Here’s another example of where historians show their value in science debates.
Naomi Oreskes delivered this lecture a few years ago on denialism in climate science. Among other targets of her criticism-by-history is my old friend Robert Jastrow. I think her history is correct, and her views on the Marshall Institute and denial of climate change informative in the minimum, and correct on the judgment of the facts.
You’ll recognize some of the names: Jastrow, Frederick Seitz, S. Fred Singer, and William Nierenberg.
Oreskes details the intentional political skewing of science by critics of the serious study of climate warming. It’s just under an hour long, but well worth watching. Dr. Oreskes is Professor of History in the Science Studies Program at the University of California at San Diego. The speech is titled “The American Denial of Global Warming.”
If Oreskes is right — and I invite you to check her references thoroughly, to discover for yourself that her history and science are both solid — Lord Monckton is a hoaxster. Notice especially the references after the 54 minute mark to the tactic of claiming that scientists are trying to get Americans to give up our sovereignty.
Nothing new under the sun.
“Global warming is here, and there are almost no communists left,” Oreskes said.
Nudge your neighbor:
Stumble It!
November 23, 2009 at 3:22 pm
There is much sound evidence of warming, and much sound evidence that humans contribute to warming significantly.
1. Migratory birds around the world have altered their nesting destinations, due to changing food conditions and nesting conditions caused by warming.
2. Plant life across the planet has been substantially affected by climate zone changes. Compare USDA’s original charts for the U.S. with current charts of where to grow plants. That’s warming. It is incontrovertible.
3. Temperature increases over the past year appear to correlate with increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphwere, especially CO2.
4. Air pollution theory from the 1940s postulated that particulates and aerosols cool the atmosphere, while greenhouse gases warm it. Under that theory, warming was being masked by particulate and aerosol pollution — one counteracted the other as both increased. Starting about 1972, control of particulates and aerosols dramatically reduced the amount of emissions and total concentrations of these pollutants. As those coolers decreased, warming quickened.
You’ll notice that none of these warming manifestations relies on a model of the atmosphere, but is instead a measured, verifiable chunk of data.
5. Insurance actuaries calculate that warming already increases the frequency and magnitude of weather, and so people in states like Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, California and other coastal states, already pay a global warming premium on home insurance. Here in Texas, homeowners pay between $1,000 and $1,200 a year in increased insurance rates to cover the increased damage from warming.
You may have come very late to this discussion. There’s a lot of evidence of warming, substantial evidence of human causes of warming, and very little to rebut those science conclusions. You appear to have a thumb on the scales when you weigh the data. If it’s not your thumb, somebody is playing you as a gullible.
But I’m willing to hear a good case, if someone from the denialist side has one.
November 23, 2009 at 2:22 pm
There is no sound evidence that our use of fossil fuels is making any significant contribution to any global climate change that might be occurring. Assumptions, estimates, uncertainty and speculation are rife and the poor understanding of climate processes and drivers is being used by the UN and others for reasons having nothing to do with global climate change. The UN has two primary objectives:
- introduction of a mechanism for global taxation in order to redistribute wealth from developed to underdeveloped economies,
- establishment of a framework for global government.
Attempts to achieve binding agreement on this at Copenhagen are destined to fail. The release of those files leaked from University of East Anglia Climate research Unit, probably by a disgruntled insider, should ensure this, regardless of whether or not the contents turn out to be as significant as many of us hope.
What a reaction there has been to the alleged disclosure of E-mails and other data! This information has been flying around the Internet since 19th and if genuine it potentially blows the lid off the all of the propaganda that has been promulgated about The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis. Despite this there apparently has not been a word from any political party member or broadcaster about it. This has much more significance than what today’s celebrities had for breakfast. Why no news coverage or political reaction?
In an article on this subject in the UK’s Daily Telegraph (Note 1) mention is made of John Daly. It says QUOTE: One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting: “In an odd way this is cheering news.” UNQUOTE. This alleged E-mail is presented more fully elsewhere (Note 2).
