Our guest today is Dr. Manfred Aufgeblasener-Schwätzer, director of the Nationales Klima Zentrum (National Climate Center) in Hamburg, Germany. A world-famous climatologist, he is a staunch believer in anthropogenic global warming and has worked closely with the Hadley Climate Research Unit and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
PJM: Manfred Aufgeblasener-Schwätzer, welcome to Pajamas Media. Thank you for agreeing to this interview.
M.A-S: I am honored.
PJM: You are aware, of course, of the scandal unfolding at the Hadley CRU and elsewhere, popularly referred to as Climategate. What do you make of this?
M.A-S: It is all nonsense, obviously, a minor — how do you say it in English? — a minor blip. The science is settled. The world is warming even as we speak, moment by moment. Averaged over a decade, the result is alarming. Over a century, it is catastrophic. The prospect of planetary heat-death makes one shudder and gives one nightmares. I have developed a great sensitivity over the years of my work at the Zentrum to the slightest variations in temperature. I see it not only in my computer models and mathematical graphs but can actually feel it on the back of my neck and at times over my entire body, as if I am trapped in a Swedish sauna.
PJM: But surely the leaked emails and files indicating collusion among the various scientists involved, the suppression or distortion of critical data, the pressure levied against scientific journals to exclude the work of “climate skeptics,” the pre-selection of weather stations to inflate temperature records, the misuse of tree ring data, the sloppy note taking, the loss or deletion of vast amounts of archival material, the absorption of un-refereed articles, and so on, must signify that a massive scam has been perpetrated on an unsuspecting public.
M.A-S: Not at all. Not at all. You cannot believe what you read in the blogosphere. It is all lies, I tell you, lies. And people are so naive and sometimes even disrespectful of the world’s great scientists. Was not Galileo threatened for his discoveries and forced to recant? Is not my friend, the esteemed Dr. Phil Jones at Hadley, being cruelly attacked even as we speak for his major insights and crucial breakthroughs? The world is growing hotter by the moment and if we do not act very soon, then before we know it there shall be no more icebergs, the islands of the Pacific will sink like rusty submarines, Greenland will become a desert, lobsters will cook in the oceans, volcanoes will boil over, the Arctic will become a spa, Holland will vanish — it is too horrible to contemplate. I have seen reports this very morning that the permafrost is dissolving and the frozen peat bogs are turning to sponge beneath the feet of Canada’s Inuit and Finland’s Laplander populations. My collaborator Dr. James Hansen of NASA foretells that New York City will be under fifty feet of water in just two or three generations, and he is an acclaimed expert. We would be foolish to challenge his word.
PJM: But Dr. Aufgeblasener-Schwätzer, we now have reputable and undoubted evidence that there has been no global warming for more than a decade, and indeed the mean average temperature has actually declined by .07 degrees.
M.A-S.: Lies, I tell you. You cannot trust contradictory evidence. Whatever goes against the current consensus is plainly a mischievous effort to undermine the credibility of our selfless scientists. In truth, what we are seeing is a conspiracy generated by anti-scientific frauds who refuse to accept what we are telling them and who will do anything to discredit genuine scientific analysis and malign the integrity of our dedicated researchers.
PJM: But what would these so-called skeptics have to gain by their resistance?
M.A-S: That is another issue. I do not have the facts, but I suspect it is world domination and the exploitation of the poor, the secret agenda of Western capitalism, whose sinister purpose these frauds and skeptics willingly serve.
PJM: Well, be that as it may, what is your informed opinion regarding the Medieval Warming Period? New studies appear to suggest it was warmer then, or at least as warm as it is today, which would seriously compromise official assessments that we are living in unprecedented times.
M.A-S: That is complete nonsense. After all, we were not there, so how can we really know? We have no sworn affidavits from the period; therefore speculation is, as we say, unwarranted. But I must be fair. There is indeed one document dating from the time, attributed to Frater Wolfgang the Amanuensis from the Cistercian monastery at Maulbronn, who claimed that the days were “as hot as hell” and that the Fiend would shortly make his parousia, his demonic advent. But this is clearly the fantasy of a crazy scriptorium dweller.
PJM: Let’s change the subject. You were an important participant at the Copenhagen climate conference. Many are now saying it ended in failure. Would you agree?
M.A-S: Not at all.
PJM: Why would that be?
