Climate Alarmists: Understandable Motivations, Unknowable Results
On October 7, hordes of business executives prepped at the White House and then descended on (ascended to?) the Congress in support of climate change legislation. The thrust of their presentation was that cap and trade would stimulate the economy — particularly the economies of the companies for which they work.
Without even getting into dubious economic stuff, who would benefit financially or politically, or whether United States enactment of climate change legislation is needed to help President Obama confirm his humble place on the world stage, a useful preliminary question is whether any climate change legislation would have a beneficial impact on, well, the climate.
Al Gore et al. to the contrary notwithstanding, science has taken a backseat to ideology and financial interest, and the answer is not known. Carbon dioxide emissions — the focus of the current legislative efforts — may or may not contribute to climate change; if they are a significant causal factor, it is far from certain whether the change will be to make it warmer or cooler, better or worse.
Studies have shown that there seems to be a relationship between global warming and carbon dioxide concentrations; studies have also shown that warming trends occur before, and therefore not necessarily because of, increased carbon dioxide concentrations. Despite the lack of attention paid by the media, the world has been in a period of cooling for almost a decade and may well continue in that direction for at least the next couple of decades, despite (or even, perhaps, because of) the increases in carbon dioxide concentrations. The Arctic ice, said to be vanishing, may not be. According to a recent study, vector borne diseases (malaria, Lyme disease, etc.) have increased with warmer temperatures. The study, at least as reported in the article, does not seem to address the problem that we have had cooling for the past decade.
The only thing to be said with certainty is that there has been an increase in studies. “In 2008 alone, there were some 4000-odd peer-reviewed papers published on the topic.” One must wonder how many of them were funded by U.S. taxpayers.
Almost forty years ago, in the 1970s and as recently as the late 1980s, great concern was expressed about a coming carbon dioxide-induced ice age, and in 1986 it was claimed that something had to be done immediately to prevent global cooling from producing an ice age, likely to kill off a billion people due to reduced food production. Now global warming is itself the demon, likely to cause the planet to warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the current century. According to a report issued a few weeks ago by the United Nations Environment Program, this increase will occur “even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges.” This is a “much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago.”
It seems highly unlikely that all of those “most ambitious” pledges will be met. According to a January 2009 NOAA study, the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450-600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “Dust Bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise.
If so, it’s probably already too late to act; too much damage (if any?) has already been done.
One way to verify the predictive accuracy of a model is to put data from the past into it, predict the present, and see whether the prediction matches present conditions.
None of the alarmists and their supercomputer climate models ever predicted even a 30-year respite in their apocalyptic scenarios. Nor did they predict that the Sun, that thermonuclear furnace in the sky that has more influence on Earth’s climate than any number of Ford Explorers, would suddenly go quiet for an indefinite period. If the results don’t coincide with the model results, the model is wrong, the data are wrong, or both are wrong.
A few years back there was a study widely bruited about as the “definitive” peer reviewed treatise on Global Warming because it had been “endorsed” by over 30,000 “scientists.” A review of the qualifications of the “scientists”, done about six months later, showed that only 18 of them had a doctorate degree in either climatology or physical geography. A further 200 or so had degrees in mathematics/physics/chemistry or other “hard” analytic field. The rest? Social sciences, languages, and theology for the most part.
The global warming/environmentalism crowd has turned their belief system into a religion. Religion does not require irrefutable logic to be accepted. In fact, to the extent it presents unknowables as the gospel truth it avoids having to defend itself against criticism.
Choose life or choose death.
Sit in traffic and open your windows.
Jog next to a freeway.
Follow a diesel truck for miles.
Burn logs in your fireplace.
Cut down trees.
Understandable motivations?!? WTH?!? It’s about power. You sound like a AGW believer turned not so sure. But they mean well!!! No. They. Don’t! They want power. Unlimited power! It is NOT understandable. It is insane!
WHAT!!?? Ignore science!! Follow Al Gore!! The sky is falling!! Here is the whole little poem: When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.. .When you see what you have done, hoist a flag, and fire a gun! Old Navy maxim.
As someone who is old enough to remember the “ice age” climate scare of the Seventies (I was in college when it erupted in the scientific press), I note that at that time, it was a very few climatologists who were suggesting that a new “Ice Age” was possible- not probable, or even likely.
That didn’t stop the “progressive” crowd from going into panic mode, and demanding the total abolition of technology to “save Holy Mother Gaia” (the first time I’d heard that phrase, but unfortunately not the last). To hear them tell it, only a reversion to Bronze Age or even Stone Age “civilization” could save the planet; they of course would be running it on “collective” principles, which in fact were more like feudalism with them as the nobility and everyone else as the serfs (the French model, not the English one).
