Are we all intelligent adults in the room — can we discuss the weather without calling people names?
The state of the national conversation is pathetic.
Matt Ridley, best selling science writer, PhD, elected to the UK Parliament did the unthinkable and switched to become skeptical of carbon crisis a few years ago. This week he wrote about that transformation and the different behaviour of skeptics and those who disagree with them…
UPDATE: Attacking the man takes on an especially blunt meaning today. Bishop Hill reports that in comments Gary Evans, a Guardian author (aka Bluecloud) laid out his best scientific argument. Should that not be [Matt] Ridley’s severed head in the photo? Where else but that paragon of progressive ethics: The Guardian? Such is the intellectual parry of gullible believers: We would actually solve a great deal of the world’s problems by chopping off everyone’s heads. Why are you deniers so touchy? see More Greenpeace Death Threats? Nice of him to prove Ridley’s point.
From My Life As a LukeWarmer: Matt Ridley
In the climate debate, paying obeisance to climate scaremongering is about as mandatory for a public appointment, or public funding, as being a Protestant was in 18th-century England.
Matt used to believe (like so many of us did):
I was not always a lukewarmer. When I first started writing about the threat of global warming more than 26 years ago, as science editor ofThe Economist, I thought it was a genuinely dangerous threat. Like, for instance, Margaret Thatcher, I accepted the predictions being made at the time that we would see warming of a third or a half a degree (Centigrade) a decade, perhaps more, and that this would have devastating consequences
When he initially switched there was a genuine conversation. People did try to engage him in long exchanges, but he gradually grew more and more skeptical, and the conversation just got more and more silly.
Then a funny thing happened a few years ago. Those who disagreed with me stopped pointing out politely where or why they disagreed and started calling me names. One by one, many of the most prominent people in the climate debate began to throw vitriolic playground abuse at me. I was “paranoid”, “specious”, “risible”, “self-defaming”, “daft”, “lying”, “irrational”, an “idiot”. Their letters to the editor or their blog responses asserted that I was “error-riddled” or had seriously misrepresented something, but then they not only failed to substantiate the charge but often roughly confirmed what I had written.
Kind friends send me news almost weekly of whole blog posts devoted to nothing but analysing my intellectual and personal inadequacies, always in relation to my views on climate. Writing about climate change is a small part of my life but, to judge by some of the stuff that gets written about me, writing about me is a large part of the life of some of the more obsessive climate commentators. It’s all a bit strange. Why is this debate so fractious?
Rather than attack my arguments, my critics like to attack my motives. I stand accused of “wanting” climate change to be mild because I support free markets or because I receive income indirectly from the mining of coal in Northumberland. Two surface coal mines (which I do not own), operating without subsidies, do indeed dig coal partly from land that I own. They pay me a fee, as I have repeatedly declared in speeches, books and articles.
Matt goes on to point out that he writes and speaks in favour of gas, coal’s biggest competitive threat, and that if he were in this for the money, he would make more from renewables (but he won’t take those subsidies).
Matt explains the points that slowly convinced him, the failed predictions, the ClimateGate scandal, the Hockeystick graph – -and the shocking realization that the scientific establishment was pretending that nothing was wrong.
Then there is the point about how hard it is to discuss any shade of grey:
I am especially unimpressed by the claim that a prediction of rapid and dangerous warming is “settled science”, as firm as evolution or gravity. How could it be? It is a prediction! No prediction, let alone in a multi-causal, chaotic and poorly understood system like the global climate, should ever be treated as gospel. With the exception of eclipses, there is virtually nothing scientists can say with certainty about the future. It is absurd to argue that one cannot disagree with a forecast. Is the Bank of England’s inflation forecast infallible?
Matt Ridley was also one of the few writers to understand the point about the feedbacks in the models. We were lucky enough to have lunch with him when he visited Perth a few years ago, and we discussed amplification in the models at length. He was one of the few, like the late great Tony Kelly of The Royal Society, who saw the importance immediately.
Matt’s last word says so much about this debate.
I have never met a climate sceptic, let alone a lukewarmer, who wants his opponents silenced. I wish I could say the same of those who think climate change is an alarming prospect.
There is a lot more. Read the whole article on The Times or at Matt’s blog
The road from believer to skeptic is a one way street and only travelled by the brave, the ones not afraid or intimidated by the abuse.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/the-nigger-word/
Pointman
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This is true, as a former believer, once I determined to test the hypothesis and proclamations by the faithful ( you know, the ones about rainfall doubling, or ice melting, or more powerful storms) and looked at the relative energies involved it was clear that 3-6 degrees per doubling was NOT POSSIBLE. For example if you look at the claim that 80 % of the warming goes into the ocean, clearly that then means that only 20% is left to the atmosphere, so instead of 0.6W per square meter we are arguing over 0.12W per square meter!
There are some basic problems with the rhetoric, with energy you can’t have your cake and eat it too, if the energy is in the ocean, it can’t also be in the atmosphere, if it’s in entropy of water (melted ice or evaporated water) then it’s not in the atmosphere, if it’s in increased photosythesis (carbohydrate molecules) it’s not in the atmosphere. Climate science ignores energy, this 0.6W of excess energy is seemingly producing 17 energetic miracles at the same time using the same piddling 0.6W per square meter energy quanta. On every claim I test I find the same thing, the supposed imbalance of 0.6W per square meter is far too weak to cause the supposed effect they claim. Let’s take for example the west shelf melting rubbish, calculation shows the energy required is between 5 and 15W per square meter, an order of magnitude more than the imbalance energy available, and more than the total amount of supposed back radiation including the first 280PPM (3.7 W) by a factor of 2. Conclusion, CO2 warming is NOT causing the west antarctic melt.
Anyway, once you cotton on to the truth by examining the issue yourself you simply can’t unknow it and go back. It’s like saying you want to go back to believing in santa claus again. In the same way the transformation to climate scepticism is one way, you can’t unknow the fact that it doesn’t energetically stack up.
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Bobl, I believe in Santa Clause..
….. as a concept for children.
In that way, Santa is not that dissimilar to CAGW .
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Is it just me, or perhaps I was brought up right such that a fair go is a fair go? And as such, you give people and ooportunity to put their point, then debate politely.
I cannot fathom the unagreeable creatures these pro-CAGW people have morphed into……
Is left winger-ism a form of intellectual rabies?
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My mate AlecM has penned a brilliant, succinct demolition of the IPCC’s fake science. In multiple venues, no supporter of the pseudoscience has dared reply, knowing that they are being slaughtered by experimental reality.
‘Like all professional scientists and engineers I did a sniff test and an energy balance when looking at IPCC ‘Science’.
Sniff test: if the Earth’s surface were to heat local (~20 m) air at the claimed mean 157.5 W/m^2*, its temperature must be ~ 0 deg C** – averaged OVER THE WHOLE PLANET; colder than at any time in the past 444 million years.
It’s really near surface temperature, kept there by the convection that maintains ‘lapse rate’. Houghton showed why in 1977***. He then apparently gave up Science to co-found the IPCC. In 2005, Hansen bemoaned the fact they had no measurements of local air temperature, apparently realising vulnerability to clear thinking opposition asking ‘Where’s the Beef?’. There is no Beef.
Conclusion: Climate Alchemy Stinks; unfit for UN consumption.
Energy Balance: Hansen et al in 1981 claimed an imaginary -18 deg C ‘OLR’ emission zone emitting over 360 degrees in the upper atmosphere, radiating 238.5 W/m^2 Up and Down, This was in effect a ‘bait and switch’, exchanging real 238.5 W/m^2 with imaginary 333 W/m^2 ‘back radiation’; 40% increase. They did another numerical trick in hindcasting to purport extra evaporation from oceans. His claims to Congress in 1988 were all based on ‘modelling artefacts’.
Conclusion: the modelling has been fraudulent for 34 years.
* ‘Clear Sky Atmospheric Greenhouse Factor’.
** Assumes 0.75 atmospheric Emissivity for 238.5 W/m^2 Emittance.
*** Figure 2.5 of the 1977 edition of ‘Physics of Atmospheres’.
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We need more neutral terms to describe the two sides of the debate. The skeptics are not skeptical: They have a definite opinion. The term “believer” implies blind faith.
After reflection and consultation, I propose the following terms:
AGW proponent
AGW opponent
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Bernard, I’m a skeptic.
We don’t need neutral terms, we need accurate terms. I figured them out in 2009:
A definite opinion is not the decider. A skeptic may have a definite opinion, but they are always seeking a better one.
If I wasn’t a skeptic, I wouldn’t have switched sides.
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I always thought (OK – I read it somewhere) that the names for the opposing camps were ‘Sceptical’ and ‘Gullible’
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A key component of the charlatan’s m.o. is the promotion of confusion.
To promote and maintain confusion they keep changing the language.
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Bishop Hill raised this point, too. I find it a shame that Viscount Ridley adheres to the AGW meme, despite his scepticism. Perhaps he, too, is afflicted with human vanity: something grand is happening (let’s skip the “Is it?” part of the argument), so it must have been caused by humans. While humanity might have some influence upon the climates, particularly locally, I doubt that the influence is such that it would have any global register on any monitoring equipment that we have deployed.
But then, my scepticism makes me accept that I could be wrong.
I have no qualms about being called a sceptic; as Jo has pointed out, ALL scientists should be sceptics. The opposite of sceptical might be gullible, but I prefer the term already in use: “warmists”. It is quite accurate; they accept that warming has happened (and few people would argue with that) but then they say that it will continue, that it is/will be catastrophic, and that it is all caused by human activity. All without much evidence – or even in direct contradiction of what little evidence we do have!
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It so takes the wind out of their sails, accepting all that the Warmists say has happened, whether it has or not, and still being able to say so what ?
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That is pretty much it. We “know” a lot of things, some are willing to accept that new information may change what we “know” while others are not.
Science, as I was taught, is about expanding the things we “know” as accurately as possible. We may “know” something as a result of experiments, calculations, and observations. Further experiments, calculations, and observations may well establish that what we “knew” was incorrect at which point we now “know” something new.
Unfortunately for some it isn’t the pursuit of “knowing” as much as it is the status of being the finder of what is “known.” For them further experiments, calculations, and observations that show something different from what they had found/discovered are to be avoided, attacked, forbidden, ridiculed, etc. etc. as they may well prove that what had been found was wrong.
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When all the invective, the hate speech, the divisiveness, the constant screeching condemnation of those unbelievers, those hated skeptics are removed there is always just one major point remaining.
The Skeptics DID NOT START ANY OF THIS!
All the few skeptics said quite legitimately and in line with accepted scientific practice very early in this whole anthropgenic global warming debacle was;
Hang on a moment!
Where’s the proof for your claims?
There wasn’t any proof,
There is still no proof as genuine honest science knows it.
And thats when the slandering and hate invective against skeptics started and continues on to this day.
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They also call us “deniers” to equate us with that species of vermin that delies historical facts such as the WW2 genocides perpetrated by the NAZIs. Personally, such tactics disgust me.
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On the theory that turnabout is fair play, I have taken to using the term Hoax Deniers. Especially to those who like to call others “climate deniers”, or “denialists”.
I am kind of hoping the appellation sticks and becomes widely used, because I am wondering how they will like it.
And I welcome being called a skeptic. I agree with Jo that the scientific method demands skepticism.
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Maybe, but the equivelent for their side is the label of COLLABORATOR.
Lest we forget…..
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I am a cynic. A person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions, and the actions of all of the other mammals.
The warmists selfishly see the available political funding, and want their share, and your share too.
The politicians selfishly want to be seen to be funding the warmists, because in doing so, they can tip the scales and be seen to be on the winning side.
The journalists selfishly want to be backing the winners because they go with the majority.
The skeptics selfishly want to be right, and prove the other groups wrong, for the sake of the civilisation that their children, with their parents genes, will inherit.
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I’m a bit late for this reply, but I see you point and I agree. It’s too bad the skeptics are the only ones trying to use the correct words. On the other side of the debate, there is recurring habit of opposing the Scientists (who by definition are AGW Proponents) and the Deniers (who by definition deny the Science, as defined by the Scientists).
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Jo, I fear for our personal safety if the language used by the rabid left doesnt abate. All you have to do is look at how the left treated the jews in Germany to know how language, once it runs out of control, breeds violent acts.
I guess all it does is show their true face tot he world. No wonder McCarthy was adamant that the Red Menace was exactly that.
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Bernard, I think you mean well by your proposal but the word ‘proponent’ means advocate, and ‘opponent’ means adversary. So your terminology automatically assumes a certain amount of conflict. Yet we have been taught in science – we should all be sceptical of theories until they are proven. We are not meant to be cheerleaders.
However, most skeptics, myself included, do not dispute the basic premise of Anthropogenic Global Warming – that is, additional CO2 caused by human activity can have a warming effect on atmospheric temperatures. The questions yet to be answered are:
By how much?
Are we accurately accounting for human and natural GHG emissions? (e.g. natural warming will create a certain amount of degassing)
What are the negative and positive feedback mechanisms?
What impact do other major climate drivers have on global temperature?
To what extent is any anthropogenic impact on temperature positive or negative?
What if anything should we do about it if we can answer those questions?
Would anything we do be overwhelmed by natural variation anyway?
(I’m sure there are lots of other questions I have missed in this quick note)
The problem with this ‘climate debate’ is that it isn’t about whether humans can have an impact on temperatures.
The so called ‘consensus position’ has always been that humans are having a catastrophic impact on global warming which is causing dangerous climate change and we need to make drastic changes to our economy and lifestyles to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions now!
So if you want to characterise the two sides of the debate. Then you really have to say there are those who accept that so called consensus position, despite the lack of evidence and empirical support. Then there are the skeptics who simply say that ‘consensus’ position is far from certain, where is the proof? And there is little or no justification for taking the action being advocated.
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BernardP,
You write:
AGW proponent
AGW opponent
I am neither of those things, although when the growing season is such that I can grow lots of tomatoes (most to be given away) I like that, and warmth is good. If you are looking for a word that encompasses the idea that Earth is not about to be catastrophically impacted by a bit of warming, then search harder. There seems to be no proof of that. If you mean the issue of human use of fuel as a cause of catastrophic atmospheric warming – I’m skeptical.
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Yes. AGW proponent sounds like someone wants the temperature to rise by using more fossil fuels (probable true, so they could say ‘I told you so’).
The denier tag has been thrown at people who do not deny that the AGW is significant. The only tag that I accept is ‘sceptical’ (I’ll even accept ‘skeptical’) because it indicates a disagreement with some part of what has been postulated and not everything.
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Many if not most of the skeptics I know do not agree that “the AGW is significant” which is why they are skeptical of the whole mess as it is being presented. Where you came up with that I’ll never know. You do know what AGW means don’t you? The “d” word has been thrown at skeptics simply because they don’t accept completely any and every aspect of the “CAGW/Climate Change/whatever it is called” and that would include people that “accept that the AGW is significant” but who question any of the rest of it.
You must not get out much, should we start listing all the natural disasters that the alarmists immediately point to whenever and wherever they happen as “proof” oc their “climate change” and “AGW” nonsense? We’ve seen them jumping for joy going “I told you so” only for us to find out somewhat later that whatever the event was had nothing to do with “climate change” or “AGW.”
Call yourself a skeptic if you want, but based on the content of your comment you don’t look like one.
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Give it a rest. Sceptics like Spencer, Lindzen, Curry etc. don’t deny that an increase in CO2 levels could increase global temperatures. Significant doesn’t mean catastrophic but measurable.
Richard Muller is supposed to be a reformed sceptic and he still doesn’t play along with the disaster movie scenarios.
As for my own opinion, I’m going with that the effect of man’s use of fossil fuels has not been enough to have changed global temperatures. The warming was natural oscillation with 60 year period plus a longer warming trend that has been exaggerated by fudging the data. Only the latter could be attributed to humans and it most likely was natural as well, just changes in ocean currents.
There is a greenhouse effect but there is so much more going on that I side with estimates of sensitivity of 0.2°C, max. More likely is that because of negative feedbacks and the Earth being nothing like a black disc, it is not significant.
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Bernard Jo just gave you the answer pure and simple, as a simple person I’ll simplify it even more (note the use of self satire)
A Skeptic is,
– Professional not emotional.
– Objective not abjective.
– Positively discussing not negatively dismissive.
– Constructive not coercive.
– Dedicated to not dictated to.
– Factual not fictional.
Well you get the gist of it (I hope) and remember anyone will defend themselves when threatened with irrational situations,
how that defense is conveyed depends on mindsets, warmists should think themselves lucky skeptics have a much stable mindset than their antagonists.
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We need terms other than ‘denier’ but skeptic is perfectly in order.
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Jane Austen wrote two classic novels about 200 years ago: “Sense and Sensibility (1811)” and “Pride and Prejudice (1813)”. The titles of these two novels perfectly describe the “CAGW Religious Cult”, ie they lack Sense and Sensibility, have bucket loads of Prejudice and have zero Pride.
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Oxymoron.
To paraphrase a well known cliché, ‘Opinions are like ahhrse-wholes, everyone has one’.
Less ‘opinion’, ‘modeling’, ‘adjusting’ and politics. More empirical evidence I say.
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BernardP
Your attempt to use neutral language will not catch on.
Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is too closely linked to scientific falsification. Further the term “global” makes claims that policies enacted by Australia or the UK are necessary to “save the planet” look somewhat ridiculous when each have less than 1% of the global population.
More importantly, neutrality would require letting the side with the better argument win. The “climate consensus” are already insecure enough, demonstrated by their claims to have “science” on their side, and casting skeptics as their intellectual and moral inferiors.
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Bernard,
I prefer “bedwetter” and “continent”.
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All jokes aside, the most accurate epithet for members of the warmunist brethren is “PANIC MERCHANT”, because they baldly attempt to instil fear and alarm, and they are selling their wares, whether intellectual or commercial for profit. If there wasn’t a dishonest buck to be made, the whole catastrophist house of cards would fall down instantly, with not one soul being prepared to put their head above the parapet.
Warmistas are in the main either stupid, emotionally unstable, blatantly dishonest, thieves or frauds, or all of the above. They have, IMHO, no redeeming features whatsoever. I look forward to the day when most of the prime movers are either jailed or failing that become public pariahs for endangering the integrity and fabric of society on a guess, a whim, a guilt-ridden fantasy, or a deliberate deception, depending on which tentacle of the malignant octopus with which you align yourself.
If this polarises the debate further, too bad. Cry me a river.
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My original comment would seem to have been too strongly worded for the comfort of the moderators, and thus in the spirit of not making our hostess uncomfortable, let me rephrase.
