Here is an interesting quote from the bible. In the book of Romans, Paul stated well the condition of our society. Notice verse 25.
Holding the environment in higher esteem than the creator of the environment is called 'worship'. It is a religion.
22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 25. Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator... .
Thank you.
I would also like to thank Fierobear, and say please keep it coming.
Does being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor? Apparently not, judging by reports from DotEarth and ScienceInsider that Barack Obama will name John P. Holdren as his science advisor on Saturday. [UPDATE: Mr. Obama did indeed pick Dr. Holdren.]
Dr. Holdren, now a physicist at Harvard, was one of the experts in natural resources whom Paul Ehrlich enlisted in his famous bet against the economist Julian Simon during the “energy crisis” of the 1980s. Dr. Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists’ predictions of a new “age of scarcity” of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. Dr. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and asked Dr. Holdren, then the co-director of the graduate program in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and another Berkeley professor, John Harte, for help in choosing which resources would become scarce.
In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990.
Now, you could argue that anyone’s entitled to a mistake, and that mistakes can be valuable if people learn to become open to ideas that conflict with their preconceptions and ideology. That could be a useful skill in an advisor who’s supposed to be presenting the president with a wide range of views. Someone who’d seen how wrong environmentalists had been in ridiculing Dr. Simon’s predictions could, in theory, become more open to dissent from today’s environmentalist orthodoxy. But I haven’t seen much evidence of such open-mindedness in Dr. Holdren.
Consider what happened when a successor to Dr. Simon, Bjorn Lomborg, published “The Skeptical Environmentalist” in 2001. Dr. Holdren joined in an an extraordinary attack on the book in Scientific American — an attack that I thought did far more harm to the magazine’s reputation than to Dr. Lomborg’s. The Economist called the critique “strong on contempt and sneering, but weak on substance”; Dr. Lomborg’s defenders said the critics made more mistakes in 11 pages than they were able to find in his 540-page book. (You can read Dr. Lomborg’s rebuttal here.) In an earlier post, I wrote about Dr. Holdren’s critique of the chapter on energy, in which Dr. Lomborg reviewed the history of energy scares and predicted there would not be dire shortages in the future:
Dr. Holdren began his critique by complaining that Dr. Lomborg was “asking the wrong question” because environmentalists had known for decades that there was no danger of energy being in short supply. This struck me as as odd bit of revisionist history, given both the “energy crisis” rhetoric of the 1970s and Dr. Holdren’s own bet that resources would become more scarce. Then, in the rest of the critique, Dr. Holdren faulted Dr. Lomborg for not paying enough attention to the reasons that there could be future problems with energy supplies.
Dr. Holdren’s resistance to dissenting views was also on display earlier this year in an article asserting that climate skeptics are “dangerous.” (You can read about the response to that article at DotEarth.)
Dr. Holdren is certainly entitled to his views, but what concerns me is his tendency to conflate the science of climate change with prescriptions to cut greenhouse emissions. Even if most climate scientists agree on the anthropogenic causes of global warming, that doesn’t imply that the best way to deal with the problem is through drastic cuts in greenhouse emissions. There are other ways to cope, and there’s no “scientific consensus” on which path looks best.
Roger A. Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado and the author of “The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics,” discussed Dr. Holdren’s conflation of science and politics in a post on the Prometheus blog:
The notion that science tells us what to do leads Holdren to appeal to authority to suggest that not only are his scientific views correct, but because his scientific views are correct, then so too are his political views.
AT the Reason Hit & Run blog, Ronald Bailey reviews some of Dr. Holdren’s work and notes that in a 1995 essay, he and his coauthors (Gretchen C. Daily and Dr. Ehrlich) “acknowledge ecological ignorance about the principles of economics, but don’t express any urgency in learning about them.”
At OpenMarket.org, the Competitive Enterprise Institute blog, Chris Horner criticizes the reported Holdren appointment and suggests that Dr. Holdren got in to the National Academy of Sciences through a “back door.”
What kind of White House science advisor you think Dr. Holdren would make?
Science magazine reports that John Holdren, a professional environmental judgment day doomsayer, is going to become Barack Obama's top science adviser. Indeed, on Saturday, Barack Obama announced that Holdren was tapped.
John Holdren is the ultimate example of the pseudointellectual impurities that have recently flooded universities and academies throughout the Western world.
Population growth means death
Do you want to know what is his specialization? Well, look at his publication list at scholar.google.com. No, he hasn't found anything about laser cooling, like Steven Chu, despite his PhD in plasma physics. Instead, he has only written 3 very well-known texts - with at least 100 citations - and all of them are about the "catastrophic" population growth. A few additional, newer articles with 50 citations or so are about the "catastrophic" climate change.
The most famous article, by far (400+ cits), is his and Paul Ehrlich's 1971 text in Science magazine,
The subtitle says that "complacency concerning this component of man's predicament is unjustified and counterproductive". In other words, it is an unforgivable crime not to be hysterical about the population growth. Wow. They study the "interlocking crises" in population, resources, and environment that have been the "focus of countless papers, dozens of prestigious symposia, and a growing avalanche of books".