The fact that any such revision (even if it were possible) would have killed somewhere around 90% of humanity due to famine, pestilence, etc., was irrelevant to them, except for the ones who were hoping for it. Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” was their holy text, and it boiled down to “There are too many grotty humans on Earth, and the enlightened few- like me- are threatened by their existence.” Ehrlich’s book is still revered by many in that “enlightened” category today, in spite of the fact that every prediction he made in it in 1971 for the years 1973-2000 inclusive turned out to be wrong. (We were supposed to run out of fossil fuels in 1980, and food in 1990, among other things.)
Now here we are, thirty years later, with our governments about to tax us to death to “stop global warming”- and the “experts” saying that the only thing that will stop it… is exactly the same “solution” they demanded to stop “a new Ice Age”.
Since we’re talking about “assumptions”, it’s a reasonable assumption that when the same “proximate cause” is blamed for two diametrically-opposed “negative outcomes”, and the same solution is demanded in each case, it is the “solution” that is the prime desideratum, and the “assumptions” of “doomsday scenarios” are little more than excuses, or even scare tactics.
I notice that the people who were frightening us with an “Ice Age” thirty years ago are for the most part the same ones who are telling us we’ll all roast now (notably the infamous James Hansen, who should have been fired by NASA years ago). I also note that, then and now, they remain unalterably opposed to nuclear power and hydroelectric power, as “unnatural”; their ideal world uses no power, except perhaps for the “elite’”, like themselves. If we had gone to nuclear thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be having this “debate” now. (And don’t give me any crap about how “unsafe” nuclear power is; the United States Navy has used it in the most dangerous environment on earth- the oceans- without so much as a stubbed toe for half a century.)
The more unrealistic among them seem to believe they’ll still have some Barista at Starbuck’s getting them a latte’ when the rest of humanity- what’s left, that is- is engaged in subsistence farming including spreading “night soil” by hand to fertilize the coffee beans. Anyone so ignorant of what James Burke would refer to as the “Connections” in a technological society is not qualified to render an opinion, much less make decisions for the human race as a whole.
The ‘Climate Change’ debate- or more accurately, hysteria- is a three-decade-long fraud perpetrated on Western civilization by alienated pseudo-intellectuals whose primary goal is to make war on Western civilization, in the hope of destroying it and replacing it with a primitivist, pseudo-socialist, feudalist society operating at very poor efficiency- with themselves lording it over everyone else. All the “theories” and “solutions” they have demagogued all end in that scenario. And “cap and trade” is nothing more than an updated version of the Catholic Church’s selling of “papal indulgences” that Martin Luther saw for the fraud it actually was. In addition to being demagogues, they are confidence tricksters seeking to enrich themselves, with politicians of greater greed and power lust than rectitude jumping on the band-wagon looking for a fast payday.
And this time around, we shouldn’t buy into the scam. As Jimmy Doohan used to say, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
clear ether
eon
Y2Kyoto.
Choose life or choose death.
Or you could choose common sense or a least sanity. Carbon dioxide comprises .04% of greenhouse gases, of which man contributes 3%. Picture 100,000 molecules in the earth’s atmosphere. Forty are carbon dioxide. We are responsible for 1.2 of those 40 molecules. If we devastate our economy and cut out emissions by 20% we can reduce our contribution to one molecule in 100,000.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Jog next to a freeway.
Vivo,
Thanks for explaining why you aren’t capable of entering the sphere of rationality.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/yrej784wwnjc6cg6/
A moderate volcano will add hundreds of billions of tons of all types of toxic gas into the atmosphere, far more and far deadlier than anything humanity has accomplished in the last 200 years of the industrial age.
It was a Volcano that nearly wiped out humanity about 70,000 years ago
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stanley_ambrose.php
More than any other factor, volcanoes impact the earths environment from within the system. ( solar and asteroids, etc excluded)
The earth cools and heats as it must to maintain itself, it is a natural part of how this planet works. We are probably entering a cooling phase, and there is little anyone can do about it, regardless of the hysteria.
There is nothing wrong with cleaning up the environment, lord knows it needs it. The oceans are becoming a mess and Asia is about to undergo massive industrial expansion…its not a bad idea to have guidelines in place to maintain clean water, land and air.
But to believe we will prevent an ice age, is ego gone wild.
