Al Gore does Oprah – was anybody watching?

Just goes to show given enough money any lunatic can promote their ideas. I have no respect for Gore. He can be encapsulated by his rant against Bush to the effect of “He played on our fears, he lied to us, etc.”[sic] What a hypocrite. Here is my thousand words… http://i34.tinypic.com/2aj5ax.jpg

Russ,
That photo of Gore standing near the earth being warmed by the sun tells it all. Surely people looking at that picture have to ask themselves: What happens to the earth if the sun changes a little?

Yesterday, I met with a world renowned climate change scientist with a list of honours that would go from floor to ceiling. I asked him to explain how alpha is calculated in the Arrhenius equation. To my surprise, he didn’t know the answer, but referred me to some material in which the answer is not present. Can any of you skeptically-inclined properly lead me to these details?

And other leading scientists say Al Gore may be nuts.

I believe this show was a repeat. Not that I saw it this time or the first time it aired. There was a much more compelling football game airing. One must keep one’s priorities straight.

Gore is actually quite insane and dangerous and cynical.
There is no evidence at all that there is anything like a ‘tipping point’.
There are only projections from people who have made careers looking for apocalypses to promote.
Gore has made himself very rich selling this stuff. Sort of like Miller making money selling white robes to meet Jesus at the apocalypse he predicted back in the 19th century.
Gore will never willingly or knowingly permit himself to be questioned by anyone who is going to ask him anything like tough questions.
Which is typical of the AGW promotion industry.

I think the IQ level of Al’s intended audience has reached a tipping point. Soon, he will have to preach his AGW pseudoscientific nonsense to kindergarteners, and eventually, he’ll be reduced to trying to convince single-celled amobae.

Why is the Sun attacking us with phaser beams like that? Why, Al, why?!

Fred (07:35:23)
Comparing ice extent at the same point in the calendar is useful and valid. Throughout this last summer ice extent was greater on any given day than the previous year, or had you not been so informed by the media?
The point here is that after almost 30 years of global warming ice extent this week is very comparable to way back when. Don’t ya’ see it?
============================================

Mike Pickett (08:45:39)
Gorebellied means big bellied, and I believe Gorebellied Fool is Shakespearean, though I can’t find it now. I’m fairly proud of the fact that the first eight citations for ‘Gorebellied Fool’ on Yahoo are all mine.
========================================

Anonymous,
Lubos Motl could certainly help you out. Post your question at his blog. I think he’ll answer it for you.

This is some kind of joke, right? Comparing wintertime ice extent?
The joke is comparing summertime ice extent as evidence of global warming. The ONLY valid comparison is maximum winter ice extent.
This is because the Greehouse Gas model predicts heat gain for the Earth’s climate system over time. Measuring ice extent at any other time than the winter maximum includes an unknown amount of intra-annual effect which of course will be lost within the year and therefore cannot be part of the long term heat gain. Similarly, the only valid measure of long term climate warming is annual minimum temperature.
Dictionaries define Gore as, A small triangular piece of land. Although, when I was a child in England we called the wood on a nearby hill ‘High Gore’. It wasn’t marked as such on any map, nor have I seen the name written anywhere. Our other term for the wood was ‘The Bushes’. So as a child, I would have told you Gore and Bush were the same thing.

The High Gore woods I referred to are shown on a 1875 map (see link below) as Mark Bushes and Latton Park. These ‘official’ names, which I never heard used, go back almost to the Norman Conquest. One is used in a 13th century deed.
I think these are names given by the Normans (1066 and all that) and High Gore was probably the pre-Norman name for the wood and handed down by word of mouth for a thousand years by people who would never have seen a map.
The wood is neither small nor triangular. Although a nearby wood is triangular, which we always called Hastingwood (again not it’s name on maps). Possibly, the name High Gore got transferred from one wood to another over those centuries.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/image.aspx?compid=63852&filename=fig18.gif&pubid=534
Apologies for going so far OT.

Michael Ronayne (15:02:56) :
This week, the Politico ran a tongue-in-cheek story on The Gore Effect:
Tracking ‘The Gore Effect’
We’ve seen another major example of this “Effect.” There were millions
of viewers, much less the small audience, snowed by Nuncio Gore and
“O.” I’d assert that the snow “stuck,” too. A rather chilling commentary
on the IQ’s as emhasized by Bruce Cobb.

Fred (07:35:23) :
Here is comparison of the ice in November 1980 and 2008
This is some kind of joke, right? Comparing wintertime ice extent?
Fred, I don’t see the problem. Both datasets are from the same month in different years, therefore they are legitimately comparable. Why do you see a problem with this?

So by all means, let’s continue to pollute away since this blogger has now debunked Al Gore and the leading scientists of the world. Do I see a sign for the Sarah Palin fan club? Oh yes, there it is.

REPLY: Such an emotional response. – Anthony

Why is it wrong to be concerned with the environment?
REPLY: Not wrong at all, see my about page. But it is wrong to solve a problem by investing trillions that seems unsupported by current data.

Smokey.
Thanks for the complement. We try to stick to the facts.

Catherine,
You write: Real research points to the sad truth that global warming is here.
Perhaps you can point to that research with a link to the “real research.” Let us examine the facts and see if they hold up. Much of what Al Gore has presented as real science has been debunked. However, please be aware that computer models are not research, they are manifestation of the computer programers desire to support his own perception of a warming world.

