetic' the correct word? E.g. The greenhouse effect is directly proportional to the percentage of CO2 (rather than exponentially or quadratically).

---

Nope, the word is algorithmic.

---

quote:

---

Main Entry: al·go·rithm
Pronunciation: \ˈal-gə-ˌri-thəm\
Function: noun
: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation; broadly : a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end especially by a computer

— al·go·rith·mic \ˌal-gə-ˈrith-mik\ adjective

— al·go·rith·mi·cal·ly \-mi-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

---

quote:

---

Main Entry: log·a·rithm
Pronunciation: \ˈlȯ-gə-ˌri-thəm, ˈlä-\
Function: noun
: the exponent that indicates the power to which a base number is raised to produce a given number <the logarithm of 100 to the base 10 is 2>

— log·a·rith·mic \ˌlȯ-gə-ˈrith-mik, ˌlä-\ adjective

— log·a·rith·mi·cal·ly \-mi-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:

quote:

---

This, to my mind, shows it's not a lot of use as a greenhouse gas and this plus it has a max absorption plus it's not exponential, but algorithmic, makes it not the not even a driver of global warming.

---

Really? "Algorithmic"? Not exponential but "algorithmic"?

---

Is 'arithmetic' the correct word? E.g. The greenhouse effect is directly proportional to the percentage of CO2 (rather than exponentially or quadratically).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
... those who do know it's junk science aren't in a position to object even when it's re their own field, because those at the top have control of it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
I've found quite a good page which pulls together several of the problems about imagining what CO2 can do and how the climate works, which I'm posting in the hope that it'll be read as it's a good introduction to reality science.

Some facts about greenhouse and global warming

---

Myrrh didn't tell us that the web site that she recommended for 'reality science' (JunkScience.com) is run by Steven J. Milloy. How much can we rely on Milloy's web site? According to the author of a book on critical thinking, on The Skeptic's Dictionary:

"the Junk Science page ... some valid analyses sprinkled amongst its propaganda, but overall the page is deceptive. There's nothing wrong with having a political agenda, and there is certainly nothing wrong with being concerned that the government is spending its resources on the wrong projects, and there is nothing wrong with being critical of the work of scientists, but there is something wrong with pretending to care about science and truth, while labeling scientists who produce work contrary to your agenda as doing junk science"

How does Milloy use this term 'junk science'?

"an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health noted that "... attacking the science underlying difficult public policy decisions with the label of 'junk' has become a common ploy for those opposed to regulation. One need only peruse JunkScience.com to get a sense of the long list of public health issues for which research has been so labeled." (source)

So why has even Alan's legendary patience been sorely tested? Because it's not really about the science. It's about politics, conspiracy theories and corporate lobbyists.

[ 19. November 2009, 08:32: Message edited by: Alwyn ]
 

---

Posted by sanityman (# 11598) on :
 
I'm left a little by this, as well as amazed that Alan et al. have had the patience they have up until this point. Myrrh, I simply cannot understand how you say you know the explanation for why CO2 absorbs IR and O2 and N2 are transparent to it, but then go on to say that the Wikipedia entry is "not what AGM claims for CO2." (Did you mean AGW?).

To quote from wiki again,

quote:

---

The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824, first reliably experimented on by John Tyndall in 1858, and first reported quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896.

---

This is old science. Not wacky, new, unproved science, but accepted, undergraduate textbook level science. If you say you accept this, then congratulations, you understand the greenhouse effect, and can safely ignore any fringe website that tries to tell you it works differently. But your statement that it's not how climate scientists understand it is, I'm afraid, just wrong. It's too basic to be controversial.

I'm not writing to try to slight you or your understanding. To be honest, I think it must be horribly difficult for someone without a scientific degree to get to grips with the subject of climate change, because there's so much misinformation around, a lot of it in the popular press. I'm afraid to say that the general level of science reporting in the UK is awful, and it's very easy to be misled if you don't already know that a lot of what they're saying is wrong. Then there's the internet, where anyone with an axe to grind can and does set up a website. Trying to find good information is hard, which is why I tried to give the background that I did (of course, I'm just another guy on a website, but there you go).

The thing is, you seem to be very sure that you know how AGW works, and why its wrong. However, anyone with a science background here seems to be telling you that you've actually misunderstood the underlying, basic science behind it. There are legitimate areas of uncertainty and limits to our knowledge, but the areas you are attacking just aren't one of them. Alan and the others weren't trying to defend climate scientists to much as just basic (degree level) chemistry and physics. There's no shame in not knowing degree level chemistry if you haven't got a degree in it, but being so aggressively dismissive of people who do, and are trying to explain something they are qualified in, leave me genuinely puzzled. Would you do the same to someone with a French degree, or English Literature?

As an aside, I'm sorry you took my remark about how seemingly small amounts of gas can make a big difference personally. I took a course in atmospheric chemistry, and this was one of the points that stood out for me: that my intuitive understanding of quantities could lead me to wrong conclusions. I was not trying to say you're "an ignorant nonentity," just pointing out that our intuitions about what we think is "too small" aren't always correct.

Reading back in your posts, it seems that the description of the atmosphere as a "blanket" is a real problem for you, especially as it has been used as an illustration by people explaining climate science, such as the NASA quote "trap the Earth's heat radiation as a blanket traps body heat" that you mentioned.

Here's a very important point: that was just a simile. As with most similies, it has things which are the same (trapping heat) and things which are not (the mechanism by which heat is trapped, in this case). Trying to infer that the greenhouse effect is exactly like a blanket is going to get you in trouble, as it seems to have done. The actual scientists are just fishing for metaphors or images to describe the science to the general public, and scientists aren't always very good communicators (as I'm sure you will have realised!).

The scientists do not believe in the 'blanket.' The scientists believe the science, which you can get in places like the wiki article (I'm not trying to make you read realClimate here, just Wikipedia!). I'm sorry the 'blanket' picture is one which has proved so misleading and difficult for you, but please don't insist that that what scientists 'believe,' because I can guarantee you that's not true. If taken literally, they would all agree it makes no sense[*]!

All the best,

- Chris.

--
[*] the blankets that I know work by trapping air and thus inhibiting convection. If you're talking about a planet, stopping convection makes no sense - what's the atmosphere going to do, convect away?
 

---

Posted by 205 (# 206) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Inger:
The latest alarming news.

---

quote:

---

The world is now firmly on course for the worst-case scenario in terms of climate change, with average global temperatures rising by up to 6C by the end of the century, leading scientists said yesterday. Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would have cataclysmic and irreversible consequences for the Earth, making large parts of the planet uninhabitable and threatening the basis of human civilisation.

snip

This means that the most extreme scenario envisaged in the last report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007, is now the one for which society is set, according to the 31 researchers from seven countries involved in the Global Carbon Project.

snip

Their chilling and remarkable prediction throws into sharp relief the importance of next month's UN climate conference in Copenhagen, where the world community will come together to try to construct a new agreement to bring the warming under control.

