Friday, December 16, 2011

The real problem isn't global warming...




Mark Landsbaum from the Orange County Register has a fine essay on the second round of Climategate emails and the rapid unraveling of the global warming hoax:

Global warming alarmists try again
Global warming devotees gather for U.N. conference to demand money from developed nations, even as more and more countries defect from “the cause.”
By MARK LANDSBAUM / Register columnist
It's a good thing the world's economy is going into the toilet. Otherwise, global warming extremists would have done some real damage.
It's ironic that as evidence mounted exposing the shaky science and duplicitous scheming behind global warming alarmism, it wasn't these truths that undermined the movement to tax and regulate your carbon footprint.
Science, as alarmists inadvertently confirmed from the onset, essentially is irrelevant in deciding whether the Earth is heating dangerously, and whether that requires regulations and taxes at monumental cost – and huge profits to warmist profiteers. Think Al Gore.
It wasn't the trumped-up science that drove this movement. It's always been about control and money. Their control of your money.
It's interesting that rather than the emerging true science slowing the rush to global conformism, instead it has been a deteriorating economic climate that put the skids to the climate change movement. Thank goodness for bad economic times
Regardless of who is right about the next 100 years of temperatures, it has been declining sales, job losses, foreclosures and bankruptcies that ultimately slowed the global warming movement's momentum. Average Joes and pretentious potentates alike increasingly determined their own economic self-interests make it unwise to redistribute their wealth to stave off another almost undetectable 0.8 degree of temperature increase like the one we've experienced over the past 150 years. By the way, can you feel the difference of 0.8 degree Celsius?
Thousands of attendees, the "usual suspects," as contrarian environmental scientist S. Fred Singer puts it, have gathered again under the auspices of the United Nations for "two weeks of feasting, partying, living it up in luxury hotels" at someone else's expense in Durban, South Africa, (oh, the carbon footprint) to get worldwide consensus to impose Draconian regulations and punitive taxes. Fat chance.
Maybe the best news out of Durban last week was this pronouncement by Seyni Nafo of Mali, who whined: "Developed countries as a whole are not taking climate change seriously as a global issue. Look at the U.S."
It's times like this that make you proud to be an American...

Landsbaum notes the impact of the recent new email release from climate scientists that documents the scope of the fraud:

As global warming faded amid worldwide financial cooling, it didn't help "the cause" that thousands of emails authored by the leading IPCC grant- and tax-funded researchers provided a damaging look behind the scenes. The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Marlo Lewis describes this alarmist cabal as, "schemers colluding to manipulate public opinion, downplay inconvenient data, bias the peer review process, marginalize skeptical critics and flout freedom of information laws." We think Marlo's a bit soft in his criticism.
The latest leaked emails show internal bickering apparently revealing some of their own reaching their tolerance limits, such as this email to Keith Briffa of the British Climate Research Unit: "Keith, See the last item. Why don't you just give these people the raw data? Are you hiding something – your apparent refusal to be forthcoming sure makes it look as though you are. Tom."
These candid confessions, obviously never meant to be made public, include admissions like one from Briffa's CRU colleague, climatologist Phil Jones: "Basic problem is that all the models are wrong – not got enough middle and low-level clouds."
It's the warmists' touted computer models that assured us for nearly two decades how intolerable global warming will make our future. They have no other way of knowing.
The warmists' snow job is based on gathering ground temperature records, but not to use all of them, and then to "adjust" many of those they do use. For example, numerous stations located in cold Siberia disappeared in the 1990s. And isn't it fascinating that original data is unavailable for critics to review?
As even some of their supporters are beginning to acknowledge, the vast majority of U.S. ground temperature stations are improperly located, often adjacent to heat-generating sources. Richard Muller, the UC Berkeley professor who got a lot of press when he released a study essentially confirming temperature readings used by alarmists, also conceded that 70 percent of U.S. stations are badly sited. Garbage in, garbage out.
Incidentally, the U.S. stations are far superior to those in the rest of the world.
Not so incidentally, Muller's report, lauded by the media, took no position on whether the less-than-trustworthy warming he found is caused by humans.
But the IPCC faithful have no qualms about blaming warming, however much may or may not be happening, on mankind. Just don't ask too many questions.
"Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of research grants we get – and has to be well hidden," CRU's Jones wrote in another email. "I've discussed this with the main funder in the past, and they are happy about not releasing the original station data."
Lest we jump to conclusions, consider another Jones email: "I've been told that the IPCC is above national FOI [Freedom of Information] Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process."
Heartland Institute's senior environmental fellow James M. Taylor points out, "More than revealing misconduct and improper motives, the newly released emails additionally reveal frank admissions of the scientific shortcomings of global warming assertions."
Some alarmists claim the emails are out of context. We join other critics who await alarmists providing any context that would render such comments innocuous.
Already, preliminary greenhouse gas-inspired regulations and taxes make energy more costly. More-costly energy makes food more costly, and transportation, housing, and, well just about everything.
If the economy improves, decision-makers and the public will should use real science to decide whether mankind is superheating the Earth. And if so, what, if anything can or should be done about it. We hope someone will suggest weighing costs against presumed benefits.
Perhaps then, less weight will be given to manipulators, secretive schemers and grant-hungry IPCC scientists, such as those who whipped up global warming fever for 20 years.
Perhaps more attention will be paid then to what an internal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report acknowledges: "given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based upon a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."
That, mind you, is a U.S. government agency heretofore eager to clamp down on your carbon emissions. The author doesn't advance "the cause," which is how climate alarmist scientist Michael Mann referred in one email to the global warming campaign.
A Mann email complained about a defector from the movement: "I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don't know what she thinks she's doing, but its not helping the cause."
And you thought it was about science?
We aren't threatened by global warming. The threat is from global warmists.
What they have is a theory that things are getting warmer, which may or may not be true. Then they take a leap in logic that says things will continue to get much warmer, even though the purported cause of this warmth, greenhouse gas emissions, have escalated for 15 years while temperatures have remained flat or even declined.
Then they take another leap that presumes warming is harmful, even though it makes growing crops easier, and life less expensive in cold places, and more CO2 in the atmosphere is a boon to agriculture. Then they presume man can reverse all of this by using windmills and solar panels, which no one will buy unless someone else subsidizes them, and even then must be backed up with conventional, C02-emitting energy plants for when the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow.
This is a chain of so many "ifs" it's amazing so many people have bought in to it. Until, of course, they are asked to sacrifice their own prosperity and comfort. Then, as they are discovering in Durban, that's enough of this nonsense.

