The Global Warming Scam!

Biblical proof that Global Warming is a scam . . .

Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

January 09, 2004

The global warming scam

The British government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has said that global warming is a more serious threat to the world than terrorism. His remarks are utter balderdash from start to finish and illustrate the truly lamentable decline of science into ideological propaganda.

Sir David says the Bush administration should not dismiss global warming because: 1) the ten hottest years on record started in 1991 2) sea levels are rising 3) ice caps are melting and 4) the 'causal link' between man-made emissions and global warming is well established.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. There is no such evidence. The whole thing is a global scam. There is no firm evidence that warming is happening; even if it is, it is most likely to have natural, not man-made causes; carbon dioxide, supposedly the culprit, makes up such a tiny fraction of the atmosphere that even if it were to quadruple, the effect on climate would be negligible; and just about every one of the eco-doomster stories that curdle our blood every five minutes is either speculative, historical or scientifically illiterate.

To take a few examples from Sir David's litany.

1) Sea levels are rising. As this article explains, this claim is not the result of observable data. Like so much of the global warming industry, it is the result of frail computer modeling using dodgy or incomplete data. It is therefore not an observed value, but a wholly artificial model construct. Furthermore, the data fed into the computer is drawn from the atypical North Atlantic basin, ignoring the seas around Australia where levels have remained pretty static. And anyway, as this article explains, sea level rises have nothing to do with warmer climate. Sea levels rose during the last ice age. Warming can actually slow down sea level rise.

2) Ice caps are melting. Some are, some aren't. Some are breaking up, as is normal. But some are actually expanding, as in the Antarctic where the ice sheet is growing, as this article points out. The bit of the Antarctic that is breaking up, the Larsen ice-shelf, which has been causing foaming hysteria among eco-doomsters, won't increase sea levels because it has already displaced its own weight in the sea.

3) The hottest years on record started in 1991. Which records? The European climate in the Middle Ages was two degrees hotter than it is now. They grew vines in Northumberland, for heaven's sake. Then there was the Little Ice Age, which lasted until about 1880. So the 0.6% warming since then is part of a pretty normal pattern, and nothing for any normal person to get excited about.

4) The causal link is well established. Totally false. It is simply loudly asserted. Virtually all the scare stuff comes from computer modeling, which is simply inadequate to factor in all the -- literally-- millions of variables that make up climate change. If you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out.

That's why this week's earlier eco-scare story, that more than a million species will become extinct as a result of global warming over the next 50 years, is risible. All that means is that someone has put into the computer the global warming scenario, and the computer has calculated what would happen on the basis of that premise. But -duh! -the premise is totally unproven. The real scientific evidence is that -- we just don't know; and the theories so far, linking man, carbon dioxide and climate warming. are specious. There's some seriously bad science going on in the environmentalist camp.

After Kyoto, one of the most eminent scientists involved in the National Academy of Sciences study on climate change, Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT, blew the whistle on the politicized rubbish that was being spouted. Since his article was so significant, I reproduce it in full here:

'Last week the National Academy of Sciences released a report on climate change, prepared in response to a request from the White House, that was depicted in the press as an implicit endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol. CNN's Michelle Mitchell was typical of the coverage when she declared that the report represented "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."

'As one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, I can state that this is simply untrue. For starters, the NAS never asks that all participants agree to all elements of a report, but rather that the report represent the span of views. This the full report did, making clear that there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them.

'As usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary rather than to the body of the report. The summary began with a zinger--that greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise, etc., before following with the necessary qualifications. For example, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.

'Our primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and agreement, the science is by no means settled. We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds).

'But--and I cannot stress this enough--we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say, contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions.

'One reason for this uncertainty is that, as the report states, the climate is always changing; change is the norm. Two centuries ago, much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling.

'Distinguishing the small recent changes in global mean temperature from the natural variability, which is unknown, is not a trivial task. All attempts so far make the assumption that existing computer climate models simulate natural variability, but I doubt that anyone really believes this assumption.

'We simply do not know what relation, if any, exists between global climate changes and water vapor, clouds, storms, hurricanes, and other factors, including regional climate changes, which are generally much larger than global changes and not correlated with them. Nor do we know how to predict changes in greenhouse gases. This is because we cannot forecast economic and technological change over the next century, and also because there are many man-made substances whose properties and levels are not well known, but which could be comparable in importance to carbon dioxide.

'What we do is know that a doubling of carbon dioxide by itself would produce only a modest temperature increase of one degree Celsius. Larger projected increases depend on "amplification" of the carbon dioxide by more important, but poorly modeled, greenhouse gases, clouds and water vapor.