For the past month there has been a lowering of expectations about the conference, not least because the US may not be ready to commit itself to cuts in its emissions. But yesterday President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao of China issued a joint communiqué after a meeting in Beijing, which reignited hopes that a serious deal might be possible after all.

snip

On average, the researchers found, there was an annual increase in emissions of just over 3 per cent during the period, compared with an annual increase of 1 per cent between 1990 and 2000. Almost all of the increase this decade occurred after 2000 and resulted from the boom in the Chinese economy. The researchers predict a small decrease this year due to the recession, but further increases from 2010.

In total, CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2008, yet global emissions in 1990 are the reference level set by the Kyoto Protocol, which countries are trying to fall below in terms of their own emissions.

---

quote:

---

Any thoughts on what a 'serious deal' must consist of? ISTM given this most recent most dire prediction the kid gloves are going to have to come off. [/QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
This chap is certainly on to something:-

Global Warming as a religion

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
This chap is certainly on to something:-

Global Warming as a religion

---

He's on something.

He writes:
"The activists now prefer to call it [AGW] “climate change”."

Whereas we have seen earlier in this thread the evidence that it was AGW deniers who started using it.

Yawn. Any science, Aumbry?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Not so long ago leading microbiologists were telling us that hundreds of thousands of people would develop Kreuzfeld-Jakob disease and die due to eating British beef. As far as I can see this turned out not to be the case.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Not so long ago leading microbiologists were telling us that hundreds of thousands of people would develop Kreuzfeld-Jakob disease and die due to eating British beef. As far as I can see this turned out not to be the case.

---

Ambry, I don't doubt your memory, but a quick bit of Googling has only turned up articles like this which don't make any such doomsday predictions. However, that's only in the UK. If you have a particular reference in mind, I'd be grateful if you could post it, as I'm interested in the representation of scientific data in the mass media.

At the start of something like the BSE scare, not a lot is known, and that uncertainty translates to a wide error band. The upper figure for this band will look quite scary, and may attract headlines for that reason. When more is known and the worst-case estimates scale rapidly down, the scientists will probably be ignored by the mainstream media, as their figures aren't sensational enough to make a good story. The public ends up with the impression that the scientists were scaremongering, when in fact it was all media sensationalism and selective reporting.

Many thanks,

- Chris.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Not so long ago leading microbiologists were telling us that hundreds of thousands of people would develop Kreuzfeld-Jakob disease and die due to eating British beef. As far as I can see this turned out not to be the case.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The result was the destruction of several million cattle at a cost to the taxpayer of £3.5 billion. As far as I know there has not even been a spike in the number of CJD cases since.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
I am not contending that there is no evidence for global climate change, that would be a ridiculous stance to take as there is plenty of geological and archaeological evidence of the earth's constantly changing climate.

---

quote:

---

There is unfortunately a form of primitive fetishism with the current Man Made Climate Change hysteria which has all the aspects of a new age religion. A religion with its own priesthood - environmentalists and climate scientists who order the tribe to make sacrifices to the great climate deity. This is indeed a puritanical religion which sees human existence - let alone himan happyness as a taboo. Its totems are windfarms and low-energy light bulbs - things which are of little real use if the climate change is manmade.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
The microbiologists were claiming that several million people who had eaten beef would have already been infected with the prion so even if the countermeasures had been 100% successful there would still have been a massive increase in the disease.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
I think you will find any number of predictions were made by experts that there would be quite likely tens of thousands of deaths. A noted one was Dr John Patterson who on Newsnight told Jeremy Paxman that we could expect up to half a million sufferers within a few years.

The result was the destruction of several million cattle at a cost to the taxpayer of £3.5 billion. As far as I know there has not even been a spike in the number of CJD cases since.

---

quote:

---

... under pressure in the Newsnight studio to reveal his worst fears, one of the government’s scientific advisers, Dr John Patterson, suggested that half a million Britons could be dead of the disease by 2005

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:
The word Myrhh was grasping for is 'logarithmic' - the radiative forcing (in watts per square meter, W/m^2) of CO2 is approximately proportional to the logarithm of its concentration. This means that the effect is actually "less than proportional" in the sense that the increase of 10 parts per million from 380 ppm to 390 ppm results in less additional forcing than the same size increase from 280 to 290 - the more CO2 there is, the less each additional amount adds to the forcing.

But the form of the log function is such that it does give equal increments in output for equal percentage changes in input. Typically this is quoted as the increase in forcing for a doubling (100% increase) - according to the IPCC report I linked to above, every doubling of CO2 concentration results in an increase in radiative forcing of 3.7 W/m^2. So going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm would cause an increase in radiative forcing of 3.7 W/m^2, but to get another increase of the same size we'd need to go all the way from 560 ppm to 1120 ppm.

This decreasing effectiveness of CO2 with increasing concentration (which Myrhh seems to think is so fatal to the notion of AGW) is, of course, included in the climate models.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:

Do you or Alan Cresswell (or anyone) know of a good description of how peoples lives would have to change to prevent further, or reverse where necessary, man made climate change?

What I see are statements at a gross level about reducing emissions and 'solutions' such as carbon sequestration and nuclear power replacing coal power electricity generation. Or else there is encouragement to do things at a household level such as installing solar power and efficient lighting, and using more fuel efficient vehicles; which seem to me to make hardly a dent in the problem.

The assumption or hope seems to be that our lifestyles will not need to change dramatically because some technical solutions will be found.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dave W.:

At present, I'm leaning toward the opinion that whatever measures we adopt won't be too onerous for the average citizen, because I don't think we'll be willing to make painful sacrifices to solve a problem that a) doesn't appear in the form of an acute crisis, and b) won't show obvious signs of prompt improvement in response to our actions. In this view, our lifestyles won't be dramatically affected by our policy choices directly because we'll only attempt relatively inexpensive things. Whether those things are effective or not is a different question - if not, our lifestyles will be more drastically affected by the climate changes we fail to avoid.

---

quote:

---

So God bless the goods we was given
And God bless the U. S. of A.
And God bless our standard of livin'
Let's keep it that way
And we'll all have a good time

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Wrong! The argument depends completely on scientific evidence. If you don't know that by now, you've learned nothing and have nothing to contribute on the subject.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
... I find a review of the book Scared to Death: from BSE to Global Warming by Christopher Booker and Richard North.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Odd how the only satellite sent up to measure CO2 crashed, so soon after showing what?

---

quote:

---

You didn't understand crashed as in crashed data?

---

That's blatantly dishonest. You didn't mean crashed data, you meant NASA (or someone else inside the conspiracy) crashed the satellite.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm not sure a discussion on whether or not there's an intention to develop a global government, or give existing national governments more power, using climate chnage as a lever to forward that aim has anything at all to do with science.

---

1. Is man-made climate change simply a lie, fabricated to bring in global Government?
2. AGW is real, but are political organisations using it as a way to further their own agendas - e.g. global Government?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm not sure a discussion on whether or not there's an intention to develop a global government, or give existing national governments more power, using climate chnage as a lever to forward that aim has anything at all to do with science.