All jokes aside, the most accurate epithet for members of the warmunist brethren is “PANIC MERCHANT”, because they baldly attempt to instil fear and alarm, and they are selling their wares, whether intellectual or commercial, for profit from that fear. If there wasn’t a dishonest buck to be made, I believe the whole catastrophist house of cards would fall down instantly, with not one soul being thereafter prepared to put their head above the parapet.
‘Warmistas’ have, IMHO, no redeeming features whatsoever. They have been guilty of shamelessly and serially endangering the integrity and fabric of our civilised society on what really amounts to a guess, a whim, a guilt-ridden fantasy, or in some cases a deliberate deception, depending on which tentacle of the malignant octopus with which they align themselves sociopolitically. Their actions have probably already ensured that several hundred thousand or more of the world’s most marginalised have succumbed to poverty, disease and death, all for the vanity project that is CAGW.
If this polarises the debate further, too bad. Cry me a river.
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I’m no scientist, just a sceptical individual. My preference is “sceptic” [English] for the white-hats and “warmie” when polite or “alarmist” when responding to a jibe, for black-hats.
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Question,A/ Do you think that the Guardian is going to sack Gary Evans, a Guardian author over this or promote him for it?
Question B/ Do you think that the U.K. Government is now going to put Gary Evans, a Guardian author and possible some of the people that work at the Guardian on a terrorists watch list?
Question C/ Do you think both should happen or not.
YOU ARE GUARANTEED THAT NO ONE WILL BE BEHEADED FOR YOUR OPINIONS AND REPLIES. THIS IS NOT ISIS,AL-QA’IDA OR GREENPEACE OR THE GUARDIAN WEBSITE.
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Question,A/ Do you think that the Guardian is going to sack Gary Evans, a Guardian author over this or promote him for it?
Question B/ Do you think that the U.K. Government is now going to put Gary Evans, a Guardian author and possible some of the people that work at the Guardian on a terrorists watch list?
Question C/ Do you think both should happen or not.
YOU ARE GUARANTEED THAT NO ONE WILL BE BEHEADED FOR YOUR OPINIONS AND REPLIES. THIS IS NOT ISIS, AL-QA’IDA OR GREENPEACE OR THE GUARDIAN WEBSITE.
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Sorry for the double post up mouse playing up . Please delete Jo if you wish.
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Be careful, we don’t want to delete Jo. Some of the alarmist visitors certainly do but we don’t. 😛
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Never been happy with “the sceptic”name. I am not a sceptic because data tells me not to be sceptical.
I am not a denier because I look at the evidence and if I come to a conclusion than I stand by it, not deny it.
But you may accuse me that this leads to a black white position and hence tending towards a believer. Wrong again, because it is based on data that often has be looked at with the grain salt and evaluated again and not believed. If data tells me otherwise then I change my mind. If data tells me that I should gravitate to towards AGW then I will. Tell me rationally why I should believe it and I will consider. So far evaluating both sides I can,t side with the AGW position.
Hence I describe myself as a data hungry rationalist.
Other descriptions like an individual, thinker, no sb man, optimist (May be) are also considered.
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Should read no bs man.
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I use global warming advocate and global warming questioner. Skeptic works too.
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BernardP. The description AGW proponent and
AGW opponent
give moral equivalence to both sides. If Matt Ridley says anything in his article it is that the CAGW and not scientific, their attacks on those who do not believe as they do are unfair, personal, and rarely show any supporting data.
Moral equivalence is often given to those who work hard to succeed and those who lie, cheat, and steal. Both are often rich and both give some to charity. But the fact they are both rich and contribute does not mean they are morally equivalence.
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I think a better choice of terms would be:
CAGW proponent
CAGW opponent
I believe AGW exists, but I haven’t a clue about its magnitude other than it is likely to be very small. We have a tendency to forget that AGW also means the UHI effect of cities, the increase of humidity from irrigation, the colour difference (and therefore albedo) between crops and original vegetation, AG is not just the effect of CO2.
We may be able to make a rough guess of the individual AGW effects, but we do not have a clue how to measure the feedback effects. The IPCC claims these feedbacks are hugely positive, but that simply does not compute, for the simple reason if it was true life would have long ago ceased to exist on our planet.
The Earth has its own far from perfect thermostat system and our understanding of this is in its infancy.
CAGW cannot be found in the geological record and that it is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in alarmist theory.
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Peter,
Your dividing line is a good one, as it makes a distinction between those who believe there is a significant issue, worthy of policy, and those who do not. For this very reason such labels will not work. A proper survey of climate scientists reviewed by Forbes, (hattip Otto Marasco) found out that the majority of climate scientists did not support the CAGW “consensus” line. Yet the whole PR effort of climate change advocacy does.
An example – John Cook of skepticalscience wants to have it both ways. He has admitted when questioned that the the Cook et al 97% Consensus survey only dealt with declared belief in the broadest, most banal, form of the global warming hypothesis. But the follow-up consensusproject website is all about the most extreme form of CAGW and the most simplistic policy justifications. The only way that contradiction can be maintained is to prevent the general public from considering any other form of opinion but their own. Any categorization of groups with actual descriptive content will expose the contradiction.
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People can call me anything they want, as long as it’s not late for dinner.
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The terms “climate science” and “climate scientist” have no meaningful value any longer in today’s conversation. It is truly “climate religion” and “climate religious zealot”. And unlike many western religions, there’s simply no room for those who casually believe the doctrine – one must advocate the doctrine wholeheartedly and have no tolerance for any other doctrine that exists. They are truly religious zealots, pure and simple. Dr. Ridley’s experience, as Judith Curry’s, and many others are frighteningly similar to the way some fringe religions treat those who leave their flocks. [Snip – we’ll leave debates about specific religions out of this blog. Too easy to get O/T – Mod]
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To liken climate science to religion is to denigrate religion.
Religion is often about deeply held convictions fundamental even to life itself, while climate science is a passing fad.
It would be sad indeed if anyone seeking a religion were to adopt the false prophets of climate science.
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Science is based in and on data taken from this real “analog” world. Try as you might, you can “simulate” this world with mathematics, but you can not ever completely capture it. The world is not digital. It refuses to be. Scientists actually know that intrinsically, therefore they keep refining their definitions, knowing that no matter how hard they try, they will never, ever settle on a final definition. That is why people who view the world as it is and try to understand it are realists, and scientists, above all others are realists.
When you try to digitize anything that is analog, you can capture its values, but not it’s virtues. Digitized music is good, but the good ear hears the difference between a digitized rendition and the original analog event – same with digitized pictures and videos. They can be of great quality, but the trained eye can differentiate between them. People who see the world through mathematics are, then, “analogists” since they are always looking for and believing in analogies, the mathematical representations of realities. If you wish to choose terms to represent the two sides of the climate debate, I suggest these. Realists are those that view data and question computer programs which are analogies derived by the analogists.
Also realize that these terms do not in anyway apply to the political aspects of the two sides of the debate, only the scientific side of the debate. the political sides of the debate span too wide a spectrum and includes a multitude of agendas, and no two terms could truly ever cover all of them.
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Global interest in climate change waning, alarmists panic.
Observations and facts don’t support the rhetoric.
Desperate times, desperate measures.
Ramp up the hysteria.
Last line of defence.
Send in the trolls.
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It is the polarization of the ‘debate’ along political lines which was always the greatest indicator that it was only a convenient issue for the extreme Left, demonizing consumerism, the West and Western democracies. How likely was that? This was confirmed by Dr. Patrick Moore in his bookabout the takeover of Greenpeace by communists in 1998 then lawyers and profiteers. So with Global Warming.
Debate? What debate? When has there ever been a public debate between scientists. Apart from blogs like this the scientific community has ignored it. Sure political leaders of scientific groups like NASA have pushed the argument but they are more compromised than most and in violent disagreement with most of the people they represent. So too with those warming activists from the BOM who ignore the real data and push warming and themselves and their careers.
As said, the other aspect was the complex chain of logic for MMGW was never proven. It can fall over at any point and 25 years after the formation by the UN of an IPCC, every plank in the argument has fallen but still it persist because Man Made Global Warming was always a fantasy and with 200,000 windmills sold, one of the most profitable fantasies in history.
The Greens in Australia have 14% of the vote but captured power for six years. They dream of 25%, a base which launched many dictators including Hitler and Lenin. The Greens care nothing for boat people or global warming or electricity. It is all about political power, their power. Big Carbon is now as big as Big Tobacco and both had their tame scientists.
So what Matt Ridley has realised slowly is that there is far more to this than science. For true believers, it is an article of faith. For political and commercial opportunists, Monckton’s Profiteers of Doom, it is their dream come true. Death is too good for unbelievers.
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1988. Sorry.
40
The MO of the UN in general, and the UN IPCC UNEP in particular ensured the preternatural politicisation of ‘climate science’. Implementing the political agenda of the Progressive Green elite relies upon a ‘States of Fear’ encapsulated by ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’.
The extraordinary failure of the MSM throughout all this just beggars belief. When one realises that their ego and dumbed-down focus rest in ‘the show’, ‘the ratings’, ‘the entertainment’ and the advertising cachet, one begins to appreciate why their will and critical intellectual wattage are so glaringly and tragically absent.
I disagree with Matt Ridley. The ‘polarisation of the climate debate’ exemplified as it is by a proxy ideological war has clearly not gone nearly far enough. When it has, science will own its integrity, as will tertiary institutions and school teachers. Unfettered critical analysis will abound and politicians, company directors, bankers and bureaucrats will all take out necessary personal indemnity insurance. They be personally accountable for their decisions.
…and genetically manipulated pigs will fly too.
It will be a long war.
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Anyone with a broad understanding of the scientific method, the formulation of a hypothesis and its subsequent verification by experimentation and empirical evidence which results in its acceptance, modification or rejection, has to be skeptical by nature.
In climate science, the empirical evidence is at considerable variance to the predictive values from the models, but rather than admit that the models are wrong, the political momentum is such that those that call this fact to account are called deniers, and the barrage of media comment supporting global warming drowns out anything to the contrary in the tradition of Herr Goebells the Nazi media guru.
Yes, we all agree that the climate does change; it always has and always will since it is based on solar input and its distribution around the planet, and this is not constant. The area of disagreement is whether man has anything much to do with it or not. The demonisation of the element carbon, specifically its dioxide, CO2, is puzzling inasmuch it is the basis to life itself since mankind cannot synthesise carbohydrate; plants do this for us and require CO2, water and sunlight.
There has been enormous amounts of money invested in global warming by governments, and it has become an industry in its own right, so there is the obvious tendency for the “warmistas” to defend their position irrespective of the evidence that it hasn’t warmed for 18 years or so. Look at the publicity given to pronouncements that 2014 was the warmest year by 0.02 or 0.04 degree temperature rise when one can only measure accurately to about 0.2 degrees anyhow, and in olden times to about half a degree farenheit.
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A good comment….thank you.
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As the Green Progressive agenda dictated the early politicisation of “climate science” it became necessary to identify the key energy related ‘greenhouse gas’, CO2, as the offender. This was one chief mechanism by which the debunked “double dividend” could be implemented…reduce pollution by taxation, hence the EPA and others of necessity identifying CO2 as a “pollutant”…reductio ad absurdum…and the kicker, in so doing control “energy.”
It’s possibly quite elegant when you think about it, that is, if you can ignore the totalitarian-like imposition and shonky science for a fleeting second. I suggest that one of the many goals may be to make energy the future currency of choice?
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It was very disturbing to read of the Matt Ridley conversion because the switch from true believer to lukewarmer appears to have been made on the basis of changed perception of the issue rather than a firm and confident understanding of the science.
Too many skeptic commentaries begin with the prelude of “while I do think man has some responsibility in this matter” blah blah they then go on to say that it might not be as bad as first thought and this then qualifies them to be called a sceptic.
What about the science, doesn’t it matter.
A thorough analysis of the CAGW issue surely reveals that there is no theoretical construct or identifiable mechanism which supports the idea that Human Origin CO2 can be involved in Global Warming.
Certainly, there is a very obvious Urban Heat Island effect in large populated and industrial areas but this is heat from combustion and not
heat resulting from the interaction of Human Origin CO2 with some vague, as yet, undefined heating mechanism.
This “heat” eventually finds its’ way out to space and disappears and while it may have had a clear localised and measurable effect in the
Global scheme of things is inconsequential and certainly not relevant to the CAGW debate.
It is good, as Jo mentions, that he made comment on an important aspect of the issue, feed backs and amplifications, but this is in relation
to Climate Models” which never had any theoretical or measurable basis for their being in the first place.
While it is always nice to have more support, it is vital to focus on the actual science and engineering because the entire scam can be exposed and ridiculed solely from that aspect.
There is no “Science” to Man made Global Warming.
KK
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KK your point of humans recognizing the ability to accept true facts then learn from the information is a key element in human development or indeed natural selection in any species.
The refusal of empirical evidence by the CAGW believers is an actual regression to mistakes made by early ancestors like,
– Wondering how soft that lions fur is?
– Can we breathe under the water?
– Will flapping my arms like a bird let me fly off this cliff?
– How hot is the fire to touch?
While mostly those naïve questions belong to the very young they can easily be applied to the fervent CAGW ‘believers’ in the context of their own adopted mindset over a scientific hypothesis has regressed their thought processes back to the starting point of human self awareness.
Even worse is the fact that while those answers have been prevalent for a very long time, seemingly functional people at some point choose to ignore reality and attempt to exist in an entirely fictional world based on the childish thought of ‘Your not the boss of me’, hell even substance abusers know they’re limiting their lives by their actions.
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Yonnie
I noted this comment quite a while ago and could not think of a way to respond.
I think that I wanted to say is that your post illustrates the importance of questioning.
Most people without scientific training are simply looking for a position where they can fit into a group and feel comfortable and needed.
This implies that they don’t need to be able to even ask questions let alone work and answers. They want to feel good.
The size of the group determines the “correctness” of the position taken.
KK
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Keith: “while I do think man has some responsibility in this matter”? How about man affects the climate just as every thing else on the planet does? How about I’m not so naive to think that what people do doesn’t affect the climate since we have a fair amount of evidence that changing landscapes, adding more people, etc. do affect the climate. Many, many things do. I consider it very unscientific to say humans have no part in this. You may ridicule all you like. Ridicule does not change the science or the reality of the way the planet works.
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Sheri
I did mean for my comment on the UHI to be a way of acknowledging all of man’s effect on the environment.
Obviously stripping trees and vegetation from land, mining denudation of areas and so on all have effects.
These effects are mostly significant on a local scale but are not likely to register much on the behaviour of the whole planet.
We are specifically discussing Human Origin CO2 and the Earth’s temperature.
Like you I am disgusted by mining companies which do not rehabilitate areas used in that endavour, like you I love trees but am not too sure that there is any temperature signal from them.
That is my main point here.
Excess forest clearing and failure to rehabilitate mined areas are political issues which the warmers seem to have successfully interwoven with our guilt about human CO2.
KK
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I think they call this “throwing out the baby with the bath water” or something like that. “while I do think man has some responsibility in this matter” blah blah they then go on to say that it might not be as bad as first thought and this then qualifies them to be called a sceptic. I can’t see room for the UHI here or anything else. If warmists have successfully interwovern these ideas with CO2 guilt, then we need to unweave them, not say that people have no responsibility in the matter. Acknowledging the scientifically verifiable effects humans have on climate is what a good scientist does, irregardless of how the “enemy” perceives it. There are numerous studies on human climate impacts due to deforestation, forestation (seems putting trees in can actually increase rainfall according to one study), UHI, etc. I won’t say humans don’t have an effect.
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Hi Sheri,
I can recall a long time back when you described the place that you lived in.
I was impressed – you seemed to appreciate nature.
Problem with the global warming issue is that it has been a political thing using poor and fraudulent science as its’ basis
in order to create a voting constituency for the benefit of the elite.
It is important to separate the political from the scientific and when you say: “not say that people have no responsibility
in the matter” you are possibly misrepresenting me in that I am only discussing the science of man made global warming by
human origin CO2 issue and not the other aspects of the problem.
I am well aware that deforestation and abuse of nature can be big problems and involve corruption and graft and abuse of the general public. That is understood.
The main issue on this blog is that mankind has been accused of CAGW because we burn hydrocarbons and therefore increase the Earths atmospheric temperature.
The paper referred to by Griss quite clearly states that the Global Temperature is determined by cloud (water) and the great heat sink of space and most definitively CO2 let alone the miniscule part of CO2 produced by humans or their farming or other less than admirable activities like land clearing or mining.
KK
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“and most definitively CO2 ” should have read “and most definitively NOT CO2 “
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Sheri, you are buying into the play book. AW Anthropogenic Warming clearly exists as for example UHI and as another example modification of microclimates by deforestation, but don’t conflate that with CAGW. Man has little GLOBAL influence on the temperature, and the only observable effects of CO2 rise so far are due to CO2 fertilisation.
There is little evidence that mankind influences global temperature significantly, much less catastrophically, and most of the effect so far is beneficial.
By all means keep an open mind, but do not make the mistake of conceding that the alarmists are probably right in any degree, other than the average temperature has gone up 0.8 degrees since 1850 due to unknown causes (which may or may not involve humans).
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“average temperature has gone up 0.8 degrees since 1850”
correction, if I may
“average temperature may have gone up 0.8 degrees since 1850.”
I suspect the real value is probably in the range 0.4°C – 0.6°C
The only time we have reliable data for is since 1979.
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Good point Griss…
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As noted in my reply to KK, I will not lie to win in this. There is evidence that what humans do affects the climate. Even CO2 may have some effect. This remains to be proven or disproven, so I can’t dismiss it just because the “enemy” believes it. That makes me exactly like the other side. I will not go there. I am not an unscientific person who will lie to win.
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Even CO2 may have some effect. This remains to be proven or disproven?
Read this paper.
From the end of the abstract..
“Many authors have proposed a greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The present analysis shows that such an effect is impossible“.
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Sheri, notice the wording in Miskolski’s paper.
“The present analysis shows that such an effect is impossible.”
He leaves it open for others to combat his analysis should they have the skill.
I have seen several other papers that also appear to back Ferenc’s conclusions.
I have many times asked alarmist trolls for a paper that proves that CO2 causes warming in Earth’s atmosphere, yet after billions of dollars and years of failed hypotheses.. they are unable to produce one. (as far as I know, there isn’t one)
What is a maths/science sort of guy meant to make of that ??
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That “the present analysis” in said paper shows such an effect is not possible. Of course, there are a multitude of papers that say it is. So a maths/science guy says “We just don’t know”.