Why a Nobel Peace Prize for Climate?- which is a scientific subject . Perhaps a Nobel Literary Prize will be awarded for someone contesting Einstein’s Theory of Relativity .
In fact I don’t belive Einstein was awarded a Nobel Prize for his
Theory of Relativity.
P.S. I am begining to belive that the people that award Nobel Peace Prizes are a pretty stupid lot .

“Catherine (19:11:41) :
So by all means, let’s continue to pollute away since this blogger has now debunked Al Gore and the leading scientists of the world. Do I see a sign for the Sarah Palin fan club? Oh yes, there it is.”
Methinks you make quantum leaps that defy any and all logic.
Nowhere have I read that people who don’t believe in man-made climate change wish to “pollute away”. But if the very heart of a theory, which is exactly what it is, theory, is that C02 is the “pollutant” in question, and the science shows that this theory is not supported by the facts, then spending trillions of dollars on a NON-problem is waste of mammoth proportions.
And the Sarah Palin fan club nonsense is just that.
How IS life in the echo chamber?
JimB

Kensington Gore is also the site of the home of the Royal Institute of Navigation, by the way

On “…life in the echo chamber…”
Well, I used to be an “Echo-Warrior”, too 😉 – and I must say “life” in that bubble-like “chamber” was “exciting” in some weird ways…

I just have a different opinion than what appears to be most of you. For that you have referred to me as angry and empty headed. FYI I have degrees with honors and a doctorate degree. I suppose that if anyone disagrees with any of you, that person will be labeled as something. So be it.
I mentioned Palin because that is one of her chief beliefs, i.e., global warming does not exist.
If you attacked Al Gore’s theory, rather than him, I think what you say would be taken a bit more seriously. It just looks like sour grapes.
REPLY: I’m sorry Catherine, but when you keep tossing out things like “we’re labeling you” (after you said in your very first comment that we are “Palin supporters”) and “sour grapes” it is pretty hard to take you on anything but an emotional level, degrees or not.
Why do you choose to label us first with “Palin supporters” then claim we are the ones doing the labeling? That seems pretty disingenuous. It seems more emotional than rational. In fact visiting your blog in the link with your name, it seems you have mostly emotional postings there.
In fact a search of your entire blog for the word “science” brings up only two stories. Neither of them has any science in them, the word was used casually or with the name “Christian Science Monitor”.
But searches for “Palin” brings up too many to count. Ditto for Bush. That seems pretty emotional to me.
We have attacked Gore’s theory, i.e. the science, many times, and it comes up wanting.
See these links to see how terribly wrong Mr. Gore’s theories are, yet he keeps saying them anyway, and that is why it it valid to question him. read these then get back to us on what you think. Try to set aside for a moment previously held beliefs when reading these:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/05/gore-demonstrates-he-doesnt-understand-basic-meteorology-much-less-climate/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/19/hurricanes-to-global-warming-link-blown-away/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/04/11/hurricane-expert-reconsiders-global-warmings-impact/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/25/yet-another-inconvenient-story-ignored-by-the-msm/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/21/noaa-hurricane-frequency-and-global-warming-not-the-cause-of-increased-destruction/
and this one is of particular relevance:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/04/detailed-comments-on-an-inconvenient-truth/
Regarding Gore -vs- his theories. When you put yourself in the public spotlight on TV, it is equally relevant to question the man as well as the methods. In fact, due to the way he presents such things (as multimedia rather than science studies) it is darn near impossible to separate them at times
Then ends don’t justify the means. – Anthony

It appears that the jet stream affects temperature gauges around here, not CO2, (though I do have a pasture full of cows just below the house so methane could be keeping me a bit warmer than last year). This year, the jet stream is dipping down further East of us (from Oregon). Last year we got the Arctic belt and a dump truck full of snow. This year not so much. We are however getting LOTS of rain and low clouds/fog, and on the dry side of the Cascades and Blues.
I don’t have a vested interest in colder or warmer political thought, and don’t care who or what causes temperature changes. I do have a vested interest in farming and ranching. Warmer means wetter. Colder means dryer. A downpour of rain has lots more water than the same time amount of snow. Warmer is better. Those that constantly beat the drum of drought don’t understand that warmer air is more humid than colder air. When the great deserts of the world were surrounded by warmth, the land was green, not sand colored. Enjoy the warmth for what it is. US wine production rode in on waves of warmth. When it turns cold, years of vineyard development along the Columbia river will cost millions in vine death, resulting is economic stress while farmers recover their losses and then must return to cold season fruit crops.
And just so no one thinks I am just a polluting flat earther, I would rather spend my tax dollars on developing coal and natural gas sources that are free of soot and safer in terms of explosions. Now that would be money well spent. I am also all for the development of local small nuclear plants. Lets leave the water for fish and irrigation. These are things that don’t need carbon caps or international treaties. It just needs common sense.
Gore was president?

We are cooling, Catherine, for how long even kim doesn’t know.
=======================================

Dr. Catherine,
Please present proof that the planet has warmed over the last 10 years.
Please present proof that the 20th century temperature increase was due to manmade CO2 emissions.
If you don’t have this proof, then Gore in my view is a liar and a fraud. His AIT film was riddled with misstatements, exaggerations and falsehoods. And he is also a hypocrite when you examine his mansion-living, jet-setting lifestyle.