---

I think there are two ways to interpret the OP's question:

1. Is man-made climate change simply a lie, fabricated to bring in global Government?
2. AGW is real, but are political organisations using it as a way to further their own agendas - e.g. global Government?

Science is entirely relevant to the first interpretation, and less so for the second. I think it's fair to assume the OP is suggesting #1, especially it mentioned Lord Monkton. He's currently touring the U.S. championing his "scientists are big fat hairy liars" views.

IMO the second interpretation is a more interesting question - or at least, a less frequently asked one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
... is there any correlation between 'climate science scepticism', 'non-action to mitigate climate change (if accepted it's happening)' and 'opposition to big government/internationalism'?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
... I find a review of the book Scared to Death: from BSE to Global Warming by Christopher Booker and Richard North.

---

Well spotted. A review of this book (on the web site of what has been described as a 'Conservative-leaning think tank') commented that, while this "isn't exactly a bad book and it has its merits", it also has some drawbacks:

"Hanging over this book there is a sense that 'official' science is always wrong. But that's about as batty as saying that it is always right. [...]
Our authors turn their scepticism filter on and off according to who happens to be in range [...]
Towards the end of the book there is a big section on climate change. This is included presumably on the grounds that it is another giant scare. But in almost every respect climate change doesn't fit their bill or make their case. [...]
This is not a book one could pick up for a decent assessment of such matters."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
[QUOTE]
The question then becomes, if we take a third axis for attitudes towards government is there any correlation between 'climate science scepticism', 'non-action to mitigate climate change (if accepted it's happening)' and 'opposition to big government/internationalism'?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Yes, I tend to agree that the driving force for the correlation between 'climate change sceptics' and 'small government idealists' is from political ideology to science. I don't think that's true in all cases, but it seems very difficult to start with a disagreement with the scientific conclusions and work to a particular political ideology ... you could logically argue for big government to keep these pesky scientists in their place as easily as argue against big government imposing faulty science on everyone.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Chris - that is exactly what many do claim. It seems to me that whilst there are some that fit your desciption, a great many who are relatively hard to pidgeon hole politically, do accept the scientific consensus providing they are scientifically literate.

Being someone who some would say fits that description and who is instinctively sypmathetic to organic farming as probably a force for good - I still accept that there was a substantial study recently that cast doubt over many of the positive claims made for organic farming. Put simply my ideology isn't impermeable to good science.

---

Luigi, that was of course a self-description[1] (I'm sympathetic with you on the organic farming thing, btw). From the study I keep on quoting, it seems that scientific literacy is by far the best predictor of agreement with AGW. On the other side, I feel Alan is right: the common ground is a political viewpoint. I hope this moves it out of the realms of pure Bulversim!

- Chris.

--
[1]: mmm, cheese...

[ 20. November 2009, 16:42: Message edited by: sanityman ]
 

---

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
this seems to me to be exactly the same attitude towards science that YECs exhibit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
this seems to me to be exactly the same attitude towards science that YECs exhibit.

---

I recall a thread discussing that exact parallel a year or so back.

---

Sorry, was probably trying to stay out of it at that point! It's interesting that those two subjects have the ability to get me annoyed more than any others that spring to mind - and hence arguing and thinking emotionally rather than rationally. I think it's because of the "reckless disregard for truth" angle, as thinking about Max Clifford or Karl Rove tends to provoke the same reaction. Or for that matter, someone unthinkingly repeating urban legends (especially if they have a dodgy subtext).

- Chris.
 

---

Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
The big climate change news story right now is that servers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit have been hacked, and thousands of private emails between the scientists have been leaked.

This is causing great glee for the sceptics, and no small embarrassment to the scientists involved. The main talking points seem to be:

1. When discussing how to present temperature reconstructions, one scientist (Phil Jones) said “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
2. One scientist suggests to another that they delete some email before responding to a Freedom of Information request.
3. Some of the researchers are pretty scathing (and even unpleasant) about the sceptics.

quote:

---

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords.

---

I doubt this will make much difference either way to people with strong opinions on climate change, but it could influence some people who are undecided. We'll be hearing about it for a long time.
 

---

Posted by Luigi (# 4031) on :
 
I read that too. My reaction was that I was staggered that they managed to come up with so little.

If I watched 1000s of hours of French football I am sure I could come to the conclusion that all french footballers cheat all the time. And that they have never deservedly won anything.

But it would be wrong.

Luigi
 

---

Posted by Zwingli (# 4438) on :
 
I don't find the content of the emails (as summarised in the linked article) surprising. If I was a scientist, I would likely be tempted to be scathing of some of the more extreme and less reality-based sceptics. Scientists, and indeed academics in general, can sometimes present data in such a way that it more clearly illustrates the science they think is true, especially when there are outside spoilers who will seize on any supposed ambiguities or contrary results. Making private emails public under FoI could be misguided, as it causes real frank discussion to move from private written correspondence to informal and unminuted meetings and conversations.*

The problems shown in these emails seem to be fairly small. But if they were shown to be serious and endemic then I'm not sure how much that would help the denialists' case; if anything, it would show that even ill informed and dishonest criticism, mostly from outside academia, can have a negative impact on the thinking and conduct of academic scientists. In an open society which values free speech and free enquiry as well as accurate scientific knowledge this could pose something of a dilemma.

Hopefully it would motivate the genuine sceptics to be honest in their scepticism, not to engage in personal attacks, to realise that uncertainty regarding climate change likely necessitates more funds for research, not less, and to examine their own motives and honesty, and think about what would happen if their own private correspondence was made public. I'm not especially hopeful.

*Everything I know about organisational politics I learnt from Yes, Minister.

[ 21. November 2009, 11:35: Message edited by: Zwingli ]
 

---

Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zwingli:
Making private emails public under FoI could be misguided, as it causes real frank discussion to move from private written correspondence to informal and unminuted meetings and conversations.*

---

1. To conceal important information.
2. Because the email wasn't important, your research field has become a political football, it'd be misleading to take your remarks out of context, and you're sick of being selectively quoted.

quote:

---

The problems shown in these emails seem to be fairly small.

---

quote:

---

if anything, it would show that even ill informed and dishonest criticism, mostly from outside academia, can have a negative impact on the thinking and conduct of academic scientists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
Still, I can also see why the scientists are cautious. Everything they say gets pored over to find the worst possible interpretation, and even clear data gets blatantly misrepresented.

---

quote:

---

60mb doesn't seem a lot for a 13 year period in a busy research establishment.

---

quote:

---

If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him

- Cardinal Richelieu

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
As far as I can see climate scientists can be a bit defensive about their research sometimes - for instance, it took a big fuss for NASA to release code to one of their climate models.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If someone has spent considerable amounts of money developing a climate model then they're not going to just turn that code out to the public for anyone and everyone to run

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
60mb doesn't seem a lot for a 13 year period in a busy research establishment.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
60mb doesn't seem a lot for a 13 year period in a busy research establishment.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luke:
(Naughty Andrew Bolt has a round up here.)