7. Booker T. Gain:
Let’s assume you’re right. Goodbye global warming.
Now let’s talk about man-made pollution:
“Some research has estimated that people living in the most polluted U.S. cities could lose between 1.8 and 3.1 years because of exposure to chronic air pollution. This has led some scientists to conclude that
1. Short-term exposure to elevated levels of particle pollution is associated with a higher risk of death due to a cardiovascular event.
2. Hospital admissions for several cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases rise in response to higher concentrations of particle pollution.
3. Prolonged exposure to elevated levels of particle pollution is a factor in reducing overall life expectancy by a few years.”
Maybe that’s what I meant to begin with.
No vivo, I won’t jog next to a freeway, due to the Carbon Monoxide emissions from the cars. I can feel the oxygen levels in my blood drop as cars drive by. As for the heat of a congested highway, that has far more to do with the fact that engines produce heat than the greenhouse effect.
alex #9, be careful. You’ll get folks thinking ‘we need to do something’ about the eruptions of thousands of active underwater volcanoes, hundreds of volcanoes above the ocean floor..
http://www.climatedepot.com/
Climatology is an infant science, although man has been praying and making sacrifices to the weather gods, it was the shamans who figured out how to profit from man’s fears.
The North American continent has been under 20 ice ages and warmings. It is said that we are in a 19,000 year warming trend. Al (the sky is falling) Gore cites his global warming from the 0.8 degree increased estimated temperature of the last 100 years.
What adds to the burden of the junk science is the change in measurement techniques that have been multiplying over the last 30 years. Global cooling became global warming became climate change. The instruments of measurement have changed while the fears of man and the kickbacks to the shamans have not. Welcome to the weather tax.
Some research has estimated that people living in the most polluted U.S. cities could lose between 1.8 and 3.1 years because of exposure to chronic air pollution
While that is entirely feasible, what about the tradeoff of increased lifespan because of innovations that can only come about because of the network effects of having people live in cities?
Some tradeoffs are worth making.
Vivo
Every technological breakthrough humans have made has led to an increase in life expectancy.
Pre agricultural man had a life expectancy of about 30-40 yrs. Pre industrial revolution life expectancy was 50-60 years.
All things in life have inherant risk. Managing risk is how we move forward. Aleviating risk is how we stagnate and die.
The further we retrograde our society the further we are going to decrease life expectancy. The net gain is greater than the net loss with further technological innovation. And as it has been drilled into us by everyone who wants to control that innovation, it is all about the “greater good”. I will take cars, pollution and a greater quality of life, over a pristine environment with a dirt hovel and only a campfire to keep me warm.
One can wave papers with climate statistics all day long, there will still be only one constant: confusion.
“Global warming” or “climate change” is the largest and most elaborate hoax that has ever been conceived against mankind. Anyone who believes in it has been brainwashed. Any politician who believes it is incapable of independent thought and should be removed from office at the earliest possible opportunity.
15
I see we hit upon the same point. It is amazingly ignorant to think that we can radically change one thing about the dynamics of our economic system without impacting others.
The other thing environmentalists who long for some imagined “golden age” miss is that even if such a “golden age” ever existed, it is obvious that the people who were actually alive during it were dissatisfied enough to push technology forward toward what we have today, however incrementally. Environmentalists embrace what their ancestors rejected. It’s an odd sort of mentality.
Even if climate change were not an issue, the sheer amount of pollution from carbon-emitting fossil fuels would still be a huge threat to the environment, and well worth the effort of cap & trade. I’m not suggesting that climate change is not impacted by human activity – just that the focus on AGW denial does a disservice to the broader problems of using coal, oil and natural gas.
The pollution and environmental degradation caused by using fossil fuels is a hazard to humans and the ecosystem. Moving to sustainable and clean technologies has results that are very knowable – reductions in pollution, and improvements in environmental quality. Set aside the climate argument and there is still an undeniably strong case for controlling emissions.
Peace.
DS
- We nevertheless feel an urgent need to do something, if only to assuage our guilty consciences or to achieve political goals.
For a dangerously large number of morally adolescent individuals, these two things go hand-in-hand.
Guilt is a huge factor in religion, thus it’s no surprise that global warming hysteria has taken on almost all of the trappings of institutionalized religion – right down to the hypocritical ‘clergy’ who preach one behavior while practicing a different one that is far less orthodox.
When – in some people’s minds – observable, verifiable reality can be demoted to the status of “anecdotal evidence” and thus deemed insufficient to discredit theories whose “proof” exists only in computer models (models which have failed, utterly, to model the last ten years of global cooling in response to increased CO2), we’re dealing with hysterical religious fanaticism, not science. No rational recommendation can be expected to emerge from such an irrational mindset.