Criticism of a public figure such as Sarah Palin is equally fair game. I need not say much about her as she does enough herself. My blog is more humorous than emotional, but even if it was, so what.
I agree that you have every right to assess a public figure, but disagree that your posts are any more or less genuine than mine or that the opinions are any more or less “emotional” (or whatever brand you want to put on them). I point out the fallacies in Bush and Palin ideology and actions. You say that you do the same with Al Gore. So who is disingenuous?
By the way, here are some examples of the “scientific,” cold, emotionless postings here (not):
“Just goes to show given enough money any lunatic can promote their ideas. I have no respect for Gore.”
“Gore is actually quite insane and dangerous and cynical.”
I could list more, but I think that is sufficient indicia of the “science” discussed here.

Gore’s acedemic record , especially in science is mediocre .
This is drived from the Washington Post in the year 2000 .
On his SAT tests for physics and chemistry he scored in the
lower 50th percentile ( physics and chemistry are in large part basic to climate studies ). At Harvard he scored c’s and d’s in science . In non science areas ,at Vanderbilt University he failed Divinity School and dropped out of Law School with mediocre grades .
As various sientists have reported , he has attempted to destroy their careers for not agreeing with him.
P.S. I derived the percentiles from the raw sore reported in the Washington Post Artilcle using SAT records on the internet .
Robert R. Prudhomme

Something for Oprah’s bookclub?
“We’re not scared anymore Mr Gore”.
The illustrated book is a climate change parody in which teacher Ms Green is surprised when Mr Gore comes to teach the class about the dangers of climate change. Mr Gore looks at the evidence and the outcomes of man made global warming. It’s scary stuff. He gets a lot of help on the way from Ms Green but in the end it’s Mr Gore who learns a thing or two about the climate. How fast can you run Mr Gore?
Look out for Mr Gore as Death complete with Hockey Stick Graph Scythe!
You can now download a FREE PDF copy of “We’re not scared anymore Mr Gore” from The Little Skeptic blog. Just follow the link on the following page:
http://littleskepticpress.blogspot.com/2008/11/were-not-scared-anymore-mr-gore_21.html
or watch a reading on youtube:
http://au.youtube.com/my_videos_annotate?v=DW9_RkHlz2Q

Al Gore’s originally gave his presentation “How Dare We Be Optimistic”, at TED in February of 2008. The entire presentation lasts for 28 minutes. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks al_gore_s_new_thinking_on_the_climate_crisis.html
Starting at 8 minutes and 20 seconds from the beginning of the presentation, he displays two charts which he uses to discredit any theory that the sun is part of the global temperature equation. Al Gore refers to this segment as “CSI Climate”. The charts are displayed for only a few seconds, so it is hard to see the scale of the charts at first glance. So, I downloaded the presentation for a closer look at his charts. Here is what I discovered.
The perception that is created with the lower atmosphere slide and stratosphere slide is that data from the two slides are comparable. This comparison demonstrates that when the lower atmosphere was cooler, the stratosphere was warmer, and when the lower atmosphere is warmer, the stratosphere is cooler. The implication is that the comparison of these two charts refutes the skeptics of Al Gore’s global warming premise of anthropogenic (man made) induced global warming. Since each chart is only displayed for about four seconds, at first glance they appear to be comparable. There are three years shown on the X axis of each chart, and the charts overlay each other nicely during the fading transition from atmosphere to stratosphere.
However, upon closer inspection of the data presented in the charts, it becomes evident that the two charts are not comparable. A cardinal rule of data analysis was violated. The X axis of the charts are not the same. Data from different years are being compared to each other. The years presented in the “Change in Nightime Low Temperatures” chart start at about 1952 and end at about 2006. The years presented in the “Change in Stratospheric Temperatures” chart start at about 1980 and end at about 2006. When the charts are corrected with the proper x axis scaling, a completely different visual perception is created, which does not support Al Gore’s proposition.
Also, the “Change in Nightime Low Temperatures” chart has about 15 bars for every 10 years, while the “Change in Stratospheric Temperatures” chart has 10 bars for every 10 years. This brings into question the nature of the data.
I have created a PDF document, which shows the chart comparisons I have completed.

Mike Pickett (08:45:39) : It has been said by a few that our names were derived from either our family personality or our own…the point has some merit…smith, blacksmith, carver, carver, &c. Now the mind reels considering the family “Gore”
did you know his partner in nefarious profiteering was a Mr Blood?

The most important thing of all is common sense ,it is impossible to predict the future or to control it ,as someone mentioned in another post you need a quantified equasion in order to do so like all science ,and you would also be needing to be abletopredict every day in weather in order to be able to predict in 100 yrs that is why its impossible ,all graphs show that when c02 is high the trees grow at a 75%faster growth in fact all plants do ,you shouldnt mess with nature especially when you dont know what your doing ,you should all be up on fraud charges for this scam ,it is a discrace to real science.