---

quote:

---

We’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth system works… When we come to the last few years when we haven’t seen a continuation of that (warming) trend we don’t understand all of the factors that create earth’s climate...We just don’t understand the way the whole system works… See, these people work with models, computer modelling. So when the computer modelling and the real world data disagree you’ve got a very interesting problem… Sure for the last 10 years we’ve gone through a slight cooling trend.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
As far as I can see climate scientists can be a bit defensive about their research sometimes - for instance, it took a big fuss for NASA to release code to one of their climate models.

---

Actually, scientists can be a bit defensive about their research - it's not just climate scientists. Part of that's just human nature, of course - I suspect that film makers are equally defensive of their product when they read some outrageous review from a critic who seems to have not even sat down to watch it.

But, more importantly, scientists make their living from their intellectual property. Especially in the funding climate that's been developing over the last few decades. If someone has spent considerable amounts of money developing a climate model then they're not going to just turn that code out to the public for anyone and everyone to run, they're going to want to retain rights to use it so that they can earn the service income from running it for other people and the future research projects to further refine that code. Individual researchers may be willing to release that sort of property, but if they're part of a university or other large organisation then their business administration people would have a total fit at the idea.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luke:
The climate change emails don't seem to be getting much air time on the ship. (Naughty Andrew Bolt has a round up here.)

---

• Scientists knowingly concocted a giant fraud - possibly to help raise taxes, perhaps for more sinister reasons.
• Climate scientists are primarily driven by greed and grant applications.
• Climate scientists are guilty of group-think, but are quite sincere in their beliefs.

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
As far as I can see climate scientists can be a bit defensive about their research sometimes - for instance, it took a big fuss for NASA to release code to one of their climate models.

---

Actually, scientists can be a bit defensive about their research - it's not just climate scientists. Part of that's just human nature, of course - I suspect that film makers are equally defensive of their product when they read some outrageous review from a critic who seems to have not even sat down to watch it.

But, more importantly, scientists make their living from their intellectual property. Especially in the funding climate that's been developing over the last few decades. If someone has spent considerable amounts of money developing a climate model then they're not going to just turn that code out to the public for anyone and everyone to run, they're going to want to retain rights to use it so that they can earn the service income from running it for other people and the future research projects to further refine that code. Individual researchers may be willing to release that sort of property, but if they're part of a university or other large organisation then their business administration people would have a total fit at the idea.

---

Fair enough but they can then hardly claim to be disinterested.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
As far as I can see climate scientists can be a bit defensive about their research sometimes - for instance, it took a big fuss for NASA to release code to one of their climate models.

---

Actually, scientists can be a bit defensive about their research - it's not just climate scientists. Part of that's just human nature, of course - I suspect that film makers are equally defensive of their product when they read some outrageous review from a critic who seems to have not even sat down to watch it.

But, more importantly, scientists make their living from their intellectual property. Especially in the funding climate that's been developing over the last few decades. If someone has spent considerable amounts of money developing a climate model then they're not going to just turn that code out to the public for anyone and everyone to run, they're going to want to retain rights to use it so that they can earn the service income from running it for other people and the future research projects to further refine that code. Individual researchers may be willing to release that sort of property, but if they're part of a university or other large organisation then their business administration people would have a total fit at the idea.

---

Fair enough but they can then hardly claim to be disinterested.

---

Why should they be disinterested, much less claim to be? When you're talking about professional career development, and even potentially future employment, then that usually automatically makes one interested. The days when scientists were independantly wealthy individuals who pursued scientific interests in their spare time are long since past. Today, just like the majority of people, scientists are paid for the work they do - we're often in the privilaged position of doing a job we enjoy and are interested in, but at the end of the day the mortgage needs to be paid and that doesn't happen by giving away for free means of getting money into the lab.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Because if the Universities are run as commercial concerns and their research is seen as work in progress they start to have a vested interest in keeping to the scientific concensus into which they may well have invested heavily.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
You can be insouciant about the UEA e-mails but even George Monbiot sees this as a severe embarrassment and has called for the director of the unit to quit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
There appears to have been some sort of blanket ban on drawing attention to anything that didn't fit the results expected by the model. It is a sort of group psychosis.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zwingli:
if anything, it would show that even ill informed and dishonest criticism, mostly from outside academia, can have a negative impact on the thinking and conduct of academic scientists.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Aumbry, the discussions between the scientists weren't intended for public scrutiny. When such discussions are made public it may not portray those involved in the best light. It doesn't prove they were deliberately being deceptive, but it doesn't help either. It shows them as people frustrated that their work and conclusions are frequently misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented.

I think you're right - my legal parallel probably doesn't really help as scientists should present the all evidence they collect, even if they can't explain every little thing. In court, maybe their equivalent would be the expert witnesses.
.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
It shows them as people frustrated that their work and conclusions are frequently misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spawn:
Oh come off it, Alan. The UEA emails show a bunch of scientists trying to manipulate the peer review process, conceal data (which wasn't theirs in the first place) in the face of Freedom of information requests, and behaving like a cult of true believers rather than enquirers. I'm no sceptic, in that I trust the consensus that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that it demonstrably warms the climate, but I do want a much more mature and open debate than the one that's taking place currently.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
When you write that you're no sceptic, do you mean that you trust the consensus that mankind's adding to the planet's Co2 and that we need to do something about it soon, if it isn't too late already?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spawn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
When you write that you're no sceptic, do you mean that you trust the consensus that mankind's adding to the planet's Co2 and that we need to do something about it soon, if it isn't too late already?

---

Well, it's clear that mankind is adding to Co2. But I think there's legitimate debate about the models and the policy. I'm pleased that expectations are being reduced for Copenhagen. The important thing is that whatever the state of play in the scientific debate the public have to be convinced about both the science and the policy because they are being asked to make radical changes and sacrifices. The signs are that politicians and scientists have not carried the public with them yet.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spawn:
Oh come off it, Alan. The UEA emails show a bunch of scientists trying to manipulate the peer review process

---

quote:

---

conceal data (which wasn't theirs in the first place) in the face of Freedom of information requests

---

quote:

---

I do want a much more mature and open debate than the one that's taking place currently.

---

quote:

---

The publication of a selection of stolen data is the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign which may have been designed to distract from reasoned debate about the nature of the urgent action which world governments must consider to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change.

---

quote:

---

One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Of course the real only way to counter such a widely accepted scientific opinion is to try to cast doubt on the science or claim it's all a conspiracy. This is really hard when you know nothing at all and don't trust anyone to help you learn the basics. This is the Myrrh approach of denying anything involving actual established, uncontroversial science or facts or expertise of others, while meekly accepting anything critical of real science without question or the slightest understanding of why it's complete rubbish.

---

IRL that would be libel. I've explained my method. Look at both sides of the argument.