Recall that the second author, Paul Ehrlich, predicted that 4 billions of people (90% of the 1980 total), including 65 million Americans (28% of the 1980 figure), would perish of hunger in "Great Die-Off" in the 1980s. Well, Holdren and Ehrlich may have narcissistically talked about "prestigious symposia" but it's hard to change the fact that events where people compete who is going to propose a more absurd die-off scenario are just gatherings of pompous loons.
Do I really have to argue that their forecasts have been proven remarkably wrong? Do I have to argue that all similar papers are likely to be wrong because the "arguments" in them are simply not rational? It's no science.
In the particular Ehrlich-Holdren paper, they discussed five "theorems", as they boldly call this idiotic stuff. For example, the first "theorem" says that "population growth causes a disproportionate negative impact on the environment". The last one argues that "theoretical solutions to the problem are often not operational and sometimes they are not solutions".
These are great theorems! They're so accurate, well-defined, rigorously proven, and universally valid! ;-) I am sure that in insane asylums, they would use different words than "theorems" to describe these manifestations of their anxiety disorders. The paper then studies variations of the I=PAT formula which is either completely vacuous or completely wrong, depending on your interpretation of the letters.
CO2 emissions mean death
The old predicted catastrophes about the "lethal population growth" have largely evaporated from the public discourse - "population growth" is no longer equated with "great die-off" - but people like Holdren have simply found a new kind of a catastrophe that apparently hasn't been fully discredited yet, the climate change.
Nowadays, they equate "CO2 emissions" with a "great die-off". Details have changed but the dishonest, unscientific, extremely ideological, and political essence of their movement hasn't. These people are like RNA viruses of flu. You may think that you have already gained immunity against this stuff but instead, the viruses have mutated just a little bit and they're back. They will be always with us.
These days, his main weapon is to articulate more radical and scary forecasts about the climate than (almost) anyone else who uses a proper English grammar. ;-) And he is always careful to be called "Professor" and "big guy" by all the journalists, see for example this BBC piece where he blames President Bush for a 7-meter rise of the sea level (??) and his recent op-ed in the Boston Globe where he attacks the climate skeptics, again without a glimpse of a rational argument. There is absolutely no valuable content in anything that Holdren has ever produced. It's just plain bullshit sold in such a way that gullible people happily eat it and smack their lips.
I simply can't stand pompous fools like that. Because of his Harvard affiliation, I may have talked to him during a Society of Fellows dinner and I may have forgotten: it's hard to imagine that I could smile with the knowledge I have today. You may also see Richard Lindzen's essay to learn more about the methods how John Holdren and others have elected themselves to the National Academy of Sciences and similar bodies. It's plain disgusting.
Summary
It's very bad that people whose approach to the world is the exact opposite of science - because they prefer irrational phobias, "prestige" of symposia, and visible jobs paid by gullible manipulated folks over rational, humble, careful, and ever more refined scientific arguments and findings - are being linked to science, and it is bad that President-elect Obama is helping to distort the definition of science and its proper role in the society in this way.
Ya, soon Obama will have us leaving our cars and be riding horses and wagons, plowing with mules, living in ecology correct log houses and abandoning mass manufacturing of goods.........wait........didnt we just do that a few hundred years ago ?
The Met Office is the UK Government’s official Meteorological agency and a key promoter of climate alarmism, which claims that simulation models are now accurate predictors of both global and local effects of stimuli to the climate.
Presented below is a chronology of notable predictions via Met Office press releases and media articles starting on January 4th 2007:
2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998, say climate-change experts at the Met Office.”
On April 11th they issued a press release stating “there is a high probability that summer temperature will exceed the 1971-2000 long-term average of 14.1 C … there are no indications of an increased risk of a particularly dry or particularly wet summer.”
This was interpreted by The Guardian as “Britain set to enjoy another sizzling summer.”
On August 31st, The Met announced that summer 2007 was the wettest on record with “normal temperatures,” although his description did not adequately describe the miserable summer - because high temperatures and sunshine were well below normal.
On August 10th, The Met Office announced new climate models, which included modeling of “the effects of sea surface temperatures as well as other factors such as man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, projected changes in the sun’s output and the effects of previous volcanic eruptions”. The same press release forecast that “2014 is likely to be 0.3 C warmer than 2004.”
In fact, global temperatures in 2007 dropped nearly 0.8 C according to satellite data, one of the sharpest drops on record. In order to hit The Met’s 2014 prediction, there will have to be a large increase over the next few years.
2008
Clearly, the Met Office didn’t want to repeat the 2007 mistake of predicting the warmest ever recorded year globally in 2008, so the press release of 3th January was entitled, ‘Global temperature 2008: Another top-ten year,’ stating, “2008 is set to be cooler globally than recent years say Met Office and University of East Anglia climate scientists, but is still forecast to be one of the top-ten warmest years.”
On April 3rd the Met made their annual UK summer forecast — “The coming summer is expected to be a ‘typical British summer’, according to long-range forecasts issued today. Summer temperatures across the UK are more likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or above average for the three months of summer.”
On August 29th The Met Office reported that the summer of 2008 was “one of the wettest on record across the UK.”
This is how The Independent described the UK summer - “It has been a miserable summer for bugs as well as people…The combined effect of low temperatures and rain has presented Britain’s invertebrates with a double whammy.”