M.A-S: Copenhagen was a step in the right direction, as was Kyoto. We will now accelerate the process. Copenhagen was an opportunity for the world’s best thinkers, such as the respected Al Gore, and the world’s most enlightened statesmen, such as Barack Obama, Robert Mugabe, and Hugo Chavez, to get to know one another, to find themselves, as you say in English, on the same page, and to work together for the greater good of mankind. We must be grateful for their heroic efforts.
PJM: Then you consider Copenhagen a success?
M.A-S: Oh yes, definitely. If you will permit me a moment of levity. You know, one of my favorite American movies is Hans Christian Andersen with your famous Danny Kaye. I often hum to myself his marvelous song “Wonderful Copenhagen.” Just as in the song, we were all clinking glasses “‘neath her tavern light,” for Copenhagen, as he sang, is really a “friendly old girl of a town.” And indeed we made many friends there, 45,000 to be exact. So there is no doubt we will succeed. We have the numbers.
PJM: You certainly do have the numbers. Though many say the numbers were woven out of whole cloth.
M.A-S: Please?
PJM: My moment of levity. I mean, that the numbers coming out of Hadley and Goddard were concocted, invented, made up.
M.A-S: Do not believe that for an instant. Is not the United Nations solidly behind our results? Has not Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC and my most trusted colleague, supported us with his immense authority and knowledge? Yes, yes, I am aware that he said the Himalayan glaciers would melt practically overnight. But you must understand that Dr. Pachauri, driven by the urgency of the situation, was merely trying to provoke quick, concerted action. It was a noble attempt which has been much misunderstood. I know, too, that he has been unfairly censured for his connections to various commercial enterprises involved in transactions dealing with climate affairs. But these relations are entirely disinterested and are intended to prepare the human race for sustainable existence.
PJM: What do you make of Dr. Michael Mann’s celebrated “hockey stick” graph showing a precipitous spike in current temperatures? Has it not been exposed as a consequence of data tampering and thoroughly exploded?
M.A-S: No, no, no. That is a vile smear circulated by those who do not understand the complexities of minute calibrations, draught simulations, projected adjustments, and the proper manipulation of hockey sticks. They insist on holding the hockey stick down, as it were, so that the blade is parallel with the ice surface. Whereas Dr. Mann in conformity with his findings holds the shaft of the hockey stick parallel to the ice surface, allowing the blade to rise skyward. You realize, of course, that climate hockey is not the same as ice hockey.
PJM: What is your perspective on programs such as carbon offsets, cap and trade, wealth transfers to underprivileged countries, and the like? Do you believe they will have an adverse effect on the economies of first-world nations, as critics have warned?
M.A-S: An excellent question. Let me reply with a question. Do not third-world nations deserve to be subsidized by the rapacious and polluting nations of the West, even if these latter should become third-world nations themselves? This would be only economic justice, a goal toward which we must all work with one mind, regardless of the sacrifice to our lifestyle. We must learn to live with deprivation. And as we know, these programs are utterly necessary to contribute to the reduction of CO2 that is choking our future and to bring about the greening of the environment. Can you not envision a world in which smokestacks and furnaces and automobiles will be replaced by windmills and solar panels and rickshaws, a world of punitive energy costs whose industrial engine will inevitably slow down and perhaps stop altogether? Utopia on earth!
PJM: So, to conclude, you have no doubt that the planet is warming and that the significant factor, as the climate community has claimed, is man-caused atmospheric CO2.
M.A-S: Absolutely. You must read my paper in the Russian journal RIA Novosti, “Vertical Symmetry Structures and Decadal Sinusoidal Fluctuations as Amplification Vectors: Establishing Greenhouse Correlations Over Temporal Motility Scales.” It will convince you. And I refer you once again to Herr Gore, who bravely testified before your Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 2009 that the Earth is racing toward Venus-type CO2 levels. True, the atmosphere of Venus is composed of 97% CO2 while that of the Earth is .038%. But do not be deceived. Owing to what we call “CO2 forcing,” a chemical chain reaction producing a multiplier effect, the differential will close rapidly. Our descendants will fry like wienerschnitzel. It is not, as you Americans say, a pretty picture.
PJM: Manfred Aufgeblasener-Schwätzer, thank you for being our guest today. Would you have anything to add before we close this interview?
M.A-S: Yes. It is very hot in here.
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