It is important to remain sceptical about the validity of this “leak” of information and await the results of a thorough investigation. (Is anyone in the news media doing something along these lines?). Despite this, there is a saying “there’s no smoke without fire”. It is interesting to see that there appeared to be an exchange of E-mails between John Daly and Phil Jones back in 2001 (Note 3). This item starts with QUOTE: After several requests by visitors to this website for details of the two emails which were sent by Phil Jones of CRU, demanding withdrawal of the articles about recent errors in CRU hemispheric temperatures, the following exchange of emails was made via a very large CC (110 addressees), with both of Jones’ emails signed in his official capacity as professor at CRU. UNQUOTE. It is followed by an apparent exchange of E-mails between John Daly and Phil Jones.
I leave you to read them and draw your own conclusions. While you’re at it, have a read of the comments at Wattsupwiththat (Note 2). There are some interesting comments about that site favoured by supporters of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis, Realclimate (Note 4). It leads off with an article spinning the motivations behind what appears in the E-mails followed by some uncharacteristic defensive responses to readers’ comments by Gavin Schmidt.
Another interesting commentary on this is at ClimateAudit (Note 5).
NOTES:
1) see http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
2) see http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/
3) see http://www.john-daly.com/cru/emails.htm
4) see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/comment-page-10/
5) see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7810
Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnos(cep)tic
November 11, 2009 at 3:21 am
Global truth, here:
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/how-about-another-cup-of-coffee-global-warming-conspiracy/
November 11, 2009 at 3:07 am
Global Lying
by Thomas Sowell (June 10, 2002)
The campaign to stampede the federal government into drastic action to counter “global warming” has never let honesty cramp its style. The most recent ploy has been the release of a study from the Environmental Protection Agency which concluded that human actions were responsible for rising temperatures and that government restrictions on those actions were necessary to prevent various disastrous scenarios from unfolding.
The problem is that all this hysteria was based on a computer model which had been shown to be incompatible with factual data. Patrick Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, had already exposed the inability of that computer model to account for existing temperature changes before its release to the public was allowed to suggest that it was able to predict future temperature changes.
This is by no means the first time that a supposedly “scientific” report turned out to be a political report wrapping itself in the mantle of science. Last year, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report, garnished with the names of numerous eminent scientists, which was widely hailed in the media as proving the dangers of global warming. The problem with that particular report was that the scientists whose names were put on display had not written the report nor even seen it before it was released.
One of those eminent scientists, MIT professor Richard S. Lindzen, publicly repudiated the conclusions of the study on which his name had been displayed. As Professor Lindzen, a meteorologist, pointed out, “the climate is always changing. Innumerable factors go into temperature changes and many of these factors, such as the changing amounts of heat put out by the sun during different eras, are beyond the control of human beings.”
The same kind of ploy was used by a United Nations report on climate in 1996. After the scientists had reviewed the report, the following sentence was added, without their knowledge — “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” But that is not what the scientists said.
What are all these ploys about? There are people in the environmental cult and in the media who are hell-bent to have the United States and other countries sign the Kyoto treaty that would drastically restrict how our economy works and what kind of lives the average American could lead.
Anything that allows them to impose their superior wisdom and virtue on the rest of us gets a sympathetic hearing. Moral melodrama also has great appeal to some. As Eric Hoffer said, “Intellectuals cannot operate at room temperature.”
Every record hot day is trumpeted in the media as showing global warming. But record cold days are mentioned only as isolated curiosities, if they are mentioned at all.
Environmental cults have already stampeded us into recycling programs that studies have shown to be counterproductive — except for appeasing shrill zealots and allowing them to feel like they are saving the planet.
In the 1970s, the big scare was global cooling — a “new ice age.” And of course drastic government action was needed to head it off. There has to be moral melodrama.
The real question is not whether human beings have any effect on temperature. The question is: How much? And how much can we change the temperature — and at what price? And what if we do nothing? What will happen? And how dire will it be?
Professor Michaels estimates that most of the global warming over the past century has been due to the sun’s getting hotter. If we do everything the Kyoto treaty calls for, it would not lower the average temperature in the world by half a degree over the next 50 years. But it could wreck some economies.
And what if we do nothing? Actually there are benefits to global warming, such as a longer growing season, but we are not likely to see a lot of those benefits because there is not likely to be a lot of warming. Moreover, it is mostly the very cold places that are getting warmer. As Professor Michaels points out, “Siberia has warmed from minus 40 to minus 28 in January.” Is anyone complaining — other than professional complainers and professional doomsayers?