Volcanos? It’s obviously God’s fault. G. Bush couldn’t swing this one. LOL
Good article on the physics behind a variety of “alternative fuels”.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469
I am in full agreement with #5 eon. The Solution predated the supposed problem, and the Solution is the solution to each and any problem that arises: collectivism under the leadership of the Truly Wise and Enlightened. And pay no attention to the drooling little toad behind the curtain Dorothy, its reactionary and racist as well.
But is doesn’t matter. If AGW is totally discredited and abandoned the proponents of the Solution will find a new problem, the Answer to which, will be the Solution.
I have heard about the DDT thing… the super rich… like less population… and DDT was too good (stop malaria too well)
so…. they banned it… hmmmm interest …. how all this works… (they get their way and more die and less population)
now we have….
Climate… that is not us but we should all pay real big taxes to the MOMMY Govn to help fix a none problem…
Power and Control of Govn (maybe puppet govn) so we have less freedom and they (govn) have more power…
another Super Rich Play…hmmmmmmmmmmmmm…. maybe….
It’s always the same!
When all else fails, the “let’s be reasonable” crowd steps in with its, “What’s the worst that can happen? We clean up the environment!” argument.
News Flash — CO2 is NOT dirt.
We’re not cleaning up anything when we’re reducing CO2. Okay.
So that dog won’t hunt.
jd
We have been working to clean our environment. What we have been able to do with fossil fuels and scrubbers is remarkable. We have done it with a
“gradual” increase in cost that has been affordable. Our technology will continue to advance at an affordable rate. The cap and trade along with this new international treaty is not affordable and will spread the wealth of our nation to those developing countries that have not been working to clean their environment. The wealth will not reach their huddled masses but will stall at the political level as it has with the likes of al gore, friends of the joyce foundation etc. but the bottom line is that we the consumers cannot afford it. We will not benefit from it and neither will the environment.
A good read for the thinking people here.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2469
Peace brother David,
Humans have been using fossil fuels since the discovery of fire in order to keep warm. We now live three times as long as people did before they started using fossil fuels to stay warm. So, what is the problem with fossil fuels?
Maybe you want to drive 3 times as many miles as your father did and you want the people, who empower you to do so, to pay for your imagined pollution behind you. I bet the truth is that you just don’t like the people who provide your fossil fuels and expect you to pay them for their service to you.
Cap and Trade is just another government extortion scheme and saving the planet is just a cloak to hide it in. Government is doing the stealing that the law prevents you from doing, and you approve of it.
@27. Jim Baker:
We now live three times as long as people did before they started using fossil fuels to stay warm. So, what is the problem with fossil fuels?
Well, part of the problem is that there are billions of people now living longer, and consuming increasing amounts of fossil fuel, creating massive amounts of pollution.
The truth is that burning fossil fuels has costs that none of us are paying directly right now – externalized costs in the damage done to the environment, which is part of the commons. This is a cost that we are passing on to others, and which we should instead be paying up front. It is a massive subsidy to the worst fuel sources we have available. The economic benefit of hiding these costs is far outweighed by the damage caused.
The problem with fossil fuels is that they are the wrong source of power for the long term.
Peace.
DS
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
-C S Lewis
D’Oh! – I have that printed and displayed in the middle of my cork board for regular reading. That’s why it’s called totalitarianism. Government in every aspect of your life. Peace on that!
David S. writes:
The problem with fossil fuels is that they are the wrong source of power for the long term.
It all depends what you mean by the “long term.” Five years, fifty, one hundred, one thousand, what? And I do not accuse you personally of being in this crowd, but a lot of the people who take such a position are vehemently against nuclear power which could provide 100% of our energy needs except for the opposition of (often) the same people who are opposed to our use of fossil fuels.
And then there are the scientifically illiterate people who think we can provide all our energy needs by solar and wind power.
Criticism of the status quo is easy. Coming up with a viable alternative isn’t. Focus on the adjective “viable.”
What’s your solution David S.? An inquiring mind would like to know.
Peace out David,
Wrong, as usual. Fossil fuels ARE currently the best source of energy, because 5 million people are providing it to you more cheaply than you can get any other source of energy. Why don’t you spend a little time and effort trying to actually produce a better energy supply that costs less, and if you ever can, I will believe your assertion that fossil fuels are the wrong source of energy for the long term.