I will second Landsbaum's challenge to defenders of AGW who claim the emails were taken out of context:
"We join other critics who await alarmists providing any context that would render such comments innocuous. "
There is no honest scientific evidence that global warming is caused by man or is a threat to mankind. Given the hidden and massaged data, and the remaining temperature recordings obtained with little concern for scientific integrity, the threat mankind faces is from corrupt scientists and from politicians and greedy entrepreneurs who are perpetrating the most egregious scientific hoax in recent history. 

22 comments:

  1. As one great US President once said:

    ...you cannot fool all the people all the time!

    The next hoax to go is Darwinism not later than 2020.

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  2. Why is it that modern American Christians come down on the side of greater human suffering on every issue? Dr Egnor should just go ahead and change his name to Dr. Evil.

    -KW

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  3. Michael,

    I have challenged you on many occasions to disprove AGW, a challenge you refuse to accept.

    AGW is based on logic. Greenhouse gases work by retaining heat in the atmosphere and causing warming. Increasing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cause increased retention of heat in the atmosphere and cause increased global warming. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Humans have caused CO2 levels to go from 270 to 390 ppmv, from the burning of huge amounts of fossil fuels containing carbon that hasn't seen the light of day for tens of millions of years. Therefore humans are causing global warming.

    All you have to do is disprove one of these statements. Without greenhouse gases the global temperature would be around -18C, assuming an albedo of 0.30 (the current level, it would actually be higher causing an even lower temperature).

    The price of energy, even without a carbon tax, is going to increase regardless. Drilling for oil offshore or in the Arctic isn't cheap. Establishing infrastructure to get oil to markets in remote locations also isn't cheap.

    The GFC and the economic downturn was partly due to the spike in oil prices in 2007 causing an increase in petrol prices adversely affecting Americans' spending power on other items.

    Also with the global population increasing to at least 9 billion by 2050 and developing countries such as India and China requiring more energy, the price of energy must go up, just on market forces alone.

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  4. @bach
    All you have to do is disprove one of these statements.

    Ok, no problem, here goes:

    AGW is based on logic.

    No, AGW is based on fear and greed!

    Since 1998, temperatures have stayed flat. The UN experts predicted that Kyoto Protocol would reduce global CO2 emissions by 5.2%....instead they increased by 46.6% and temperatures have not risen.

    AGW is pseudo-science a like astrology!

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  5. with little concern for scientific integrity, the threat mankind faces is from corrupt scientists and from politicians and greedy entrepreneurs who are perpetrating the most egregious scientific hoax in recent history.

    Creation science and intelligent design?

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  6. Pepe,

    No you haven't answered the argument. No climate scientist claims that CO2 is the sole factor influencing climate. All AGW involves is the fact that humans are causing CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to increase at unprecedented rates and that this will lead to global warming.

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  7. @bachfiend
    All AGW involves is the fact that humans are causing CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) to increase at unprecedented rates and that this will lead to global warming.

    This is only speculation!

    I think it's time you did some serious research.

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  8. More than 31,000 American scientists agree with the following:

    There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

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  9. Pepe,

    Your 31,000 'scientists' from the Oregan Petition include a large number of engineers (like your hero Monte Hieb, the mining engineer, indirectly employed by the coal mining industry) and medical practitioners (also like your other hero, Michael Egnor, who still hasn't answered my challenge after many opportunities).

    The list of scientists included in the category of atmosphere scientists include astronomers and astrophysicists (at least they both start with an 'A', like 'atmosphere'). There are very few real climate scientists, who understand the factors that drive climate, in addition to greenhouse gases.