Thomas Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college.
Please contact your local newspaper editor if you want to read the THOMAS SOWELL column in your hometown paper.
November 11, 2009 at 12:56 am
A few papers Oreskes missed…
450 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
November 10, 2009 at 9:04 am
Is Jim Hansen the Granddaddy of them all when it comes to Alarmism?
Catching Jim Hansen exaggerating about climate change again
NASA’s supreme global warming scaremeister, Jim Hansen, has given a speech to The Club Of Rome (don’t even go there, that’s a conspiracy theory all of its own), once again claiming it is do or die on climate change.
Or was it do or lie?
Here’s what he told them about a week ago, about this photo of surface water on a Greenland glacier disappearing down a plughole in the ice:
The meltwater runs to a low spot on the ice surface, where it burrows a hole in the ice sheet that carries the water all the way to base of the ice sheet. The meltwater lubricates the base of the ice sheet, accelerating the discharge of giant icebergs to the ocean. This is one of the processes causing ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica to increase.
Now Jim’s a hero to our friends at Hot Topic, and you only have to look down their twitter alerts to know that because they twittered this speech. But it turns out both Jim Hansen and Hot Topic should have paid more attention to the scientific studies quoted in Air Con, such as the one from University of Washington/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution last year that says:
“New findings indicate that while surface melt plays a substantial role in ice sheet dynamics, it may not produce large instabilities leading to sea level rise.”
The study, which measure ice sheet movement using RADARSAT and ground based GPS, describes meltwater as “inconsequential” in the grand scheme of things – directly contradicting Hansen’s Chicken Little take on things above.
Another study quoted in Air Con, published in the journal Science late last year, reaches similar findings. Utrecht University researchers found that the water disappearing down the plug hole did indeed lubricate the base of the ice sheet, but only briefly before it refroze and glued the ice sheet back to the bedrock.
“Ultimately, this is not a cause of accelerated sea level rise” reported the study.
Beam Jim up, Scotty, he needs re-programming.
Posted by iwishart on November 09, 2009 at 03:49 PM | Permalink
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November 9, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Robert S response to Ed:
I don’t confuse weather with climate but can’t say the same about the alarmists.
If it is a hot day it’s climate change.
If it’s an unusually cool day it’s weather.
Guess what, weather makes climate, and climate drives weather.
The two are interlinked just like dancing the tango.
Hey nothing wrong mixing musical drama and science.
The alarmists do it all the time, but to a much greater degree. That’s why they are called ALARMISTS.
Ed Darrell Says:
November 9, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Can you or anyone imagine a planet where the climate never changes. Perhaps you’re familiar with the lyrics to ‘Camelot’, A law was made a distant moon ago here, July and August may not be too hot, by order summer lingers through September in Camelot, if you know the tune you can sing to it.
But is these what you alarmists envisage a Camelot scenario? Give me a break.
You confuse weather with climate. You confuse musical drama with science.
Below is an article from sceptics that are emerging more and more out of the wood works as they become aware of this farce called man made climate change.
And would it really kill you to once note a source?
November 9, 2009 at 1:26 pm
You confuse weather with climate. You confuse musical drama with science.
And would it really kill you to once note a source?
November 9, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Bogus claim.
$100 billion would have gone a long ways toward fixing the problem. I’ll wager you can’t verify more than $10 billion in studies, if that much.
That would be one order of magnitude off. You may be too high by two orders of magnitude.
If you’re grossly in error on such claims, how can we grant you credence on any claim?
November 9, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Response to Ed:
Ed this is precisely want Alarmism is all about. You are taking alrmists’ interpretations, and not questioning whether these people have an agenda, or is it just simply that if one includes the word climate change then they get funding. Very lucrative.
Todate 100billion dollars spent trying to prove man made climate change is happening. And the science is settled?
Below is an article from sceptics that are emerging more and more out of the wood works as they become aware of this farce called man made climate change.
Can you or anyone imagine a planet where the climate never changes. Perhaps you’re familiar with the lyrics to ‘Camelot’, A law was made a distant moon ago here, July and August may not be too hot, by order summer lingers through September in Camelot, if you know the tune you can sing to it.
But is these what you alarmists envisage a Camelot scenario? Give me a break.
From The Times
October 22, 2007
Today’s forecast: yet another blast of hot air
Why I would rather be called a heretic on global warming
David Bellamy
Recommend? (13)
Am I worried about man-made global warming? The answer is “no” and “yes”.
No, because the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction has come up against an “inconvenient truth”. Its research shows that since 1998 the average temperature of the planet has not risen, even though the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has continued to increase.
Yes, because the self-proclaimed consensus among scientists has detached itself from the questioning rigours of hard science and become a political cause. Those of us who dare to question the dogma of the global-warming doomsters who claim that C not only stands for carbon but also for climate catastrophe are vilified as heretics or worse as deniers.
I am happy to be branded a heretic because throughout history heretics have stood up against dogma based on the bigotry of vested interests. But I don’t like being smeared as a denier because deniers don’t believe in facts. The truth is that there are no facts that link the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming. Instead of facts, the advocates of man-made climate change trade in future scenarios based on complex and often unreliable computer models.
Name-calling may be acceptable in politics but it should have no place in science; indeed, what is happening smacks of McCarthyism, witch-hunts and all. Scientific understanding, however, is advanced by robust, reasoned argument based on well-researched data. So I turn to simple sets of data that are already in the public domain.
The last peak global temperatures were in 1998 and 1934 and the troughs of low temperature were around 1910 and 1970. The second dip caused pop science and the media to cry wolf about an impending, devastating Ice Age. Our end was nigh!
Then, when temperatures took an upward swing in the 1980s, the scaremongers changed their tune. Global warming was the new imminent catastrophe.
But the computer model – called “hockey stick” – that predicted the catastrophe of a frying planet proved to be so bent that it “disappeared” from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s armoury of argument in 2007. It was bent because the historical data it used to predict the future dated from only the 1850s, when the world was emerging from the Little Ice Age. Little wonder that temperatures showed an upward trend.
In the Sixties I used to discuss climate change with my undergraduates at Durham University. I would point to the plethora of published scientific evidence that showed the cyclical nature of change – and how, for instance, the latest of a string of ice ages had affected the climate, sea levels and tree lines around the world. Thank goodness the latest crop of glaciers and ice sheets began to wane in earnest about 12,000 years ago; this gave Britain a window of opportunity to lead the industrial revolution.
The Romans grew grapes in York and during the worldwide medieval warm period – when civilizations blossomed across the world – Nordic settlers farmed lowland Greenland (hence its name) and then got wiped out by the Little Ice Age that lasted roughly from the 16th century until about 1850.
There is no escaping the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising for 150 years – and very uniformly since the 1950s. Yet the temperature has not increased in step with CO2. Not only have there been long periods of little change in temperature, but also the year-to-year oscillations are totally unrelated to CO2 change. What is more, the trend lines of glacial shortening and rise in sea level have shown no marked change since the big increase in the use of fossil fuels since 1950.
How can this be explained unless there are other factors at work overriding the greenhouse effect of CO2? There are, of course, many to be found in the peer-reviewed literature: solar cycles, cosmic rays, cloud control and those little rascals, such as El Niño and La Niña, all of which are played down or even ignored by the global-warming brigade.
Let’s turn to Al Gore’s doom-laden Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. First, what is the point of scaring the families of the world with tales that polar bears are heading for extinction? Last year Mitchell Taylor, of the US National Biological Service, stated that “of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.”
Why create alarm about a potential increase in the spread of malaria thanks to rising temperatures when this mosquito-borne disease was a major killer of people in Britain and northern Russia throughout the Little Ice Age?
Despite the $50 billion spent on greenwashing propaganda, the sceptics and their inconvenient questions are beginning to make their presence felt.
A recent survey of Klaus-Martin Schulte, of Kings College Hospital, of all papers on the subject of climate change that were published between 2004 and February of 2007 found that only 7 per cent explicitly endorsed a “so-called consensus” position that man-made carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic global warming. What is more, James Lovelock, the author and green guru, has changed his mind: he recently stated that neither Earth nor the human race is doomed.
Yes, melting sea ice around Greenland has recently opened up the fabled North West passage. And, yes, the years 2006 and 2007 have seen massive flooding in Europe. However, a quick dip into the records of the Royal Society – which ranked alongside Dr Lovelock as arch doomsters, before his change of mind – shows that dramatic fluctuations happened long before the infernal combustion engine began spewing out carbon dioxide.
The year 1816 went down in history as the “year without a summer”, thanks to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia that veiled much of the world with dust, screening out the Sun. Yet in 1817, while still in the grip of the Little Ice Age, the Royal Society was so worried that 2,000 square leagues of sea ice around Greenland had disappeared within two years, and massive flooding was taking place in Germany, that its president wrote to the Admiralty advising of the necessity of an expedition to find out what was the source of this new heat.
November 9, 2009 at 8:19 am
Robert S. said:
One more way we can tell you didn’t read any of those sites, or if you read them, you didn’t bother to understand them.
The first site, at NASA, is factual:
Exactly what denialists are denying.
Check the second site, Worldometers, and under “environment” it shows speeding and spreading desertification and deforestation, which is both a cause and a result of warming in a vicious feedback spiral.
And then we realize your math is out the window because it doesn’t include a calculation for the century it takes excessive CO2 to settle from the atmosphere to the oceans (see the NASA site again), nor do you account for warming oceans — which, since the oceans are more massive, means warming is much farther along that you allow, and farther along than even those you call “alarmists” said a decade ago.
Look at the facts, RS, your facts — if we do nothing, we’re screwed.
November 9, 2009 at 6:24 am
Here is another sceptic I would not like to argue with unless of course there is a part of your brain missing.
Colin Dixon Posted: 15 August 2009 01:20 AM
Senior Member
Total Posts: 298
Joined: 2009-06-10 The 1km of atmosphere is a poor 1d example the atmosphere on earth os on a sphere 3D so all your maths is way out.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanClimate/ocean-atmos_chem.php
http://www.worldometers.info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean
its volume is approximately 1.3 billion cubic kilometers
1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000kg 1.3 x 10^21 ( assuming 1kg per litre)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth’s_atmosphere
mass of about five quadrillion metric tons
5,000,000,000,000,000kg 5 x 10^15
Ocean / Atmosphere = 2,600,000 2.6 x 10 ^5
according to my maths and research the water in the oceans is 2,6 million times more significant than the
atmosphere.. do you think this number may be significant in the climate change debate?
I don’t think we are in for any dangerous warming in any hurry.
November 9, 2009 at 5:18 am
Epic science there, Bob.
November 8, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Hi Ed:
I havent had the time lately to post but please be assured I still read your posts and really find them very amusing. Simply because your postings are more fitting for a cartoon series.
Much of what you say has very little fact as you knit and pick your way through the volume of intelligent information that is out there to make it suit your point of biased view.
Keep up the good work I’m sure a lot of readers enjoy a good chuckle.
robert s
November 7, 2009 at 9:56 am
So we see the latest meme of the crazies. I note that at the risk of offending Robert S., but there is no other way to accurately describe it. He said:
Of all the crazy claims out there, the idea that Al Gore carried his presentations around the world for two years, the film makers made the film, and the IPCC got going in the 1980s, in order that climate scientists could take over the world, ranks up there with concerns that “Pinky and the Brain” cartoons are secret messages to other mice to rise up and, um, take over the world.
For at least the last 5,000 years of human history, the part we have records on, the way to “take over” any part of the world has been to raise an army and invade somebody else. Our experience in the 20th and 21st centuries reveal no changes in those methods have ever worked. The Summer of Love didn’t get the U.S. out of Vietnam, the Prague Spring of 1968 didn’t push the Soviet tanks out of Czechslovakia. Artists’ paintings, poets’ poetry, protest singers’ songs have had no great influence on reducing war. Pete Seeger turned 90 this year, and all of his anti-war songs are just as valid as they were when he started singing them 70 years ago.
The idea that scientists who study ice cores, weather, atmospheric chemistry at high altitudes, pollen in lake sediments, and ice thickness, would be engaged in a plot to take over the world demonstrates an astounding, malignant ignorance of world history, warfare, science and politics.
I’ll wager Monckton cannot make that argument and survive a sanity hearing.
November 7, 2009 at 9:45 am
Robert S. had claimed that the Earth has 40% more vegetation than in 1970, all due to increased carbon dioxide. Knowing that CO2 is not the limiting factor on growth on about 99% of plants in the world (water is the first; nitrogen the second; sunlight and heat the third; CO2 may be fourth in some places, but all that means is that more CO2 can’t increase the growth of most plants, especially beneficial ones; I’m working solely from very old memory here), I challenged the claim.
Robert S. responded with an admission he might have been a bit in error, and this:
So, instead of 40% increase, we get a perhaps 6% increase with one anecdotal account of increased production of beneficial plants where El Nino didn’t work as it usually does, and warnings from the authors that global warming is a problem.
Robert S., my experience is that each and every one of the claims by the warming “skeptics” breaks down in exactly the same way — the data do not say what the so-called skeptics claim, and the data sources note that the benefits are fleeting, or are symptoms of global warming, and generally are signs of more damage.
Alas.
November 5, 2009 at 2:26 pm
More sloppy citations.
Note that it was a 1997 press release from the National Academy of Science, Robert, and please note that the study confirmed that warming causes harm. Quoting that part of the release in its entirety:
November 5, 2009 at 11:49 am
Ed Darrell Says:
—————————
Ed, why dont you get serious as this man made global warming thing is not about the climate but world governance.
whether you Like Monckton or not he is not receiving any goverment grants for his role in letting everyone know the skullduggery going on behind the scenes.
———————————————-
Not being suckered, however I may have been a little
lose with my numbers.
This is from another blog. My thanks to Pete Ridley on this one.
regarding global plant growth, NASA “climate-vegetation interactions” expert Dr. Ramakrishna Nemani (Note 1) says (Note 2) QUOTE: Between 1982 and 1999, 25 percent of the Earth’s vegetated area experienced increasing plant productivity—a total increase of about 6 percent, UNQUOTE but does not put this down to increased atmospheric CO2 content (he wouldn’t, would he). The paper, which is worth a read, includes QUOTE: Nemani says it would be nice if the next decade were as favorable for plants as the past two seem to have been. “Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing yet whether climate changes will continue to have a positive effect on vegetation productivity,” he cautions. “India, for example, got a blessing from nature during the 1990s. For 100 years, there has been a strong relationship between El Niñoo and the monsoon season that brings rain to India and Southeast Asia; El Niñoo events interrupt the monsoon and create drought. In the 1990s, that relationship broke down, and the monsoon rains came despite a severe and persistent El Niño.” As a result, while much of the globe saw a decrease in productivity during El Niño events, India was one of the places where productivity increased. Whether the region can count on such a lucky break this decade can’t be predicted. UNQUOTE. I love those last three words.
You may be interested in comparing what Dr. Nemani says about what “can’t be predicted “ and what Professor David Schimel said in the National Science Foundation’s paper in 1997 “Plant Growth Surges After Global Temperature Spikes, Scientists Report” (Note 3). Dr. David Schimel (at that time with The National Center for Atmospheric Research) said QUOTE: the results highlight the power of new data sets on global change, as well as the usefulness of computer models that connect the atmosphere and biosphere. .. We were looking specifically for delayed ecosystem responses in this study because they had been predicted by the models, UNQUOTE.
It seems that even the scientists who support The (significant human-made climate change ) Hypothesis cannot agree on the ability of those computer models to predict anything worthwhile.
Thanks for the comment and the information about those natural oil spills. If the environmentalists find out we’ll have them condemning Mother Nature as well as us humans. Greenpeace will be out in force demonstrating against these seepages.
NOTES:
1) see http://experts.nasa.gov/get_expert.php?id=1543
2) see http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden/
3) see http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102841
Best regards, Pete Ridley, human-made global climate change agnostic
November 4, 2009 at 6:42 am
Got a source on that? I’ve not seen any calculation which does not arrive at reduced biomass due to deforestation and desertification.
Either you’re making up statistics on the spot, or you’re being suckered by someone who is.
November 4, 2009 at 12:35 am
robert s response:
Ed Darrell Says:
November 2, 2009 at 1:33 pm
And plants today still need CO2 to create food for all life on earth, yes even alarmists like you. and it is down to 385 ppm.Very precarious indeed if it goes any lower guess what will happen to life on earth. Here’s another fact to ponder: for every CO2 released there are 2 molecules of oxygen waiting to be freed. Most life on earth need oxygen, I’m sure even you alarmists can see that.
This is why I have a difficult time taking these claims seriously.
If CO2 goes a lot lower, life on Earth won’t be significantly affected. It’s not “down to” 385 ppm; that’s the highest levels recorded in human history. Above 350 ppm, some have predicted runaway greenhouse effect — like Venus has.
385 means that a lot of the plants that used to act as sinks for carbon, are simply gone.
But this cavalier dismissal of a serious air pollution problem: How do you expect anyone to take you seriously?
You must be the most ignorant writer around making claims like above.
FACT: the earth today has 40% more vegetaton since 1970 which is dur to increased CO2.
All is not lost yet with you obviously you dont believe that incredibly naive goldilocks story put forth by some unscientific personn when you said that some believe….like venus.
Venus is 95% CO2. The weight of the atmosphere is so heavy that even a thick skull like yours would be crushed under it’s weight. Bet you don’t know that.
Is it any wonder then that the surface temperature is over 400 deg c.
the reason you are having problems taking these facts seriously is because what you know is what you have been told. you obviously have not made any personal efforts to do any research and so you just mouth the mantra.
November 2, 2009 at 1:33 pm
This is why I have a difficult time taking these claims seriously.
If CO2 goes a lot lower, life on Earth won’t be significantly affected. It’s not “down to” 385 ppm; that’s the highest levels recorded in human history. Above 350 ppm, some have predicted runaway greenhouse effect — like Venus has.
385 means that a lot of the plants that used to act as sinks for carbon, are simply gone.
But this cavalier dismissal of a serious air pollution problem: How do you expect anyone to take you seriously?
November 2, 2009 at 1:29 pm
So, with more than 3,000 peer-reviewed studies dating back more than 60 years, all attesting to the fact and causes of global warming, you don’t have a single one in rebuttal?
And you can’t figure out why scientists don’t pay attention?
November 2, 2009 at 11:57 am
reply to Ed Darell by robert s :
Thanks for your prompt response. You have just proved my point in your statement:
where’s the denialist who has any data to prove warming wrong?
This is the line the AGW scamsters use.
We dont have to prove you wrong. You have to prove you’re right.
Remember the story of Chicken Little, she never had any proof the sky was falling and ran off in a panic because an acorn fell on her head.
You alarmists are worse than chicken little because everything must be falling on your heads and it ain’t the sky.
How about the globe warming up after the little ice age which ended around 1870. Was the earth supposed to get cooler after coming out of an ice age. No 1 knock on you heads.
No 2 knock on your chicken little heads, the vostok ice core data, it showed that CO2 followed warming,
Al gore knew this before he made his unscientific fiction movie, but he still made it just to keep you chicken little people happy and in turn you chicken little people will make him plenty of carbon credit money.
No 3 knock on your chicken little heads, the mann hockey stick. Was this or was this not a deliberate attempt to deceive you chicken little fans. Even numbers out of a phone book would give the hockey stick affect. And it goes on and on and on.
The honest people who believe that man is responsible for global warming do just that, believe.
They are the average 9 – 5 workers, dont have the luxury or the inclination after a hard day’s work to do any research on this so called global warming being caused by humans.
But you cant fool all of the people most of the time.
To say that 385 ppm of CO2 is going to force warming, I mean you goota have the imaginationof a godzilla movie fan to think that even tripling this amount is even going to have any significant effect.
That this CO2 is a pollutant and is going to take us past a tipping point of no return. What a load of Bull droppings. The earth started off with no oxygen and had CO2 instead. Oxygen is the pollutant that remained after certain creatures evolved in the early part of earth’s history and started to convert the massive amount of CO2 that was in the air that made up part of the earth’s early atmosphere.
If the environmentalists had been around then they would have tried to stop the stromatolites
(see http://pilbara.mq.edu.au/wiki/Stromatolites )
from doing their job of converting CO2 to oxygen, perhaps might have been the earliest form of cap and trade eh.