Like your cohorts, you do nothing but sit on your butt and claim that you know a better way. I could not care less what you think you know, I want to see you produce an energy source I can use. Until then, stop talking about using my tax dollars to produce an alternative to something that I can already get with a few of the dollars I have left to spend for the benefit my own family.
As to your grave reference to overpopulation, there has never been a time when food was more plentiful for everyone than it is right now. And that is, in part, because of a plentiful supply of fossil fuels energy.
DS: Do you even think before you write? Or are you so thoroughly inculcated in progressive dogma that thinking is negated intentionally or impossible structurally?
The sum of both of your posts is:living in caves-good; living in modern society-bad.
Geez, well give up your computer and all the other geek things, walk to work (if in fact you do work and not live in your parent’s basement), and of course throw out your entertainment system and fridge. Not only are you a fraud because you will not give up these conveninces of modern living, but worse you want others to live that way while you live like the grand puba you think you are.
You must be incapable of digesting what is being said so I’ll try on your level: The technology- wait,the means-to live in modern times without fossil- sorry, dirty, earth made- burning fuels is not available yet.
The climate change science is loony. Remember the furore over acid rain in the 1970s. It was caused by sulphur in emissions from coal power stations getting into the upper atmosphre and forming mild sulphuric acid. Did quite a lot of damage to forests.
Now these goons are talking abour pumping sulphur into the upper atmosphere. Sort memories I guess.
A fine and well reasoned article…until.
WHY bring up that of which one apparently DOESN’T know?
Banning DDT did NOT “save a few lives”.
J. Gordon Edwards, “The Lies of Rachel Carson,” 21st Century, Summer 1992.
Edwards, a professor emeritus at San Jose State University in California, drank a spoonful of DDT in front of his entomology classes at the beginning of each school year, to make the point that DDT is not harmful to human beings. Now 83, and still fighting for the truth about DDT, Edwards is an avid mountain climber.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/DDT.html
Professor Edwards was NOT the only one to use this tactic…to no avail…and NO ill effect.
Dan Miller,
You’ve just repeated a laundry list of endlessly refuted talking points.
The Old Media are dead, long live the Old Media.
Good article. You got it right on many fronts! The green house effect is not a major climate factor compared to the sun. Even if it was, water vapor is a stronger absorber than C02 and it is about 50 times more abundant in the atmosphere. So any global warming by atmospheric gases is a water vapor issue and then methane before carbon.
Let’s make chemistry proficiency a requirement for journalists and politicians. We’ll have better reporting and laws and a lotless of both.
Tom — #35
OK, I screwed up. I don’t know whether banning DDT saved any lives; I was willing to accept the thesis for the sake of argument. The point is that if it indeed saved any lives, it cost more by a substantial order of magnitude.
Still, we had better hurry to kill off man-made global warming (or cooling) lest Manhattan be soon under water (or ice). On the other hand, either way it may not be a total disaster. Think of the stimulus package President Obama could push through to fix the problem.
eon – (5)
You might also recall that one of the primary reasons the SST (supersonic transport) project was cancelled was because the such transports flying around might produce so much extra ozone that it would destroy the world. Not that many years later, the ozone hole was the driving force behind all sorts of stupid and useless regulations. Why make stupid regulations when building a fleet of SSTs would create enough ozone to plug the hole? That’s too easy, I guess.
I was looking forward to the Ice Age. I would have made a fortune selling Malamutes for sled dogs.
Regards
Here is the answer: We must all stop eating meat!
According to Lord Stern of Brentford, the British official expert on global warming,
“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better. . . . I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food. . . .Lord Stern, who said that he was not a strict vegetarian himself, was speaking on the eve of an all-parliamentary debate on climate change.”
Oh well. I shall now go and eat dinner, a nice rare piece of meat.
eon at #5–
amen, brother, amen, amen
Some of the younger folks don’t have any knowledge of those times, can’t blame ‘em of course, but I wish some would look it up.
Malthus resurrected. Still wrong but getting more popular. Again.
We will never run out of resources.
Reducing pollution is good, to a point. The U.S. has made incredible improvements in air and water quality. In many areas, further improvements will cost orders of magnitude more money for marginal results, at current levels of technology.
Exploiting multiple ways to produce and store energy, increasing efficiency – all is good. But ignoring nuclear fission is a travesty and a shame.
Since the harm of runaway global warming would be so great what could be harmful about totally dismantling our science and industry and living a spartan vegetarian life in teh dark??
40
I read a piece in an English paper that was even better than that one. It said that since the human body was actually less efficient at converting food into energy than combustion engines were at converting gasoline into energy, the environment would be better served if we drove everywhere, rather than walked, if you wanted to go strictly by the science and math, rather than the emotional attachment to natural things like walking.
If you want to know what the climate does ask a Geologist not a Meteorologist who cant even tell you if it will rain tomorrow or not. A Geologist will confirm that Earth temperature rises ALWAYS PRECEDE a rise in CO2 levels and NEVER follow it. So CO2 is not the CAUSE of Global Warming it is a RESULT of Global Warming as CO2 is released from warmer Oceans and Seas.
CO2 is also NOT a pollutant but an ESSENTIAL part of the cycle of ;life. More CO@ more plant life, more plant life more food for animals , more plants and more animals more food for man.
So apart from being scientifically ignorant the Green NAZI’s are also anti LIFE. If you assume they are telling the truth their Policies would drive the world back to an Ice Age because as the Earth is COOLING what we would need is MORE CO2 not less.
Forget the Green NAZI scam its the SUN which has MOST control on the climate not MAN MADE CO2 as the NAZIS want you to believe which at 0.02% of the atmosphere is totally INSIGNIFICANT.
15. Ryan:
“Every technological breakthrough humans have made has led to an increase in life expectancy.
. . . All things in life have inher(a)nt risk. Managing risk is how we move forward. Al(l)eviating risk is how we stagnate and die.”
I agree with your philosophical standpoint. Using fossil fuels has led to marvelous developments. But we need further developments to keep us healthy and happy. Just take a trip to beautiful cities and countries unfortunately smeared with pollution: Mexico City, Guatemala City, Caracas, China and others. We can do better.
46 vivo
And I agree with you vivo. “We can do better”. We get more efficient every day, and we can be even more efficient in the future. My Philosophical hangup with “Climate Legislation” is that Legislation will not fix the problem, bureaucracy cannot solve the problem and will most likely make it worse along with creating a false “Cap & Trade” Bubble Market that will only serve to funnel money to those Not creating wealth. A Free Market naturally seeks the Lowest cost and Greatest benefit. A Planned market can only change after more legislation, very innefficient.
By the way, thank you for not concentrating on my spelling errors and seeing the argument behind them.
I believe that the legislation is has a more sinister purpose. It is not about cleaning the environment. THere are numerous laws and regulations that have tremendously reduced pollution and scientific advances that have made even fossil fuels cleaner to extract.
The purpose is CONTROL. The legislation will be a boon for the government, which will be able to insert itself into areas of your life that you never thought possible. I envision a new world order where you will be told what you can drive, how far you can drive it, how many children you have, what you can eat, how you can control your indoor climate, etc, etc. New rules mean new fines and new potentials for revenue for the government. Don’t forget new taxes. You want to pay a carbon tax on everything you do? How about a government certificate for your house before you sell it to make sure it is green enough? And if not, you pay some government entity to fix it up or be fined accordingly. I can think of billions in new taxes that will come your way. It will make a few elitist snobs feel good about themselves by indulging their lifestyle then paying for “carbon offsets” while the common folk will just have to suck up all the new taxes and will see a dramatic decrease in their standard of living.
On a side note, notice how they talk about fighting “carbon” rather than “CO2″? Doesn’t carbon have the connotation of dirt? After all, the closest we have to pure carbon is charcoal.
Climate sophisticates bloviate and get grants. But,just as American Indians once danced around the fire to make it rain out west, the global warming gurus will huddle in Copenhagen to make it cool. They will thus further confirm doubts about the evolution of “man,” especially since one such specimen a million years older than our previously honored eldest has been unearthed.
The difference between journalism and PR;
PR)
Repeating a claim at face value because it happens to support your ideology, such as…
Journalism)
Seth Borenstein, a journalist, actually wondered whether this claim is true before repeating it and how to find out… so he asked the people who do ten multivariate linear regressions before breakfast and who wrote the intro stats textbooks that PJM authors need to read…
Lazar, the ‘AP’ is an opinionated news outlet! ‘Independent statisticians’.
And the backing of your validity? NOAA, the DOE (are you serious? think.. ‘Federal Government interests’) and a retired professor whom I tried to find more information, credentials about. Nada..
Oh, didn’t that subterfuge of Climatological Goliath-like knowledge, Stanford University get involved as ‘independent’ volunteers, too?
Think, Lazar. Stanford is located near where? Silicon Valley. Man, when this thing comes to fruition, I’m thinking the valley is going to be BUSY. Mere coincidence, right?