    You're still a farking idiot and need to get a brain, or at least understand logic and the ability to sort rubbish from truth.

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  10. @bachfiend
    There are very few real climate scientists...

    This is a good thing, since climate scientists tend not to be very honest and many suffer from an acute form of logical confusion!

    As for your continuing insults, I print them on soft tissue paper, with your moniker in large bold letters, for later sanitary use...

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  11. Pepe,

    Why don't you answer the challenge. It's a logical proposition that increasing greenhouse gases will cause increasing heat retention and hence global warming.

    Appealing to the number of 'scientists' supporting your position is just plain silly when you dismiss the far greater number of scientists who disagree with you.

    I encourage you to print my moniker on soft tissue paper. You will tear the paper, and if you use in in the manner I assume you're suggesting, you're get on your fingers what you have in your head and attempting to use as brains.

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  12. @bach
    Why don't you answer the challenge.

    I have answered your challenge many times, but you probably have evolved a way of not understanding simple English, like most atheists.

    To reiterate, global warming and global cooling have occured since the formation of the earth some 4.5 billion years ago.

    You surmise that human activities are responsible for a slight temperature increase of 0.8 degree since the last 150 years and predict that the earth will be afire if we continue burning fossil fuels.

    (BTW, fossils are more useful as a source of energy than as evidence for Darwinism).

    But your surmising is wrong! And that is my final answer.

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  13. Pepe,

    I understand simple English. Do you? The websites you persistently link to are nonsensical, including Monte Hieb's 'Plant Fossils of West Virginia'.

    Get a brain, read the science and stop looking at just denialist sites, which are just confirming your ignorance.

    If I've had the patience to read Ian Plimer's 'Heaven and Earth' (which presents all the denialists' claims) then you should be able to read a real book, if you've got the intelligence to do so, which I doubt.

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  14. @bach
    ...all the denialists' claims...

    Who’s in denial?

    Frederick Seitz, Past President, National Academy of Sciences, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University said:

    Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.

    31,487 American scientists have signed the Global Warming Petition Project, including 9,029 with PhDs.

    You, bach, are the only one still believing in AGW, so who’s in denial?

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  15. Pepe,

    You still don't have a clue. A scientist isn't someone who has just done a science course sometime, somewhere. The Oregon Petition list of 31,000 'scientists' include significant numbers of engineers and medical practitioners (on that basis, I could claim to be a scientist, but I don't).

    I'd define a scientist who has actually done research on an unsolved problem in science and published the results in a peer reviewed format, whether in a dissertation or a science journal.

    You're actually citing the minority science position on AGW. All the national science associations, which represent all scientists, not just climate scientists, agree that AGW is occurring, with the exception of the American Association of Petroleuum Geologists, which has a neutral position.

    Seitz is a noted contrarian who specialized in solid state physics. Whenever he gets out of his area of expertise, he adopts bizarre ideas. He strongly believes that cigarette smoking is harmless, an opinion so wrong that it's beyond belief.

    I'm not in denial. I hope you're right, because I think the consequences of a 2C temperature increase will be dire. It might not sound like much, but it's actually a lot. The 1815 eruption of Tambora caused a 1C temperature drop and the year without a Summer, in which it snowed in New England in June 1816.

    Tipping points such as melting of permafrost and release of methane exacerbating warming are worries. And don't forget; present conditions are very good for humans. We've gone from 1 billion to 7 billion in just over 2 centuries (the population has doubled just in my lifetime). Changing the conditions is much more likely to be bad instead of good.

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  16. @bach

    I could claim to be a scientist, but I don't

    Wise decision, since nobody would believe a nut case like you anyways!

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  17. Pépé,

    Your lame attempt at an argument from authority will backfire big time. Most of the 31,000 "scientists" on that list don't even have PhDs. A vast majority come from fields that have nothing to do with climate. Like engineering. In fact, even their affiliations are not known, so it's hard to track down who they are.

    But if you want to play this game, let's play it. Here is a statement on climate change from the American Physical Society. It has 48,000 members. The vast majority of them support the statement. I am one of them.

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  18. Pëpè,

    Since you are a retarded hillbilly, you are incapable of judging the merits of the arguments and evidence for or against AGW. You simply choose to believe what you want to believe.

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  19. Pepe,

    You're still an idiot. Selective quoting is dishonest. I wrote 'On that basis, I could claim to be a scientist, but I don't' (the list of 'scientists' include medical practitioners). You quoted me as writing 'I could claim to be a scientist, but I don't', leaving out the 'On that basis', distorting the meaning and through in an insult too.

    Stating that you're an idiot isn't an insult. It's just stating the truth.

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  20. @oleg troy bachfiend

    Your worldview forces you to crave to be right at all cost, and when given solid undisputable evidence to the contrary, your only defense is the use of insults.

    Scientific naturalism is about the worst philosophy one can espouse and atheism is worst than Islam because it promotes fundamentalism and bigotry.

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  21. Pepe,

    My irony meter has just exploded...

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete