Climate Change & Global Warming

[ArabiaTerra]

Nope, I could not, because I can't see what you want changed to "post" in either of the past two posts.

 

Any clues?

I was referring to the word "Garbage" at the beginning of the third post referring to Gorgo's original.

[Njugle]

Ah, okay - done.

Just another tired old man who can't handle the paradigm shift.

Want me to edit this ad hominem attack on an eminent scientist of some long repute too?

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^^ No, I think you can let that one stand.

 

After all, I did provide some links to back up my allegation. Let people check these out and make up their own minds. (Especially the third link.)

 

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2009/12/darth-data-destroyer-as-all-good.html

 

http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/11/hal-lewis-resigns-from-the-american-physical-society/

 

Edit: He was also the driving force behind this petition, which, I think, shows more accurately where the majority of the American Physical Society's members stand on the subject.

[ArabiaTerra]

Part 4:

Furthermore, there is no correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration over geological time-scales that supports the contention that CO2 drives climate change. Even if there was, it would not be the same as causation.

This is wrong. Over deep geological time the world has seen some radical changes in climate, ranging from much warmer than today to the snowball Earth periods when glaciation reached almost to the equator. The whole time, the CO2 level tracks the temperature record. When it was warm we see high CO2 and when it was cold, low CO2.

 

This is a great lecture on the relationship between CO2 and temperature over geological time scales.

 

And here is a summary of the lecture.

 

In addition, the homogenisation of the surface temperature data was not peer reviewed and there are allegations of the adjustment of data to fit theories rather than the other way round. This is part of Dr Bellamy's, "Fiddling while the Earth doesn't burn." The best example was the hockey stick, which was one of the most spectacular scientific blunders of all time.

You know, I'm getting really tired of this one. Yes, it is true that there have been serious allegations made against certain scientists, universities and other scientific bodies. And many of these allegations have been investigated.

 

None of the investigations have found anything at all which affects the science. None.

 

And as for the hockey stick? There is no other piece of science in the modern era which has been subjected to as much scrutiny as Michael Mann's hockey stick graph. And it has withstood every criticism which has been levelled at it. In fact, since it's first publication back in 1998, the evidence on which it is based has only got stronger. Every new climate proxy which has been incorporated into it has strengthened it.

 

More on the surface temperature record, The hacked CRU e-mails and the Hockey Stick.

 

There appears to be a roughly 60 year oscillation superimposed on the upward trend in the homogenised surface temperature data, which is explained by the Pacific and Atlantic decadal oscillations. On the last down-swing that ended in the mid 1970s (while CO2 levels continued to rise) we heard portents of doom about an impending ice age. The last upswing that ended over 10 years ago according to satellite readings triggered the current scare about global warming. One thing that stands out is that there is no anthropogenic warming signature in the temperature oscillations since the end of the LIA.

When you look at the last 100 years of the PDO, it shows no overall cooling or heating trend, whereas the temperature trend shows a steady rise over the same period, therefore, something else is driving the warming. Only anthropogenic CO2 fits the bill.

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/PDO_vs_Temp.gif

 

More here.

 

That's enough for this instalment, I think.

[north]

It is very diffcult to figure out the reality of this subject, but thanks to the 24 hour posting hysteria of the global warming believers, it is easy to lose any interest you have ever had, thanks to their boring graphs and facts.

 

I am putting my faith in this one though!

 

http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/funny-graphs-climate-change.jpg

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Michael Crichton lays it on the line.

 

Remarks to the Commonwealth Club by Michael Crichton San Francisco September 15, 2003 (Extract)

 

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

 

We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.

 

As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today about environmentalism. And in order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment. I believe it is important to act in ways that are sympathetic to the environment, and I believe this will always be a need, carrying into the future. I believe the world has genuine problems and I believe it can and should be improved. But I also think that deciding what constitutes responsible action is immensely difficult, and the consequences of our actions are often difficult to know in advance. I think our past record of environmental action is discouraging, to put it mildly, because even our best intended efforts often go awry. But I think we do not recognize our past failures, and face them squarely. And I think I know why.

 

I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.

 

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

 

There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.

 

Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.

 

And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.

 

Am I exaggerating to make a point? I am afraid not. Because we know a lot more about the world than we did forty or fifty years ago. And what we know now is not so supportive of certain core environmental myths, yet the myths do not die. Let's examine some of those beliefs.

 

There is no Eden. There never was. What was that Eden of the wonderful mythic past? Is it the time when infant mortality was 80%, when four children in five died of disease before the age of five? When one woman in six died in childbirth? When the average lifespan was 40, as it was in America a century ago. When plagues swept across the planet, killing millions in a stroke. Was it when millions starved to death? Is that when it was Eden?

 

...In short, the romantic view of the natural world as a blissful Eden is only held by people who have no actual experience of nature. People who live in nature are not romantic about it at all. They may hold spiritual beliefs about the world around them, they may have a sense of the unity of nature or the aliveness of all things... If Eden is a fantasy that never existed, and mankind wasn't ever noble and kind and loving, if we didn't fall from grace, then what about the rest of the religious tenets? What about salvation, sustainability, and judgment day? What about the coming environmental doom from fossil fuels and global warming, if we all don't get down on our knees and conserve every day?