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Griss,
The paper is good stuff and contains a few statements that strongly put water at the heart of Earth’s heat control system.
While it would take me a year to read and study to get the full understanding the idea that the system always has the triple point of water as the main focal point is very important.
KK
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“Even CO2 may have some effect. This remains to be proven or disproven”
Sheri,
Keith was correct to voice concern over what may be termed the “Lukewarmer” position. This above all else has been the greatest intellectual failure of the sceptics. It is this failure that has kept this inane hoax going far too long.
Global warming due to anthropogenic emissions of radiative gases is a physical impossibility. The reason is simple, just as the Miskolczi paper points out, there is no net atmospheric radiative GHE on our planet, therefore adding radiative gases to our radiatively cooled atmosphere cannot cause warming.
Yes, the atmosphere does both absorb and emit IR radiation, but the net effect is surface cooling. A non radiative atmosphere could not provide this net surface cooling, as it would have no effective way to cool itself.
Climastologists claim that the atmosphere warms the surface by slowing its radiative cooling rate. That’s not right, it’s not even wrong. Their critical error was to assume the surface of the planet was a “near blackbody”that would only be at an average temp of 255K for 240w/m2. However 71% of our planets surface is an extreme SW selective surface. So what’s the difference?
The type of experiments that demonstrates the extent of this error are very simple to build and run –
http://oi61.tinypic.com/or5rv9.jpg
http://oi62.tinypic.com/zn7a4y.jpg
– in experiment 1 simply illuminate both target blocks with 1000w/m2 of LWIR and both will rise to the same temperature. Now illuminate both with 1000w/m2 of SW. Now block A will rise to an average temperate over 20C higher than block B. Block A even though it has the same ability to absorb SW and emit LWIR as block B, it is a SW selective surface because it is IR opaque yet SW translucent, just like our oceans.
Climastrologists went and treated the oceans as a “near blackbody”. This is the hideous error in the very foundation of the “Basic physics” of the “settled science”. They claimed an average temp of -18C for surface without radiative atmosphere. The reality is that the oceans would hit a Tmax of 80C if they were not being cooled by our radiatively cooled atmosphere.
That’s a 98C error for 71% of the planet’s surface in the very foundation of the failed AGW hypothesis. This is what makes the lukewarmer position so very foolish. Lukewarmers quibble about minor errors, but are too fearful to challenge the provably false hypothesis of a net atmospheric radiative GHE itself.
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This would make Jo a lukewarmer, unless she has changed her mind since: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/has-co2-warmed-the-planet-at-all-in-the-last-50-years-its-harder-to-tell-than-you-think/
I’m guessing that’s possible. However, Watts, Curry etc all become the lukewarming enemy too. In fact, other than Principia Scientifica, we have no skeptics. Interesting. And I thought skepticism involved looking at the evidence. Apparantly, it means following the doctrine put forth by those who “know”, just like global warming science. So both sides are now dogma. Time to leave, as I am not going to drop into the dogma makes right nonsense. I believe in evidence. Not dogma, not lectures about how I am aiding and abetting the enemy. This is very, very sad.
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“This would make Jo a lukewarmer”
Yes, quite probably. 🙂
Why should that bother anyone?
Keep looking at the data and where it leads.
No need to leave.. no need to follow the dogma.
There are many points of view on climate science (without the TH sign), and I suspect it will still be quite a few years before we really start to come to anywhere near a full understanding.
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Ps.. I happen to think that Principia Scientifica have some quite worthwhile ideas.. certainly worth investigating.
It does worry me when some, shall we call them “sceptical” sites, start blocking these ideas.
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pps.. please don’t leave..
you make a very worthwhile contribution to the blog ! 🙂
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“(without the TH sign), ”
I meant..
(without the TM sign) !
00
Sheri,
I’m sorry that came over as a lecture, I intended it more as a challenge.
First off, could I point out that I have nothing to do with “slayers” or PSI group, though I have often been falsely accused of this.
You are absolutely correct at saying scepticism is about looking at the evidence, not just taking the word of those that claim to “know”. I would also add that Lukewarmers can be considered sceptics, I just feel they are not rigorous enough.
I have taken nobody’s word for anything in respect to the radiative GHE hypothesis, not Curry, Watts, Lidzen, or even Jo. Nor do I ask that you take mine. Instead I follow the scientific method. I offered build diagrams for two simple repeatable empirical experiments so you and others can check my words.
I certainly have no use for dogma, especially not that of the Church of Radiative Climastrology. Nor should you. I took the time to run experiments check their foundation claims, both for the “two shell” model and the “ERL” argument. Then I refined those experiments so that they can be replicated by others using simple materials.
It is on the basis of empirical experiment alone that I make the claim that AGW is a physical impossibility. My challenge to those holding the lukewarmer position is this –
”What is the basis for your belief that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the planet’s radiative cooling ability?
Did you take someone’s word for it? Or did you empirically check the physics for yourself?
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“This would make Jo a lukewarmer”
And yes, I have mentioned this misapprehension of the science on occasion previously but I still have enormous respect for Jo and the people who run and provide this forum where we can all express an opinion and have it corrected or improved upon by others.
There is a very simple logical analysis that can be done to show something important.
Try this: the so called man made – industrial age heating from 1860 is about 0.6 C deg.
Even if it was man made, and it is not, there are some things to consider.
About 95% 0f the total greenhouse effect is water so all that is left for CO2, the other major player is 0.03 C deg.
But, human origin CO2 is only about 4% of all atmospheric CO2 so the human input, if this mechanism was real, is 0.0012 C deg.
We cannot measure that change in temperature.
Blaming human origin CO2 has no quantitative basis even if the above mechanism was real and was the only mechanism at work.
There is no scientific basis for the CAGW scare.
KK
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Gris: I was leaving because I consider it pointless to continue a discussion where there appears to be no rational thought. When both sides sound as dogmatic and irrational as the other, I see no point to even trying. If the conversation returns to more civil discourse and actual discussion, I come back. (PS–I do read Principia Scientifica and even comment there. I don’t understand much of the “it’s not CO2” reasoning, but I keep trying to figure it out.)
Konrad: I did not take anyone’s word for how radiative gases work in the atmosphere. I have read many different views on this, from climate scientists, engineers, “slayers” and some very interesting papers involving atmospheric pressure, etc. I am sure your experiments are interesting and if you want to post them on the open thread, I will look over them. However, simple experiments don’t necessarily show behaviour in a complex system. That alone prevents me, or anyone else, from “empirically checking” the physics. Climate science is based on models and probabilities in a huge, vaguely understood system.
Kinky: I am not saying CO2 is to blame. I am saying there is a physics basis for the idea and it’s been around for a long time. I have serious, serious doubts about the entire CAGW idea. I really don’t even accept the idea of a global mean temperature. The proportions of CO2 vs H2O contributions is indeed more in the direction of H20 than CO2. I cringed when in the class I took the professor actually claimed more heating came from the atmosphere than the sun. Yes, many of the ideas border on crazy. However, I am not going to say CO2 has not effect when we don’t understand the system. Agreed that CAGW has no basis, but not agreed that AGW does not exist in some part. We do live no this planet and there are a lot of us. We cannot help but have an effect. Should we stop burning so-called fossil fuels–no. Should we look for ways to deal with nature and climate as effectively as possible, yes. That’s not sleeping with the enemy, that’s being a rational scientist. (Note my 8.3 comment)
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I only ask for the truth, the cause of any temperature rise has not been empirically determined, as I said, humans may or may not contribute to warming since 1850.
Sheri, as an example, CO2 might warm a little bit, we think that deforestation and albedo effects of land clearing might also have some effect, but we also emit Sulphur, and we supposedly reduce Ozone (a potent greenhouse gas), in addition we have a habit of pumping water over large tracts of land, and capture and evaporate huge amounts of water over much of the earth surface, which have significant surface cooling effect. We make plants grow faster with fertilisers etc, which absorbs extra shortwave photons over plants that grow slowly. There is no guarantee with all this going on that humans have a nett warming effect on the surface, in cities maybe but in country areas mankind cools.
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Bobl: I definately agree. We just don’t know. We need to study this as scientists, not as politicians. It very unlikley humans can alter the worldwide climate, but knowing how climate works could help us live better and anticipate how and where to build (voluntarily enforced, of course). We need the science, not the politics.
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Sheri, I’m not sure you are monitoring this thread any more but I’d like to throw a couple of thought provokers to you.
There are several lines of reasoning I use to prove that CAGW is untrue as a hypothesis
1. Our atmosphere has progressed from 98% CO2 to 0.4% CO2 and for the most part it’s been a one way slide to an Oxygen Nitrogen atmosphere, there has been no catastrophic tipping points to send us back to the beginning in all that time. If anything the threat has to be that all the CO2 will be sucked out of the biosphere and the earth will die from that, all of paleo history says this is happening. I think that’s the worry.
2. If you think about radiative gasses in a nett sense that is, imagine a sphere at the limits of the atmosphere, radiating gasses in the atmosphere sending random photons in all directions, slightly more than half of which leak into space through your imaginary sphere at a relatively constant rate (albeit dependent on the temperature of the earth), higher temperature – more emission. Now within your sphere increase the amount of radiative gasses by lets say two, intuitively what should be the change in Photons leaking into space from those radiative gasses, Ie there are more molecules radiating at the same rate (given they are at the same temperature)
3. I know I’ll get pinged, but lets say the idea that the atmosphere raises the temperature of the globe by 33 degrees is right. We also know that CO2 stopband is about 85% opaque (85% of energy within the band is absorbed) Let’s assume that CO2 is the only control knob. Now let CO2 increase until the stop band is 100% opaque (for example let the atmosphere be 100% CO2), what is the expected change in the temperature of the earth (ie what is the change in that 33 degree figure) Now scientists do acknowledge that some of the temperature gradient is due to the exchange of energy between kinetic and gravitational potential energy ( about 23 degrees of it) – estimate a new maximum CO2 warming assuming CO2 is the ONLY other factor?
Think about the effects of the moon and sun (and other planets) they cause the jetstreams, the tides, and quite a lot of the fluids sloshing around the planet (waves, wind, rain etc), now wouldn’t you think that 600km/hours winds or waves around the planet might create more than a little heat through friction? Where does that go? Not in climate models? These tidal effects slow the earths rotation so that every 10 years or so we have to make a correction in time, don’t you think that at least some of the thermal effects (winds, storms and waves) that are heat derived might well find their way into that sink, that is the energy is lost slowing the earths rotation? Assuming we reasonably think that the energy transfer between heat and kinetic is two way, what do you think the balance is? Any proof anywhere?
On this note the average 2m Ocean wave carries about 36kW per square meter, about 36 times the amount of EM energy impinging on the earth from the Sun, but of course that can’t be can it? Where does the energy come from, where does the 36kW per square meter power go to in the end????
There are a couple of other checks that are simple to do but a bit more complicated than these, one in particular shows that positive feedbacks have to magnify warming by a factor of 15 – not 3, because the known negative feedbacks must be applied first applied.
What this says is that we know absolutely nothing about what the earths temperature will be in a decade – nothing at all.
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bobl says….
The estimates I’ve seen put it at 40% CO2, or WP quotes 70%, not 98%, but due to the logarithmic effect this doesn’t make much temperature difference.
Also… GHGs may still be needed for the Faint Young Sun Paradox. No idea if Svensmark can bridge that gap alone.
Good point about CO2 being in decline though.
Well I’d advise dumping intuition as it is a weak tool for such a complicated area as climate. But since you asked… 😉
Several assumptions in that scenario are invalid. Not all molecules are at the same temperature, at the very least because during their flight PE+KE=constant, so low altitude molecules have more KE and by kinetic theory that means higher temperature. Also the gases do not come “batteries included”, ie- supplied with their own photons, so the rate of outgoing photons depends on how many photons are available from the lower layers and ocean surface, and you did not presume to double that. Finally, this hypothetical test of CAGW suffers the same fate as the Miskolski hypothesis: it doesn’t actually address the main issue.
My superficial understanding of Miskolski is… he says that as long as the atmosphere always seeks to maximise entropy then an increase in one radiative gas must be offset by a decrease in another such that the total optical depth at TOA remains the same. Great. That doesn’t test CAGW, which is a proposition of surface temperature increase. If a radiative gas increase redistributes kinetic energy vertically by concentrating it lower down at the expense of higher layers then you can have surface warming with no change in total optical depth.
Of course I could have gotten Miskolski wrong, but if you can explain it better I’ll be all ears.
Opacity and mixing ratio are two different things. Nonetheless in my simple climate model the effect of a 99% CO2 atmosphere, changing no other parameters, is global averaged sea surface temperature goes up by just 6.8 Kelvin. Well thart was fun, but I have no idea what relevance that is to the CAGW question as it is an impossible situation.
That’s bordering on mysticism though. How significant are those effects? Granted that work is done on water to create an ocean wave, but has anyone observed ocean warming as ocean wave height subsides – and in a way not accounted for by windspeed-modulated evaporation rates? Until we get the physics of the big temperature influences close to correct we would only be complicating matters by throwing every conceivable kinetic phenomenon into the model.
Yes, but guessing what that will be with testable models is half the fun.
00
Sorry I should have made the point here, the points I make show that climate science at this point IS WRONG, can’t say what’s right because I don’t know, but I can say that some titanic forces feeding into climate are missed and several sanity checks show the climate models predictions are out of bound and therefore are wrong. The current thinking is definitely very WRONG. Until something better comes along we should assume that climate is just a random walk of Natural variation driven by the sun (The Null Hypothesis)
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Bobl: You might try reading my blog before you type up so much information. I do welcome input on my ideas, but for some reason, probably as irrational a one as warmists used against Ridley, skeptics think others are not skeptical unless they reject the entire premise and tear apart believers. I would note that that is not science either.
1. I have studies the past and CO2. I love snowball earth and have rejected the notion that increasing CO2 caused it to melt. It’s without any scientific merit whatsoever. I was also clear I do not believe in CAGW.
2. Already covered that in classes and a couple of books. No one had an answer to how the process actually worked and no one could give me an explanation. However, there are those who did an adequate job of explaining back radiation (Science of Doom has a three-part series with references and the math involved. The parameter missing seems to be how much radiation there actually is, not does it exist. Or more accurately, how does this phenomenem react in an open atmosphere with other confounding factors. Accurate measurements would help answer that.
3. I can’t do this one because I cannot assume CO2 is the only control knob. Sorry.
I have very, very, very clearly stated that I believe we do not know enough about earth’s temperature or climate to predict the future. As noted, I am still not going to say that all of AGW is wrong when it clearly is not. Humans are unlikely to cause huge changes in a global setting, but we certainly affect local temperatures. I suppose first someone would have to show me the validity of the idea of a “global climate” and I could go from there.
I disagree that we should assume climate is random walk of nature (I’m not sure anything in life is random). Assuming the null hypothesis is right because we have no other is exactly the same as warmists saying their theory is right because skeptics have no provable alternatives. We just don’t have a fully functional theory at this point. If presented with a theory, I evaluate that theory and reject or accept it. One at a time, based on evidence.
10
I would also note that I never bought into the catastrophic AGW theory and have written about the problems with it for years. My beginning thoughts were not “while man has some responsibility”, but rather is the science accurate, what are the shortfalls, how does the climate work, what more can I learn about the climate, etc. All the questions a scientific individual would ask. I started with questioning the science and I continue to do so.
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Jo
FYI
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/23/2014-was-not-the-hottest-year-on-record-so-why-did-nasa-claim-it-was/
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Michael Crichton had a curious observation about party conversations regarding global warming with people who were convinced of AGW by media coverage but who had not done their own investigation of the data. He would tell them that he had thoroughly investigated the data supporting AGW and had concluded that AGW may not be a looming disaster after all. The reaction he got was not the expected one of relief that doomsday wasn’t on the horizon, but instead his news was often greeted with anger.
I’ve puzzled for a long time about why anger is such a common reaction to encouraging news about climate. Climate is not the only save-the-planet causes that make adherents angry when anyone suggests that perhaps either disaster is not coming or that man is not to blame. One would think this would be good news for those really dreading planetary destruction, leading them to eagerly learn for themselves if this news was true. But that reaction is nonexistent or at least rare. More typically they refuse to look at any contradicting data and personally attack its source. The incivility is usually defended as appropriate since the believer is defending truth and goodness against evil.
In my experience, skeptics are more likely to be civil and patiently try to explain the logic and data base of their convictions.
A few possible explanations come to mind:
1) Political agenda: Perhaps the most common thread in environmental protests is anti-capitalism. Some people feel powerless in a meritocracy that only cares about the bottom line, i.e. results not feelings. They may see environmental restrictions as a way of bringing corporations low, and are thus angry if new data thwarts this goal.
2) Job security: Researchers and special interest groups depend on public concern for their causes. Researchers into cures for polio had to find new fields with the introduction of a polio vaccine. To paraphrase Richard Linzen, if you are hired to solve a problem, you solve it at the risk of your continued employment. Organizations like Greenpeace, WWF, NRDC, and others have grown quite wealthy (hundreds of millions in assets) on donations that would dry up if doomsday was called off.
3) Sin: Some religions fill a fundamental need for salvation from sin. For atheists, this same human need may lead to equating material prosperity with sin as measured by carbon footprint (or some other environmental impact). Atonement then may take the form of personal asceticism – quietly. But for others it may take the form of aggressive evangelism for the cause.
4) True belief(not a justification for anger): There are doubtless those who have eagerly evaluated data on both sides (not just the various published consensus claims) and have come to the firm conclusion that doom is imminent. For them the inaction of the masses will hurt them personally, and for this they are angry. But this would not explain anger at the prospect of new contradicting data.
5) Consistency: They adopted the belief based on some combination of early evidence or trust of an authority figure or group. I think many first became emotionally invested after watching An Inconvenient Truth. They may have been spurred on by the impression that their fellow supporters were of good intentions, and so publicly allied themselves with this “good” cause. Since then, as the data has mounted against it, they have a visceral need to not admit they were wrong.
6) Willful ignorance of their opponent’s motives: It is easier to see yourself as being on the side of good if you can characterize your opponent as evil. I often see skeptics characterized as paid fossil fuel industry shills. That perspective would not hold up if they allowed themselves to explore the facts.
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“The reaction he got was not the expected one of relief that doomsday wasn’t on the horizon, but instead his news was often greeted with anger.”
I’ve wondered the same. From those reactions it seems the issue has become tangled up with their personal identity. Caring about the world and its creatures makes you a “worthy person” in your own self perception. Strong defence is needed against information that questions or removes the cause of your “worthiness”.