To the AGW proponents who have posted here, complaining about this site cherry picking data to counter Al Gore, I have a challenge.
Do a little research on your own. Google is your friend. Find a graph that shows CO2 levels versus global temperature over the past 500 million years or so. Do you see a correlation? I don’t. Temperature goes up, temperature goes down. CO2 goes up, CO2 goes down. They do not follow each other.
Then find a graph comparing global temperature versus CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years or so. In this time frame, we see temperatures rising and falling, and CO2 levels rising and falling somewhat similarly, EXCEPT that CO2 does not cause temperature to go up and down. CO2 goes up AFTER temperature goes up. CO2 declines AFTER temperature declines. It is a logical axiom that effect does not precede cause. This is something the befuddled Gore did not make clear in his Inconvenient Truth movie.
Finally, find a graph comparing temperature and CO2 over the last thousand years or so. Temperature rises and falls, but CO2 is reasonably constant. Temperature rises in the early part of the century, and CO2 starts to rise. The CO2 increase keeps rising, but about 1940 global temperatures start declining. CO2 continues to increase, but temperatures do not begin climbing again until the late 1970s or so. The correlation is rather tenuous.
You can find this data yourself. You need not rely on the “cherry picked” data here. You can pick your own data. The question is, will you believe the data, or the chattering class giving you their interpretation, even though it contradicts the lack of correlation that you can see with your own eyes?
I may not have a Nobel Prize, but I know that when global warming alarmists tell me global warming is accellerating, and the satellite data show cooling, I’d better stick to the data. Alarmists speak with forked tongue, and you can prove it yourself. That’s all we ask. Do your own research. Don’t believe us. But don’t believe them, either, until you can see the scientific evidence with your own eyes.

Here is a better link to Al Gore’s talk on the TED web site.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/al_gore.html
Starting at 8 minutes and 20 seconds from the beginning of the presentation, he displays two charts which need to be more closely examined. The “Change in Nightime Low Temperatures” chart and the “Change in Stratospheric Temperatures” are the two charts in question.

MarcH (11:02:14) : You can now download a FREE PDF copy of “We’re not scared anymore Mr Gore” from The Little Skeptic blog. Just follow the link on the following page:
Thats awesome! Love it.

Eric Anderson,
Excellent advice! The resources are there for those willing spend the time to find and analysis the data. Also, keeping an open mind is an important part of the discovery process. Unfortunately the true believers will not take the time to look for the data, or open their minds to the facts. Just believing is much easier and safer.

[snip] sorry, way off topic – moderator

Hi Catherine – maybe you would care to quote an actual Palin statement? Since no one else will defend her I figure, why not me? The only reference I read that was first person said that she realizes that yes we have experienced warming, and believes that natural cycles are the predominant factor. An eminently reasonable assumption IMO. If you care to ascribe cartoonish shorthand to that, it is your problem, not hers. And Fred – I can’t believe that I get two opportunities in the last few weeks to remind someone that November is not “winter” in either hemisphere.

Catherine:
I just have a different opinion than what appears to be most of you. For that you have referred to me as angry and empty headed. FYI I have degrees with honors and a doctorate degree. I suppose that if anyone disagrees with any of you, that person will be labeled as something. So be it.
I mentioned Palin because that is one of her chief beliefs, i.e., global warming does not exist.
Let’s back the reality truck up, shall we?
You originally said:
So by all means, let’s continue to pollute away since this blogger has now debunked Al Gore and the leading scientists of the world. Do I see a sign for the Sarah Palin fan club? Oh yes, there it is.
Your highly educated opinion, then, is that C02 is “pollution”, because “leading scientists of the world”
supposedly say so? Followed by your ad hominem comment about all of us here being a Sarah Palin fan club?
Did you get through school by plagiarizing and cheating, or did you have to do some actual work on your own?
I didn’t think so. You might try using some of your investigative and intellectual skills in this field as well.
Just a thought.
Try not being such a troll, too. Thanks.

KIm and the rest of you,
Thanks for the sexist remarks, diatribes and smug statements. I suppose you and the others here believe that you are the only ones who have the right to make any statement of personal belief or even observation about comments made here. Please do keep up the good work. Based on what I see here, anyone with the slightest intellectual curiosity, sense of humor and who is politically moderate would run like the wind from this crowd! Yikes!
I suppose a doctorate and other degrees with honors isn’t enough for all you “high brows.” Please. If you have such groundbreaking stuff to tell the world, go on Oprah all of you and announce to the world how smart you are and how wrong all the other scietists are and us well-educated plebes! Go ahead! I dare you!
Feel free to tear oters down because they don’t follow your personal opinions like sheep. Now that is discourse.
Thanks guys, it was real.

This show was a repeat from 2006.

Sorry about off-topic earlier.
Anyway, Catherine, you’ve thrown every card except race, and not one of them’s stuck and you’ve made some wild assertions and refused to back it up with anything other than ‘I’m highly educated, and you guys are [insert smear of your choice]’.
Your grandstanding has shown me that none of the people here have the guts to get on oprah and assert that they’re smarter than all scientists or well educated people. Yeah, give’em hell!
You’ve done it. Mission accomplished. I’m convinced.

Catherine (09:43:42)
Oh, c’mon, that was unconvincing. Does your advanced degree allow you to observe a thermometer? C’mon, is the globe cooling or warming like you’ve stated? I’m trying to be elementary here, but you are not even responding at that level.
=======================================

Catherine,
Actually, I emailed the Oprah show regarding the rebroadcast of the Gore episode. I explained that I had the utmost respect for Oprah, and that in the interest of fairness, she would be doing her viewers a great service by having someone else on her show that could talk to some of the problems with the AGW theory, such as Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre.
I hope they entertain the suggestion.
Why do you refuse to engage in a debate about any one point that you bring up?
This is not debate, Catherine, and I’m certain that you know this.
Being an intellectual, I’m certain that if you review Al’s movie, you’ll find many inconsistancies that simply cannot be backed up by reality.
The snows of Kilimanjaro aren’t melting due to global warming, they’re melting due to macroecological changes at the base of the mountain, such as deforestation.
I’m also certain that if you do such a review, you’ll be furious with yourself and Al for having been duped so easily by him.
Hey…don’t feel bad. He got Oprah too…and she’s pretty smart.
JimB

Freezing Fin seems to suggest that Al was president. Must just be a typo or I didn’t get the subject.
02:18:00. She said:
Now this “man of peace” is using his authority for lobbying for NATO and trying to get Finland to join this “organization of peace” – and in which he failed while still being the president.
I was just being cheeky.