'The press has frequently tied the existence of climate change to a need for Kyoto. The NAS panel did not address this question. My own view, consistent with the panel's work, is that the Kyoto Protocol would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming. Given the difficulties in significantly limiting levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a more effective policy might well focus on other greenhouse substances whose potential for reducing global warming in a short time may be greater.

'The panel was finally asked to evaluate the work of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focusing on the Summary for Policymakers, the only part ever read or quoted. The Summary for Policymakers, which is seen as endorsing Kyoto, is commonly presented as the consensus of thousands of the world's foremost climate scientists. Within the confines of professional courtesy, the NAS panel essentially concluded that the IPCC's Summary for Policymakers does not provide suitable guidance for the U.S. government.

'The full IPCC report is an admirable description of research activities in climate science, but it is not specifically directed at policy. The Summary for Policymakers is, but it is also a very different document. It represents a consensus of government representatives (many of whom are also their nations' Kyoto representatives), rather than of scientists. The resulting document has a strong tendency to disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which there is no evidence.

'Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens. This is what has been done with both the reports of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions. A fairer view of the science will show that there is still a vast amount of uncertainty--far more than advocates of Kyoto would like to acknowledge--and that the NAS report has hardly ended the debate. Nor was it meant to.'

As Professor Philip Stott wrote in the Wall Street Journal on April 2 2001:

'"Global warming" was invented in 1988, when it replaced two earlier myths of an imminent plunge into another Ice Age and the threat of a nuclear winter. The new myth was seen to encapsulate a whole range of other myths and attitudes that had developed in the 1960s and 1970s, including "limits to growth," sustainability, neo-Malthusian fears of a population time bomb, pollution, anticorporate anti-Americanism, and an Al Gore-like analysis of human greed disturbing the ecological harmony and balance of the earth.

'Initially, in Europe, the new myth was embraced by both right and left. The right was concerned with breaking the power of traditional trade unions, such as the coal miners -- the labor force behind a major source of carbon-dioxide emissions -- and promoting the development of nuclear power. Britain's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research was established at the personal instigation of none other than Margaret Thatcher.

'The left, by contrast, was obsessed with population growth, industrialization, the car, development and globalization. Today, the narrative of global warming has evolved into an emblematic issue for authoritarian greens, who employ a form of language that has been characterized by the physicist P.H. Borcherds as "the hysterical subjunctive." And it is this grammatical imperative that is now dominating the European media when they complain about Mr. Bush, the U.S., and their willful denial of the true faith.'

Go figure.

Founder Of 'Weather Channel' Calls Global Warming 'The Greatest Scam In History'!


Posted by Melanie at January 9, 2004 07:37 PM
 

Comments
Melanie, you really are an idiot.

Posted by: at January 9, 2004 09:08 PM

You must have really hit something to get that kind of reaction...

Excellent article - I'm linking to it:
http://www.synthstuff.com/mt/archives/000615.html
Thanks!

Posted by: DaveH at January 9, 2004 10:23 PM

That first assertion (and the one above, heh) marks him out as a prat. When I saw him on the television I thought he was an old man past his best. To assert as he did that global warming is a more serious threat to the world than terrorism is a judgment call for which he is farcically under qualified- and he's obviously wrong.

It points out what we all know: that environmental issues are plagued by politics, and there is a certain kind of frustrated politician who becomes an environmentalist because he is unable to cope with the real world of politics. Not to demonstrate awareness of that, and to yoke the weighing of environmental risk to that of terrorism is just idiotic.

Nice work, Melanie. You can't say this often enough for me. The thing that I am reminded though, is that until people start researching in the opposite direction to these people, or along more original lines, they'll just keep coming back, like a dog to a bone.

Posted by: ed Thomas at January 9, 2004 10:25 PM

er, when I said 'the one above', I meant the one at the top of the thread which really has no place in it.

Posted by: ed Thomas at January 9, 2004 10:26 PM

John Daly's 'Still Waiting For Greenhouse' site is excellent.

But I feel there IS evidence for warming over the last 50 years, though less than the doomsters say. And what's causing it is still unclear.

After all, a thousand years ago it was a lot warmer. The Vikings farmed southern Greenland and you can't put that down to too many cars. The approaching Little Ice (among other things) killed them off.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

Posted by: Laban Tall at January 9, 2004 11:23 PM

Brilliant, I just wish these points were made more often, by more people. You are, as usual, quite correct in every significant particular.

Posted by: midwich at January 10, 2004 12:26 AM

There may well be a causal link between global warming and mankind's irresponsible squandering of fossil fuels and global warming.
However, fortunately due to mankind's irresponsible squandering of fossil fuels, in 10 years time there will no longer be a problem, cos there wont be any fossil fuel left.
Hey, presto - problem solved !
Just make sure that you buy your place in the sun (somewhere within 10 degrees of the equator should suffice) before the price of a gallon of unleaded is equivalent to a week's wages.
And in the meantime, I suggest you all take up cycling and knitting woolley jumpers.