 

Well, it's interesting. You may have noticed that something has been left off the doomsday list, lately. Although the preachers of environmentalism have been yelling about population for fifty years, over the last decade world population seems to be taking an unexpected turn. Fertility rates are falling almost everywhere. As a result, over the course of my lifetime the thoughtful predictions for total world population have gone from a high of 20 billion, to 15 billion, to 11 billion (which was the UN estimate around 1990) to now 9 billion, and soon, perhaps less. There are some who think that world population will peak in 2050 and then start to decline. There are some who predict we will have fewer people in 2100 than we do today. Is this a reason to rejoice, to say halleluiah? Certainly not. Without a pause, we now hear about the coming crisis of world economy from a shrinking population. We hear about the impending crisis of an aging population. Nobody anywhere will say that the core fears expressed for most of my life have turned out not to be true...

 

Okay, so, the preachers made a mistake. They got one prediction wrong; they're human. So what. Unfortunately, it's not just one prediction. It's a whole slew of them. We are running out of oil. We are running out of all natural resources. Paul Ehrlich: 60 million Americans will die of starvation in the 1980s. Forty thousand species become extinct every year. Half of all species on the planet will be extinct by 2000. And on and on and on. With so many past failures, you might think that environmental predictions would become more cautious. But not if it's a religion. Remember, the nut on the sidewalk carrying the placard that predicts the end of the world doesn't quit when the world doesn't end on the day he expects. He just changes his placard, sets a new doomsday date, and goes back to walking the streets. One of the defining features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts, because they have nothing to do with facts.

 

...I can cite the appropriate journal articles not in whacko magazines, but in the most prestigeous science journals, such as Science and Nature. But such references probably won't impact more than a handful of you, because the beliefs of a religion are not dependant on facts, but rather are matters of faith. Unshakeable belief.

[Guest Anonymous]

Pretty interesting point. The theory transferes through to to belief that there may be some form of Absolution for sorting out the plastic mineral water bottles for re-cycling.

Going to have to look into this further. Maybe I have beliefs that I'm unaware of!!

[ArabiaTerra]

Michael Crichton lays it on the line.

 

Remarks to the Commonwealth Club by Michael Crichton San Francisco September 15, 2003 (Extract)

 

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind..... blah, blah (no need to quote the rest)

Wow, Koy, that's an epic piece of strawman building you've found there, championship winning material worthy of the burning man festival. And like all the best strawmen, there is an element of truth in it. The hippy-dippy, mother goddess, gaia worshipping tree huggers, who took James Lovelock literally certainly do exist, but to suggest the whole environmental movement is like this is just ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as suggesting all muslims are terrorists.

 

Take me, for instance. I think I've shown on this thread that I'm a pretty hard-core environmentalist, yet I'm pro-GM, pro-nuclear, pro-industrial farming, pro-fox hunting, pro-animal testing, pro-Trident and I'm absolutely, fundamentally anti-faith on general principles.

 

Where do I fit in Crichtons stereotype?

[Njugle]

Where do I fit in Crichtons stereotype?

 

Do you really want posters to start discussing you individually rather than the subject at hand? This question may be ill-advised in a forum where we often strive to avoid personal attack and invasions of privacy. However if you really wish to sustain the question, please be aware of the limitations of moderation.

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^ Noted, but I meant it more as a rhetorical question. The fact is, I don't fit Crichtons stereotype, and neither do many other people who consider themselves environmentalists.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

I think he uses it, not so much to mark every individual environmentalist as a zealot but more to give his opinion of the general feel of the whole thing and the way it has evolved. There is no quarter given to anyone who may be interested in how, why and when climates shift and the measures put in place to cope; unless they are on there knees bowing to the theory of AGW and chanting that the only way forward is to strip the people of the world of more cash and more rights,

 

You can't say your own faith in it being manmade, has not come across as seeming to be unshakable.

[Evil Inky]

There is no quarter given to anyone who may be interested in how, why and when climates shift and the measures put in place to cope; unless they are on there knees bowing to the theory of AGW and chanting that the only way forward is to strip the people of the world of more cash and more rights,

I've never quite understood why climate scientists, but not say, chemists or biologists, are supposed to be so set on removing people's rights and freedoms.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

It all makes perfect sense. Expressed in dollars and cents, Pounds, shillings and pence

 

You start with the money men and work your way down from there.

Manufactured consensus will promote what it is created for.

 

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

 

“I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol,†Christy told CNN on May 2, 2007.

 

Christy has since proposed major reforms and changes to the way the UN IPCC report is produced. Christy has rejected the UN approach that produces “a document designed for uniformity and consensus.†Christy presented his views at a UN meeting in 2009. The IPCC needs “an alternative view section written by well-credentialed climate scientists is needed,†Christy said. “If not, why not? What is there to fear? In a scientific area as uncertain as climate, the opinions of all are required,†he added.

‘The reception to my comments was especially cold.’

 

I'm still wondering why the Bilderberg boys were talking about "Global Cooling", at their little get together.

 

The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.

 

Any ideas?

[Guest Anonymous]

Nope.

[Gibber]

You start with the money men and work your way down from there. Manufactured consensus will promote what it is created for.

 

Why hasn't oil money manufactured a consensus against man made climate change?