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Yes and the Ridley article was that he still completely believed, but that perhaps man made warming was not as bad as first thought? He is not a sceptic at all but a continuing believer leaning to agnosticism. Even so he is complaining about the treatment he receives. He should try actually disagreeing with the Green received opinion!
130
I trust am not exceeding the bounds here following our Mod’s comment at # 3.
Recently some high profile climate scientists have started to comment on the cult like characteristics of the global warming / CAGW faith and its adherents
So here is one version of the characteristics that are common to cults.
Make your own assessment on the similarities of a number of points of the CAGW belief and the following cult charateristics.
From Common characteristics of cults;
___________________
[ quoted ]
If you think you might be involved in a cult, ask yourself some serious questions about the group.
Do you have to change who you are to fit in, please others?
Do they set up a duality of “us” and “them” and tell you that people outside the group are bad, less important?
Do they treat “outsiders” badly or talk behind their backs?
Do they treat members badly?
Do they give a false impression to the public?
Do they predict that society is on the brink of destruction?
Further symptoms:
Cult leaders are often psychopathic and power hungry. They teach their followers that the outside world is evil; that the cult offers the only salvation. This creates an atmosphere of isolation, leading to hopelessness.
Cult recruiters target people with low self-esteem, presenting the group as a loving surrogate family. Members are taught to do whatever the family asks. They must repress their individuality and work for the good of the group.
New people may receive red carpet treatment, but once they are established members, they may be exploited and abused. They may alter their personalities to please authority figures and fit into the group.
Cult leaders preach that society is on the brink of destruction, reinforced by isolating their members and controlling the flow of information within the cult. They manipulate members with guilt and fear.
Cults try to portray themselves as benign and may hide undesirable aspects of their operation from the public and from members. Thus the stereotype of “blind” followers.
180
One missing. It is always amazing in cults that the glorious leader lives in incredible luxury while his followers give all they have to the faith, even their lives.
So Jim Jones, L. Ron Hubbard, Al Gore and many other self appointed gurus. You think that surely the followers can see the conspicuous consumption of their leaders and have doubts, but they just don their hair shirts and cover themselves in ashes. There are none so blind as they who will not see.
170
Richard Lindzen is the Proff of Meteorology at MIT in the USA.
He is regarded as one of the world’s foremost leading researchers in meteorology and therefore by inference, in actual evidence based climate research.
And he is a Skeptic, a stand on anthropogenic warming that has brought vast amounts of highly vituperative and frequently slandering commentary down on him from both his much lesser peers in academia and from that pool of unqualified useful idiots we see even here, that are the useful tools and fools of the leaders of the CAGW faith.
The coincidence with my post on cults [ above ] is by chance only but the following reinforces the steady trend amongst many scientists including it now seems, a smattering of luke warmers, to call those of the rabid hysterical global warming belief, members of a Cult.
___________________
From the GWPF;
Richard Lindzen: Climate Alarmism Is A Doomsday Cult
[ quoted ]
An MIT professor of meteorology is dismissing global-warming alarmists as a discredited “cult” whose members are becoming more hysterical as emerging evidence continues to contradict their beliefs.
During an appearance on this writer’s radio show Monday, MIT Professor emeritus Richard Lindzen discussed the religious nature of the movement.
“As with any cult, once the mythology of the cult begins falling apart, instead of saying, oh, we were wrong, they get more and more fanatical. I think that’s what’s happening here.
Think about it,” he said. “You’ve led an unpleasant life, you haven’t led a very virtuous life, but now you’re told, you get absolution if you watch your carbon footprint. It’s salvation!”
Lindzen, 74, has issued calm dismissals of warmist apocalypse, reducing his critics to sputtering rage.
[ more ]
30
To reason with a warmist is futile!
100
I have found otherwise. One young doctor and new mother was an aggressive Green who raised the subject of ocean acidification as a killer subject. When it was pointed out that the oceans were all alkali and that acidification was an outright lie, nothing more was said. No one likes being played for a fool.
There are other deceptions including Polar Bears, Sea Ice, very slightly higher average temperatures, t Bushfires due to Climate Change are just silly. You would do better to blame them on the importation of hardy fast growing dry tolerant Australian gum trees to California, Spain, Greece and even Jordan. We have exported bush fires.
What is missing is how catastrophic Climate Change is due to CO2 when even the temperature does not change? You would think the Greening of the planet with more CO2 and a slight increase in temperature was a good thing. Most Europeans live where there were glaciers only 10,000 years ago. Obviously too many camp fires.
160
Very good Tdef. I correct people on that all the time. Acidification is used because it’s scary.
40
On the ocean acidification spin I do like this one, from National Dramatic:-
Is Ocean acidity anything like the viability & market penetration of windfarms and solar electricity generation, where a tiny improvement looks much more dramatic in percentage terms ? Like any improvement on next to nothing would.
Never trust percentages, they’re not even real quantities.
Well not in the hands of Green advocates and journalists anyway.
30
1. Lets see their measurements that put whole of ocean pH at 8.2 way back whenever they are referring to !! roflmao !!
2. Then lets see their measurements that put whole of ocean pH at 8.1 now. roflmao !!
and even if they had such data, which they haven’t, then it would require something like another 1500-2000% change in H+ ion concentration to even become neutral (pH7).
They seriously are a low level propaganda unit aiming at the lowest IQ they can possibly find….
,,, and from the quality of some of the more recent trolls.. hitting their target dead on. !
70
If this year were to be any warmer than last I wait to see how they could spin that in terms of last year’s hottest ever by a tiny 0.02 degrees .
Where 0.1 degree would be 5x or 500 % even.
10
GA
I read this on reneweconomy.com.au when they talk about Maurice Newman.
“what sort of people deny the consensus of our top scientists and so seem to deliberately be putting us all in grave danger of extinction;
They are stupid.
They are evil.
They are insane.
Given that Anthropogenic Climate Change deniers are acting suicidally, perhaps it is their sanity that is the problem.”
How do you quality this? They feel truly threaten to the point of “justifiable” of homicide. They are already beyond “the burning book stage”. And we all know what happens when you get to this stage.
40
The answer to their questions: That would be the major players in the AGW debate, who at the moment used 1700 private jets to attend a conference on economics and climate. The “believers” whose carbon footprint is bigger than many third world countries. The 1% who attend fancy conferences in very wealthy places and go through money like it was fossil fuel to burn. These are the type of people who put us in grave danger of extinction—or at least a miserable existence until the damage they do can be fixed. However, they are not stupid, or evil, or insane. Just selfish and uncaring. Maybe evil—a few anyway.
70
You are WAY too kind….
shows that you are a caring person .
But they are NOT like you . They wish US dead .
Wish this was not so , but it is .
10
Yes, Bob, I discovered that when I landed on this page: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2015/01/one-perfect-tweet-sums-why-climate-denial-congress-so-dangerous#comment-1814066419
These are angry, hateful people saying anyone who disagrees should be killed. This will not end well.
30
Note: The extreme viciousness is in the comment section. It oozes with hatred and intolerance, wanting to kill anyone who gets in their way. It was most disturbing.
40
O/T But signs of hope!
“West Virginia;
A bill that would repeal a 2009 law that mandates utility companies get 25 percent of their production materials from sources other than coal by 2025 was passed by the West Virginia State Senate unanimously Wednesday, with debate only on an amendment to the bill.
Senate Democrats attempted to amend the bill to include a study by the legislative auditor on the repeal’s net effect on jobs and utility rates. […]
A similar push for the act’s repeal in the House of Delegates is likely to mirror the Senate action.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/we-dont-need-no-489.html#comments
50
Yesterday I was banned from a left wing blog, this from the blogmaster.
‘Just one thing I ought to let you know, and I know some of you won’t agree with this decision, but well that’s life. Egg is no longer welcome to participate on this blog. I think I’ve been more than patient with egg, and despite multiple requests to refrain from derailing unrelated threads with climate change denialist BS egg persists in doing so.’
In my own defence I only criticised warmists on his blog who were spreading lies about human induced global warming. As we are likely facing a DO event its my duty to stand up for the obvious, global cooling is inevitable and AGW is the greatest fraud in the history of the world.
190
Left wing? More like a collection of misfit freaks!
Wouldn’t mind a face to face with some there…I do excellent nasty piece of work.
70
‘I do excellent nasty piece of work.’
** chuckle **
I heard recently that you are no longer banned there, so you might like to wander over and take your chances.
60
Nah. According to them I’m a fantasist that has no connections whatsoever. I sent proof to the owner who proceeded to rip in with the rest of the intellectual Corgis, knowing I was telling the truth.
Not fit to run a blog…amongst other things. Typical warmist manifestation.
80
I have some thoughts on just this subject, and it also applies directly to this Matt Ridley topic.
As someone with a differing point of view, you can be coerced by others to visit sites and places where the Warmist meme is the only accepted point of view. It could be a suggestion from someone, or you might even think for yourself that it would be a good idea to express your point of view at that site, perhaps even on a subject where you know you have a solid footing.
As soon as you leave a comment at any of those sites, there is a perception from the warmists who frequent that site for their dose of belief confirmation that the comment you write could be, umm, let’s say, dangerous, because it might just be true, and not really understanding the expertise involved in the comment, expertise they have no knowledge on, then, rather than actually going to check and find out the truth behind the comment, then the only response is to mercilessly attack, personally, the person who leaves the comment.
The thinking here is that they themselves would not like being attacked personally like this, so they think that it might somehow make them think twice about commenting again, you know, sort of like warning them off so to speak.
Then, you see, it worries them, that perhaps it might just be true, so taking their own form of a leap of faith, they might even follow that commenter back to a site where he comments regularly, a site that, hey, they really do perceive as dangerous, you know, one like this site here of Joanne’s.
They then pursue the commenter they perceive as dangerous, and hey, they even pursue the whole site because it is dangerous to their beliefs, the thinking being the same, you know, to personally discredit the person, and to personally discredit the site, in the vain belief that they will just, umm, go away.
I can see how something of this nature might have an effect on the first time commenter who might do it, but for people (and in general, sites) which have been doing it for a long time, and are aware of these ploys, then it’s just the proverbial water off a duck’s back.
It’s patently obvious what they are doing, attempting to silence the dissenting voices which disagree with what they believe in ….. and who might just be right.
Hence we have people like Matt Ridley, those who start out as raging warming believers, and then, having actually sought out that other point of view and checked it for themselves, they turn around in their thinking, and what happens then.
People who once thought of them with respect for their original viewpoint then turn around and begin to mercilessly attack them ….. personally.
They all do it, and they’ll all keep doing it.
Tony.
Post Script: And please, no one try and associate this comment with some obscure Mel Gibson movie!
220
All that you say is true, they have millenarian fever and there is no cure.
30
It’s when you get ostracised by family you know how bad and political this issue is, as Ridley points out. I have relatives (not immediate family who are also sceptical including a brother fairly connected in Conservative politics in NZ) who like to post all the usual alarmist, but inaccurate and easily refuted stuff on Facebook and including using obnoxious terms such as “denialists”. For example, these are people who will simply not accept that the earth has had warmer periods in history. The choice is to be either a true believer or get shunned! I just ignore it now and trust that with time they’ll have to accept what utter fools they’ve been. Still, they have to live with their consciences and the fact that this was a reason for driving a wedge in family relations.
110
“It’s when you get ostracised by family”
I am very fortunate in that regard.
My father was, in his time, a foremost chemistry Professor.
He still has every one of his brain cells working very smoothly and coherently.
(Never play him in scrabble.. you will loose !)
He basically agrees with me on all aspects of the CO2 forced global warming FALLACY.
140
Someone doesn’t approve of Matt Ridley
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/23/more-greenpeace-death-threats.html
and the Josh cartoon in response
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/23/green-not-so-peaceful-josh-310.html
70
Would the Guardian dare to publish such a depiction of Matt Ridley ? Or only for Prophet ?
30
One of my patients has just finished her Ph.D. in Chemistry. She was bemoaning the fact that no-one wants to employ scientists. So I explained that her forebears had poisoned the well, and continued to do so.
People don’t believe scientists anymore. The appeal to authority died a death of a thousand cuts when the world did not end in 3 years,5 years and so on. When flooding rains filled dams and Arctic winds brought catastrophic snows.
This is not only in hard science, I resigned from the AMA in April last year, and challenged the Vice President to debate me, when a position statement on Wind Farms (ideologically showing them harmless to health) began with the first sentence.
“Wind turbine technology is considered a comparatively inexpensive and effective means of energy production. ” I pointed out that this commencing sentence contained two separated mistakes, or deliberate lies.
Depending on the intent,and as the rest of the position piece was obviously biased in favour of wind farms I expected lies. I pointed out if the first sentence is so full of rubbish everything that followed was to be considered the same.
Then if that position statement was so clearly incompetent who could now trust anything else produced from that source.
My challenge was ignored and the replies to my email strictly avoided all reference to my complaint and instead asked me to contribute anything I had that could be incorporated in the next statement of heath effects or shut up.
280
How much money had the Vice President invested in wind farms?
What subsidies had enhanced and were enhancing that investment?
90
Ted
I used to call myself a geoscientist as I use a scientific enquiry method into finding oil and gas. Now I call myself a geologist which is my original designation hoping that even this title is not going to be smeared too much.
Sadly I come across geologists that believe this climate rage. And they don,t come from the government alone. When I state that in the Proterozoic we had more than 10 times CO2 and ask what do you think the temperature was they tell that must have been just like on Venus. When I point to the obvious fact that water laden deposition of kms of rock continued unabated with jelly fish thriving this was not argument to them. And they call themselves geologists with PhDs. If this continues I would have drop the “geologist” too.
If this is the level of critical thinking I come across in the “science educated” community what sort of chance the local street person have?
140
One of Matt Ridley’s chief baiter’s is John Gummer (Lord Deben) Conservative Chairman of the UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change: “… talking of the committee on climate change, last year Lord Deben commissioned an entire report to criticise something I had said …”.
Matt Ridley would not stoop ad hominem cheap shots so I will:
“Lord Deben, formerly John (Selwyn) Gummer, is a climate change evangelist who happens to be chairman of a company (which he formed) to advise other corporates on ‘environmental responsibility’ “.
100
After some 30 hours, the Guardian has removed the call to behead Matt Ridley and others.
Rumour has, the moderators discovered that decomposing bodies emit greenhouse gases.
450
Guardian, Greenpeace, Radical Islam……
Say no more !!!
80
Greenpeace, Guardian..
now .. what other group likes beheading people ??
100
Quite so it is polarised.
There is no middle ground.
(rtcc.org) State Department in Disney talks on climate change Frozen spin-off
“Frozen, which tells the story of a princess trying to free her kingdom from eternal winter, is the highest grossing animated film of all time, earning $400 million in the US and Canada.
In explaining why we (the State Dept.) wanted Disney’s assistance on this, I said, ‘You’ve taught an entire generation about the Arctic.
Unfortunately the Arctic that you’ve taught them about is a fantasy kingdom in Norway, where everything is nice.’
Papp admitted that the film executives were “perplexed” about how to fuse the depressing story of climate change with Disney’s relentless optimism and penchant for happy ending.”
. . .
There is no lukewarmers in Disney’s relentless optimism of Frozen.
Nor will there be lukewarmers in the State Department’s depressing story of climate change either.
70
“Should that not be [Matt] Ridley’s severed head in the photo?”
Quote: Gary Evans, a Guardian author (aka Bluecloud)
~ ~ ~
The environmental pogrom dreamed of has already begun:
Ten Indian women die and dozens critical after mass sterilisation
Dozens of women fall seriously ill after receiving state sterilisation to control growing population (telegraph.uk)
~ ~ ~
“Yet a working paper published by the UK’s Department for International Development in 2010 cited the need to fight climate change as one of the key reasons for pressing ahead with such programmes.
The document argued that reducing population numbers would cut greenhouse gases … (thelegraph.uk)
Many have died as a result of botched operations, while others have been left bleeding and in agony.
A number of pregnant women selected for sterilisation suffered miscarriages and lost their babies.
With officials and doctors paid a bonus for every operation, poor and little-educated men and women in rural areas are routinely rounded up and sterilised without having a chance to object.
Activists say some are told they are going to health camps for operations that will improve their general wellbeing and only discover the truth after going under the knife.”
. . .
They won’t stop at India.
Unless we stop them.
70
Oops.
2nd link via Guardian.
30
Jo delete if this doesn’t pass puster
Sounds like that story about an Indian Minister of Population Control called Dr Nickanothernackeroff
40
Thought experiment: Andrew Bolt is revealed to have called for beheading of prominent AGW promoter, and then all CAGW believers, ridiculing them for “touchy” reactions. What happens next?
2nd one: Ask a CAGW bed wetter how fast the climate is warming. The permitted answer is 0.4C per decade, lower answers are haraam. Ask then whether the “record year,” ignoring the very low satellite estimates and taking only the CAGW-approved numbers, beating 2005 by 0.04C in 9 years, supports their position or the lukewarmer one?
61
difficult not to call the private jet, chauffeur-driven, highly-protected Davos lot names, i must say:
21 Jan: Houston Chronicle: Jim Edwards: There’s A Plan Floating Around Davos To Spend $90 Trillion Redesigning All The Cities So They Don’t Need Cars
Here’s one way to solve global warming: Spend $90 trillion (£59 trillion) over the next few years to redesign all the cities — as in all the cities on Earth — so people live in more densely packed neighbourhoods and don’t need cars.
That is one of the more ambitious (and possibly outlandish) ideas knocking around the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, this morning…
The $90 trillion cities proposal came from former vice president Al Gore and former president of Mexico Felipe Calderon, and their colleagues on the The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. That group hopes to persuade the world’s leaders to do something about humanity’s suicidal effort to heat the Earth’s climate…
http://www.chron.com/technology/businessinsider/article/There-s-A-Plan-Floating-Around-Davos-To-Spend-90-6030090.php
1min 38secs: Bloomberg Video: Full Force Security: How Davos Elite Are Kept Safe
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/lethal-force-how-the-davos-elite-are-kept-safe-GPkxwc9vQNKz1yowSokTiA.html
60
I would suggest gullible warmists — say the first word really fast — and skeptics, a label any scientist should be flattered to own!
110
Hi Indur..
Not meaning anything except curiosity….
What nationality does your name stem from?
The surname seems almost Irish, but that doesn’t gel with the first name.
21
Doh! If I had followed your name link.. from India.. 🙂
but still.. the “Goklany” does sound sort of Irish.