On September 22nd The Guardian reported the Met Office claim that, “Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand,” which referred to climate sceptic Nigel Lawson and attempted to play down the fact that there has been no global warming trend since 2002.
On September 25th the Met Office issued a press release entitled, ‘Trend of mild winters continues’ stating, “The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year.” This was qualified with, “In contrast to last year’s exceptionally mild winter, this year is likely to feel somewhat colder and although the forecast of a milder winter is good news, we should still be prepared for the risk of colder spells at times.”
On 25th November this forecast was updated: A cold start to winter, “The latest update to the Met Office winter forecast suggests that although the coming winter will have temperatures near or above average, it is very likely that December will be colder than normal.”
On 6th December there was an article in The Guardian by James Randerson entitled, ‘Explainer: Coolest year since 2000.’
The article reads:
“This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.
The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing, say climate scientists at the Met Office. “Absolutely not,” said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre. “If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University, who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would overinterpret the figure: “You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, it’s not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long. We are used to warm years.”
The Met Office had predicted 2008 would be cooler than recent years due to a La Niña event, characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean - the mirror image of the El Niño climate cycle.
Allen was presenting the data on this year’s global average temperature at the Appleton Space Conference at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Didcot, yesterday. The 14.3C figure is based on data from January to October. When the Met Office makes its formal announcement next week they will incorporate data from November. “[The figure] will differ from it, but it won’t differ massively,” said Stott.
Assuming the final figure is close to 14.3C then 2008 will be the 10th hottest year on record. Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.
In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade.”
Roger Pielke Sr performed a reality check:
The statement that “The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing” mixes up regional and global temperatures changes. Also, there has been no global warming in the last 4 years (at least; e.g. see). Global warming has stopped for the last few years.
The statement that “In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade” is scientifically incorrect. Heating cannot be ”masked”.
As given in the examples, the news releases provided by the UK Met Office make for interesting reading and show the complexity and difficulty of skillful season climate prediction.
Thus why should there be any confidence in the forecasts regarding climate change in the longer term?
The Daily Telegraph published an article on 13th December entitled, “Weather:Coldest start to winter since 1976 - Britain has endured its coldest start to winter in more than 30 years” by Stephen Adams.
An excerpt from the article reads:
“Since December 1, the meteorological start to the season, the average UK temperature has been only 35.1F (1.7C), well below the long-term 1971-2000 average of 40.5F (4.7C) for the first 10 days of the month.
It is the coldest start to December since 1976, when the average was 33.4F (0.8C).
Arctic and continental winds have dominated the weather since mid November, bringing colder conditions than normal.”
This very cold period certainly was not predicted by the UK Met Office.
But wait! There’s more climate alarmism in an article published on 19th December, 2008 in The Times entitled: ‘Met Office warn of ‘catastrophic’ rise in temperature’
Undeterred by recent short-term failed predictions, the article sub-heading states, “A new study by the Met Office warns that the world could warm by more than 5C in the next 90 years, if emissions keep on rising. This would be catastrophic for the environment and for humanity. Dr Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre explains the science.”
Well Vicky Pope, why should CRN or anyone else believe a word you say?
Sources:
Guest post on Watts Up With That? by Steven Goddard entitled, ‘UK’s Met Office blows another summer forecast’
SCIENTISTS have warned that Christmas lights are bad for the planet due to huge electricity waste and urged people to get energy efficient festive bulbs. CSIRO researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases.
Dr Glenn Platt, who leads research on energy demand, said Australia got 80 per cent of its electricity by burning coal which pumps harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
He said: "Energy efficient bulbs, such as LEDs, and putting your Christmas lights on a timer are two very easy ways to minimise the amount of electricity you use to power your lights."
He said the nation's electricity came from "centralised carbon intensive, coal-based power stations" which were responsible for emitting over one third of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr Platt added: "For a zero-emission Christmas light show, you may consider using solar powered lights or sourcing your electricity from verified green power suppliers."
Below are some email and written comments from a college professor disputing a paper that a friend of mine wrote for her class. The paper discounted man made global warming and argued why we should continue to tap into our own resources. I find it funny that everything she writes has quotation marks and a date at the end. I am sure it will all go down in the annals of history.
"Yes, the chi energy of our bodies is an incredible system. Too bad we cannot manage the potential energies of our planet in a more connected way for better performance. Consider the body a microcosm of the planet and then defend "offshore drilling" for just one example”.—2008
“I vote for man-made global warming as the cause of climate change.
You would have a tough time convincing me otherwise. The logical fallacy I find in the "act of nature" and/or "natural cycles" is that the current numbers of humans populating the earth is new, so we really cannot point to the past for any models. We have never had this much human activity on earth before.
Of course, we have natural cycles, but the new element is the mass and kinds of human activity”.—2008
“Polar bears are drowning. Should we try to save them”?—2008 “people are developing cancers and tumors and lung problems from air and water pollution due to the drilling process”.—2008 “Outsourcing can be solved with green jobs right here in the U.S. of A., train Americans to do customer service for green industries. ”—2008 “Green jobs for ALL”.—2008 “Please someone write about green collar economy”.—2008 “If you ignore the other side, you are in denial”.—2008
[This message has been edited by partfiero (edited 12-25-2008).]