Posted by: at January 10, 2004 12:53 AM

One must look at these things in geological time.

I think Global Warming is a great thing. We should do nothing about it. If we do nothing, then, perhaps the greatest plague on the planet—mankind—will become extinct.

It certainly is getting warmer where I live. And—we are LITERALLY running out of water. What the hell. I'll be dead and so will Melanie before that happens. ;-)

We are but a grain of sand. . .

Lili

Posted by: Lilith at January 10, 2004 01:57 AM

In the end humanity will arrogate unto itself the responsibility for the entire universe and beyond. Just before the human race becomes extinct, that is. It is not only cannabis users who suffer from harmful delusions, it seems. When the Gulf Strean clicks off again, as it does from time to time, we're all doomed anyway. In the meantime we have to rub along the best we can, make the best of today, plan a bit for tomorrow and attempt to cope when it all turns out not quite as we expected. Individually we have to depart anyway, so what's the difference if we all go together? Keep on blogging and keep smiling. Just be thankful you're not Tony Blair. Book a cheap package flight on George Bush's Mars express, via La Luna ... keep smiling - g'night All.

Posted by: Frank Pulley at January 10, 2004 03:25 AM

I recommend that anybody interested in skeptical views on global warming, views based on science and not hysteria, should look at these three websites
http://www.john-daly.com/
http://www.sepp.org/
http://www.webace.com.au/~wsh/

Posted by: John Elliot at January 10, 2004 04:25 AM

Excellent work Melanie,.

Man-made global warming is the biggest, most expensive and dangerous hoax in the history of mankind.
 

Posted by: Alwyn Davies at January 10, 2004 11:44 AM

Well they say you cant believe everything you read then,
and its certainly true in this case, because I simply cant believe the tripe that spews from your keyboard Melanie.

In difference to most of the worlds leading academics you choose to believe the word of John Daly, a man with no education or experience in the field of global warming save a string of dodgy publications in such learned places as Daly J., "The Greenhouse Effect: Is It Just Hot Air?", New Woman, 1990.
Indeed this mans biggest claim to fame is his crack pot status.
And then your next quote is from the greening earth society, a society who admits that its own members are rural electric cooperatives and municipal electric utilities, their fuel suppliers, and is funded in part by the Western Fuels Association Forgive me if I am suspicious.

And then you quote Professor Philip Stott. Philip Stott is professor emeritus at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He has no qualifications in the field of global warming, and does not appear to have had a single paper published in a scientific journal in this field.
He does have opinions but those opinions have never had enough credibility to stand up to peer review.

You can get opinions with the same scientific merit down my local pub.

Its true, on the issue of global warming opinion is divided.
The entire scientific world accepts it as a reality and these people do not, Philip Stott, Matt Ridley, Pat Michaels, David Wojick, and Melanie Philips.

Posted by: Mike at January 10, 2004 01:33 PM

Guess what Mike. I am an atmospheric scientists who has been saying what Melanie has just said for over 10 years. You did not include me on your list of skeptics. I personally know many more atmospheric scientists who are skeptical on the issue, than support the IPCC stance. You didn't list any of them. In fact, there are tens of thousands of atmospheric scientists around the world and 99% have never been asked there opinion of Global warming. So how is it you know what they all think? Must be one of those delusions Melanie was writing about.

Why do we have the impression that everyone agrees on global warming? Because there is no money in the skeptical view, while the doom and gloomers receive billions in government grants and hundreds of millions in donations from frightened individuals to perpetuate the myth, while skeptics like myself must work and be productive in the real world. We can not afford to live in the virtual realms of man-made global warming. Not that I am complaining, mind you. I kind of feel sorry for those that base there lives work on computer fictions and need to pass them off as fact.

Then there is the media. Have you ever heard of Chicken Big? He was the one who went around telling everyone that the sky wasn't falling. Of course Chicken Big was right, but Chicken Little still got all the press.

Do me a favor, learn about climate, atmospheric physics and chaos theory before you call more knowledgeable people idiots and attack their character. Thanks!

Posted by: Jim at January 10, 2004 03:15 PM

Hi Jim,
You don't have to be an atmospheric scientist to know that the statement "there is no money in the skeptical view (to global warming)" is just plain wrong.
The skeptical view has the backing the oil industry, which has plenty of money.
Probably more money than any other industry on the planet.

Are you seriously suggesting that global warming is the minority view among atmospheric scientists?

And besides, this does nothing to change the fact that the sources Melanie quoted are either funded by the energy industry or have very poor academic and scientific merit in this field, and in some cases no credentials at all.
Facts which seems all too common among the skeptics.

Posted by: Mike at January 10, 2004 04:33 PM

Mike,

Would you care to enlighten us on just how much money the 'oil industry' has spent on climate research and the support of atmospheric scientists who are skeptical of global warming? What? No facts, just hearsay? I thought as much. What ever the amount is, it is likely a tiny fraction of the government and environmental group money that is spent promoting it.

You wrote: "Are you seriously suggesting that global warming is the minority view among atmospheric scientists?"

Yes.

Over 18,000 scientists have signed the Oregon petition stating as such. All the PhD's have been confirmed and they are working on confirming more names. I know my name on that list is accurate along many others that I know of and know personally. The NAS and IPCC reports, which are continuously sited as 'the majority view' have a far less number of contributors. Being a contributor does not mean one agrees with the summary, which Lindzen so elegantly pointed out.

In truth, no one knows what the majority of atmospheric scientists belief, but what little evidence there is supports my claim.

Posted by: Jim at January 10, 2004 05:00 PM

Research funded by the likes of oil companies have a strong vested interest in proving that global warming does not exist.
Government funded research does not have a pro-global warming bias, indeed it is in a governments interest not to have to do anything about global warming.
Preventative measures are expensive, and fuel tax increases are a sure way to lose the next election.
So your assertion that government funded research equates to pro-global warming funding, and consequently more pro-global warming research funding is available is incorrect.
Furthermore oil companies are going to do their level best to hid the funding they give to anti global warming research, not advertise it.
Which further weakens such an argument.

The Oregon petition you mentioned, is shall we say, infamous.
Its reassuring to know that they have eventually removed Geri Halliwell from the list. I guess its hard to be an expert on global warming and a spice girl as well!

Posted by: Mike at January 10, 2004 06:09 PM

The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle.

1. Global Warming is PLAUSIBLE.
2. IF it were to happen then the consequences MIGHT be very serious.
3. There ARE large industries who would prefer that we didn't do anything too dramatic just now thank you very much.

All in all, I'd say that was a good enough case to ask for further data...

And I don't think I'd want to rubbish the he British government's chief scientific adviser quite so assertively just in case he turned out to be an intelligent and well informed professional making a sensible judgment call on a complex subject...
 

Posted by: Ian Yorston at January 10, 2004 09:46 PM

What would be really alarming, is if the global climate was static. In a dynamic world, climate variation is the norm. Just the Sun's variation of energy, is far greater then anything that man or nature can do on this planet.
Melanie touched on water vapour and clouds as being more likely to cause monotonic increase in temperature. But these two are really the main agents in maintaining stability of climate by negative feedback.

Posted by: DP at January 11, 2004 12:22 AM

Mike wrote: "Government funded research does not have a pro-global warming bias, indeed it is in a governments interest not to have to do anything about global warming."

You assume that 'government' doesn't want to do anything, but the opposite is true. Crisis is the life-blood of government. Without 'crisis' or at least the threat of 'crisis' there would be little need for government. The people who comprise governments are always looking for the next crisis to build their power and influence. All the great dictators of the 20th century used 'crisis' (mostly imagined) to come to power.

Climate researchers have never had it so good. While they may not support the entire theory of global warming, they believe their research is important. They know that the budget for climate research before the global warming myth was less than 5% of what it is today. All they have to do to keep that gravy train going is not directly attack the theory. That is why a paper showing that Antarctic temperatures have been cooling the last 30 years stated in it's summary that this finding did not, in any way, diminish the theory of global warming. In reality, this finding directly contradicted the theory which predicted that Antarctica would be warming faster than anywhere on Earth. The scientists need the crisis just as much as the politicians to keep the grant money flowing.

As for environmental organizations, the more scary their mailers to an uneducated public, the more donations they receive. In my opinion, the large environmental groups are simply extortionists.

There is no logic in the widely held assumption that only money from big business is corrupting. Global warming skeptics are constantly being accused of being under the influence of 'big oil' even if there is no evidence of any such funding. But the thought of being under the influence of 'big-grant' or 'big-donation' money would never even occur to the global warming crowd, even though documented billions have been distributed. Global warming enthusiasts use the 'big-oil' attack against skeptics because they can not refute the science of the skeptics.

You have a lovely closed argument about the oil companies. You know they are spending lots of money to fight the global warming myth, but the are despicable people who hide what they are spending so you can't prove if they are spending anything, you just know it is a lot - because?

As for the Oregon petition: Of course, there are some bogus names. For the sake of argument, let's assume that 75% of the names are bogus. That would mean that 13,500 people took the time to read through and fill out a petition that they didn't believe in, as a joke - or something! Not very likely. Still that leaves 4,500 legitimate signatures, far more than you can find committing to the other side.