Your claim is that AGW is widely accepted scientific opinion. For you and other AGW's to continually ignore and disparage those saying it doesn't conform to scientific method isn't objective of you. What it shows is you AGW's have put your fingers in your ears and la la la the unproven propaganda to drown out giving this any actual thought.

It doesn't bother you that no real science from all geological and climate and historical research has never shown the Hockey Stick.

It doesn't bother you that the Hockey Stick and apologies for it, Briff, have been shown to be actually manipulated data.

It doesn't bother you that these data have only been peer reviewed among the coterie producing it and were never actually rigorously analysed by the IPCC.

It doesn't bother you that persistent stonewalling for independent checking is the preferred method protecting the hypothesis, data withheld and destroyed so that it couldn't be checked.

None of this bothers you because you either aren't scientists or haven't a clue what science is.

Instead you produce a litany of excuses for every example of scientific malpractice to perpetuate this scientific fraud.

You have no credibility.

That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.

It's fake turtles all the way down, to the very beginning of Revelle to the continuing manipulation. Only conmen and the deluded use these methods, that's a well known proven fact.

Do yourselves a favour, read the arguments against before posting more manmade global drivel.

One may call oneself a scientist and one may be lauded as a scientist by others, but if one can't fathom that if it smells like shit it is shit unless it's been engineered to smell like something else, one in the wrong profession.


Myrrh
 

---

Posted by Alwyn (# 4380) on :
 
I agree with aumbry that, politically, this will have a big impact. I also agree with Zwingli and sanityman, among anothers. Yeah, it's a swiftboating and 'culture warfare as usual'...

...Ruth Limbaugh: "I've instinctively known this from the get-go, from 20 years ago! The whole thing is made up, and the reason I know it is because liberals are behind it! When they're pushing something, folks, it's always bogus."

Notice the "I've instinctively known..." - this is truthiness, not truth.

The implications are huge. If I discover an unguarded comment in a letter by a scientist who researched gravity, maybe I will be able to fly
 

---

Posted by aumbry (# 436) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
I agree with aumbry that, politically, this will have a big impact. I also agree with Zwingli and sanityman, among anothers. Yeah, it's a swiftboating and 'culture warfare as usual'...

...Ruth Limbaugh: "I've instinctively known this from the get-go, from 20 years ago! The whole thing is made up, and the reason I know it is because liberals are behind it! When they're pushing something, folks, it's always bogus."

Notice the "I've instinctively known..." - this is truthiness, not truth.

The implications are huge. If I discover an unguarded comment in a letter by a scientist who researched gravity, maybe I will be able to fly

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Of course the real only way to counter such a widely accepted scientific opinion is to try to cast doubt on the science or claim it's all a conspiracy. This is really hard when you know nothing at all and don't trust anyone to help you learn the basics. This is the Myrrh approach of denying anything involving actual established, uncontroversial science or facts or expertise of others, while meekly accepting anything critical of real science without question or the slightest understanding of why it's complete rubbish.

---

IRL that would be libel. I've explained my method. Look at both sides of the argument.

---

quote:

---

Your claim is that AGW is widely accepted scientific opinion. For you and other AGW's to continually ignore and disparage those saying it doesn't conform to scientific method isn't objective of you. What it shows is you AGW's have put your fingers in your ears and la la la the unproven propaganda to drown out giving this any actual thought.

---

quote:

---

It doesn't bother you that no real science from all geological and climate and historical research has never shown the Hockey Stick.

It doesn't bother you that the Hockey Stick and apologies for it, Briff, have been shown to be actually manipulated data.

---

quote:

---

It doesn't bother you that these data have only been peer reviewed among the coterie producing it and were never actually rigorously analysed by the IPCC.

It doesn't bother you that persistent stonewalling for independent checking is the preferred method protecting the hypothesis, data withheld and destroyed so that it couldn't be checked.

None of this bothers you because you either aren't scientists or haven't a clue what science is.

Instead you produce a litany of excuses for every example of scientific malpractice to perpetuate this scientific fraud.

You have no credibility.

That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.

It's fake turtles all the way down, to the very beginning of Revelle to the continuing manipulation. Only conmen and the deluded use these methods, that's a well known proven fact.

Do yourselves a favour, read the arguments against before posting more manmade global drivel.

One may call oneself a scientist and one may be lauded as a scientist by others, but if one can't fathom that if it smells like shit it is shit unless it's been engineered to smell like something else, one in the wrong profession.

Myrrh

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.

---

OK, maybe I'll accept looked at both sides of the argument. But, I've seen no evidence of any attempt to comprehend the arguments put forth by climate scientists. In fact, most of what I've seen you reproduce from the 'sceptic' side has been obviously crank websites. There are 'sceptics' who have put forward serious arguments, some through the peer-reviewed climate science literature ... but you don't seem to have assimilated those arguments any better than the scientific consensus.
 

---

Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, from what I've read there were some exchanges relating to a 'troublesome editor'. Well, whoop-dee-doo, haven't we all had words to say about an editor and/or referee of a journal. .

---

quote:

---

What I've seen is suggestions about deleting email correspondence, rather than actual scientific data.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
Thanks. I agree that the public have not been carried, thanks in the main, I would suggest, to the efforts of blog writers who have attempted to give the impression that the scientists are wrong.

This is what the Uni of E Anglia had to say yesterday about the matter

---

quote:

---

It is important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down, through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

snip

In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
It is not difficult to see why climate scientists might have a vested interest in promoting the idea of climate Armagedon.

Until 10 years ago they would have been scientific nobodies working in a dingy, cold and damp underfunded 1950's lab and probably dreaming of becoming a BBC weatherman a la Bert Ford and being able to afford a week in Majorca.

Then suddenly the Berlin Wall comes down, nuclear war is averted and it is necessary to find a doomsday scenario to scare the public with. Someone picks up on global warming (possibly the ghastly Mrs Thatcher) the politicians like it and then its big government grants, new labs, lots of new colleagues, academic empires, newspaper articles and global climate summits to which you can write your expert witness statement while flying with your team business class. I's fortnights in Barbados from now on. Anyone for the World Climate Conference in Acapulco?

Until that point you had been writing about the coming ice age but that stuff had to all be junked. Inter-glacial period - cobblers.

Of course there is always some scientist-hermit-nutcase who will disagree with you but they have to be scrunched.

It's all human nature.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Inger:
About deleting emails: it seems to me the suggestion found in the hacked correspondence might be the best evidence that no deletions took place. I've never myself embarked on any such endeavor, but if I had, I do think that I would start with the email in which the suggestion was made. I certainly wouldn't leave it to be found...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Until that point you [climate scientists] had been writing about the coming ice age but that stuff had to all be junked.

---

quote:

---

In the 1970s, there was a book in the popular press, a few articles in popular magazines, and a small amount of scientific speculation based on the recently discovered glacial cycles and the recent slight cooling trend from air pollution blocking the sunlight. There were no daily headlines. There was no avalanche of scientific articles. There were no United Nations treaties or commissions. No G8 summits on the dangers and possible solutions. No institutional pronouncements. You could find broader "consensus" on a coming alien invasion.

Quite simply, there is no comparison.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Only conmen and the deluded use these methods, that's a well known proven fact.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by 205:

quote:

---

It is important, for all countries, that this warming is slowed down, through substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

snip

In the frenzy of the past few days, the most vital issue is being overshadowed: we face enormous challenges ahead if we are to continue to live on this planet.

---

You'd hope scientists would be up in arms about such statements of faith but I guess they can't afford to be 'deniers'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Spawn - I was thinking about your statement that the scientists and politicians haven't carried the people with them. Just suppose they are right, what more could / should they do? (After all the poll I presume you are referring to was conducted before the email scandal hit the headlines.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Luke - basing your view of Global Warming on one film makes it sound as if you don't take science very seriously

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Spawn - I can only presume that you are more sceptical than you are trying to make out. After all if the scientific consensus is right then drastic action will be needed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
So all negative predictions are wrong are they?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:

Funnily enough I remember very few 'scare stories' where there was such a prolonged wide spread concensus.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I don't think its neccesarily being used to bring in global government...but it is being trotted out like it was ''gospel'' (which it is not) and has the effect of scaring half the population sh**less and has thus developed its own strange momentum.

Global warming/climate change = unproven theory = another scaremongering story IMO.

Saul

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
I have no idea as to what sort of scenario you think we should be responding to.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by romanlion:
For that time, if Newsweek put it on the cover, that was all the consensus you would have been aware of unless you were privy to the science community yourself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Romanlion - So now I know - something being put on the front cover of Newsweek means widespread scientific consensus. Staggering. How many national academies signed up to it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
That is an objective assessment from one who has looked at both sides of the argument.

---

OK, maybe I'll accept looked at both sides of the argument. But, I've seen no evidence of any attempt to comprehend the arguments put forth by climate scientists. In fact, most of what I've seen you reproduce from the 'sceptic' side has been obviously crank websites. There are 'sceptics' who have put forward serious arguments, some through the peer-reviewed climate science literature ... but you don't seem to have assimilated those arguments any better than the scientific consensus.

---

quote:

---

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication.

---

quote:

---

At one point, Mr. Jones complained to another academic, “I did get an email from the [Freedom of Information] person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn’t be deleting emails.” He also offered up more dubious tricks of his trade, specifically that “IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on.” Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discussed in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that otherwise would be seen in the results. Mr. Mann sent Mr. Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he was sending shouldn’t be shown to others because the data support critics of global warming.

Repeatedly throughout the e-mails that have been made public, proponents of global-warming theories refer to data that has been hidden or destroyed. Only e-mails from Mr. Jones’ institution have been made public, and with his obvious approach to deleting sensitive files, it’s difficult to determine exactly how much more information has been lost that could be damaging to the global-warming theocracy and its doomsday forecasts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
You think that funny?

---

quote:

---

You really expect me to take you seriously as a scientist when not only cannot you show correlation, you have zilch understanding that even if there was you haven't proved causation.

---

quote:

---

And you still haven't shown me any proof that CO2 drives global warming. For nth time of asking.

---

quote:

---

Any scientist would check and investigate for himself if he heard that the Hockey Stick was proven to be manipulated data.

---

quote:

---

Let's see if you can pass this simple test, which is the scientific method here?:

quote:

---

Scientific progress depends on accurate and complete data. It also relies on replication.

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by romanlion:
For that time, if Newsweek put it on the cover, that was all the consensus you would have been aware of unless you were privy to the science community yourself.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Spawn - with the predictions some things are more confidently predicted than others. You say it is scaremongering. Well lets try this one.

As the world warms so sea levels will rise but alarmingly at the moment sea levels are rising more in line with the upper end of the predictions. Most of what causes the rise is well understood though how the different elements may affect the speed. So we can be confident that if global warming is taking place sea levels will rise.

There are many countries that are very low lying and have large numbers who are killed by flooding - this happens alarmingly fequently in some countries. As they are largely poor countries protecting against this is unlikely to happen. So all those living in such locations are faced with what must seem pretty pressing problems. So your 'lets not scare the horses' approach must seem pretty complacent.

What you seem unwilling to acknowledge is that anything can be predicted at all. If we cannot predict anything then of course there can't be anything of concern round the corner. This means there are an awful lot of scientists engaged in a totally worthless exercise. I am not just talking about the modellers but all those measuring for example the thickness of arctic ice. If understanding better what is happening now so that we can predict more accurately the future, is a waste of time then there is little point in most science.

The models may not be perfect but they do seem to come up with fairly convincing and consistent findings in certain areas.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Mr C

You're right - there is a 24-48 hour delay in the registration. Thanks for the thread link. The bad news is that pro tem I'm still refused access to the embedded link! But Hosts are patient people ....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Mr C

You're right - there is a 24-48 hour delay in the registration. Thanks for the thread link. The bad news is that pro tem I'm still refused access to the embedded link! But Hosts are patient people ....

---

Based on the filename, I think this is the graph?

- Chris.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
Spawn - with the predictions some things are more confidently predicted than others. You say it is scaremongering. Well lets try this one.

As the world warms so sea levels will rise but alarmingly at the moment sea levels are rising more in line with the upper end of the predictions.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:
Remember there is a difference between weather and climate - we can be sure that winters will be colder than summers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Anne McEvoy - in my opinion a very sensible political commentator - pointed out something which may explain a lot and that is that the sort of people who choose to become climate scientists are likely to be inclined to environmental activism and therefore have an agenda.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Anne McEvoy - in my opinion a very sensible political commentator - pointed out something which may explain a lot and that is that the sort of people who choose to become climate scientists are likely to be inclined to environmental activism and therefore have an agenda.

---

Does she give evidence to support this? There's probably a bit of truth to it, but most climate scientists seem like pretty straight-laced atmospheric physicists, geologists etc. I also don't see any reason to believe that the broader scientific bodies who've expressed strong concern over climate change (e.g. the various national academies) have any sort of agenda.

You may be right, the various scientists could be mistaken or blinded by ideology / groupthink, but it seems a huge gamble to count on this. IMO the pragmatic position is to act as if the most serious realistic predictions are right, and keep reviewing the science. If it turns out there's not a problem - great. But if it turns out there is a problem and we've done nothing, then we're in deep trouble.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Well not so long ago a significant number of academic economists preferred a Marxist model.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
IMO the pragmatic position is to act as if the most serious realistic predictions are right, and keep reviewing the science. If it turns out there's not a problem - great. But if it turns out there is a problem and we've done nothing, then we're in deep trouble.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm well aware that correlation doesn't automatically mean causation. But, when there's a clear correlation and a sound theory that predicts a cause-effect relationship one is on more solid ground. I've shown both a correlation and a solid theoretical framework based on such simple science it can be tested in a school physics lab, you just don't appear to have read my posts.

---

quote:

---

I have done so, and you've ignored my posts. If you still don't understand what I've said, then you can simply ask specific questions about what you don't find clear.

---

quote:

---

True enough, and the 'Hockey Stick data' have been intensively investigated (did you read the stuff in the IPCC report I linked to last time we discussed this? The section of the report that spends more time on that one data set than any other bit of data they have? The one that acknowledges some flaws in the methodology, and offers a comparison with other independent data sets for the same time period). There are a considerable number of papers in the scientific literature that point out the flaws in the approach taken, those that had been published by the time the IPCC report came out are referenced there.

---

quote:

---

Of course, 'flawed methodology' isn't the same as 'manipulated data' (except to the extent that any approach that takes multiple data sources to produce a coherent 'average' is manipulating the data - but that's bread and butter to scientists).

---

quote:

---

Damn. I could have been sure we'd made scientific progress in a vast range of subjects over the last millenium or so. But, no one has ever had "accurate and complete data" to work on, and replication is often not possible. Scientific progress is possible because the scientific method works very well on inaccurate and incomplete data, and non-replicable results, because scientists know how to handle such data. Either scientific progress is all an illusion and we are infact sitting in caves ... or you have no understanding of the scientific method.

---

quote:

---

But, I'm just repeating what I've said several times before. Call me the eternal optimist, but maybe this time you'll actually read what I said. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
I'm asking you to provide real science.

---

quote:

---

What's missing here is elementary logic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Well not so long ago a significant number of academic economists preferred a Marxist model.

---

Do you have any evidence for that?

(I presume we are excluding academic economists at Eastern Bloc universities who had to be Marxists or else lose their stipend. I would be very surprised if it were true of anywhere in the West.)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spawn:
Surely the pragmatic position is not to put all our eggs in one basket? We need to address emissions and carbon reduction in a sensible phased-in way which does not cause unnecessary hardship but also look to technology for the solutions.

---

quote:

---

On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:17 AM, Kevin Trenberth wrote:

"Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!
Kevin"

Seems very explicit, doesn't he? What possible context could change its meaning? Note, too, the recent date, long after the frequently cited Kiehl & Trenberth (1997) and subsequent revision (2008). This from the guy who claims we have a net surface absorption of 0.9 Wm2.

Why is this so important? It really invalidates climate models since they are allegedly driven by the global energy budget and how energy moves through the system. If we can not account for what is happening in the climate system we can not model it nor is there any basis for climate model "projections", "predictions" or whatever you want to call the fairytales released by Gore, the IPCC or anyone else. Those "hacked" released CRU files...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Shrug.

All available real science shows that CO2 lags temperature rise by c800 years. Ice ages have come and gone in that time.

Why has CO2 suddenly decided to behave differently?

It has never driven global warming before.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Shrug.

All available real science shows that CO2 lags temperature rise by c800 years. Ice ages have come and gone in that time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Look under "Marxian Economics" in Wikipedia which gives a list of Universities where they are studied (all in the West).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
It's worth noting, however, that there were at least reasonable scientific grounds for believing this might be a problem back in the 1980s. It would have been prudent to begin making relatively low-cost changes back then. Researching alternative energy would have been fairly cheap, but this was largely neglected....

....None of this would have cost a huge amount, and it'd have left us with a much easier job now.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:

If you would argue that there was a scientific consensus I think such a position would be profoundly ill-informed.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:


Funnily enough I remember very few 'scare stories' where there was such a prolonged wide spread concensus.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:

I wouldn't have had to have been privy to the scientific community I could have looked at how many science academies backed this view up. I could have researched how many peer review papers agreed with the central premise - through access to abstracts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
I'll ignore the abusive statements.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
He is Rush not Ruth.

---

True. If you want to make this about mis-spelled names, how many Ms are there in Monbiot?

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Well to the extent that smart investors are making decisions to back low carbon-emission projects this is because they come with an enormous government subsidy. No sensible investor would build a wind farm on the basis of the actual real return it would make on capital without the government subsidies. Similarly the bogus Eco-towns initiative backed by Gordon Brown would see little or no business interest without subsidy. Ditto the dash to build several new nuclear power stations - a project that not so long ago the environmental movement was telling us could destroy the planet with a "China-syndrome".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Look under "Marxian Economics" in Wikipedia which gives a list of Universities where they are studied (all in the West).

---

It's not clear from the article whether they have faculty members who actually advocate Marxism, or if they just teach about Marxist theory. But even if the entire economics faculty of those places were card-carrying Marxists playing Katyusha on the hammer and sickle, that still wouldn't be comparable with the support behind global warming.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by aumbry:
[qb] He is Rush not Ruth.

---

True. If you want to make this about mis-spelled names, how many Ms are there in Monbiot?

Point taken, any idiot can spell a name wrongly.
 

---

Posted by aumbry (# 436) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alwyn:

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
He is Rush not Ruth.

---

True. If you want to make this about mis-spelled names, how many Ms are there in Monbiot?

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Well to the extent that smart investors are making decisions to back low carbon-emission projects this is because they come with an enormous government subsidy. No sensible investor would build a wind farm on the basis of the actual real return it would make on capital without the government subsidies. Similarly the bogus Eco-towns initiative backed by Gordon Brown would see little or no business interest without subsidy. Ditto the dash to build several new nuclear power stations - a project that not so long ago the environmental movement was telling us could destroy the planet with a "China-syndrome".

---

... and your alternative plan is?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
Point taken, any idiot can spell a name wrongly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by aumbry:
I was merely pointing out the fallacy in the statement that the business and investor community were fully behind the climate change concensus when the reality of those investment decisions is that they are based on the subsidies received which surely does not signify a wholesale endorsement of the manmade climate change position.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm well aware that correlation doesn't automatically mean causation. But, when there's a clear correlation and a sound theory that predicts a cause-effect relationship one is on more solid ground. I've shown both a correlation and a solid theoretical framework based on such simple science it can be tested in a school physics lab, you just don't appear to have read my posts.

---

Oh I've read them, that you're still claiming CO2 in a test tube gets hot is so far all you've offered me in the way of proof that it is thedriver of global warming.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
...[snip]....

In summary, your argument either rests on the assumption that the world's foremost experts on climatology are ignorant of some old arguments on the internet advanced by non-specialists (some of whom have political agendas, or are financed by energy companies with a huge interest in the status quo) - or that there's some shadowy conspiracy by every climate scientist to misrepresent the facts in order to keep themselves in jobs. Or something.

Now this might be news to you (it shouldn't be, if you've read anything Alan has written), but when professional scientists find some observations that aren't explained by our current understanding, they're over the moon. That's how breakthroughs are made and Nobel prizes won. If there was a real case for overthrowing the orthodoxy on climate, there's a powerful incentive to publish (even at the risk of substantial embarrasment if wrong: see Fleischmann and Pons). However, even left-field scientists like Lindzen agree with 90% of what other climate scientists are saying.