E. R. Beadle said, “Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does this with purpose and great effect. They built the difference between appearance and reality into their process. Unlike procedure used elsewhere, they produce and release a summary report independently and before the actual technical report is completed. This way the summary gets maximum media attention and becomes the public understanding of what the scientists said. Climate science is made to appear what it is not. Indeed, it is not even what is in their Scientific Report.
The pattern of falsifying appearances began early. Although he works at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Stephen Schneider was heavily employed in the work of the IPCC as this biography notes.
Much of Schneider’s time is taken up by what he calls his “pro bono day job” for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II of the IPCC from 1997 to 2001 and a lead author in Working Group I from 1994 to 1996. Currently, he is a Coordinating Lead Author for the controversial chapter on “Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and the Risks from Climate Change,” in short, defining “dangerous” climate change.” - Pubmedcentral.nih.gov
He continued this work by helping prepare the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) released in April 2007.
Schneider, among others, created the appearance that the Summary was representative of the Science Report. However, he provides an early insight into the thinking when speaking about global warming to Discovery magazine (October 1989) he said scientists need, “to get some broader based support, to capture the public’s imagination…that, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts we may have…each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.” The last sentence is deeply disturbing--there is no decision required.
The Summary for Policymakers is designed to convince everyone that global warming is due to human production of CO2. In SPM AR4 issued in April 2007 they say, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.” The term “very likely” is from a table reportedly produced by Schneider and means greater than 90%. Professor Roy Spencer says about probabilities in this context. “Any statements of probability are meaningless and misleading. I think the IPCC made a big mistake. They’re pandering to the public not understanding probabilities. When they say 90 percent, they make it sound like they’ve come up with some kind of objective, independent, quantitative way of estimating probabilities related to this stuff. It isn’t. All it is is a statement of faith.”
So they create an appearance of certainty about a human cause of warming. But what is the reality? The only place where CO2 is causing temperature increase is in the IPCC computer models. In every record of any duration for any time period in the history of the Earth, temperature increase precedes CO2 increase. So an incorrect assumption that a CO2 increase will cause temperature increase is built into the computer models. That is damaging enough, but the computer models themselves are completely inadequate to represent global climate or make any predictions about future climate. But don’t believe me. The IPCC Technical Report (“The Physical Science Basis”) produced by Working Group I and released in November 2007, says so.
Problems begin with the definition of climate change used because it requires they only consider human causes. From the United Nations Environment Program (article 1) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over considerable time periods.” But you cannot determine the human portion unless you understand natural climate change. As Professor Roy Spencer said in his testimony before the US Senate EPW Committee, “And given that virtually no research into possible natural explanations for global warming has been performed, it is time for scientific objectivity and integrity to be restored to the field of global warming research.”
Media and public are allowed to believe the IPCC make climate predictions, but they don’t. The First Assessment Report (Climate Change 1992) said, “Scenarios are not predictions of the future and should not be used as such.” While the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios says; “Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts. Climate Change 2001 continues the warnings; “The possibility that any single in emissions path will occur as described in this scenario is highly uncertain.” In the same Report they say, “No judgment is offered in this report as to the preference for any of the scenarios and they are not assigned probabilities of recurrence, neither must they be interpreted as policy recommendations.” This is a reference to the range of scenarios they produce using different future possible economic conditions. Of course, they didn’t build in the recent financial collapse.
Climate Change 2001 substitutes the word projection for prediction. Projection is defined as follows, “A projection is a potential future evolution of a quantity or set of quantities, often computed with the help of a model. Projections are distinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning e.g. future socio-economic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty”.
This and similar statements are based on the unproven hypothesis that human produced CO2 is causing warming and or climate change. The evidence is based solely on the output of 18 computer climate models selected by the IPCC. There are a multitude of problems including the fact that every time they run them they produce different results. They use an average of all the runs. The IPCC then take the average results of the 18 models and average them for the results in their Reports.
Tim Palmer, a leading climate modeler at the European Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts said, “I don’t want to undermine the IPCC, but the forecasts, especially for regional climate change, are immensely uncertain.” This comment is partly explained by the scale of the General Circulation Models (GCM). The models are mathematical constructs that divide the world into rectangles. Size of the rectangles is critical to the abilities of the models as the IPCC AR4 acknowledges. “Computational constraints restrict the resolution that is possible in the discretized equations, and some representation of the large-scale impacts of unresolved processes is required (the parametrization problem). “ (AR4 Chapter 8. p.596.)
The IPCC uses surface weather data, which means there is inadequate data in space and time for most of the world to create an accurate model. Limitations of the surface data are surpassed by an almost complete lack of information above the surface. An illustration of the surface problem is identified by the IPCC comment of the problems of modeling Arctic climates.
“Despite advances since the TAR, substantial uncertainty remains in the magnitude of cryospheric feedbacks within AOGCMs. This contributes to a spread of modelled climate response, particularly at high latitudes. At the global scale, the surface albedo feedback is positive in all the models, and varies between models much less than cloud feedbacks. Understanding and evaluating sea ice feedbacks is complicated by the strong coupling to polar cloud processes and ocean heat and freshwater transport. Scarcity of observations in polar regions also hampers evaluation.” (AR4.,Chapter 8, p593.) Most of the information for the Arctic came from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and a diagram from that report illustrates the problem.
image
The very large area labeled “No Data” covers most of the Arctic Basin, an area of approximately 14,250,000 km2 (5,500,000) square miles). Remember, certainties of arctic ice conditions are core to Gore’s alarmism.