You made 3 assertions and I have logically countered all of them. That's strike 3! Your out!

To Ian: Asking for further research is all well and good. Demanding that people behave a certain way is something else all together. I would have no problem with those who believe in man-made global warming if they were not demanding that the rest of the world do as they say.

Posted by: Jim at January 11, 2004 04:55 AM

Mike,

Instead of overall judgments like "John Daly, a man with no education or experience in the field of global warming...", could you please say exactly what facts are wrong on his site?

When John Daly says that something alleged by global warming believers is wrong, he always has the graph, the table or the data to prove his point. I would suggest that you try to do the same.

Posted by: Claude at January 11, 2004 06:18 AM

Michael Crichton made a point worth remembering on global warming in a 2002 speech to the International Leadership Forum:

"The other thing I will mention to you is that during the last 100 years, while the average temperature on the globe has increased just .3 C, the magnetic field of the earth declined by 10%. This is a much larger effect than global warming and potentially far more serious to life on this planet. Our magnetic field is what keeps the atmosphere in place. It is what deflects lethal radiation from space. A reduction of the earth's magnetic field by ten percent is extremely worrisome.

"But who is worried? Nobody. Who is raising a call to action? Nobody. Why not? Because there is nothing to be done."

Bring up the magnetic field at the next party where a hand wringer on global warming spouts off and see if he or she knows what the hell you are talking about.

Lefties love global warming because it provides justification their favorite playtime fun, i.e., denuding and bankrupting capitalist industry.
 

Posted by: TomB at January 11, 2004 06:36 AM

global warming - if it exists is likely due to the sun's effect on cosmic rays. This has been proved by Danish scientists but hasn't been accepted by the wider science community because there is so much reasearch money being squandered on the greenhouse myth.

Don't take my word for it - read the Manic sun by nigel calder or talk to Piers Corbyn from weather action - he can forecast earth weather months in advance by his climate models of the sun.

The greenhouse effect is the biggest scientific swindle since they said the earth was flat.

Posted by: cliveyboy at January 11, 2004 08:39 PM

It is my understanding that journalists (and scholars) in Europe generally do not believe in "objectivity," that they feel that any belief in objectivity is necessarily naive. After all, we’re all prisoners of our own points of view. Indeed, the association of newspapers and magazines with particular political parties or ideological viewpoints is a strong tradition in Europe, more so than in the U.S.

I agree that the passive, neutral "he said–she said" journalism often seen in the States isn’t very helpful. And I understand that a strong point of view, or a sense of mission, can sharpen and energize reporters when they’re seeking and evaluating information. Moreover, I’ve read that, since 9-11, American journalists have been too passive when confronting government spokesmen. They pretty much accept whatever the government says, and they emphasize those themes, facts, and factoids that the government chooses to emphasize. Many of our journalists do this without thinking skeptically, without taking a step back and questioning the accounts, terminology, and assumptions that they’re being fed. They act like stenographers rather than savvy, aggressive reporters. That kind of "objectivity" we don’t need.

The aim for objectivity does not entail a refusal to come to definite conclusions. It does mean that the conclusions we come to should involve as much reporting and research as possible (even given deadlines), and as much skepticism as possible. It means that we would have to question our own views and assumptions as ceaselessly and mercilessly as we question those of others.

Will that lead to objectivity? No, not really.

I believe that objective reality exists, just as physical laws exist. But in human affairs, any objective reality is a messy, complicated mix of the concrete facts and the motives/perceptions of the individuals, groups or governments involved. These may be hard to uncover and hard to sort out.

But even if we concede that objectivity isn’t possible, or at least that it’s extremely hard to achieve, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep striving for it. One can hope to approach objectivity asymptotically.

"Asymptotic" is a term I learned a zillion years ago, in a calculus class at graduate school. Here’s a definition of what it means, at least as I learned it: Assume you have a straight line between points A and B. You’re at point A. If you try to get from point A to point B by constantly dividing the distance between yourself and point B in half, you’ll start by dividing the whole line in half, then you’ll divide the interval between yourself and B in half again, and then again and again. As you keep dividing the distance between yourself and B, and you’ll get closer and closer to B. But since there will always be some distance between yourself and B—no matter how miniscule—you’ll never actually reach B. But you’ll be much closer than when you started.

When I recommend reaching for objectivity "asymptotically," I mean that reporters must try to reach for objectivity even when knowing they’ll never get there. As a result, they’ll at least reach a level of balance, accuracy, fairness, as well as intellectual discipline and integrity, that they would never have reached otherwise.