Oh, there’s a David Peterson, real estate appraiser from Canada and a David Peterson, MD, Vascular Surgery Fellow.
Yeah, next time I want to throw some ‘validity’ around regarding anything, I’m going to use my retired Professor’s as ‘renowned’ or valid..
I suggest James Hansen or Al Gore. You know, the astronomer and mathematician who had that ‘accurate’ 1988 gloom and doom forecast, accompanied with a self-serving politician. Those guys are ‘solid’.
Oh, and Livermore. Look into the labs present there as well. Specifically the ‘LLNL’ you’d written of.
All for the grant money, fella.
Displaying their findings in Alabama doesn’t change their motivations..
Paul Unalaska,
And so are you. That is irrelevant to the point; PJM failed to do due diligence and repeated an extremely silly PR claim without doing any fact-checking aka ‘journalism’.
How the AP selected their sources is described here;
From a pure-stats perspective, and particularly relevant for experience with time series analysis, the expert’s expert is Professor Edward Melnick at NYU, PhD Mathematical Statistics 1970 from George Washington University;
All that is overkill for the testing of linear trends. Do you want to dig yourself deeper?
Your attempts to divert the issue are quite transparent. The claim being contested is whether the given data show a recent decline. The validity of the data itself is not the issue here, but I note you ‘forgot’ to mention the inclusion of the darlings of the denailosphere;
Back to the blather;
More distraction. They’re not the ones who did the testing.
[snip timewasting]
You mean this one? Hint; anyone can look this stuff up.
Paul Unalaska,
You guys have lost the science debate so much you really do sound like flat-earthers; everyone else just must be lying.
By the way, I found ‘David (W.) Peterson’, his book (the one mentioned in the AP article) has a short bio;
And some of his work at Duke, looks interesting.
By the way, is anyone wondering who the statisticians are whom PJM presumably consulted on the validity of their ‘global cooling’ claims?
Alternatively, where have PJM sought out, assessed, and summarized contrary sources of information; given the longevity of the ‘global cooling’ meme, there are plenty of debunkings around; not worthy of a mention?
If none of these; who exactly are the sources of the ‘global cooling’ meme repeated by PJM, and why do PJM believe them?
Is it ‘the BBC’? Is ‘the BBC said so and I believed them’ PJM’s idea of good journalism?
Or is it Levitt and Dubnar whose shoddy work Instapundit has been going into overdrive to protect? Here’s what they say in their book, quoted in the above AP article;
And here’s how the AP made them dance;
Did not do any statistical analysis, but eyeballed the numbers. Is this what they teach in econometrics today? But it was “irony”, a joke, geddit? As Michael Moore explained; this is comedy.
We must end our dependence on fossil fuels, specifically petroleum, for vehicles.
Renewable energy sources must be used instead.
Therefore, all motor vehicles MUST be converted to WIND POWER.
SAILS need to be installed on all vehicles, immediately.
Lazar, though I appreciate your passion in this drumbeat, I don’t see the data.
There is NO accurate technology available to get accurate worldwide temperatures.
I worked for the NWS after a military weather stint. Nearly all NWS locations for the pressure, temperature, wind, RVR, precip sensors etc., were on a cement base. Thus, the digital readout in the office was erroneous due to absorption. A *ell of a big deal for weather folks and the pilots we brief. For the convective temperature/ thunderstorm development is always skewed from the more reliable, antiquated sounding data.
These same NWS sensors are often near buildings/ structures. Thus effecting other pertinent data as well.
What’s more frightening is NOAA/NWS has volunteer or ‘co-op’ weather stations. You won’t believe where some of these temperature sensors are located (though most countries practice this B S. I saw much of this misuse when in Burkina Faso, Mali and India)! Example of MANY -
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/junkyard_mmts_org.jpg
As for Hansen’s ’88 report, I’m glad you can ‘look this stuff up’. This way you’re able to absorb Hansen’s overestimation in all 3 counts. Though I’ll focus moreso with Scenario C.
Scenario C, without looking at RealClimate is if worldwide Governments made substantial attempts to limit emissions. NO ACTION, ‘just words’ (Thanks Prez) has been taken and temperatures are well below Hansen’s predictions..
The only thing Hansen/NASA and company have proven is these alarmists are better at setting up computer programs than understanding the myriad of variables effecting the global climate.
I’ll say this in regards to temperatures following the industrial age.
Temperatures were flat or falling from ~1943 – ~1975. Temperatures rose ~1975 – ~1998. From 1998 to present time temperatures have either leveled off or fallen. Dependent upon which venue you turn. (Fed or reality..)