For Kim
Kim an oft-repeated meme of yours is ‘the globe is cooling’. Now, without an associated timescale the phrase is ambiguous, so I have been trying to ascertain your meaning, in this thread you posted …some cooling just starting very lately.
So perhaps your timeframe is the last six or maybe twelve months?
Apparently not. Maybe you are more a decadal type person, maybe your point is that the globe has been cooling for 9 or 10 years?
No again, and of course we all know that warming on longer timescales is unequivocal:-
So a data-based interpretation would seem to be ‘the globe shows a cooling trend as long as you choose a time frame greater than 1 but less than 9 years.’ There are precendents for this in recent times, still temperatures are somehow half a degree warmer on average now than then. Taking the longer, shall we say climatic, viewpoint the 10, 20 and 30 year trends in all four of the major global mean temperature analyses are all positive.
The globe is warming, albeit not monotonically. How long this will continue, not even JP knows.
😉

“Why is it wrong to be concerned with the environment?”
There is nothing wrong with being concerned about the environment. What IS wrong is if the concern becomes so irrational that one resorts to exaggerations, and fabrication of information as a means of dealing with the concern.
Lying to people will only discredit science in the long run .. and THAT will be very bad for the environment.

Anthony
I don’t know whether any of your bloggers spotted it but there was a ridiculous discussion on the BBC Newsnight programme last night in which George Monbiot and Lord Turner (who has just prepared yet another dire report on global warming) were vying with one another about the extent to which the UK should cut greenhouse gas emissions. The whole thing sounde link Alice in Wonderland with aggravation.
There is no specific link to this discussion but the Newsnight video contains it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsnight

Due to the complexity of the climate, with so many factors that science has not yet fully explained every single process, it is difficult for a coherent picture to emerge from which we can firmly conclude beyond all reasonable doubt that there is Human-Induced Global Climate Destabilisation (H-IGCD). If it were the case, we wouldn’t be having this debate. But that is not to say there aren’t any indications.
So let’s tackle this controversy in three different ways.
1) For millions of years, the Earth’s climate has fluctuated, cycling from ice ages to warmer periods. But in the last century, the planet’s temperature has risen unusually fast. Ever since the industrial revolution began, amplifying our demand for energy, we have used carbon-based fossil fuel to satiate that demand. The increasing consumption of carbon-based energy from industrialised and developing nations causes an increase in the burning of fossil fuel; an increase in carbon emissions; an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, trapping more of the sun’s radiated energy as heat; intensifying the natural Greenhouse Effect.
The majority of climate scientists agree upon the concept of GCD primarily caused by human activities such as fossil fuel burning, and post-industrialisation emissions of green house gases having an impact on the climate cycle and environment. Science literature universally recognizes anthropogenic warming. All denials come from outside the professional scientific sphere. And the the idea that H-IGCD will continue and worsen if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced has been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. Just pause for a second and think, if you had a horse race and every major betting agency was saying, put your money on that horse, would you do it (just keep it simplistic)? Well, with every major institute in the first world betting on H-IGCD, ask yourself: “Which seems like the smarter bet on which to wager the world?”
The H-IGCD is the effect of the intensified Greenhouse Effect superimposed upon the normal climate cycle. We have the average increase in temperature (Global Warming), but it is not a uniform Global Warming (hence Climate Change). The Climate Change affects different regions in different ways (H-IGCD). So it’s not the degrees of temperature that matters per se, but the fact that such a quick change in the global average temperature is like throwing a wrench into the climate system. Should it reach a tipping point, the products of the process of H-IGCD will fuel the process; such as increased temperatures melting ice sheets, which increases the size of the ocean, causing more heat to be absorbed into the climate, further melting the ice sheets. The evidence for this is certainly compelling.
So, what are these indications?
-Studies of ice cores show a correlation of carbon dioxide levels with temperature variations.
-Rate of Warming: The rate of average global temperature increase is particularly evident in three ways I will share.
First off, temperature graphs show the cyclical change – yet H-IGCD is evident, with the cycle of our time being abnormal:
*“Temperature reconstruction – linear trend for from AD 1000 to 1850,” showing the change in trend since industrialisation: http://www.grida.no/climate/IPCC_tar/wg1/fig2-20.htm
*And even more striking, the “Temperatures over the last 1.35 million years” showing the abnormal warmth and warming of our time:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/1.35Myr.small.jpg
(http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/ )
Secondly, the Polar Ice Caps are melting in unprecedented ways. It is now a common theory for the Arctic Ocean to be ice-free in summer by 2040. I have a link which shows how the minimums have dramatically changed.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg
Finally, Coral. Although coral reefs have been around for millions of years, the reefs are formed of the corals themselves, which have life estimates of only a few thousand years. Therefore, as climate has gone through its cycle, coral have been able to evolve to deal with changes in temperature. But now, however, it appears, the climate is changing too rapidly for them to evolve:
Bleaching is where the corals turn white due to a change in the ocean temperature, exceeding that which they can handle. If the temperature returns to normal, they recover. If not, the coral dies. In this way, coral are like a bellwether, sensitive instruments that detect subtle changes of temperature, reflecting both the ocean and overall climate conditions.
The first coral bleaching on record occurred in 1979. Since then, there have been six events, each of which has been progressively more frequent and severe. In the El Niño year of 1998, when tropical sea surface temperatures were the highest yet in recorded history, coral reefs around the world suffered the most severe bleaching on record. 48% of reefs in the Western Indian Ocean suffered bleaching, while 16% of the world’s reefs appeared to have died by the end of 1998. 2002 was even worse: 60 to 95 per cent of individual reefs of the Great Barrier Reef suffered some bleaching, while reefs in Palau, the Seychelles, and Okinawa suffered 70-95% bleaching. One quarter of the world’s coral has already been lost.
-9/11: Yes, I’ll get to it further down.
Global Dimming is basically the antagonist of Global Warming. Both are caused by emissions. Green House Gas Emissions trap heat and result in Global Warming. Other emissions, which are more evident, damage the health of us and the environment, but reflect heat from earth, resulting in Global Dimming. Due to the emissions, Global Warming had the edge, and we detected the GCD as a result.
We detected those emissions affecting our health first, and thus reduced them first. This reduced Global Dimming, and therefore contributed to Global Warming.
Airplane vapor trails are a form of Global Dimming. This is where 9/11 becomes a proof of Global Warming. For three days post-9/11, all flights were grounded. For those three days, no airplane vapor trails were produced. For those three days, the average temperature was 1 degree Celsius warmer than other days. This may not sound like much, but 6 degrees colder is the difference between now and the last ice age, when the Ice Sheets extended as far south as London. It’s a huge amount of warming.
This is just some of the evidence that I find most persuasive. The problem we have is that our knowledge of climactic processes is never 100% complete, but at the same time we’re debating whether or not our actions are significantly affecting the climate, we are at the same time running the experiment. The billions of people in the world and the technology we use to sustain that population might be having an impact on the planet. And it is also conceivable that we might not be able to recover from the consequences of those impacts. No matter the outcome, we have a stake in it.
2) Why not change the focus? No one is perfect, so our choices carry a risk if that choice turns out to be a mistake. Given that, which risk would you rather take for H-IGCD? Listen to the activists and take big action now, risking the possible harm to the economy that the skeptics warn us about; or listen to the skeptics and don’t take action, risking the possible destruction and upheaval that the activists warn us about. The bottom line is which is the more acceptable risk? The risk of taking action, or not taking action?
You might say that the choice is a false one, for the changes in the climate we see are, in fact, not H-IGCD, but part of the climactic cycle (perhaps an extreme part in that cycle, but part of it none-the-less). Are you infallible? No. Could you be wrong? Yes. So the question, which is the more acceptable risk, still applies.
The best way to present it to you is in the form of a box divided into quarters.
*http://www.kheper.net/topics/civilization/four.gif
*Have one of the two rows represent: H-IGCD – True (T), and the other: H-IGCD – False (F).