When people say that everything is relative, and that objectivity is impossible, a red light starts blinking for me. It means that they have given up any sense of obligation to be honest, to face facts or ideas that don’t fit into their worldview. It’s really an abdication from their responsibilities as reporters, scholars, or whatever.

 


Posted by: Joanne at January 11, 2004 11:04 PM

There may very well be a causal link between human activity and climate change - I'd put money on it. However, I would say that the change isn't as bad as the Jeremiahs For Hire at the UN are saying, and most importantly, the cost of constraining green house emissions are much higher than the costs of dealing with the effects.

These people who say that the Great Barrier Reef will die if we have a 2C temp increase are talking bollocks. Are they saying that the GBR is only 800 years old? Not only did the people of the middle ages grow grapes in places like Durham and Berwick, the Norsemen harvested barley in Greenland. And how do they explain prehistoric underwater cave paintings in France? Did Captain Caveman have scuba gear?

Posted by: Murph at January 11, 2004 11:28 PM

Typical Right Wing 'There's nothing to worry about so shut up polemic'...

Sigh.

Climate Change is a serious issue and we should politicize it at our peril.

Science is science and not opinion.

Some of the evidence about enhanced global warming is suspect BUT much of the 'there's nothing to worry about' evidence is equally troubling.

As a trained environmental scientist let me make the following points/questions:

1. Climate change is accelerating. Human industrialization and the emissions therein / change in habitats (loss of forest biome) et al are the large and significant X factor when considering both global and regional ecosystems.

2. There is a complexity to the delicate interaction between the differing elements in an ecosystem. It is possible to alter established wind systems with only relatively minor changes in local atmospheric and thermal conditions. We are potentially doing this on a global basis. I would say, on the balance of the evidence and my own understanding of both atmospheric physics/ chemistry and ecosystems in general that it is likely by 65 - 35 that we are exacerbating climatic changes.

3. The points made about humans farming in Greenland and us being pebbles are irrelevant.
There are 6.3 Billion of us existing in a world economy with an increasing technology level but a decreasing resource base. Hopefully the former will expand and increase / improve the efficiency the latter. However, things on this rock are quite delicately balanced. Small changes bring big upheavals - social / economic problems that will be vastly more expensive to sort then taking action now.

3. Habitat destruction is morally wrong. We are not medieval farmers, we know better now.

4. Pollution is morally wrong, as is squandering
precious resources.

5. We can make a ton of money from greener, leaner technologies.

5. Question - why are conservatives generally prepared to see a polluted environment/squandered resources and peoples lives ruined just so long as the big fossil fuel industries don't have to change?

Basically - conservatives for a polluted, degraded planet...what is that about?

Posted by: Neil W at January 12, 2004 11:40 AM

Neil W

I can't believe that is all a "trained environmental scientist" can tell us about climate change.

1. "emissions and change in habitat are a significant X factor." Wow, that's a bold statement.

2. Based on your hunch there is a 65-35 chance we are affecting the environment. How can I argue with that?

3. "Habitat destruction is morally wrong." Strange for a scientist to use morality as an argument.

4. see answer to 3. and; Is pollution really morally wrong? Is any pollution morally wrong? Should we all just stop breathing? That would reduce CO2 emissions. (See post by Lili above)

5. Uh, okay, maybe we can.

5. Nice argument. The conservatives I know do not want to destroy the planet, they just don't want to panic based on insufficient evidence. The energy company argument is so tired. I am poor, I have no interest in oil company performance, I hold no stock, but I still think we should be prudent about our environmental decisions. Why break the bank to change something if there is no good evidence it will make a difference.

Posted by: TobaccoTom at January 12, 2004 04:18 PM

3. Habitat destruction is morally wrong. We are not medieval farmers, we know better now.

Interesting. Are you saying that the actions of the medieval farmers are responsible for the warmer climate that allowed them to farm areas that today are too cold to farm?

Posted by: CanaveralDan at January 12, 2004 05:47 PM

I believe that the terms 'habitat destruction' and 'pollution' as used first by Neil W above need definition. Whacking weeds in the garden might qualify as habitat destruction and cooking a meal outdoors might also qualify as pollution.

As for "we can make a ton of money from greener, leaner technologies" the one making the claim bears the burden of proof, in order for an assertion to move towards being an argument.

Posted by: zzx375 at January 12, 2004 06:09 PM

Two items:
One:
"Habitat destruction is morally wrong."
Actually, habitat is neither created nor destroyed. As warm habitats become warmer, colder habitats become warm. Animals can migrate given the slow change. This is what they have been doing all along if we look at the record.

Two:
Global Warming Humor?
Last Sunday's Comics pages had a wonderful one:
http://www.comics.com/creators/wizardofid/archive/wizardofid-20040111.html

Heh...