Since you show interest and discussing the subject, albeit skewed, check out wattsupwiththat.com, thechillingeffect.org, scienceblogs.com – These sites provide sun irridiance, troposphere temperature data, et al.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=uah
Lastly, didn’t Obama visit the DOE in Florida last week? Surprisingly this ‘unbiased’ AP article, including the DOE as a contributor is released? Wow, what a coincidence..
Lastly, using a, ‘Michael Moore explained’ in attempting validity to your cause is naivete to the nth power..
Then again, this explains a lot in your opus..
Paul Unalaska,
There are differences between absolute values and anomalies, and between conjecture based on a photo and actually demonstrating effects on the target variable of global average temperature — you understand that, right? Land stations, marine buoys and satellites are all telling you that the air at the surface is warming, fast. No amount of WUWT hand-waving will change that conclusion.
Readers can judge for themselves whether temperatures are “well below” Scenario C, or B which is the closer match to forcings. In fact, as RealClimate note, Hansen’s model was bang on the money;
Paul,
Statistics say you’re wrong.
Perhaps you’re unaware of the reference. Under pressure on a televised debate, Michael Moore excused the multiple lies in his documentaries by saying “Hey, this is comedy”. I’m a conservative, an old type, when the term meant something other than dogmatic adherence to 1980s cliches. So I’m not going to follow the right into their anti-science and various fundamentalisms.
Gosh Darn! Ain’t this a shame. According to the article, “Russia is likely to bear the brunt of changes to regional climate brought on by global warming, according to a World Bank report presented Wednesday.”
I think it’s nonsense, but Gosh Darn! anyway.
Lazar, your ‘the surface is warming, fast’ – comment. Please, show me the HARD DATA that supports this.
I don’t believe the midwest, the northeast U.S. nor England’s recent snowfall got the memo. I’m going to visit my family in Bailey, CO this week-end and enjoy boarding from the dumping it’d gotten recently. For the ground is COLD enough for snow to be plentiful. Even in the cities. That’s ‘weird…’.
I used wuwt and other lucid, science fact-filled sites to further display upper atmosphere/ tropospheric data for you to peruse.
‘Hand waving’? Oh, you mean FACTS. Here’s another climatedepot article that furthers the point of climatedata.org being a fringe blog site..
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1742/Climatologist-slams-RealClimateorg-for-erroneously-communicating-the-reality-of-the-how-climate-system-is-actually-behaving–Rebuts-Myths-On-Sea-Level-Oceans-and-Arctic-Ice
FTR, what is an ‘denailosphere’? I didn’t ‘forget’ as you alluded to.
As for ‘diverting the issue’ from NOAA, DOE, NCAR et al. Lazar, I WORKED with and for them. It’s all about funding. Funding = Employment.
Your support for ‘buoy’ data is laughable as well. The erroneous, inoperable data and lax stance in troubleshooting/ repairing those sites due to the buoy’s location/ manpower is a sad fact. I wish I could refer you to an NDBC buddy of mine to elaborate.
I’d worked at the South Pole and McMurdo Station during the ’03, ’04 Austral Summers, respectively. I went to remote weather sensors via Twin Otter aircraft when at Pole to dig out a few remote weather stations. For these stations were reading high temperature values, being insulated and all from blowing snow. Some hadn’t been dug out, troubleshot in years..
The difference between absolute values and supposed ‘anomalies’ can be exponential. As was the case for Hansen’s assertions. To write that off and people from RealClimate claiming ‘right on the money’ is scary group think. On Hansen’s anomalies.. that have proven to be inaccurate, is validity for you?
As for ‘RealClimate’, it’s a blog site with some, though not all participants hailing from NCAR, NSF, IPCC and the like. I got to work, understand some of those like-minded folks when at UNC (Northern CO) as a kid. Hmmm.
As for your statistics diatribe, a name that comes to mind is a guy who works on the ‘inside’, Economist and EPA’s Alan Carlin (no relation to the late George Carlin).
The EPA is trying to snuff/ blockade Carlin of further research, reporting his findings but interesting perspective/ approach nonetheless.
Lastly, you said ‘The validity of the data is not the issue here’ – That is the only issue.
Get your scuba gear ready. According to St. Al the Gored, the seas will rise by 220 feet within ten years. If you live at sea level and want to visit your house by the seashore, that’s 90 feet beneath the PADI recreational diving limit without decompression stops.
Oh well. It’s been a good life.