Here we can acknowledge that we are far from absolutely certain, or rather far from in agreement, about H-IGCD. All reasonable people should be able to admit to the possibility that they might have a mistake in their understanding of reality.
*Have one of the two columns represent: Significant Action Taken – Yes (Y), and the other: Significant Action Taken – No (N).
Obviously, these represent what actions we take.
*So we now have a grid with four boxes, each box representing a different, plausible future.
We can now compare these four basic possible scenarios side-by-side, by considering what each of those futures might look like. To determine this, we consider the consequences of the two factors that we are bearing in mind, on the envisioned future, from the perspective of a realistic pessimist.
Future #1 (F, Y) – Economic cost, no positive benefits: Wasted money in unnecessary investment, opportunity cost of investment, possibly increased taxation, burdensome regulation, inutile bureaucracy, possible costs and problems of replacement technology (from carbon-based technology), retardation of third-world economic development. For the purposes of contrast let’s take it to the extreme, and go so far as to imagine draconian regulation causing massive lay-offs, sparking a recession, spiraling into a global depression which makes the 1930s look like a cakewalk. =(
Future #2 (F, N) – Didn’t take action, but didn’t need to: we made the right decision, no big economic consequences, continued relative prosperity; sure we had some problems but H-IGCD wasn’t one of them. Everyone celebrates – the skeptics because they were right, and the activists because it wasn’t the end of the world after all. =D
Future #3 (T, Y) – We took action, and it was a good thing too: the doomsayers were right, we still have the economic cost, but it was money well spent as it allowed as to counteract H-IGCD; it still happened but we managed it so everyone’s ok with that because we saved our bacon. It’s a different world, but it’s livable. Our actions were insurance for the survival and well-being of the human species. =)
Future #4 (T, N) – We have granted the extreme in every other scenario, and we should here too, and in that case it gets kind of ugly: economic, social, political, and environmental catastrophes on a global scale – a disaster scenario; and the more of these you consider in conjunction, and the greater degree to which we imagine these semi-independently-occurring variables, the more severe the prediction. At the extreme we have an intense situation that makes Al Gore look like a sissy who sugar-coated the bad news, with chain reactions in which problems induce or aggravate other problems:
Crises ranging from sea-level rise affecting mainland coasts, coastal countries, and river banks, rivers drying up as glaciers melt, changes in wind and sea currents affecting regional microclimates and ecosystems, massive seasonal droughts alternating with wide-spread floods, more intense and more frequent hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, lightening storms, blizzards, and forest fires, expansion of desertification, crop failures from climate change, the breadbaskets in Russia, the US, India, and China converted to dustbowls, extinctions and food chain disruption (vegetation can’t adapt to new conditions, animals migrate, keystone species die, habitats drastically alter, predator-prey balance shifts), population displacement (from coasts and river banks, or from areas which can no longer sustain life), south-ward and north-ward migrating of insects (mosquitoes and locusts) as regions’ climates become able to accommodate them, increased forests fires, deforestation, forest burning, forest death (either from climate change beyond what they can tolerate, or insect plagues), spread of famine and epidemics, warfare over scare resources (compounded by, in certain cases, pre-existing tensions), technology failure (particularly energy such as power grids failing due to weather extremes), and economic collapse from consecutive crises, etc. =(
Take your pick, mix it up, consider what could induce or intensify another problem, and consider the problems to differing degrees of severity. I actually find it rather interesting to ponder the possibilities.
Obviously this awfully oversimplifies the complexities. But we can say that the future will fall roughly into one of those four boxes. The debate is about trying to predict which row the future will fall into, which we can’t know for certain until we actually get there. What we can know, because we determine it by taking significant action or not, is which column the future will fall (Y/N) into (or rather which column it won’t). Therefore we can eliminate the risk of one of the columns. It’s like buying one of two lottery tickets. Then we sit back and wait for what the Laws of Physics deal out as a result of our pick.
This grid attempts to isolate the risk to help us decide what the optimal action to take is. One way or the other we are taking a risk, so which risk is more acceptable? As we can only control which column the future land in, the risks associated with the columns are: (F, Y) for column (Y) – acting when we didn’t need to; and (T, N) for column (N) – not acting when we needed to. Interestingly, the risk (T, N) incorporates the general risk of (F, Y), but with some added bonus features. So the risk is the cost of a mistake, either through deliberate choice or by default of inaction (especially if we’re too busy debating the rows).
The flaw to this logic is that the same grid argument can be made for any possible threat, no matter how costly the action or ridiculous the threat – the infinite cost of the last square on his grid. Even giant mutant space hamsters. It’s better to go broke building a bunch of rodent traps than to even risk the possibility of hamster chow right? Not quite. The grid by itself allows us to make a decision based on uncertain knowledge by changing the question from ‘are we humans affecting the climate,’ to the superior question, ‘what’s the wisest thing to do, given the uncertainties and the risks?’ To make the logic of the grid more applicable to reasonability, we take into consideration the factor of probability. With this risk management, we need a sense of how likely each row is – an estimate of the certainty of occurrence.
Waiting for us to gain an even greater understanding of the climate, on which to base a decision, doesn’t avoid the risk; as it is the same as choosing column (N) – which is where we sit right now. This is where the risk of row (T) is increased, or rather made more tangible. There is, of course, the evidence indicating H-IGCD cited above. On top of which we can take recent or concurrent events: for example, prolonged droughts in Africa and Australia, the seemingly delayed seasonal rains in Africa’s Okavango Delta, the flooding in Venice, heat-deaths in Paris, abandonment of sled-hunting in Greenland due to seas not freezing over, Chinese desertification and sand storms, the frequency and severity of major hurricanes this year – Bertha (July), Gustav (August), Ike (September), Omar (October), Paloma (November) – with the 2008 hurricane season (5) breaking 2005’s record (4) of having the most major hurricanes in the 6 months of hurricane season, the accelerated melting of the Chorabari Glacier which feeds the River Ganges in India, etc. Finally we can add that whilst there will almost always be disagreement by dissenting scientists on some scientific issue, we must regard the stance of professional organizations – the more prestigious, the weightier their statements; as they’re staking their reputations on it (which they want to uphold, not tarnish with inaccuracy); from which we have a consensus.
With organisations like the NAS and the AAAS having both issued statements calling for immediate, significant action in response to H-IGCD, by curbing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, (along with the indicators cited), we can adjust the size of row (T) based on the relative probability. Think of row (T) as, now, larger than row (F) – in other words, push the line dividing the two rows in the direction that makes row (T) larger. Now the probability of (T, N) has increased, and thus the risk of (T, N) is greater than (F, Y) not just in terms of likelihood, but in damage as well. Unfortunately, our default (inaction) carries the greater risk. And with the projected rate at which this is occurring we’re talking about this plausibly occurring within a relatively short span of time – not abstract grandchildren, but you and I.