Posted by: DaveH at January 12, 2004 07:38 PM

http://www.igreens.org.uk/ - You want Conservative opinions about the environment - see this website.

. Habitat destruction is morally wrong. We are not medieval farmers, we know better now.

Interesting. Are you saying that the actions of the medieval farmers are responsible for the warmer climate that allowed them to farm areas that today are too cold to farm?

Posted by CanaveralDan at January 12, 2004 05:47 PM

The scientists are going back far further than medieval times. 8000 years and the start of agriculture to be precise. http://www.nature.com/nsu/031208/031208-7.html

Posted by: Michael at January 12, 2004 10:42 PM

Hey Neil W! If you're so certain that you can make money out of renewable energy and green technology then get off your backside and invent it. Go on! Make yourself a billionaire so you can spend all your millions that you earned on your silly little social engineering projects.

Basically, put your money where your mouth is.

Posted by: Murph at January 12, 2004 11:09 PM

I still believe in Global Cooling!
TRAITORS!
Where do you apply for funding?
 

Posted by: Paul E at January 13, 2004 12:38 AM

I may accept that "Global Warming" is occurring, but if man is having an effect I doubt it is more than pushing a bit on a system balanced on a razor edge and already leaning.

I call upon those who blame man, and only man, to demand that General Motors share with the rest of us the technology allowing them to ship SUV's to Martian consumers -
-----
(The March 2003 Astronomy has an article by Peter Thomas titled, "Mysteries of the Martian Poles." Among the other interesting aspects of the article is the repeated mention that the [Mars] polar ice caps "are receding at rates up to 15 feet (4 meters) a year."
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html Mars Emerging from Ice Age, Data Suggest
By SPACE.com - Scientists have suspected in recent years that Mars might be undergoing some sort of global warming. New data points to the possibility it is emerging from an ice age... "Odyssey is giving us indications of recent global climate change in Mars," said Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
*Mars is Melting* )
-----
and other places in the local system
-----
http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/1781 Pluto's tenuous atmosphere is expanding and warming even as the planet moves away from the Sun...

* http://www.arn.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-12-t-000268.html more: seems several moons and planets are "melting".*
-----
so that we may all share in the benefits of successful space exploration and, yes, exploitation.
 

Posted by: John Anderson at January 13, 2004 06:05 AM

OOPS -
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-water-science-03l.html Mars is Melting
Dave Smith of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Southern summer on Mars begins September 29th; by then much of the polar cap will be gone."

Posted by: John Anderson, again at January 13, 2004 06:08 AM

Thanks and congratulations. Yet another tribute posted at:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2004%20January.htm#Heroine
 

Posted by: John Brignell at January 13, 2004 11:51 AM

If anyone actually went and read the various supporting documents such as the SRES and so on there would be a lot more sense in this whole debate.
Allow me to assume, for the moment, that GW is happening, and that it is human emissions that are causing it. The question then becomes, what should we do about it ? There are various possibilities, reduction of emissions, adaptation, ignore it...
But if we look at the SRES models ( these are the economic and technological assumptions that underlie the various IPCC scenarios )we actually find something that more people should know. It is those scenarios with the FASTEST economic growth that show the lowest emissions rises and thus the least warming. This was confirmed when Castles and Henderson made their critique in Energy and Environment, and were then answered by a number of IPCC affiliated scientists.
This is nothing to do with climate science : it's to do with economics, a sadly misunderstood subject amongst enviros. Poor countries are by definition users of old technologies which are wasteful of resources. As they become richer ( again by definition, have economic growth ) they use more efficient technologies. And it's right there in the SRES models that that scenario ( B1T MESSAGE ) which has the lowest emissions growth is the one that has the highest economic growth. Rapid turnover of capital stock and approaching the production frontier of an economy are what make this true. This is why S Korea is both richer than and less emittive than N Korea : and why China has been reducing overall emissions while growing at 8 % a year. These are not whacko numbers : they are the assumptions upon which the IPCC report was written.
So, leave aside for a moment whether GW is happening, or whether we humans are causing it. Even the scientific proponents of those ideas are telling us that the solution is simple. More and faster economic growth. And we know how to do that. More free trade, more capitalism, more FDI, more globalization, death to CAP and the Multi Fibre agreement, up with the WTO.
If the assembled enviro hordes actually understood that the solution to GW, as outlined by the IPCC, were actually more of the economics they dread we would be hearing a lot less about Kyoto : can't you hear it " Ah, a little warming is nothing, as long as we don't have greedy capitalism ".

Tim Worstall
( BTW, if anyone wants to actually write this up formally I can provide all the references. )

Posted by: Tim Worstall at January 13, 2004 01:14 PM

I'm with Tim Worstall. My solution is to condense the CO2 into dry ice, load it on space vessels and fire it at Mars. There it will return to its gaseous state and provide both more atmosphere and the beginning of warming to the planet. Win-win. Makes at least as much sense as spending trillions of dollars to slow global warming by 4-5 years in a century.