41
Hi Griss,
Seems that some folks might be taking exception to your curiosity about my name. Not me. Curiosity is a natural urge and sometimes the easiest way to get assuage it is to ask. As you have already figured out, it’s an Indian name. Because it’s pronounced “Gok-LAH-knee”, it’s been confused with an Italian name. Others, reading the name and rhyming the last 2 syllables with “any”, suggest that it may be Hungarian. Go figure!
60
Thanks Indur, I’m always interested in where names come from. 🙂
Purely Indian. Thanks.
(ignore the red thumb.. I have “followers”) 😉
30
???
22 Jan: Science Daily: Study projects unprecedented loss of corals in Great Barrier Reef due to warming
Source: National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS)
Summary: The coverage of living corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could decline to less than 10 percent if ocean warming continues, according to a new study that explores the short- and long-term consequences of environmental changes to the reef…
The study, now in pre-print online in the journal Ecology, uses a multivariate statistical model and includes quantitative surveys of 46 reef habitats over 10 years of data from 1996-2006.
“The model indicated that warming of an additional 1-2 degrees Celsius would more than likely lead large declines in coral cover and overall changes to the community structure,” said lead author Jennifer K. Cooper, a graduate student in marine biology at James Cook University. “If our model is correct the Great Barrier Reef will begin to look very different as ocean temperatures increase.”…
Co-author Matthew Spencer, who conducted the study while a sabbatical visitor at NIMBioS, said that the findings are not only important for predicting reef futures under climate change but could also be applied to other ecosystems. “The beauty of this study is that the same approach should work for other systems, provided enough data are available,” he said. “Our next plan is to use it to model the dynamics of European forests.”…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150122103242.htm
CNBC picks up the story!
23 Jan: CNBC: Robert Ferris: The Great Barrier Reef could lose 90% of its coral
The largest collection of coral reefs in the world stands to lose 90 percent of its living coral if ocean temperatures continue to rise, according to a new study from Australian and international scientists…
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102364781
20
“The model indicated that warming of an additional 1-2 degrees Celsius would more than likely lead large declines in coral cover “
So the coming cooling trend with lead to a massive expansion of the reef…
.. did I understand the concept correctly ? 😉
100
If our model is correct. That’s a VERY big IF isn’t it?!
80
I mean, lets not let the fact that the GBR survived all through the 10,000 years of the Holcene, when temperatures were obviously warmer for the vast majority of the time.
The South China Sea is not that far away, and a recent study shows that it was approx. 2°C warmer during the RWP.
And the RWP was cooler than the previous peaks of the Holcene.
Only the models have the GBR in trouble… not reality.
70
“Are we all intelligent adults in the room”
I know there is one. Not sure about the rest of you.
“can we discuss the weather without calling people names?”
Yes, but it would be no fun.
70
First, note that this putative study seems to be entirely model based and we all know what that implies.
It definitely is NOT SCIENCE but just pure unadulterated speculation based on some unverified, invalidated , unproven marine models which in turn are based on the prophecies of the unverified, unvalidated, unproven and known to be very far from any semblence of recreating the actual global climate, those 103 climate models so beloved of the climate alarmists and alarmists of every other stripe.
_______________
Great Barrier reef corals;
Water temperatures around the GBR during summer are around 27 C up to a maximum of around 30 C at Thursday Island.
During the winter months water temperatures are around the 21 C down to 20 C at Square Rocks Platform
That covers a range of 10C change for those Barrier Reef corals in a period of just 6 months each and every year.
Graphs of GBR water temperatures @ Australia’s Tropical Marine Research Centre
_____________
Meanwhile the Red Sea coral reefs apparently enjoy the heat;
Quoted from Coral Reef Facts
About 300 hard coral species have been recorded from the Red Sea as a whole. The Egyptian coast alone supports about 200 species of reef building corals belonging to almost 50 genera. This represents about four times the hard coral diversity found on Caribbean reefs, and is comparable to the coral diversity found in the Maldives and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.
&
The region surrounding the Red Sea is one of the hottest, driest areas on earth. The extreme air temperatures result in very high levels of evaporation, making this one of the hottest and saltiest bodies of seawater in the world.
The average salinity is 40 parts per thousand (ppt), as compared to about 35-36 (ppt) in the tropical Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans.
Recent measurements found surface water temperatures to be 28 degrees C. (82 degrees F.) in winter and up to 34 degrees C. (93 degrees F.) in summer
_____________
Deep sea corals
[ quoted ]
It may be the last place you’d expect to find corals—up to 6,000 m (20,000 ft) below the ocean’s surface, where the water is icy cold and the light dim or absent. Yet believe it or not, lush coral gardens thrive here. In fact, scientists have discovered nearly as many species of deep-sea corals (also known as cold-water corals) as shallow-water species.
Because they don’t depend on warm water or sunlight, deep-sea corals are able to live in many different places around the world. They are far more widely distributed than scientists previously imagined—living even in waters as cold as -1ºC (30.2ºF).
For example, deep-sea corals occur in the waters of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ecuador, Japan, Norway, and the United States. Scientists have even found deep-sea corals off the coast of Antarctica.
They grow in all the world’s ocean basins, where they form deep-water havens on continental shelves and slopes, in ocean canyons, and on tall seamounts.
&
So, how many species of deep-sea corals are there?
It is still too soon to say because new species are continually being discovered.
To date, however, more than 3,300 species of deep-sea corals have been identified. And the numbers keep climbing.
&
Not only are deep-sea corals more diverse than ocean scientists ever imagined, they are also amazingly old. According to scientific estimates, one particular colony of gold coral (Gerardia sp.) found off the coast of Hawaii was about 2,742 years old. Marine researchers determined that another deep-sea coral colony in Hawaii—this one a black coral (Leiopathes sp.)—was about 4,265 years old. These coral colonies are the oldest marine organisms on record.
Due to the continuous regeneration of new polyps, some deep-sea coral reefs have been actively growing for as long as 40,000 years. And there may very well be even older deep-sea coral reefs or colonies out there—in Hawaii or elsewhere.
___________________
In short it appears that there are only 3 possible reasons for this claim by these so called marine scientists;
1 / They haven’t heard of the Red Sea corals and the warm water tolerance those corals have. Call that one pure ignorance, deliberate or latent
2 /Or they are right in the process of writing the grants funding requirements for the next couple of years so have a strong incentive to lie a bit about the supposed and claimed serious state of the GBR’
3 / They have never heard of adaption and how fast it occurs in just about every major life form when natural conditions change.
Corals do it all the time, in fact on a 6 month cycle as they adapt to that range on the sumer / winter Barrier Reef water temps changes of some 7 C and at times no doubt a lot more.
Plus adapt to fast changing water salinity’s as floods waters enter the Barrier Reef zone.
Plus a now known and documented rapid adaption to quickly changing Ph levels on a daily basis in some localities.
Those GBR Corals have lived, survived and thrived through periods much warmer than today and through the great Ice ages.
They will still be there long after mankind has moved on.
And as a [ former ] tax payer who paid a damn lot of tax in my prime and over my working life, I am fed up to the back teeth with the constant hysteria, the outright lies, the gross exaggerations, the false claims, the frequent ignorance and thats being polite, the stupidity, the deliberate falsehoods, the corrupting of data, the denial that they are not perfect and might be wrong and many more “and etc’s” of the entire phalanx of alarmist so called scientists or those who are supposedly “scientists” but show very little evidence of ever having been so.
120
The US MSM perception of the coral canard (e.g. by the Seattle Times) was based on work by Australian scientists. Their work is so misleading that it is arguable academic misconduct. The deliberate deception is exposed in essay Shell Games in ebook Blowing Smoke: essays on energy and climate.
30
I think this blog post captures one of the personality traits common to the climate warrior: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6642
40
A true sceptic would good short shift to the fallacies associated with Matt Ridley’s climate commentary. Alas, none exist here!
[no, you have failed to actually provide any counter disscussion to these “fallacies”, any evidence? any discussion? no not really.]ED
123
Good to see Jo still applying censorship to sceptics of her pseudo scientific postings: inability to handle the facts, no doubt!
Certainly proves Ridley was wrong :
[SF You post mindless comments and then want satisfaction when they aren’t published on your time schedule? Then claim censorship????
Here for all to see: SILLY’S COMMENTS freely posted without any modification or censorship whatsoever. Please lets give a hand for her support of free speech!]ED
226
Thanks for publishing SF’s mindless drivel, ED
It shows what rational, thinking, climate sceptics are up against.
The alarmista words are…
“Off with their heads”
our reply should be “ON with their (alarmista) brains” !
Now, if only there was an “ON” switch !!!..
Nope, can’t see one !
We should absolutely allow people like SF to keep yabbering and ranting 🙂
[Why thank you Griss, I just noticed it was a whole 12 minutes from when SFs first post was caught in moderation till she whinged about “censorship”. 12 minutes JUST 12 MINUTES SF! She is a horses aspect isn’t she? ]ED
200
Chuckle. Hi Ed..
If only SF knew how many of my posts get caught in “moderation”.
…for no obvious reason, of course. 😉
110
Obviously none get modified……
50
sometimes. 😉
20
Surely ,…. not.. Mr Ed ? (8 >))
10
“inability to handle the facts”
And since when have you ever posted any facts, SF !
So funny !!! 🙂
Are you sure you are not a plant by Jo to downgrade and destroy the alarmista meme ????
(not that she needs any help.)
Its certainly all you have ever achieved here.
90
Thank you, better than the Xmas e-mail!
counter disscussion(sic)to these “fallacies”
On Matt Ridley’s latest attempt at climate change denial.
A Ridley perspective.
Ridley argues against climate action because he believes zombie myths
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“That’s undoubtedly because when an individual keeps repeating the same myths over and over again, people eventually grow tired of debunking those myths and naturally question the motives of the individual who keeps making them.” Describes skeptics feelings about those who constantly push the CAGW meme knowing that most of the predicitions have failed. The policy statement of the IPCC even stopped forcasting any time table because they couldn’t be held to a prediction that way. Can you say “projection” anyone?
50
Ah, SF continues from the no-facts zone..
Lynas, and activist environmental journalist with ZERO knowledge of science
Desmog, Guardian.. rabid left-wing cess-pools.
Seriously ????
If these are the places you get your non-information from, no wonder you put up such a poor showing. !
60
Thanks Sillyfilly for pointing me to Dana Nuccitelli’s article at the Guardian attacking Matt Ridley. It clearly illustrates what Ridley was talking about. He is being attacked as an apostate of the a cult.
Dana’s starts with a horrific illustration of a Zombie head. Dana wants us to perceive opponents as less than human.
He then goes through a rash of claims. The first is that Ridley’s claims about the pause do not undermine the climate models as they “predicted” the pause in warming when El Nino and La Nina events are included. The problem here is that there are 65 other excuses – and counting – for the pause. By choosing any one of these excuses – many in the peer-reviewed academic literature – you can “debunk” any critic. This is the method Dana uses all the way through his zombie article. Dana cherry-picks peer-reviewed papers in an attempt to slap down his intellectual and moral superior. The problem is that there are no single correct answers on climate change. Look at data in different ways, or tweak the climate models slightly, and you will get different answers. The real distinction between a dogma is based on a track record of prediction prior to the event occurring. Climatology has been abysmal on that front. Retrospective excuses are the signals of failures, as Karl Popper identified was a feature of Marxism.
Dana’s underlying view of climatology as a belief system, when he proclaims it as established science in confirmed in his Guardian article early in January – Economics supports immediate action on global warming. Economic models that model many decades into the future are, to put it politely, crystal-ball gazing. They are strongly based on assumptions about the world. An added problem of economic models that look at the consequences of climate change are contingent both on the accuracy of the climate models AND the ability of the economic models to understand the economic consequences. For Dana Nuccitelli to say that disagreement with the output of such economic models is an act of “climate denial” is the confirmation that Nuccitelli is views climate science as a justification for authoritarian politics. That his policy views are based on naive beliefs about the world are demonstrated by this quote from climatologist Lonnie Thompson
The we includes Barack Obama, and the Republican-controlled Congress; Australia; Canada; North Korea; Russia; China; India; OPEC countries; Iran; Israel; plus the “nice guys” in the EU who can’t even provide an audited set of their own accounts.
So Sillyfilly, I suggest that a source of your authority is someone who is either a delusional and arrogant possessor of the revealed truth climate cult – or is a genius who outsmarts acknowledged leader in a number of different fields. So either Dana is a dogmatic nobody or, at a minimum, warrants Nobel Prizes in both Peace and Economics. Which is it to be?
80
From WUWT !
Dana works for TetraTech
{quote begins}
TetraTech is a big environmental remediation and construction firm. The oil industry is only a fraction of their business. See their website. They have just won a big contract from the US Army. All the details are on their website.
This company, with it’s engineering services, is very well positioned to win CO2 sequestration contracts from government. Dana Nuccitelli helps to advance that profit wet dream to a reality in his position with the Guardian.
One might ask, why a UK media org. when Nuccitelli lives in Pasadena Ca. at company HQ.?
Answer: CO2 and $ billions in oil company profits.
How do these two meet?
Because CO2 injection flooding is by far the most efficient way for secondary recovery from depleted reservoirs and the giant fields of the North Sea are nearing the end of their productive life (via primary recovery).
BILLIONS are at stake. Big oil, Shell, BP, others lick their chops at the prospects of getting the public to pay for CO2 sequestration so that it can be _pipelined_ to the offshore production platforms and injected into the reservoirs.
Is the UK public dumb enough to countenance such a scheme?
You bet they are.
Sooo-ooo. Dana is a very good boy, by the lights of his employer and certain big oil outfits, and by the lights of the public dupes.
You have heard the expression “follow the money”?
40
So sillyfilly,
To show you might have an ounce of credibility left, I would like you to direct your attention to Griss’ post above, which shows that one of the big players in the propagandising of CAGW “science” stands to make big money for Big Oil companies selling unicorns.
So, specifically, do you think this is appropriate to pass yourself off as an objective, dispassionate environmental scientist, when actually standing to gain huge personal financial benefit from what he advocates (and for those who support him no doubt) independent of whether it is valid or not? A simple yes or no answer will suffice.
40
Dana and cronies will do anything, tell any lie, any deceit, to keep their money and prospects of future gain alive.
40
The Lynas article has a figure “From Frame et al, 2014: ‘Cumulative emissions and climate policy’, Nature Geoscience.” One link to it is paywalled and the other is dead.
In it, the historical increase in temperature anomaly from 2000 to 2010 is greater than 1990 to 2000. Not even the one calling him/herself And Then There’s Physics spotted any problems.
Just in case you really aren’t following The Science. Do you trust people who call sceptics nasty names because the science is settled but are not looking for errors to correct?
Please think about your rebuttal carefully.
30
The figure from the article.
10
lol..
OMG, The scientific and mathematical illiteracy behind that graph is astounding.
And that is where SF gets her science.. 😉
nuff said. !
20
Anyone called for your head yet? No one has silenced you. But you are not free to post stupidity in other’s houses.
learn what you are talking about before making a bigger fool of yourself.
70
silly filly,
How’d you go with that letter?
You know the one where you show us how you research and enquire to check probity before you make false allegations.
Your letter to the DoE to sort out that discrepancy you brought to the attention of all and sundry at Jonova, you know… the ommission by the DoE of error bars, figure 4, Australia’s carbon emmission figures?
Just in case you forgot, this might refresh your memory you posted the following…
“sillyfilly
December 29, 2014 at 12:46 am • Reply
From the DOE:
Summary of annual emissions
Annual emissions for 2013-14 are estimated to be 542.6 Mt CO2-e3. This represents a 1.4% decline in emissions when compared with the previous year. Annual emissions for 2003-04 to 2011-12, and preliminary estimates for 2012-13 and 2013-14, are presented in Figure 4. Over 2013-14, there was a decline in emissions from electricity (section 2.1), reflecting lower electricity demand
and changes in the generation mix”
You made this allegation:
“Figure 4 is missing from Jo’s analysis, but then of course, I wouldn’t insinuate any deliberate errors of omission. Maybe it was accidental?”
I’m sure we’d all like to see your request for an explanation posted here as soon as possible and then the DoE reply of course.
It’s only a matter that goes directly to your credibility, to support the allegations you made publicly and in writing.
Still awaiting your response,
James Bradley
201
The problem was not with error bars: classic misdirection. And the poor Griss, were all your posts moderated? And poor Griss can’t substantiate any of his non-anthropogenic natural causes BS because it doesn’t exist in science. Like Ridley just part of an loud, ill-informed and incorrect minority.
118
“That’s undoubtedly because when an individual keeps repeating the same myths over and over again, people eventually grow tired of debunking those myths and naturally question the motives of the individual who keeps making them.” Myths like “non-antropegenic natural cause research does not exist in science”. Maybe if you read actual papers you’d know this. In fact, when the temperatures leveled, one of the first reasons shouted out by the IPCC and others was “natural causes“.
50
silly filly,
So that’s a no. You didn’t have the strength of your convictions to enquire about the very point that you made allegations about.
Scared of the truth.
80
sf,
BTW ‘classic misdirection’
Sure is – the ‘error bars’ was your entire point and now you divest yourself of your own position.
So, okay you didn’t rise to that challenge, another perhaps.
Now instead of trying to jump on top of other contributors who have as much right as you, at least in this open and transparent forum to shut down the debate, which from our previous exchanges you did not deny therebye I take it you agree that Jonova is open and transparent forum otherwise you wouldn’t contribute, and forget the mod – we all been modded – get over it.
I challenge you to enhance the debate on this forum.
If you are truly attempting to change hearts and minds then draw on your own your experiences/observations.
You could start by explaining why you believe warming is bad.
You don’t need science or religion for this bit, in your own words, what is it that you fear about global warming.
90
“Griss can’t substantiate any of his non-anthropogenic natural causes ”
Here’s 100 + papers that back up the solar, NATURAL, connection.
Try again, little non-science ranting donkey !
61
100 + papers that indicate a solar influence whoppee!. As if we didn’t know. Where are the papers that can attribute all current warming to a natural cause without a major anthropogenic oomponent. Evidence as usual lacking, missing and unavailable.
15
“Evidence as usual lacking, missing and unavailable”
Yep. Your evidence of any CO2 warming is as always lacking, missing and unavailable…
You got nuffin’ except donkey doo. !!!!.
.
.
.
And yes, we know that a large proportion of the warming in Giss and HadcCrut is due to human influence.
Meet Gavin, Phil, Jimmy et al !! 🙂
30
sf,
The truth, by definition is the truth and therefore is self evident and needs no proofs.