In the Southern Hemisphere the IPCC identifies this problem over a vast area of the Earth’s surface. “Systematic biases have been found in most models’ simulation of the Southern Ocean. Since the Southern Ocean is important for ocean heat uptake, this results in some uncertainty in transient climate response.” (AR4. Chapter 8. p. 591.)
Atmosphere and oceans are fluids governed by non-linear rather than linear equations. These equations have unpredictability or randomness - also known as chaos – it explains why the models get different results every time they are run. These problems well known outside of climate science were specifically acknowledged in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR), “In climate research and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” (TAR, p.774.)
Validation is essential for any model before using it for predictions. A normal procedure is to require proven evidence that they can make future predictions to a satisfactory level of accuracy. The IPCC use the term evaluation instead of validation, but they don’t evaluate the entire model. To do so they say shows problems but the source is not determined. Instead they evaluate at the component level. This means they don’t evaluate the important interactions between the components at any level.
IPCC Report AR4 makes a remarkable statement not repeated in the Summary for Policymakers. It speaks to the lack of valuation, which explains the failure of their projections. “What does the accuracy of a climate model’s simulation of past or contemporary climate say about the accuracy of its projections of climate change? This question is just beginning to be addressed, exploiting the newly available ensembles of models.” (AR4, Chapter 8. p.594.)
A simple single word definition of science is the ability to predict. It is not used by the IPCC, yet they present their work as scientific predictions. Media and the public generally believe the IPCC is making predictions and that is clearly the assumption for government policies. Sadly, members of the IPCC do nothing to dissuade the public from that view. All previous “projections” were wrong. The most recent example is the period from 2000 to 2008. IPCC predicted warming but temperatures went down while CO2 increased. Finally, the IPCC AR4 itself explains why IPCC model projections fail.
“Models continue to have significant limitations, such as in their representation of clouds, which lead to uncertainties in the magnitude and timing, as well as regional details, of predicted climate change.” (AR4, Chapter 8. p.600)
It is hard to imagine a better example of Beadle’s axiom paraphrased as follows, “Half the work done by the IPCC is to make things appear what they are not.”
Below are some email and written comments from a college professor disputing a paper that a friend of mine wrote for her class. The paper discounted man made global warming and argued why we should continue to tap into our own resources. I find it funny that everything she writes has quotation marks and a date at the end. I am sure it will all go down in the annals of history.
Thanks. Each one of these points can easily be disputed with good evidence. Some, I've already covered. Too bad the college "professors" have drank the Kool Aid.
By Christopher Booker Last Updated: 5:51PM GMT 27 Dec 2008
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
I was chatting with a kid the other day and when I told him there was no global warming and that temps are going down after 8 years of stagnation he asked me where I got my facts from because that was all lies. So I barraged him links and got a "whatever" from him.
I was chatting with a kid the other day and when I told him there was no global warming and that temps are going down after 8 years of stagnation he asked me where I got my facts from because that was all lies. So I barraged him links and got a "whatever" from him.
Indoctrination is working!
It snowed here again yesterday. This is twice in two years. Before this it had been 40 years since it had snowed in Tucson. Maybe man make global warming will cushion this ice age that we may be headed for.
Originally posted by partfiero: Maybe man make global warming will cushion this ice age that we may be headed for.
At...MAYBE...1 degree Celsius? Unlikely. Most predictions (real ones, not this warming crap) are talking about as much as a 30 year cooldown, like the little ice age. If that happens, get used to more snow in Arizona.
Found elsewhere...thought it would make for a humorous break:
To the tune “Let it Snow)
Oh the weather outside is frightful. But to the “skeptics” it’s so delightful. Temps have dropped down low. Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
Al Gore promised global warming. But instead it’s been cold and storming. And solar activity has dropped way low. Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
Since sunspots have dropped out of sight. A Global Cooling trend has started to form. Proves the “skeptics” are proven right, More CO2 does not cause Earth to warm.
The Solar Cycle is still slowly dying, And Global Warming we are “good-bying”. So as long as sunspots stay at zero, Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!
Here is a powerpoint presentation by Dr. Roy Spencer on his theories about CO2, cloud cover and the PDO. It is a good and somewhat less technical explanation than reading a science paper.
I got to thinking...if the "debate is over", the "science is settled", and Obama and the Congress pass carbon taxes and cap-and-trade, wouldn't that mean that we could stop all funding for climate research? After all, if the "science is settled", why would we continue to spend more money on researching an issue whose science is settled? How much money do we spend on polio research, since a vaccine was produced? So if we assume the following...
- The globe is warming - CO2 is causing the warming - Man is causing the CO2 - Man-caused CO2 reduction is put in place
...then what is left to research? It would be over. If they continue to pour money into anthropogenic climate research, we should sue the government to get them to stop spending large amounts of money for studying a subject whose science is settled, the cause identified and the cure applied.
Well, you know the answer. He has to make sure his Pal Al keeps his rep in place and he'll have to keep it up to save face. He also has to keep it up because there are powerful investors in his campaign who stand to make millions off this.