The problem here is not the science: it's the public policy. All the opposition I've seen stems from a dislike of the political measures which have been put forward to combat climate change: cap & trade, taxation, wind turbines, more expensive air travel, etc. The whole debate just seems to be an expression of "we don't like what people are doing about it, so it mustn't really exist."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Clingford:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Shrug.

All available real science shows that CO2 lags temperature rise by c800 years. Ice ages have come and gone in that time.

Why has CO2 suddenly decided to behave differently?

It has never driven global warming before.

---

Because mankind wasn't putting it into the atmosphere back then. We are affecting this natural process. We are what is different. We know that we are putting the Co2 there because of the isotope ratio.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luigi:
How bizarre - Myrrh totally rubbishes current ways of measuring CO2 - even though it can be triangulated a great deal more than in the past using many different methods which generally confirm the findings. Then states that rises in CO2 follow warming. So can we measure increases of CO2 in the atmossphere or can't we! Make up your mind Myrrh.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:
Shrug.

All available real science shows that CO2 lags temperature rise by c800 years. Ice ages have come and gone in that time.

---

Yes, I'd agree to both those comments. Though, if I was being technical I'd replace "ice ages" with "glaciations and inter-glacials" because technically we've been in a single long ice age for the last half-million years or so, a state that we're rapidly coming out of as the remaining ice sheets melt away.

---

quote:

---

Now, what's the issue with the scientific description of why there's a lag of several centuries between the start of warming and the rise in CO2 concentrations? Or, why scientists don't consider the current situation to be the same?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sanityman:
Myrrh, as you've read up about the subject, I'm sure you're aware of the information below: I just wanted to highlight it as your last post made no mention of it, and it's very relevant to the points you raise.

1) The CO2 "800 year" lag. You're right, there is an 800-year lag in the paleoclimate records. However, your statement that "Ice ages have come and gone in that time" is incorrect - the warming periods last around 5000 years. CO2 did not start these warming cycles, but the mechanism by which it contributed to them is well known - it's estimated that about 50% of the warming was due to CO2. The lag is also only true for the glacial-interglacial cycles: in more recent history, CO2 has lead the temperature rise.

---

quote:

---

2) The "broken hockey stick": The papers by McIntyre and McKitrick on which the 2005 Canada National Post article was based have been discredited in this 2005 paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate. The authors took note of the criticisms levelled by McIntyre and McKitrick, adjusted the methodology to allow for them, and demonstrated that it made no practical difference to the results. Full text here. Of course, this is a critique of the 1998 paper: there are more recent studies available, some of which are summarised here and here. If you ignore the original paper as discredited, just look at some of the others which have been done in the last 11 years, which give the same message: The recent record warm temperatures in the last 15 years are indeed the warmest temperatures the Earth has seen in at least the last 1000 years, and possibly in the last 2000 years.

---

quote:

---

3) You mention the medieval warm period: I presume you're aware that it is now understood that it wasn't global in extent, and that it wasn't as warm as the last 20 years. Source.

---

quote:

---

4) You quote a personal email from Kevin Trenberth where he says "we are not close to balancing the energy budget." Fair enough, but given that Trenberth has published a paper in 2009 where he states that "there is continual heating of the planet, referred to as radiative forcing, by accelerating increases of carbon dioxide (Fig. 1) and other greenhouses due to human activities," he doesn't seem to agree with your main point, and leads me to suspect that the email is quoted out of context, to justify a point that its author wouldn't agree with.

---

quote:

---

In summary, your argument either rests on the assumption that the world's foremost experts on climatology are ignorant of some old arguments on the internet advanced by non-specialists (some of whom have political agendas, or are financed by energy companies with a huge interest in the status quo) - or that there's some shadowy conspiracy by every climate scientist to misrepresent the facts in order to keep themselves in jobs. Or something.

---

quote:

---

Now this might be news to you (it shouldn't be, if you've read anything Alan has written), but when professional scientists find some observations that aren't explained by our current understanding, they're over the moon. That's how breakthroughs are made and Nobel prizes won. If there was a real case for overthrowing the orthodoxy on climate, there's a powerful incentive to publish (even at the risk of substantial embarrasment if wrong: see Fleischmann and Pons). However, even left-field scientists like Lindzen agree with 90% of what other climate scientists are saying.

---

quote:

---

The problem here is not the science: it's the public policy. All the opposition I've seen stems from a dislike of the political measures which have been put forward to combat climate change: cap & trade, taxation, wind turbines, more expensive air travel, etc. The whole debate just seems to be an expression of "we don't like what people are doing about it, so it mustn't really exist."

---

quote:

---

To all the deniers: take your lead from aumbry: what would you do if you were convinced AGW and its consequences were real?

- Chris.

---

That's a ridiculous question.

Those convinced of it have either not looked into it themselves or not looked into it well enough. What should they do? Get a reality check.

I think the actual scenario is a handful of powerful and well placed conmen at the top promoting AGW and the rest of AGW as Aumbry posted, yet another chapter of mass hysteria in our history.

Did anyone see question time? The shock of the audience being told it was a con. You can fool some of the people all of the time..

..you begin by eliminating the opposition. The more fanatic the believers the more easily led and the more dire the consequences.


Myrrh

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clint Boggis:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I'm well aware that correlation doesn't automatically mean causation. But, when there's a clear correlation and a sound theory that predicts a cause-effect relationship one is on more solid ground. I've shown both a correlation and a solid theoretical framework based on such simple science it can be tested in a school physics lab, you just don't appear to have read my posts.

---

Oh I've read them, that you're still claiming CO2 in a test tube gets hot is so far all you've offered me in the way of proof that it is thedriver of global warming.

---

Who cares whether the CO2 heats up? That's not the point. You're still repeating this Myrrh, demonstrating that you haven't understood the first basic steps in this. The basic point of global warming caused by the greenhouse effect is that the CO2 is semi-opaque to Infrared radiation from the Earth so it bounces around and the Earth doesn't lose the heat into space that it otherwise would. That's why it's said to act like a blanket: it reduces the loss of heat. The concentration of CO2 is like the the thickness of the blanket.

---

quote:

---

Until mankind added loads more CO2 to the atmosphere in recent times, the system was in a natural balance and everything was ok. We need some CO2 or the Earth wouldn't retain enough of the Sun's heat to sustain our current comfortable existence. Rather more heat will not be a good thing overall but some people still claim that it'll be lovely, having more CO2 and higher temperatures, either because they either know nothing about it or because someone is paying them to say so. I see no other explanation for what appears to be stupidity and lack of consideration for the world's poor and vulnerable.
.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

---

Now, what's the issue with the scientific description of why there's a lag of several centuries between the start of warming and the rise in CO2 concentrations? Or, why scientists don't consider the current situation to be the same?

---

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about. Please be more specific.

---

quote:

---

I don't know what you mean by a lag of several centuries, Vostok is fairly standard results for our own conditions and that's c800 years.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Luke:
... after reading the Climate Caper by Garth Paltridge a climate scientist with the CSIRO ...

---