Why do you believe the recent 10 year global temperature rise in the current 30 year climate cycle is in anyway human caused and anomolous from the previous millions of similar/different/better/worse climate cycles that have occured on this planet in the last 4.5 billion years.
The odds that this current climate cycle is caused by humans is about 150,000,000 to 1 (three times the odds against winning Oz Lotto).
Please explain why you are so afraid of global warming.
30
“Whop-pee”? Is that a racist slur against Italians?
10
“As if we didn’t know.”
Good.. IPCC discount solar forcing, as do the models.
Perhaps you could send them a message, let them know your findings. ! 😉
20
“If you are truly attempting to change hearts and minds “
I’m 100% sure that her contributions turn many fence-sitters into solid sceptics.
That is a great contribution if you ask me. ! 🙂
50
“because it doesn’t exist in science”
Certainly not on the type of science (roflmao) sites that you obviously read from. 😉
40
Poor girl doesn’t understand that science is a methodology not a thing. Where what she is looking for would exist is in data, observations, and evidence which she has been shown plenty of.
60
Nothing in the Griss’s offerings “exist is in data, observations, and evidence” ,
“Explanations on how the natural world changes based on myths, personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or authority may be personally useful and socially relevant, but they are not science.”
14
Then why do you continue to come here only to repeat your myths, personal beliefs, religious values, etc. is certainly isn’t science you regale us with.
40
“Explanations on how the natural world changes based on myths, personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or authority may be personally useful and socially relevant, but they are not science.”
Yet that is all you ever offer.
You are so utter brain-washed, that you don’t even realise it..
You do NOT offer any science, because you know none !!
Very bizarre !
21
“Nothing in the Griss’s offerings “exist is in data, observations, and evidence””
Sorry little child, but all my offerings are based on data, observations and evidence
Yours however, are based on failed hypotheses, and junk science.
You have not been able to produce one bit of real science to back up your childish rantings.
Nothing, Nada… zip !!!
10
At least I read and evaluate the science. You just follow the money to places like the NIPCC. IPA, Heartland etc and rehash their absolutely ridiculous scientific op-eds. Thin skin showing obviously.
24
Sorry filly, but you have demonstrated repeatedly that you either don’t read it at all or if you do you don’t understand it.
Now if you want to claim you “read and evaluate it” then you had better step up your game and demonstrate that you actually understood any of it. You haven’t been able to yet.
But keep it coming, comments like the one above when taken in context with all your other comments demonstrate that you don’t understand. As I have said numerous times here, you are your own worst enemy as what you mistake for you being clever everyone else sees as childish ignorance.
Now as to following the money, who keeps asking for more? Who sees this as a means to implement new taxes that will bring them money while doing absolutely nothing to address the supposed problem they were created for? Who is on record as saying it isn’t about climate but about a redistribution of wealth? Shall I go on? You really aren’t very good at this.
BTW filly, if you knew anything about science you would understand it is the data, observations, and evidence that needs to be evaluated, not “the science.” You people and “the science” every time you say something like that people who do understand science know you are clueless.
50
“At least I read and evaluate the science.”
Bwahahaha…
What chance would you have of evaluating the science? You have all the scientific literacy of a small mollusc.
Go on foolish foal. Pit your science against mine. What foundation claim of the climastrologists does this experiment check –
http://i42.tinypic.com/315nbdl.jpg
– do you have any idea?
30
roflmao..
I doubt you have read anything apart from SkS all your life !!
You wear your ignorance on your hooves. !!
And your know what they tread in !!! 🙂
31
“Thin skin showing obviously”
Your horse hide is obviously showing !
And your thick skull !!
21
sf,
You wrote:
“At least I read and evaluate the science. You just follow the money to places like the NIPCC. IPA, Heartland etc and rehash their absolutely ridiculous scientific op-eds. Thin skin showing obviously.”
I repeat:
“Why do you believe the recent 10 year global temperature rise in the current 30 year climate cycle is in anyway human caused and anomolous from the previous millions of similar/different/better/worse climate cycles that have occured on this planet in the last 4.5 billion years.
The odds that this current climate cycle is caused by humans is about 150,000,000 to 1 (three times the odds against winning Oz Lotto).
Please explain why you are so afraid of global warming.”
40
And where, pray tell, did you source that BS!
02
As a pseudo-ruminant, you know where BS comes from. ! 😉
Keep eating the mouldy hay, little donkey !.
20
There has been no evidence to that declaration as of yet. Perhaps you can show us some?
40
Since we are suggesting labels, how about:
1. Climate Fraudster
2. Climate Collaborator
Note that “climate collaborator” is the semantic equivalent of “denier”.
Should get some knickers into a knot. But then again, probably not. It will more likely go right over their heads.
70
Or maybe
1. Fantasists
2. Realists
70
Or
1. Consensiators – Those that need the reassurance of group-think consensus; e.g. climate activist. (These are the same people that require all of their 1000+ facebook friends to determine what color toothpaste is best for them.)
2. Rational Independent Thinkers – People who on the weight of experience and factual evidence, can choose logically, and to heck what anyone else thinks.
80
You only have to go to our own CSIRO to find the embedded group think:
Link
This is how the CSIRO justifies its global warming science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw420atqlXI#t=133
Link
40
“CSIRO’s Energy Flagship aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions by providing sustainable, efficient, cost-effective energy solutions.”
Oh, that’s odd, I haven’t seen any….
.. how long have they working on this? 🙂
The best I have seen, that meets all those criteria, is multi-stage high temperature COAL power.
Mind you, why anyone would want to deliberately lower the emission of CO2 plant food, is beyond me !
70
Maybe they are floraphobes. Done a few road trips over the last couple of years and it looks excellent out there.
Next one will be the northern crossing in a few months time.
30
These are the rantings of our leading scientific research body. No wonder they had their funding cut!
40
“… how long have they working on this?”
Since at least 25 or 30 years. Infiltrating scientific and political bodies by inserting well-paid mercenaries. However, it appears that both RSS and UAH have thankfully remained autonomous.
Hopefully they remain so.
30
Global Warming pops up for the second time this week in the closing stages of the Queensland election.
The plot thickens…
Seeney recently removed the 0.8m sea level rise prediction from the Moreton Bay town planning rules. The mayor who leaked Seeney’s conversation is Allan Sutherland. Mr Sutherland was receiving large election campaign donations from property developer David Trask two years ago. Trask stood to gain from having a high sea level rise predicted for the area, as Trask Development Corporation recently sold numerous building sites on its new River Breeze estate in the suburb of Griffin situated between two river mouths almost on the shore. The first listed key selling point of this estate is that it is “the highest land in Griffin“, a fact made all the more valuable to Trask by the implication that sea level rise makes all other land in the suburb more risky for home owners. The developer’s profiteering is supported by federal government department Geoscience Australia which offers a “Medium” projection for the year 2100 showing one corner of the River Breeze estate will become absolute beachfront property on a new peninsula. This sea level projection came from the IPCC supported by CSIRO, and so a raft of councils up and down the eastern seaboard have adopted this prediction in their own planning rules.
While neither Sutherland nor Trask instigated the 0.8m prediction, the smearing of Seeney instead looks defensive for Trask. For the conspiracy theory to work you’ll just have to imagine Trask told Sutherland to discredit Seeney in an attempt to get the alarmism officially re-instated before all River Breeze sites have been sold. That sounds exciting and scandalous, but that’s just your imagination at work. A more sobering explanation is that Sutherland might actually believe in all this catastrophic global warming nonsense.
[ In the interest of balanced reporting it is only fair to point out that Mr Seeney himself is no stranger to controversy. He surprised his government colleagues last year by slipping in a retroactive legislative change that has the effect of ensuring a single quarrying company, who happened to be a signficant donor to the Liberal-National Party, can continue to cause upstream bank slumping of the Brisbane river through activities that were forbidden by Labor’s changes to the Water Act in 2010.
Karreman Quarries also defended their actions by the argument that they had naturally accrued indefatigable property rights to dredge that part of the river through having done so for many years prior to 2010. We don’t know if “two wrongs make a right”, but apparently many years of wrongs make a right. ]
The 0.8m sea level rise was disputed by Phil Watson and others four years ago. The bottom line is that strong warming must return for the 0.8m projection to be valid.
The advertiser of the River Breeze lots still for sale links to MyHomeNow.com.au, a website posing as a general homebuyer’s guide but according to the Business Register is a front for Trask Development Corp, which states on its opening page “information is power”. Yes indeed it is, and Trask, Sutherland, Seeney, the IPCC, and CSIRO know this maxim all too well.
70
It’s not the first time I’ve heard an ultra-conservative like Seeney use “semi-religious” or “religious belief” to denigrate climate science. This strikes me as rather odd. After all, the Tea Party types that make up the neo-cons are very often very religious. Are they unwittingly disparaging there own beliefs in religion? It’s akin to saying something like “well climate science is as big a crock of bullsh*t as religion”. Seems rather contradictory.
118
Hi FIN
Provide the proof that tea party types are religious nuts. Your stereotyping and vilifying people without proof again.
190
Have you ever watched a Tea Party rally Richo? Have you ever listened to James Inhofe? I’m not vilifying anyone by the way, just pointing out an apparent contradiction.
115
FIN I’m a conservative, a life long atheist but also pro-life, confused yet or just projecting your own bias’s onto others?
The left is the antithesis of Liberty, sad thing is they are so busy projecting loathing they fail to recognize their own dogmas.
180
Yonniestone: Interesting. You are the first atheist I have read that is pro-life (though I am sure they are out there). I have had numerous disagreements on blogs with people claiming that you have to be religious to oppose abortion. I always argue that you do not and your statement seems to lend credence to claim. Not all things perceived as religious, or even that are part of religions, require the religious belief to be valid. It’s an unfair judgement that certain beliefs are only held by those who believe in a religion.
50
Sheri I do have some interesting thoughts on this subject that I’ll save for an unthreaded, but yes it’s an unfair and a blinkered view to label people over one belief, and hence why we’re discussing this here. 🙂
50
FIN,
Eric Worrall in a previous post outlined the case for CAGW as a religious belief system paraphrased thusly:
The elements of fundamentalist religious fervour and zeal prevalent in the belief system of many CAGW believers -being a “faith” complete with its own pagan deity (“Gaia”), “original sin” (industrialisation and capitalism), “redemption” through “atonement and ritual” (carbon taxation, windmills and solar panels), “deliverance” to a “promised land” of “sinless harmony” (sustainable living in an eco-paradise), and “hellfire” and “damnation” for deviating from the faith (catastrophic warming, droughts and floods, tornados and cyclones, melting poles and rising sea levels, and various other putative tipping points to eco-catastrophe).
Now as an atheist myself, I actually find it highly embarrassing how weak and belief prone my fellow atheists in the various fields of science have become. They have been:
1) seduced by not just the religious beliefs in a non-existent catastrophic warming (without any real observations of any concern in any objective sense at all, certainly none which in any way could be considered catastrophic),
2) seduced by a religious belief in fossil fuel energy being “evil” (even though they have been the single most important factor in the trend away from master/serf societal hierarchy of the past, and being intrinsically linked to global and regional food prices and supply in a world where many go hungry),
3) seduced by the religion of Marxism (a belief system whose adherents ignore that in every case where this system has been enacted, economic stagnation, genocide, dictatorship and repression of individuality, freedom, creativity and industriousness has been the result),
4) seduced by the religious belief that the global climate was constant before the advent of man (contrary to literally thousands of studies and copious historical and anecdotal evidence to the contrary that show enormously wide variations in global climate across the entire Holocene interglacial)
I could go on, but really nothing in your entire mindset could be objectively considered rational, thoughtful, honest or inquiring.
You are merely a domesticated parrot reciting chapter and verse a mantra of a failed religion whose days are numbered. As the French say, ‘Fin’!
150
I suspect there’s a religion/faith shaped “space” in the human mind/psyche and if You’re not careful other ideas can lodge in that “space” and start to ferment/rot and become dogma . It probably had it’s roots as a tribal level survival trait , to get everyone doing the same thing without asking too many questions of the local shaman in circumstances where time was limited .
20
That does seem likely. If humans reject “standard” religion, they do tend to fill it in with something that becomes the religion. You see that in global warming, radical terrorist organizations, cults, etc. I’m sure if it did serve the purpose of getting peope to do what was asked when there wasn’t much time to answer. However, I’ve still never found an answer to how a person first came up with the idea of a God, if none exists. Why did we evolve with said space in our psyche? Dictators are just as effective, though brutal. Animals do not appear to have religion yet survived, some in very social settings.
Anyway, my point was that religion and science aren’t really “compatible” per se. Religion should not contradict science while science can never prove religious beliefs. They are two different things. Global warming is starting to take on religious tones and lose science. I really don’t mean to get into religion here—that’s way too complex for a comment box. 🙂
20
“Starting to”? Sheri, I think we are long past the start. It is a religion by every definition of religion.
It is not science. But like all religion, it will use what science it can contort to its beliefs.
10
PhilJourdan: Okay, it sounds definitally like a religion.
20
Hi FINN
The culture in the USA is alien and it shouldn’t be judged on our standards but theirs. Yes, I do find some aspects of US culture confronting but from their point of view that is their norm. FINN your a bit insular, you need to start associating with people outside your current circle of friends. You may learn to be a bit more tolerant of people with different views.
70
The Tea party is not religious based, it is a libertarian institution based on ideals of small and limited government, individual liberty and justice. The TEA party wants nothing more than to live their lives relatively uninpeded by intefering busybody nanny state governments, and frankly you’d be a lot better off if you wanted that too.
I get pretty steamed up by the constant procession of nanny state interferences with life, (and frankly, the government’s constant attempts to access my personal information ) as it exists behind my front gate where the government should butt out! I might add – up to and including what light bulbs I’m allowed to use. I’m with the tea party on this – get the damn government out of my private business.
70
Gallup Us:
More than four in 10 Americans continue to believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago, a view that has changed little over the past three decades
58% of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years,
Institute for Creation research:
Science continues to demonstrate that dinosaurs did not predate humans, and that dinosaur kinds did not go extinct (if they all have) until after the Flood, which occurred only thousands of years ago.
CNN:
This divide between right and center-right was evident in the CNN poll, too. Tea party Republicans believe global warming is not true by 20 percentage points more than other Republicans. Other Republicans are less sure on evolution, too, trailing tea party Republicans by 11 percentage points when asked whether the theory of evolution is true.
Funny that!
211
Most Left-Green voters believe a windmill in Tasmania will slow Hurricanes in Tahiti.
What percentage of Left-Green voters are religious about man-made global warming?
160
Such inspiration, we should all worship windmills? But how can I exclude the Griss’s equally inspirational Ra Ra religion. What about Plimer and the volcano religion, what about Carter and the ENSO religion? Oh! the dichotomy!
13
Nil contribution. Carter, Plimer etc name datasets. 50% (or something like that) of Green voters name opinion polls of “Gods” in climate science. You have nothing about the tea-party being religious as part of it’s mission? Or is it that there are a lot of religious people out there on both sides of the spectrum but you are blind to one kind of religion, and cherry pick details of the other to continue a low base smear campaign. It’s your only form of argument.
60
“But how can I exclude the Griss’s equally inspirational Ra Ra religion.”
Oh you poor dear.. I am seriously in your tiny little mind, aren’t I. 🙂
Now you even have to make up a religion about me! So cute !!
20
“Gallup Us:”
Ah.. more of SF’s high science ! roflmao !!!
80
I rest my case, thanks Silly Filly.
18
“I rest my case”
An empty case. As usual.
70
“I rest my case”
Lol.
40
How can you rest something that was never awake in the first place?
60
There is no case. But you are smart to get out before making a bigger fool of yourself.
20
Source?
You mashed 2 surveys into your own perverted view. If you are honest, you will admit it. I do not expect that.
20
No contradiction , just observation of the differences between climate “science” and religion .
One of them requires that proclamations from it’s leaders may not be questioned by the layman regardless of how factually incorrect the the edict is, One cannot be falsified by any data , requires tithes to fend off hellfire and damnation , One constructs massive edifices all over the country that perform no real function other than to display their piety , One requires that Heretics be shunned and condemned and dehumanised unless they convert and in the more extreme cases true believers may call for the beheading of apostates ……….The other one is a religion
90
Many, many scientist are religious believers – that does not restrict their scientific thinking.
On the other hand an irrational (religious-like) belief in science is fraught with so many problems.
120
I believe if the person is centered and comfortable with their place in life, whether it comes from religious, academic or personal strengths, this will put them in good stead for forming informed opinions with the ability to change when presented with better evidence.
The religious fanaticism in science clearly comes from the environmentally driven ‘Green Cult’ and due to the extreme lack of flexibility or objectiveness it cannot be called a science at all, when the term ‘The science’ is used by CAGW zealots they are actually referring to a type of ambiguous Green text that can be interpreted in any way to settle the argument in their (perceived) favor.
Some of the best discussions I’ve had about life death and anything inbetween were with an Anglican priest and a left of center University Politics Lecturer, any and I mean ANY attempt I’ve made to have similar mature conversations with Green extremists have ended quickly with insults or threats directed towards me, this is simply observation not pigeonholing.
130
A exclusive belief in science for answers to all human problems is fraught with so many problems.
Like scientific socialism…
90
–Max Planck, accepting the Nobel Prize for Physics, 1918
Albert Einstein
10
Dear FIN,
The leader of the Queensland ALP, who has launched her election campaign with a desire to provide 50% of electricity from renewables, was raised as Catholic.
Thanks for playing!
And then there’s physical evidence.
• The sea level around Australia has shown “weak deceleration” over the period of highest industrial CO2 emissions. ref: P. J. Watson (2011) Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level Rise around Mainland Australia?. Journal of Coastal Research: Volume 27, Issue 2: pp. 368 – 377.
• The sea level in Brisbane since the 1990s has risen at just 1.3mm/yr, not the 8.0mm/yr required for the IPCC coastal catastrophe. ref: 3rd diagram from Australian National Tide Centre.
• The overall sea level rise trend in Brisbane since the 1970s has been indistinguishable from zero. ref: NOAA.
Thanks for playing.
90
FIN: No, the claim that climate science is a religion is not saying it’s as big a crock of BS as religion. It’s saying science and religion are two different things and climate science has lost all the characteristics of science and taken on those of religion. It’s not contradictory in the least. Climate science attempts to silence its opponents, many followers just quote from the “holy books” (peer-reviewed journals and the IPCC) but have no idea what any of it means, and it refuses to accept that the evidence does not back up the claims. Excuses are made for failures that allow the faithful to keep believing. Now, that being said, should we want to simply call CAGW a religion and drop the pretense of science, that’s fine. Faith in something is not a problem unless you’re trying to sell it as science.