Well, you know the answer. He has to make sure his Pal Al keeps his rep in place and he'll have to keep it up to save face. He also has to keep it up because there are powerful investors in his campaign who stand to make millions off this.
Same old?
Arn
Yup. Same old.
Did you happen to catch NBC doing "green week", or some such nonsense? Who owns NBC? GE. Take a look at how much GE is investing in alternative energy. If you want answers, follow the money.
...then what is left to research? It would be over. If they continue to pour money into anthropogenic climate research, we should sue the government to get them to stop spending large amounts of money for studying a subject whose science is settled, the cause identified and the cure applied.
60's/70's - Combustion emissions, Smog (only effected certain regions)
Seems its the same junk scientists that never stopped researching... This just gives more credence to the theory that this is bull.
Seriously, how many jobs would be lost if we actually proved we did not harm the environment in any way anymore? Even if it was in 50 years and we even regulated the sweat coming off our bodies, how many jobs would be lost!!!
When are people gonna wake up and realize there is no great pollution/environmental crisis anymore!?!?!?!?
[This message has been edited by 4-mulaGT (edited 01-03-2009).]
Originally posted by partfiero: It snowed here again yesterday. This is twice in two years. Before this it had been 40 years since it had snowed in Tucson. Maybe man make global warming will cushion this ice age that we may be headed for.
quote
Originally posted by fierobear: At...MAYBE...1 degree Celsius? Unlikely. Most predictions (real ones, not this warming crap) are talking about as much as a 30 year cooldown, like the little ice age. If that happens, get used to more snow in Arizona.
Global warming leads to more precipitation. Global cooling leads to less precipitation. On average, non-locale specific. However, global cooling should kill any monsoon season in AZ, so I'd expect severe droughts if that's the case. This snow seems to be evidence to the contrary.
Global warming leads to more precipitation. Global cooling leads to less precipitation. On average, non-locale specific. However, global cooling should kill any monsoon season in AZ, so I'd expect severe droughts if that's the case. This snow seems to be evidence to the contrary.
And the cooling has NOTHING to do with manmade CO2 or anything else we do. The theory is that greenhouse gasses cause more heat retention in our atmosphere, and the temperature goes UP. You CAN'T add heat and heat retention and have the temperature go down. Period.
Harold Ambler Posted January 3, 2009 | 11:36 AM (EST)
You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.
Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.
What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:
1. First, the expression "climate change" itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. During the Holocene there have been numerous sub-periods with dramatically varied climate, such as the warm Holocene Optimum (7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., during which humanity began to flourish, and advance technologically), the warm Roman Optimum (200 B.C. to 400 A.D., a time of abundant crops that promoted the empire), the cold Dark Ages (400 A.D. to 900 A.D., during which the Nile River froze, major cities were abandoned, the Roman Empire fell apart, and pestilence and famine were widespread), the Medieval Warm Period (900 A.D. to 1300 A.D., during which agriculture flourished, wealth increased, and dozens of lavish examples of Gothic architecture were created), the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850, during much of which plague, crop failures, witch burnings, food riots -- and even revolutions, including the French Revolution -- were the rule of thumb), followed by our own time of relative warmth (1850 to present, during which population has increased, technology and medical advances have been astonishing, and agriculture has flourished).
So, no one needs to say the words "climate" and "change" in the same breath -- it is assumed, by anyone with any level of knowledge, that climate changes. That is the redundancy to which I alluded. The lie is the suggestion that climate has ever been stable. Mr. Gore has used a famously inaccurate graph, known as the "Mann Hockey Stick," created by the scientist Michael Mann, showing that the modern rise in temperatures is unprecedented, and that the dramatic changes in climate just described did not take place. They did. One last thought on the expression "climate change": It is a retreat from the earlier expression used by alarmists, "manmade global warming," which was more easily debunked. There are people in Mr. Gore's camp who now use instances of cold temperatures to prove the existence of "climate change," which is absurd, obscene, even.
2. Mr. Gore has gone so far to discourage debate on climate as to refer to those who question his simplistic view of the atmosphere as "flat-Earthers." This, too, is right on target, except for one tiny detail. It is exactly the opposite of the truth.
Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. "Their relationship is actually very complicated," he says, "but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer." The word "complicated" here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore's graph. You are probably wondering by now -- and if you are not, you should be -- which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not "complicated." When the ocean-atmosphere system warms, the oceans discharge vast quantities of carbon dioxide in a process known as de-gassing. For this reason, warm and cold years show up on the Mauna Loa C02 measurements even in the short term. For instance, the post-Pinatubo-eruption year of 1993 shows the lowest C02 increase since measurements have been kept. When did the highest C02 increase take place? During the super El Niño year of 1998.
3. What the alarmists now state is that past episodes of warming were not caused by C02 but amplified by it, which is debatable, for many reasons, but, more important, is a far cry from the version of events sold to the public by Mr. Gore.
Meanwhile, the theory that carbon dioxide "drives" climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong and, again, evidence of a "flat-Earth" mentality. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. That is why plotted on a graph, C02's ability to capture heat follows a logarithmic curve. We are already very near the maximum absorption level. Further, the IPCC Fourth Assessment, like all the ones before it, is based on computer models that presume a positive feedback of atmospheric warming via increased water vapor.