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at January 13, 2004 02:43 PM

Some records suggests that CO2 concentration follows warming, not the other-way around. Time for an earth-shade at Lagrange One :-) (Though I suspect the same folks in favor of Kyoto will argue that manipulating the weather is an act-of-war, and a rising tide certainly can not lift all boats :-)

see: http://www.wuss.org/Conference/papers/DA09.pdf

Pity the Renaissance and West are in retreat (when status and who pays for research matters more than the quality and repeatability of the results). Need a label for these idiotarians. Perhaps: Lysenkobots, Lysenkonuts, ....

Posted by: Ari Tai at January 13, 2004 06:11 PM

I doubt the claims of human induced global warming because their data is patchy (to say the least), and their models don't work (plug the year 1900 in and you don't get the year 2000 out). I find it far easier to believe that any warming (or cooling) that is happening is far more likely to be due to variations in solar output than me driving a car!

Posted by: Sean O'Callaghan at January 14, 2004 04:36 AM

Global warming AND cooling have occurred throughout Earth's history. There is scant evidence that any warming is taking place right now and even if warming is occurring there is no evidence that it is due to human activity. However, based on geological evidence, global warming and cooling will occur at aom time in the geological future and there is nothing that we can do about that. However, Fred Hoyle did have a plan to protect Earth from the next ice age (see his book Ice). Remember the warnings of an imminent ice age, folks, when we were all going to freeze to death. I think that was about the same time that Paul Erlich predicted mass starvation and the Club of Rome predicted we would run out of just about everything. The green doomsayers just can't give up; trying to order other people's lives, all in the noble cause of saving Planet Earth, is such a heady brew.

One disaster that has the potential to wipe us all out is an asteroid impact. Yet the greens ignore that. Perhaps because there are no international gabfests to attend. Perhaps because any solution is likely to require the use of nasty nuclear power.

Posted by: John Elliot at January 14, 2004 11:44 AM

May I suggest that one study very closely all the temperature records John Daly has on his siet, and then compare those with Mann
s graph? Away from the urban heat islands, no warming is evident and at Albany and Esperance in southern West Australia, the trend is towards cooling. This is so blindingly obvious that one is forced to conclude that Global warming is anything but another instance of millennial madness based on faith not fact.

Posted by: Louis Hissink at January 16, 2004 09:41 PM

Why is it always Melanie Phillips who keeps saying the true but unacceptable things? I wish more people would listen to her.

If GW is happening it's caused by outside influences, not man. It's typical of mankind that (a) he thinks he's caused something as big as changing the climate, and (b) he can fix it. We know the real motives of those on the GW bandwagon are to reduce personal freedoms.

Posted by: Peter Ward at January 19, 2004 03:38 PM

I'm a bit late with this comment - but am looking into the origins and dissemination of the pseudo-science of global warming. Here's an interesting parallel comment to Sir David King's from the RSPB's 'climate change campaigner' at about the same time....
Can anyone else come up with any similar comments made by other people who should be in a position to know better?

International Environmental News
January 11, 2004
Compiled by Sean Kepple
Listen to the show
January 8, 2004 – Nature

The first comprehensive study regarding the effects of higher temperatures on the natural world has been published in the journal Nature. The study estimates more than 1 million species will be list by 2050 as a result of global warming. Much of this loss – more than 1 in 10 of all plants and animals – is irreversible due to greenhouse gasses already discharged into the atmosphere. Furthermore, if humans continue to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, the study concludes up to one third of all life forms on our planet will be doomed by 2050.

John Lanchberry, climate change campaigner for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds responded saying: “This is a deeply depressing paper. President Bush risks having the biggest impact on wildlife since the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs. At best, in 50 years, a host of wildlife will be committed to extinction because of human-induced climate change. At worst, the outcome does not bear thinking about. Drastic action to cut emissions is clearly needed by everyone, but especially the USA.”

Posted by: Janet Moseley at January 29, 2004 06:31 AM

SOURCE

 

Science Falsely So Called: The Truth About Global Warming

scienceandpublicpolicy.org
(exposing the fraud of Global Warming's so-called science)


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“The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight.” —U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - In a speech made to Columbia University on Nov. 12, 1963, ten days before his assassination!


“There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.” Senator Daniel K. Inouye, during the Iran Contra Hearings and former chair, U.S. Senate MKULTRA-era hearings in 1977


It took the deaths of millions of people to secure our freedoms in America, but it only took the death of 2,7521 people on 911 to surrender our rights to the New World Order.

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