80
Sheri ,
The best essay on the subject I’ve read is John Brignell’s , it hits all the key points .
20
Yes, it’s very good. Ive read it before and several others like it.
10
You’ve made my point for me Sheri, and that is that religion is bullsh*t.
This demonstrates why the whole global warming argument is ridiculous;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDRnH48LvhQ
04
No, sweetie FIN, I have not made any point similar to what you are making. I made the point that science and religion are different. Try to pay very close attention to what I type (yes, even when I don’t). Global warming arguments are not scientific in many cases. Calling them science when they are not is a problem.
Belief that science solves everything is scientism and it’s also pretty much a religion. You seem to be a member thereof.
90
“that religion is bullsh*t.”
Yes, the “Climate Science™” religion/cult most certainly is. !!
It has very little basis in actual science.
Its more like anti-science !
40
Face it FIN,
You are exactly the sort of zealot you mock.
You desperately wish to think of yourself as some paragon of rationalism, when you are just a prisoner of unquestioning faith in some “higher power”, just that your deity of choice is anyone wearing a lab coat, regardless of the virtues of the branch of science they represent.
A science is only a true science if it rigidly adheres to the principles of scientific method. Anything else is speculation dressed as science. Doesn’t make it valueless but it does mean it is NOT entitled to dress in the vraiments of science to achieve undeserved credit and import by association.
60
FIN
You sound exactly like the one that shouts out –
“As God is my witness I am an atheist!”
20
Mod. Done please delete original comment.
00
In this climate change fantasy where we all stop using fossil fuels, what do we use instead? The Greens hate dams and hydro and nuclear. So their solution is? Do nothing. God will provide but they hate God too.
As Dr. Patrick Moore pointed out, Greenpeace banned Chlorine, essential for clean water and PVC and another element of the periodic table.
Worse, the Green ‘renewables’ are erratic and extremely inconvenient. Such power is usually generated in the wrong place at the wrong time and they have no solution at all for energy storage, so there is no reduction in carbon emissions at all. The base load power is just dumped when the sun shines while the Government (that’s us) subsidizes their useless power generation.
Greens also hate mining, oil exploration, coal transport, fracking but somehow love their eagle slicers which are a blight on the landscape of Europe, even into the ocean, 220,000 of them world wide.
It is all the illogical, emotional, irrational and easily manipulated PAE, the People Against Everything. The genius of the communist fifth column is to be able to manipulate the PAE to give them the balance of power, even into the coal areas of the US. It is like a Welsh parliament banning coal or the Japanese banning fish.
The best that can be said is that the moderate warmists are becoming tepid as their pet theories are being ridiculed more and more as so obviously wrong. Not a single prediction has been achieved. You do not have to be a scientist to recognize that the Norther Hemisphere has had a succession of very cold winters. Even Flannery’s bushfires do not cheer them up.
So the politicians are backing off, slightly. Obama is just trying to take the focus off his disastrous foreign policy and government generated recession.
40
See ENERGY MATTERS
http://euanmearns.com/
Wind Blowing Nowhere
for information debunking the claim that “the wind is always blowing somewhere”.
I was interested in the comment that the Grid Authorities were ‘using’ the Green claims to extend their networks in search of supplies from Nuclear and hydro-electricity.
20
Yes, that puts paid to the idea that if you combine enough data, you get smoothness. Not if they are tightly coupled. A single storm can blanket Europe, or a heat wave. Summer and winter also occurs at the same time. What is needed is a huge cable from Europe to Australia.
What is also left out is that oil/gas/coal is portable, storable, on demand, saleable energy which can be mined in places where no one lives and transported to places where people want clean energy.
The only part of coal these days which is considered unclean is the production of an odorless, invisible gas essential for all life on earth. The only real problem is that fossil fuels will run out before we see any warming.
30
I wonder..
is there any part of the world where the warming trend over the last century is ACTUALLY REAL !!!!!
30
Griss,
Depends whether you’re a student of Aristotle or Plato.
30
Or of Victor Lustig. !
10
What does belief have to do with what is “actually real”?
20
Lionell,
It’s not what is real, it’s how it is real.
30
That implies that mere belief causes a real thing to be different from what it is. Tell me, how can that happen? Yes, you can change what you call it. You can also change what you think about it but what does that have to do with what it actually is?
40
Lionell,
That’s those Greek philosophers for you.
I couldn’t possibly comment further on that, I’m one of Nietzsche’s gentlemen.
40
I see. You can know the identity of long dead philosophers enough to blame them for your confusion but what a brick is escapes you. There is a way out of your confusion but the so called wisdom of Nietzsche is not it. It is simply a variant of the subjectivism of Plato, Kant, et.al.
20
Lionell,
Yes and no…
40
IMO paragraph three of Matt Ridley’s article grossly misrepresents the position of skeptics where he indicates that skeptics believe that there is no warming and that warming is entirely due to natural causes. Also, he uses the term climate change continually in the article rather than CAGM so as to let the warmunists off the hook. I would term Matt Ridley as a skeptic rather than a lukewarmer ie people like Steve Mosher are lukewarmers.
50
I agree Ridley has misrepresented CAGW skeptics, but you don’t need to wait for paragraph three, the damage was done in his second sentence.
That is the exactly the IPCC warmist position.
A lukewarmer has a quantitative disagreement with the IPCC’s proposition, such that the majority of post 1950s warming was not due to CO2 and the CO2 GHE is real but smaller and slower to take effect than the IPCC projects. Some lukewarmers hypothesise alternative explanations for climate, such as natural cloud and ozone influences on temperature that the IPCC did not understand. At least one of these hypotheses predicts that the global temperature will not continue to increase after 2014 and will not rise to anywhere near current levels for at least 135 years.
But there is numnutz Ridley sitting there telling you that to be a lukewarmer means believing “global warming will continue”. Not in my climate model, sonny.
All CAGW skeptics disagree with the IPCC’s main proposition: That the majority of the warming of the late 20th century was due to industrial GHGs. Ridley instead agrees with it. Thanks for nothing Ridley, you pillock.
Time for true CAGW skeptics to disown Ridley.
10
“Time for true CAGW skeptics to disown Ridley.”
No.. time to keep working on educating him to reality. !
Be nice, be kind, .. work on him !
If we can find a way around his brain-washing, it may lead to further successes later. 🙂
00
“people like Steve Mosher are lukewarmers.”
Mosher is a salesman, first and only.
He will be whatever the money asks him to be. !
If there was no money.. he would sit on the fence until the money tells him which way to fall.
00
ps.. at the moment, he works for BEST as a mouthpiece.
It suits BEST to pass him off as maybe a lukewarmer.
00
There is also this highest temperature rubbish as the privately funded ‘Climate Council’ tries to keep heat in the news.
Australia is a huge place, as big as the US with 1/15th of the population. So most is uninhabited and the big cities are on the coast. If people live in dry super hot places even temporarily, it is for a reason like proximity to water or mineral wealth. No one lives in the absolute desert through summer voluntarily. There are no super hot cities like Bagdad where 50C is common.
Very high temperature is also very localized and generally short lived, so claiming the highest temperature in Australian history is silly, especially if the records before 1909 are ignored by the BOM.
So the heating narrative is extremely contrived. We can assume the Climate Council and their spokesmen in the BOM have booked their tables in Paris? There is nothing like conspicuous consumption to encourage other people to reduce their energy footprint. In an internet world, the farce of 30,000 people jetting into Paris to talk about reducing energy consumption is an affront.
50
give us the money:
23 Jan: NYT: David Gelles: Leaders in Davos Urge Quick Action to Alter the Effects of Climate Change
On the heels of data showing that last year was the hottest on earth since record keeping began, business leaders, politicians and scientists at the World Economic Forum redoubled their calls to combat climate change.
In panels and private discussions, executives and legislators were comparing notes on the growing economic cost of changing weather patterns, and debating what practical steps could be taken in the near term.
At the same time, corporate leaders implored governments to come to a broad agreement at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will take place in Paris at the end of the year…
“This is the year to make a big climate deal in Paris,” Feike Sijbesma, chief executive of DSM, the big Dutch nutrition and materials company, said in an interview. “We need to push further awareness, we need to put a price on carbon.”
At a panel discussion on Friday, world leaders including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, held a public discussion titled “Tackling Climate, Development and Growth.”
***Ms. Lagarde sounded the alarm about rising global temperatures. “We are at risk of being grilled, fried and toasted,” she said…
Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, was also on the panel and said that between the more visible effects of climate change and the Paris summit, the time was ripe for a new global accord…
“We have to go very quickly,” said Michael Spence, professor of economics at the New York University Stern School of Business…
“We do need a price for carbon,” said Paul Polman, chief executive of Unilever, who was also on the panel. “If you don’t price what you value, you don’t get people to react. That’s unfortunately our financial system.”…
Nicolas Moreau, chief executive of AXA France, the financial group, said the frequency of flash floods and other violent weather was causing his company to pay out more insurance claims…
Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States, and the singer Pharrell Williams announced a Live Earth concert aimed to galvanize calls for action on climate change…
“This is a decisive year for humanity,” said Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Center. “The global economy itself is disrupting the planetary ecological system.”
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/leaders-in-davos-urge-quick-action-to-alter-the-effects-of-climate-change/?_r=0
23 Jan: VIDEOS: France24: The Debate: Davos debate: Can big business agree on climate deal?
FRANCE 24’s Markus Karlsson put the question to our panel of high-profile guests at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
2014 was the world’s warmest year on record, and the top three warmest years throughout recorded history have all happened in the past decade. Scientists say this is evidence that the climate is changing, and they say humanity is responsible by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Without radical action, there are warnings the globe is heading for a climate disaster…
Click on video player above to watch the first half of the debate.
Click here to watch the second part of the debate
http://www.france24.com/en/20150122-talking-business-part-1-davos-wef-debate-climate-change-paris-conference/
10
I know I’ll probably open myself up here, but has anyone ever really wondered about this? (my bolds)
Now I can imagine Climate Alarm Scientists being concerned, but why would the head of the IMF be used as the go-to person for comment here.
There are just so many indicators as to why all of this CAGW Alarm scam has nothing to do with Climate and everything to do with money.
Tony.
170
Say, here’s some further thoughts on this.
It’s always puzzled me why there was not this desperate (and you have to admit, they make it out as a desperate problem) rush to immediately shut down all CO2 emitting sources, most importantly all those coal fired and gas fired power plants, because they tell us with absolute certainty that the emissions of CO2 will destroy the Planet ….. literally, they say.
So the obvious answer is to close them all down, immediately, and pray, just pray, that we did it in enough time to save the Planet.
But no, they allow coal fired power to expand, and not just expand but to absolutely proliferate, and just look at the image at this old Post of Joanne’s at this link.
If they immediately closed down those plants, and then introduced their one stated aim, the introduction of a tax on CO2 emissions, then, their income would be small and growing less.
Allowing those coal fired plants to proceed apace and the Natural Gas plants to proliferate in the U.S. virtually ensures a huge income, and one that grows considerably.
See the point.
Not even they believe what they are saying, otherwise they would shut them down post haste.
And the suckers just fall for it, hook line and sinker.
Look at any (I hate the word) model for a tax on CO2 emissions and note it is specifically structured to raise money at every point, and has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with lowering those emissions.
That of itself is the reason I don’t believe in CAGW, because these people have shown so graphically that not even they believe in it themselves.
Tony.
190
I wonder why the plant owners don’t just shut the plants down for a week, all at once, to illustrate what the outcome of following “green” policies is? That woud certainly wake people up to reality. And illustrate that fossil fuel users see the seriousness of the situation (okay, not the same seriousness as the CAGW crowd, but it serious what will happen if we don’t stop this nonsense.) Yet, that does not happen either. It’s like is just all a big money game with no real goal except to get as much money as possible before things fall apart.
70
I too am a little puzzled. It has been very obvious for a long time that this scam has nothing to do with reducing man’s contribution to global CO2, nothing to do with reducing global temperatures, nothing to do with improving our climate, but we still bang on about how it is all a big green ruse to have us living in caves consuming little. Are we guilty of the same sort of scaremongering rather than confronting just what is driving this obvious money grab? As Tony has pointed out on a number of posts, we have the most tiny fraction of green power, little more than promotional spending by the scammers and we are no closer to living in caves. Big institutions like the Catholic Church and the Pope himself are buying into this scam too and in Oz they are a bigger outfit than the Greens. The Gov of the day grabs 10% of the cost of electricity from you, with talk of increasing that but that is not even debated. Isn’t this all part of the same grab? Aren’t we ferociously signing up FTA’s to be part of this global grab club?
20
Tony,
If the planet were really heading towards catastrophic climate armageddon (is there any other sort) real scientists and movers and shakers would not be waiting for grants and subsidy submissions to be approved before saving the human race.
80
amazingly, Holthaus recognises the hypocrisy…but spoils it by then saying “a global tax on carbon could do the trick”:
23 Jan: Slate: Eric Holthaus: Hundreds of Private Jets Delivered People to Davos. Also, It’s Climate Change Day at Davos
It’s climate day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which means 2,500 of the world’s elite—many of whom flew in on one of the hundreds of private jets servicing the conference—are talking about how burning fossil fuels is slowly but steadily making our planet uninhabitable.
This is the kind of day that was on my mind when I permanently gave up flying in 2013. Now, I’m not saying that sort of decision is for everyone. But there came a point where, as a journalist who frequently writes about climate change, I just couldn’t live with my ballooning carbon footprint anymore…
Earlier this week, one of the Davos attendees, billionaire Jeff Greene, railed against American excess … after taking his wife, children, and two nannies along to Switzerland with him in one of those private jets.
***“America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence,” Greene told Bloomberg. “We need to reinvent our whole system of life.”
Greene, who ran for U.S. Senate in Florida in 2010, has a less-than-stellar track record when it comes to being an advocate for environmental sustainability. According to a 2010 article in the Tampa Bay Times, in March 2005 Greene’s three-story, 145-foot yacht Summerwind—the size of ”a 14-story building turned on its side”—dropped anchor onto one of the planet’s most pristine coral reefs in Belize, inflicting a 50-by-200-foot swath of damage. Greene wasn’t aboard at the time and denies the incident ever took place, despite scientific damage surveys and an open case file maintained by Belize’s Department of the Environment…
It seems Greene, like so many other thought leaders, is taking a “you first” strategy on that whole “smaller, better existence” thing…
(HUH!)Setting massive income inequality aside for a moment, if those that live in excess agree to pay their fair share of the damage they’re inflicting on the climate, it would be a start. A global tax on carbon could do the trick, and help shift incentives toward less resource-intensive but still very comfortable lifestyles. But to truly solve climate change, it’s going to take a bit of imagination and forward thinking—exactly the kinds of big ideas Davos was designed to provide…
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/01/23/davos_climate_change_hundreds_of_private_jets_at_the_world_economic_forum.html
50
The biggest problem is the lack of real debate.
When one starts to put out scary and unrealistic propadanda (e.g. Gore’s film, videos of childrens’ heads exploding, etc) you know that the debate can never be – as one side wishes for emotional not factual arguments. The name calling is just a byproduct of this over-emotional and non-scientific state of mind. I can not see this situation improving as the terms ‘denier’, ‘warmist’ etc., have become common usage these days.
IMO there are only 2 side to the argument, either CO2 has a major impact on the climate or it doesn’t. There are no alternatives, but debate on the merits of the science is AFAICS left to public shouting matches, political statements, and the calmer (but polarized) blogs.
The bottom line is that science is about descovering the truth within nature, and not about propping-up the egos of any hypothesis’s proponents. IMO the lack of debate has push science away from real descoveries about our chaotic climate.
130
Yep, political polarisation of climate change makes it hard to have a scientific discussion. Making matters worse is the general ignorance on the subject, the science is everything but the warmists have faith in the CO2 theory and will not budge.
So when confronted I tell the warmists straight, we are entering a cooler phase. They don’t laugh at the irony, in fact they become hostile and abusive.
Revenge is a dish that people of taste prefer to eat cold.
90
no room for a CAGW sceptic:
23 Jan: Potsdam Institute: Schellnhuber speaks at World Economic Forum in Davos
The World Economic Forum in Davos, assembling hundreds of government and business leaders, invited the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, to speak. He joined a panel on climate risks with the Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the President of the financial services and rating company Standard & Poor’s , and the President of Rockefeller Foundation. The audience included scientists like Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University and policy-makers such as Christiana Figueres of the UNFCCC…
“The risks of unabated global warming – from weather extremes to regional water scarcity – are at core of the ‘new global context’ that the Davos meeting is exploring,” said Schellnhuber. “The most recent 2014 heat record is indeed the new normal and insignificant compared to the records we’re already programming into the Earth system by emitting more and more greenhouse gases…
In seven seminars at Davos, a new study on planetary boundaries was presented that has just been published in Science by a team of 18 researchers, including two from PIK…
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/in-short/schellnhuber-speaks-at-world-economic-forum-in-davos
30
Schellnhuber is the german word for Flannery.
30
Graeme
I suspect that there is more behind this comment than meets the eye?
KK
10
Graeme,
Wow, coincidence, ‘flannery’ happens to be the english pronoun for ‘Schellnhuber’.
ie
Schellnhuber realised pushing the climate change agenda was a licence to print money and ‘flannery’ took advantage of it.
30
Stop teasing !
wth is a shellhuber?
KK
10
It may be similar to ‘Shartenflannen’
Which translates to a ‘Wet fart that extinguishes any intelligence’
90
Thank you!
Relief at larst!
KK
30
Hi Keith,
Schellnhuber is Germany’s version of Australia’s Tim Flannery.
10
OK
Now I got it.
Thanks James.
00
Deutsche Welle seems to have taken down their link, but the interview is here:
23 Jan: Deutsche Welle: RWE CEO Urges Stronger EU Action On Green Energy
While Germany aims to go green by 2050, many countries have been slow to follow. Peter Terium, CEO of German utility giant RWE, tells Deutsche Welle in Davos that Europe must do more to meet the challenges ahead. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a bold energy vision – known as the “Energiewende,” or “Energy Transition” – meant to radically reshape the country’s energy production landscape. The government’s ambitious goal is to produce 60 percent of Germany’s electricity from renewables by 2050, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent. To achieve this, all nuclear reactors will be taken off the grid by 2022. The plan is posing a huge – and costly – challenge for traditional energy suppliers, who are scrambling to meet the policy goals…
DW: Germany stands pretty much alone in its green energy policy – both in Europe and globally. Do you think this is the right way forward?