4. This mechanism has never been shown to exist. Indeed, increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of the oceans, which leads to increased cloud cover (one cooling effect) and increased precipitation (a bigger cooling effect). Within certain bounds, in other words, the ocean-atmosphere system has a very effective self-regulating tendency. By the way, water vapor is far more prevalent, and relevant, in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide -- a trace gas. Water vapor's absorption spectrum also overlays that of carbon dioxide. They cannot both absorb the same energy! The relative might of water vapor and relative weakness of carbon dioxide is exemplified by the extraordinary cooling experienced each night in desert regions, where water in the atmosphere is nearly non-existent.
If not carbon dioxide, what does "drive" climate? I am glad you are wondering about that. In the short term, it is ocean cycles, principally the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the "super cycle" of which cooling La Niñas and warming El Niños are parts. Having been in its warm phase, in which El Niños predominate, for the 30 years ending in late 2006, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to its cool phase, in which La Niñas predominate. Since that time, already, a number of interesting things have taken place. One La Niña lowered temperatures around the globe for about half of the year just ended, and another La Niña shows evidence of beginning in the equatorial Pacific waters. During the last twelve months, many interesting cold-weather events happened to occur: record snow in the European Alps, China, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Rockies, the upper Midwest, Las Vegas, Houston, and New Orleans. There was also, for the first time in at least 100 years, snow in Baghdad.
Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber. The number of sunspots for 2008 was the second lowest of any year since 1901. That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth's oceans. Regulating the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth's atmosphere is the solar wind; when it is strong, we get fewer cosmic rays. When it is weak, we get more. As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing. The result: the seeding of what some have taken to calling "Svensmark clouds," low dense clouds, principally over the oceans, that reflect sunlight back to space before it can have its warming effect on whatever is below.
Svensmark has proven, in the minds of most who have given his work a full hearing, that it is this very process that produced the episodes of cooling (and, inversely, warming) of our own era and past eras. The clearest instance of the process, by far, is that of the Maunder Minimum, which refers to a period from 1650 to 1700, during which the Sun had not a single spot on its face. Temperatures around the globe plummeted, with quite adverse effects: crop failures (remember the witch burnings in Europe and Massachusetts?), famine, and societal stress.
Many solar physicists anticipate that the slumbering Sun of early 2009 is likely to continue for at least two solar cycles, or about the next 25 years. Whether the Grand Solar Minimum, if it comes to pass, is as serious as the Maunder Minimum is not knowable, at present. Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions. These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth's molten iron core and under its thin mantle. So, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that such an eruption takes place over the course of the next two decades. Like all major eruptions, this one will have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures, perhaps a large one. The larger the eruption, the greater the effect. History shows that periods of cold are far more stressful to humanity than periods of warm. Would the eruption and consequent cooling be a climate-modifier that exists outside of nature, somehow? Who is the "flat-Earther" now?
What about heat escaping from volcanic vents in the ocean floor? What about the destruction of warming, upper-atmosphere ozone by cosmic rays? I could go on, but space is short. Again, who is the "flat-Earther" here?
The ocean-atmosphere system is not a simple one that can be "ruled" by a trace atmospheric gas. It is a complex, chaotic system, largely modulated by solar effects (both direct and indirect), as shown by the Little Ice Age.
To be told, as I have been, by Mr. Gore, again and again, that carbon dioxide is a grave threat to humankind is not just annoying, by the way, although it is that! To re-tool our economies in an effort to suppress carbon dioxide and its imaginary effect on climate, when other, graver problems exist is, simply put, wrong. Particulate pollution, such as that causing the Asian brown cloud, is a real problem. Two billion people on Earth living without electricity, in darkened huts and hovels polluted by charcoal smoke, is a real problem.
So, let us indeed start a Manhattan Project-like mission to create alternative sources of energy. And, in the meantime, let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day.
Again, Mr. Gore, I accept your apology.
And, Mr. Obama, though I voted for you for a thousand times a thousand reasons, I hope never to need one from you.
P.S. One of the last, desperate canards proposed by climate alarmists is that of the polar ice caps. Look at the "terrible," "unprecedented" melting in the Arctic in the summer of 2007, they say. Well, the ice in the Arctic basin has always melted and refrozen, and always will. Any researcher who wants to find a single molecule of ice that has been there longer than 30 years is going to have a hard job, because the ice has always been melted from above (by the midnight Sun of summer) and below (by relatively warm ocean currents, possibly amplified by volcanic venting) -- and on the sides, again by warm currents. Scientists in the alarmist camp have taken to referring to "old ice," but, again, this is a misrepresentation of what takes place in the Arctic.
More to the point, 2007 happened also to be the time of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica. (There are many credible sources of this information, such as the following website maintained by the University of Illinois-Urbana: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.ed...ent.anom.south.jpg). Why, I ask, has Mr. Gore not chosen to mention the record growth of sea ice around Antarctica? If the record melting in the Arctic is significant, then the record sea ice growth around Antarctica is, too, I say. If one is insignificant, then the other one is, too.