Inspite of all that CO2 there never was a dangerous tipping point reached ever. And plants today still need CO2 to create food for all life on earth, yes even alarmists like you. and it is down to 385 ppm.Very precarious indeed if it goes any lower guess what will happen to life on earth. Here’s another fact to ponder: for every CO2 released there are 2 molecules of oxygen waiting to be freed. Most life on earth need oxygen, I’m sure even you alarmists can see that.
And now today the world is cooling and CO2 is still going up, not exactly following the ipcc models is it. So the models are now putting out what the humans behind it put in..GARBAGE..and for that we in the developed countries have to pay a tax for, and hand over our country’s sovereignty for?! Go f..k yourselves.
Now you see what I mean when I say that global warming is a hoax.
November 2, 2009 at 10:24 am
1. There’s no indication of any hoax in global warming science. Frankly, I can’t see how a hoax could be maintained with 15,000 participants, most of whom are sworn to reveal hoaxes. I cannot imagine how anyone could have any understanding of science and make such a claim.
2. No entity nor group of entities has spent $100 billion on research into anything, with the possible exception of nuclear weapons. If you disagree, please show us the numbers.
3. Experiments and measurements being made now are not repeats of old experiments, but rather the collection of hard data to help figure out how to mitigate the damages, and how bad the damage is and will be.
4. Show me a denier who has had funding cut off from oil companies. Please.
5. You said:
I can’t find that proposal, not in Waxman-Markey, not in the Kyoto Treaty, nor any other proposal. What proposal are you talking about? Can you be specific as to section, please so we can see the language?
6. So, you won’t listen to Oreskes. That’s a key part of the problem. People who don’t want to get up off their donkeys won’t listen to the facts, historical, scientific, nor anything else.
7. You said:
So, where’s the denialist who has any data to prove warming wrong?
November 2, 2009 at 10:12 am
global warming is the greatest hoax of the century.
I repeat:global warming is the greatest hoax of the century.
Todate 100 billion dollars spent on proving that it exists and the goverments are still giving out grants to prove that it exists.
For heavens sake if the science is settled why do the tax payers keep forking out this money to keep proving it over and over again.
Now the alarmists cant even say that the deniers are being paid by the oil companies because they are in on the act too. This cap and trade scheme is going to be the biggest ponzie scheme yet that the world has ever seen. Without going into details just think of the enormosity of this scheme. As the entities with the most money purchase as much of the carbon credits only to resell it down the line. Goverments are going to try to keep ahead of this economic monster by trying to bring in legislation after legislation but by the same token they’ll be screwing everyone as they reduce the amount of credits available thereby driving up the prices to higher and higher levels until the whole thing collapses and the average joe on the street finds himself back about a hundred or so years ago with his living standards. This is the future you alarmists want for your children?
I wouldn’t waste my time listening to oreskes. she may fool some of the people but she wont fool me. only idots would fall for the line that there is no uncertainty in the science.
Einstein once said “it doesn’t take a hundred experiments to prove me right. It only takes one to prove me wrong.”
So the alarmists in the ipcc can go on playing with their xboxes and other toy computers, but it will never replace real science. Climate does not come out of a computer. Remember GIGO and that’s what you got today with so called computer modelings.
October 24, 2009 at 11:33 am
It’s part and parcel of the same denialist appeal to authority that leads to
cretinistscreationists’ compiling of lists of scientists who deny evolution – if you look closely, you find names of people who don’t exist, who don’t deny the science, who don’t work in the field, and so on.It does make me wonder – how much overlap is there between the various kinds of denialists? We know that a certain segment of creationists disbelieve in global warming because they don’t think their god would allow it. Is denialism simply a general thing that gets applied to any old thing, or is it more specific?
October 23, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Dozens of scientists dispute warming, not hundreds, not thousands, not tens of thousands. That’s the point of Oreskes’s lecture, that people are hoodwinked into thinking there is science uncertainty where it doesn’t exist. Listen to the lecture.
If you listen to the lecture, you’ll see the context in which that last line is humorous.
October 23, 2009 at 11:44 am
“Global warming is here, and there are almost no communists left”
The first premise is hotly (pun?) contested by tens of thousands of scientists, so it is a breathtakingly arrogant (or stupid) assertion.
The second, that there are no more communists, is delusional … or conspiratorial.