Peter Terium: No, this is very strange. Germany is not an island, it never has been and, specifically in terms of energy policy, we have a European energy market, we have European directives and we can see that a solution on a German-alone basis will not work in a European context.
DW: So, what should be done from your point of view?
***Peter Terium: Well, we should look at a policy which is European. For instance, CO2 reduction should be achieved via the European trading scheme, rather than a stand-alone German-only reduction plan. If we only reduce in Germany, we will have more CO2 certificates in other countries and that won’t be enough to change the overall European picture. So, we need a European solution for reduction, but also for security of supply.
At the end of the decade, we’ll see a clear shortage of power generation across Europe…
DW: Climate change is high on the agenda in Davos. At the end of this year, there will be a big climate conference in Paris. What do you expect from this?
Peter Terium: I think, in the run-up to Paris, Europe needs to set an example. We have already secured the heads of government, who have committed to a 40-percent reduction of CO2 by 2030. This amount needs to be embedded in law, and I think this must be done quickly. Then there’s a second element, called a market stabilization mechanism, which also needs to be implemented. The original idea was to do that by 2022, but I think that’s too late – I think we need to do that earlier, as soon as possible, in order to allow the CO2 price to send a clear signal to reduce emissions.
DW: What year do you consider possible?
Peter Terium: 2017.
http://en.haberler.com/rwe-ceo-urges-stronger-eu-action-on-green-energy-637549/
10
23 Jan: Bloomberg: EU Carbon Plummets as Panel Rejects Market Fix Recommendation
By Ewa Krukowska and Ian Wishart
Permits fell as much as 8.1% after the European Parliament’s industry committee, which has an advisory role in the legislative process, rejected a recommendation on a mechanism to withhold surplus allowances…
Benchmark EU allowances fell 7.7 percent to close at 6.84 euros ($7.84) a metric ton, the biggest drop since April 25, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. Volume surged 69% to 46 million metric tons, the most since Dec. 10 and almost quadruple the three-month average…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-22/eu-lawmakers-reject-carbon-fix-opinion-in-clash-over-ambition.html
read all the following but, even then, it may be incomprehensible!
22 Jan: Guardian: Arthur Neslen, Brussels: EU carbon market price expected to rise before 2020 following MEPs’ vote
Industry committee votes against unambitious package to reform flagging EU Emissions Trading System
The chances of a modest increase in carbon prices before 2020 rose on Thursday after votes by MEPs on one of the European Parliament’s most conservative committees.
MEPs on the industry committee voted first against market reforms to EU carbon trading, and then against the package they had just agreed. The chaotic manoeuvring leaves open the possibility of more ambitious reforms early this year, which could lead to higher carbon prices.
The European Commission views the Emissions Trading System (ETS) as a key driver for lowering industry emissions and, after 2020, it will be the only collective mechanism for doing so. But at around €7 a tonne, carbon prices are far too low to influence industry behaviour and drive significant emissions cuts…
***Small climate-sceptic parties, particularly Ukip, used their swing votes today to defeat a progressive proposal that would have set 2017 as the start date for boosting sagging carbon prices by withholding hundreds of millions of carbon allowances. A start date of 2021 instead was passed by one vote.
But Ukip then joined forces with socialists and Greens to defeat the resulting package, which would have advocated less ambitious reforms to an Emissions Trading System (ETS). Ukip would like to see the ETS scrapped altogether.
“In the final vote, the socialists with support from the extreme right wing won, thanks to Ukip,” said Antonio Tajani, the former industry commissioner who masterminded the package. “I don’t know if it’s a good cocktail for the socialists.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/meps-defeat-carbon-price-reform-package-in-chaotic-vote
20
dare i suggest u read it all, for Abraham’s evidence:
23 Jan: Guardian: John Abraham: The oceans are warming so fast, they keep breaking scientists’ charts
NOAA once again has to rescale its ocean heat chart to capture 2014 ocean warming
Wow, was this a bad year for those who deny the reality and the significance of human-induced climate change…
So when we look back on 2014 and the records that fell, it gives us some pause about the so-called pause (hat-tip to Dr. Greg Laden for that phrase)…
This ocean warming data is the clearest nail in that coffin. There never was a pause to global warming, there never was a halt, and the folks that tried to tell you there was were, well, I’ll let you decide. For me, the facts speak for themselves.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/22/oceans-warming-so-fast-they-keep-breaking-scientists-charts
30
can’t finish all these Davos comments without something from “pain in the ****” Christiana:
23 Jan: Guardian: Jo Confino, Davos: ‘The pain in the shoe is not great enough’ for businesses to act on climate change, (says Christiana Figueres)
“This is the first generation that is becoming aware of what we have done, because the previous generation had no clue,” said the executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. “We can’t blame them, we can’t blame ourselves because we’ve been put in this situation, but we do have a responsibility to do something about it and not to pass it on to the next generation.”
Looking at her daughter sitting nearby, Figueres’ eyes well up. Her desire to secure a meaningful climate deal later this year in Paris is clearly as much a personal concern as a global one…
Engagement from the private sector, Figueres says, needs to come in three forms: vision, action and voice…
***Executives then need to think through what they need from governments at both national and international level in order to pursue that path…
But Figueres warns that if executives continue to focus only on what’s in front of their noses, they will put their companies’ long-term survival at risk…
“They can see that in the long run, having a stable planet and economic system is actually better for them in their operations and their business continuity, and that there is a huge opportunity for growth and for new profit, for new jobs, new industries and new technologies,” she said.
“But that is not compelling enough to actually have the CEO get up there and use his voice and leadership because the pain in the shoe is not enough. There is this abstract sense of yeah, we all want to be better off, but maybe somebody else should be doing something about that. In the meantime, I have my payroll to worry about. Whereas those companies that are very active and do have a voice perceive that they’re immediately threatened.”…
“There has been quite an evolution in the understanding of the very positive contribution that the private sector can make,” she says. “I remember when I got to the secretariat five years ago that the private sector was a taboo word that never would have appeared in any text of governments. Yet now you have the text actually inviting quite openly the participation of corporations…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jan/22/un-climate-talks-paris-davos-2015-businesses
***yes, Christiana, “the private sector was a taboo word that never would have appeared in any text of governments” a few years ago but, as the public lost interest in CAGW, it’s all had to come out in the open now. maybe the gullible young “followers” will take note and start investigating CAGW for themselves.
***following is unbelievable. as for the rest of what “two of the world’s most respected climate activists” have to say, u will need to read the whole thing!
22 Jan: Guardian: Jo Confino: Al Gore: oil companies ‘use our atmosphere as an open sewer’
We must leave fossil fuels unburned, Gore says, adding the transition to clean energy will be ‘unstoppable’
It’s not possible to listen to petroleum industry executives defending their reckless extraction of oil without feeling that we are living in an age of madness.
In a recent private conversation under the Chatham House rule, one of the world’s most senior industry leaders, who is considered to be at the more moderate end of the spectrum, insisted that we are going to burn all the world’s hydrocarbons despite the consequences.
His reasoning is that a growing population in the developing world needs energy to raise living standards, that renewables will not become a dominant energy source till the end of the century and that politicians don’t have the courage or power to limit production…
He’s hardly alone. In a shareholder letter in May, Shell wrote that – with energy demand growing – the world would need oil and gas for many decades to come and it doesn’t expect to have any stranded assets, or reserves that can’t be tapped. Meanwhile, in a report in March (pdf), ExxonMobil also expressed confidence that none of its hydrocarbon reserves would be stranded: “We believe producing these assets is essential to meeting growing energy demand worldwide.”
As the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting opens in Davos, Switzerland, I asked the former US vice president Al Gore and climate economist Lord Stern, ***two of the world’s most respected climate activists, to make sense of the arguments of those running the fossil fuel industry…
When I asked Gore whether there needs to be more pressure on oil companies to change direction, he said the most effective intervention would be to start putting a financial price on carbon and a political price on denial.
“Companies are insisting on their right to use our atmosphere as an open sewer,” he said. “In London a long time ago, a famous doctor connected the dots between sewage and cholera. We are connecting the dots between dirty energy and dirty weather, and in order to drive the kind of constructive change necessary, we need to put a price on carbon.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jan/21/al-gore-lord-stern-oil-companies-fossil-fuels-climate-change
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Real scientists need to be unafraid of challenging their own work and that of others .I would proudly rather be called a sceptic than be bullied into silence by the “science is settled ” promoters.
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The whole of Matt Ridley’s article is also in this Saturday’s Australian.
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Perhaps I should stop doing this, but attempting to debate others on Mother Jones, almost never turns into a debate. Besides the usual name calling, lately some totalitarians are making statements that truly sound like Germany just before WW11.
Some truly are calling for concentration camps, and totalitarianism to save the planet from people who ask questions
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2015/01/one-perfect-tweet-sums-why-climate-denial-congress-so-dangerous#comment-1814066419
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When MoJo blatantly lies in their headlines, telling you something happens in that video that doesn’t actually happen, it gives you a good handle on what level of “journalism” they practice there. That then indicates what kind of crowd follows in the comments (sorry).
Your hunch is probably correct, you should stop doing that.
Being the contrarian author of a MoJo article will serve the truth better than being a contrarian commentator. You’d have to give up anonymity to do that.
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Thanks Andrew. I checked out the prerequisites for writing a guest article. I don’t think a contrarian article will pass.
I do have to stop though. That crowd is the worst I have ever seen in a comment section anywhere. “If you sleep with dogs, you are going to get flees”. I am getting itchy…
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Jo, I should really stop visiting your blog as it consistently leaves me feeling angry and frustrated. I cannot come to grips with mainstreams preoccupation with global warming and the unnecessary hysteria generated. Moreover, it has cut it with the masses hence, when with friends, family or work colleagues and I question the broad alarmist consensus; I am treated as if an extra-terrestrial.
Like Matt Ridley, I am also lukewarm on the matter, a sceptic if you will. However, I increasingly feel alone about this, after all who would listen to me, a nobody who, for a living drives trains in metropolitan Melbourne when the likes of Mr Ridley who is so accomplished is ridiculed over the matter.
I am presently 53, and it is my hope to live long enough to see the day that the “consistent pattern of exaggeration” is “followed by damp squibs”.
In any case, just over 6 months ago I articulated my view on climate change for all to read, so if you are interested in the humble opinion of somebody who never got to University and spends he’s days driving trains, have a look at, A Climate Change Point of View.
And Jo, we need you to keep doing what you do okay?
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts Otto. At you blog you make some interesting and considered points. I encourage others to follow the link you provide.
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Gees, wouldn’t it be nice if they got this going !!!
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Matt Ridley finishes with the following
There are examples of that in the comments above.
I greatly appreciate BernardP’s comment trying to bring neutrality into the terms used. It is a laudable aim not to denigrate opponents, so that people can compare and contrast different positions for themselves. It is something that in Britain we used to call “creating a level playing field“. The opposite is someone who wishes to win by any means possible, including denying others chance to be heard; denigrating others abilities; and not even recognizing other legitimate opinions are possible. An example of this is from the reliable SillyFilly, who insults others, especially the host, then complains of being put into moderation. Most pointedly, Sillyfilly is an unsubstantiated claim about 12 hours ago
Sillyfilly knows very well that out host would be delighted to let her back up that claim. But Sillyfilly knows she cannot do that. Rather, the tactic is to insult and denigrate, then scarper. It is a tactic of intellectual cowardice by someone who wants opponents silenced.
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The style of comments made by Sillyfilly remind me of a climate troll that used to plague the BishopHill blog, called Zedsdeadbed. Lived in the South-West of England I believe.
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It doesn’t need much of a try,
To figure the reason why,
Relations are septic,
Between warmist and skeptic,
It’s because warmists are telling a lie.
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Matt seems a really decent guy. Like most people, really. I wish him well and hope that we see more of, and like him.
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Sorry but hot or cold is what’s required, not lukewarm. Either humans are causing something or they aren’t. If they are then we can do something about it. If they are not then there’s nothing we can do and we can all go home.
So far we are not shown to be the cause of anything to do with climate or weather.
BB
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Ridley hits the nail squarely on the head. You don’t need to be a self-anointed global warming scientist to challenge a prediction. Appeals to authority, or superior intellect, or faster models, just won’t wash.
People laugh at the failures of economic predictions. Rogues know how to make profits from them.
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I think that describing the global warming movement as a religion as being not quite right. It is a cult. It involves mass indoctrination, a them and us attitude, has crazy ideas about the end of the world and has dubious financial benefits for its most vocal leaders. Furthermore they infiltrate some of the most influential institutions in society, media, universities, schools, government. They live amongst us slaughtering our poor, destroying the future for our children , taking us back to the paganism of the Middle Ages. AGW is anti religious.
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Bob Tisdale takes a swipe at Nuccitelli.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/24/an-unexpected-admission-from-dana-nuccitelli-at-skepticalscience/
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From Bob’s post, the meaning of everything.
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/figure-34.png
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Reading Matt Ridleys article I tend to see that he bases his “lukewarm” ideas due to what he says is “The failure of the atmosphere to warm anywhere near as rapidly as predicted”
The warming we are seeing is not that low, as can be seen when the temperature is compared to the climate models (http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h–/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/10/1/1380599335494/ProjvsObs450.jpg)
But another factor that needs to be considered is the unreliability of these temperature observations which is explained here in this short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhJR3ywIijo)
If you want to know how much CO2 warming is occurring you need to take away the natural climate variations, this is shown in this short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W705cOtOHJ4)
With only 5% of anthropogenic CO2 warming going into the atmosphere its not the best argument to say it has not warmed much in the atmosphere. We also have the resent papers that show measured volcanic sulphates in the atmosphere have caused a lot of cooling since the year 2000 (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061541/abstract) and the trade winds have increased causing more heat to go into the oceans. These two points alone cover more warming than Matt Ridley suggests is missing.
Michael – links of videos is not an argument. Please explain the point of the video, so people don’t have to look at it unless they want more info or to confirm it. I don’t mind links, but you wouldn’t sit at a bookclub and say “My opinion is the Youtube#804.” Blogs are for written arguments. Make your point in words. – Jo
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It looks like green is the new red…
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24 Jan: WaPo: Annie Gowen: On Obama’s India visit, climate-change deal unlikely as Modi boosts coal production
Coal production is slated to expand here in the coming months, part of the new government’s ambitious push to double India’s output to more than 1 billion tons annually to meet the needs of a burgeoning economy — with growth now set to outpace China’s, according to several forecasts…
India’s energy deficit is staggering. An estimated 300 million people — roughly equal to the population of the United States — live without power. The national power grid was completed just last year.
Renewable energy remains scant and expensive…
India has the world’s fifth-largest coal reserves and must use the fossil fuel to power growth of 7 or 8 percent in gross domestic product, said the country’s coal secretary, Anil Swarup.
“The question is, what do you have in hand? We have coal,” Swarup said. “There isn’t much choice available.”…
Per-capita carbon emissions in India, measured in metric tons, are 1.7, compared with 6.2 for China and 17.6 for the United States, according to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/heres-why-obama-wont-get-a-climate-deal-with-india-this-trip/2015/01/24/77fb95cc-9ccf-11e4-86a3-1b56f64925f6_story.html
all true, but there’s still a possibility some CAGW rhetoric will
be forthcoming for the MSM to run with.
24 Jan: Forbes: Kenneth Rapoza: Obama Pushes For Deeper Corporate Connections With India
Forget the geopolitics. POTUS wants American multinationals to come set up shop and sell their wares to India…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/01/24/obama-pushes-deeper-corporate-connections-with-india/
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a must-read:
24 Jan: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: Climategate, the sequel: How we are STILL being tricked with flawed data on global warming
Something very odd has been going on with the temperature data relied on by the world’s scientists, writes Christopher Booker
Although it has been emerging for seven years or more, one of the most extraordinary scandals of our time has never hit the headlines. Yet another little example of it lately caught my eye when, in the wake of those excited claims that 2014 was “the hottest year on record”, I saw the headline on a climate blog: “Massive tampering with temperatures in South America”. The evidence on Notalotofpeopleknowthat, uncovered by Paul Homewood, was indeed striking.
Puzzled by those “2014 hottest ever” claims, which were led by the most quoted of all the five official global temperature records – Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) – Homewood examined a place in the world where Giss was showing temperatures to have risen faster than almost anywhere else: a large chunk of South America stretching from Brazil to Paraguay.
Noting that weather stations there were thin on the ground, he decided to focus on three rural stations covering a huge area of Paraguay…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11367272/Climategate-the-sequel-How-we-are-STILL-being-tricked-with-flawed-data-on-global-warming.html
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Steven Goddard also shows massive recent tampering in and near Iceland..
It should also be noted that the only major areas with a largish trend on this map, are areas where there are no thermometers.
That is how the “2014 was hottest ever” farce was MANUFACTURED in GISS.
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ps.. It should also be noted that since Gavin Schmidt took over in 2013, there has been a large deviation of trends in Giss and HadCrut compared to the two satellite records.
For most of the time since 2001, all 4 were basically horizontal.
This guy is obviously ON A MISSION !!
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More ammo against BOM and friends
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11367272/Climategate-the-sequel-How-we-are-STILL-being-tricked-with-flawed-data-on-global-warming.html
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When “Bluecloud” made that post, I exploited his emotions and got him to basically repeat the threat. I wanted to make sure he crossed that line, and I let him know it.
Shortly thereafter the thread got yanked and he attempted to deny it ever happened.
I can’t pretend to understand even a fraction of the science, but the way these folks act, that is all I need to know about who has a grip on reality.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/21/matt-ridley-wants-to-gamble-earths-future-because-wont-learn-from-past
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the point is politics, imagine people do or do nothing for climate according to their convictions about climate science.. i do beleive climate change is a threat so i don’t use fossil fuel anymore…i don’t: business goes on as susual..
well freedom…
so the problem is not climate change threat is is power and world governance and less freedom for people to do things according to their convictions.
It is the new collectivism, bureaucracy.
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You are 100% self-sufficient? You never buy from a store, drive to a doctor or bicycle to a doctor, you grow all your own food, and built your own solar panels and wind turbines out of stuff you found after bicycling to landfill for the parts? You see most people claim to not use fossil fuels, but in actually they only mean they don’t drive a car, bought a wind turbine and solar panels made in China and shipped to where these persons live, buy groceries at a store that uses fossil fuels for heating, etc. Just like the people who oppose fracking still burn fracked natural gas in their homes. To “stop using fossil fuels” means you would have to be completely self sufficient, since virtually everything in our lives depends on fossil fuels.
I’m guessing what you really are saying is you personally don’t use fossil fuels but you benefit from other people burning them.
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