For failing to mention the 2007 Antarctic maximum sea ice record a single time, I also accept your apology, Mr. Gore. By the way, your contention that the Arctic basin will be "ice free" in summer within five years (which you said last month in Germany), is one of the most demonstrably false comments you have dared to make. Thank you for that!
Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.
Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn't affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.
Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.
Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.
Environmental reporting adheres to adage: "bad news sells better than good"
A new scientific report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program has sharply reduced earlier estimates of global ice loss. The CCSP, which coordinates the efforts of 13 different federal climate agencies, has released updated figures estimating combined ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland at 48 cubic miles per year, a figure the Washington Post dolefully reports as "accelerated" ice loss.
But is it?
In 2006, a widely-reported study estimated ice loss from Greenland alone to be over 57 cubic miles per year. Another the same year reported Antarctic ice loss of 36 cubic miles -- a combined annual total of over 93 cubic miles. The new estimate, however, is only about half as high. In most rational circles, this would be cause for celebration.
Not for the Washington Post, however. Ignoring earlier estimates, it casts the figure in a threatening light by noting it's twice the amount of ice locked in the Alps. It fails to mention, though, that those 48 cubic miles, when spread out over the planet's 139 million square miles of ocean, works out to a sea level rise of only 2.1 inches per century. For you metric types, that's about half a millimeter a year. Even factoring in an additional increase for thermal expansion, the value is far too small for concern.
Glossing over all this, the Washington Post instead reports a potential rise of four feet by the year 2100. The figure is based on the assumption of unforeseen positive feedback effects which might accelerate ice loss, despite the fact that no evidence exists that this is happening, and even the report's own authors considered such a scenario "unlikely".
When one considers sea level has been rising for the last 18,000 years, at an average of about 25 inches a century, one sees even less cause for alarm. The rate of increase has actually slowed in past 4,000 years; before this, it often rose by as much as several meters per century.
The Post article also fails to point out the report doesn't include data for 2008, a colder year in which sea ice increased sharply, and preliminary estimates indicate that land-based ice sheets may have as well.
Some positive notes in the report are that "no clear evidence" for global-warming induced hydrologic changes (drought or floods) are being seen in the US, and that catastrophic events such as a shutdown of sea ocean currents ("thermohaline circulatory shutdown" ) or dramatic releases of methane (the "clathrate gun" hypothesis) seem increasingly unlikely.
To be fair to the Washington Post, 48 cubic miles/year is indeed larger than some estimates from the 1990s. But those figures were arrived at before the launch of advanced systems such as NASA's GRACE satellite. It's unclear how much of the difference in estimates is due simply to today's more accurate monitoring.
The report also indicates that current IPCC modeling doesn't accurately capture lubrication effects that may increase ice thinning and loss. However, a model prediction is not the same thing as actual measurements and observations.
The new figures obviously don't prove whether or not CO2 is warming the planet. However, they do strongly indicate that sea level rise isn't something that we -- or even our great-grandchildren -- need to worry about.
Propaganda: The global warming alarmist in chief has unveiled the environmentalists' real objective. And no, protecting the planet is not their top concern.
In a letter addressed to President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, makes an appeal for a carbon tax, ostensibly as a means for cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that's allegedly causing a dangerous greenhouse effect and warming trend.
Hansen suggests that the tax be levied "at the well-head or port of entry" from where it "will then appropriately affect all products and activities that use fossil fuels."
This tax will have "near-term, mid-term, and long-term" effects on "lifestyle choices," Hansen acknowledges. But he seems unconcerned about how such coercion will rearrange the lives and manage the behavior of a people who should be free of state coercion.
Acting either out of boldness or desperation, Hansen goes on to reveal the environmentalist left's deeper ambition: a collectivist redistribution of wealth. He recommends that the carbon tax be returned to the public in "equal shares on a per capita basis."
That means wealthier Americans whose activities emit more CO2 will pay more in carbon taxes than they get back, while those who earn less will receive more in refunds than they will lose through taxes.
"A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money," explains Hansen, while "a person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend."
Hansen and his ilk never seem to question whether the government should be involved in behavior modification. They believe so zealously in their cause — establishing an egalitarian society where conspicuous consumption is limited to the few who make the rules — that they have no misgivings about using the police power of the federal and state governments to beat society into shape.
Nor do they question their hunch — the idea doesn't even rise to the level of theory — that CO2 emissions are causing climate change even as there are ample reasons to doubt it.
To his credit, Hansen expresses support in the letter for fourth-generation "nuclear power and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration." But he's done so much yammering about global warming and encouraging "young people" to do "whatever is necessary to block construction of dirty coal-fired power plants," that any sensible ideas he might have are lost.
That's what happens, though, when a first-rate mind latches onto a third-rate assumption.
The wealthy, (whoever can afford it) and large companies doing well, can just buy "credits" today to offset their polluting, and keep in doing the dastardly deed. That too shows how much they care about the actual environment.
Whenever I see some new record high temperature being broken this summer, I'm going to point to it as "evidence" of global warming, to show you the absurdity of your claims.
Whenever I see some new record high temperature being broken this summer, I'm going to point to it as "evidence" of global warming, to show you the absurdity of your claims.
If this were the only story about record cold, then you might be right. But it isn't. Do I need to post *every* account of record cold, when we're supposed to be past some mythical "tipping point" of warming?