Instead of guessing at rows, we are faced with choosing between the columns, and the arguments lead to the same inescapable conclusion: when faced with uncertainty about our future, the only responsible choice, the only defensible choice, really the only choice is column (Y), in order to eliminate the risk of (T, N) as a possibility; because the risk of not acting significantly outweighs the risk of acting.
It seems odd that the lack of absolute certainty is holding us back. After all, we buy car insurance over smaller stakes in less probable scenarios. We buy car insurance without being certain we’ll crash or have an accident, because we want to make sure that if it does happen we don’t end up broke. To most, this is enough of a risk (along with the statistics of car crashes) to justify the action of purchasing car insurance. Yet we seem to be insisting that every scientist interviewed agree on H-IGCD, holding out until we understand the physics, and debating the finer points of climate science instead of discussing risk management.
Why should this matter anyway? Well, this isn’t about the planet – it will still be here a century or two from now, and it can always rehabilitate itself; it’ll do fine on its own. Whether we humans will be here, our wellbeing, and the state of the environment that we need to sustain us, is what we are concerned with. Every single other issue (from the Rainforests, to pollution, from toxic waste, to government waste, from immigration, to diplomacy, from human rights, to abortion) pales in comparison to the worst of H-IGCD coming to pass. It trumps everything else because if the worst were to happen, we’ll be so busy dealing with the fallout, that all other human concerns will seem like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Therefore it needs to be our priority.
The positive thing is that there’s a lot reasons to be believe that we can fix this problem, and palliate the risk, without even reducing our standing of living, if we act quickly.
3) I feel it would be negligent not to mention the arguments that mitigate the risk of column (Y). I.e. taking significant action as if H-IGCD were true is more appealing regardless of weather H-IGCD is true or not.
The American Energy Institute did a detailed study of the likely outcome of offshore drilling for their Annual Energy Outlook 2007 Report, and concluded that the effects of offshore drilling on production and oil prices would not be felt until 2030. Not to mention that rigs and oil pollute. But, and this is probably the biggest thing, the huge cost of drilling investment, could just as easily be put toward a green economy. After all, it will not replace oil in the absolute near future, but, as we need to eventually, we should start now.
The last three global recessions – in 1974, 1980 and 1991 – were all triggered by an oil shock. Even if companies drill more oil or access it more quickly, there wouldn’t be enough, most experts agree, to have a significant effect on prices. We need to move to green energy, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% (close to pre-industrial levels) by 2050.
Government incentives for alternative energy production (subsidies for solar and wind, regulations on emissions) will facilitate the transition. We can’t drill our way to energy independence, the U.S. consumes almost a quarter of the world’s oil but has less than 3% of the world’s known oil reserves. And most of those reserves are in fragile ecosystems where endangered species reside, species that we can’t be sure aren’t keystone species (species on which an ecosystem is particularly dependant); such as Polar bears in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The bigger issue is strategically: The economy of the future can not be relying on oil and coal. We need to reduce our dependence on carbon-energy dramatically. In terms of foreign relations (given most oil reserves are held elsewhere i.e. supply), a green economy, green energy jobs, energy independence. That is why we should invest in Renewable Energy. We don’t want to encourage further oil and coal development when it firstly won’t have any impact for years, and, more importantly, when these are the energy sources that have lead us down the track to H-IGCD and pollution.
Aside from the environmental and human health factors, the opportunity cost of investing oil is not worth it. We could just as easily invest in a green economy. If we invest in green tech, independent organizations have concluded we will create millions of jobs and stand to gain billions which will strengthen the economy, increase energy independence, and fight H-IGCD. Several institutes that I can name which endorse this are the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), Center for American Progress (CAP), World Energy Efficiency Agency (WEEA), and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDA), etc.
The comparative economic viability comes from the fact that green is more efficient, thus cheaper in the long term (paying for its investment); the jobs that will be created; that long term oil supplies are diminishing, and short term oil supplies are not secure; that drilling is ineffective as concluded by AEI; that the amount of offshore oil around America is relatively insignificant and accessing it would provide no returns for decades; and that investing in a green economy is not only more cost-effective, it is beneficial to the environment and the health of species including our own.
Cutting CO2 emissions (and maintaining our current lifestyle) is cheaper than, say, building new coal plants – screwing in CFL lightbulbs, ratcheting up appliance standards, boosting car fuel-economy, recycling the heat wasted from power plants – in Craig, Colorado, one plant was losing two-thirds of fuel energy as heat. The United States could cut of its carbon emissions and actually save money, while satisfying our energy needs.
We require government regulations and investment because the changes we can reasonably expect from consumers are not enough. Policy matters when it comes to going green. Given the benefits of going green, we will have better chances of both enacting environmentally friendly, green economic policies, and producing international pressure for similar action IF there is interest and ability to use that potential.
The best way to inspire interest is to inform people of this information. The only way we get into column (Y) is through policy change, and that will come about when enough people demand it. We need nothing less than a change in our culture itself. Using our power to persuade others will generate this change. Understanding these arguments helps increase public demand for column (Y). So I’m asking you, whom I’ve never meet, but who’s fate I’m still tied to, to make it part of our thinking and our conversations. Anything less, intentionally or not, is tantamount to choosing column (N).
Err on the side of caution. If it’s row (F), then the solution to the problem row (T), that I believe is real, is at least a benefit. If the sceptics are wrong, their proposals are jeopardising the well being and survival of all the species on Earth, through pollution and H-IGCD exacting a widening human and financial toll. In other words, I can afford to be wrong. Hopefully this helps ends the debate. How humanity ends up, well, that’s up to you and me. This is likely to be the greatest threat that humanity has so far faced. Think that’s overblown? Maybe; but are you so certain that you’re willing to bet everything? We only get to run this experiment once. Think it won’t happen? That’s the risk you’re taking.

John Philip (06:37:36)
Ah, but according to the CO2=AGW paradigm, it wasn’t supposed to cool at all. See lucia’s BlackBoard for how desperately wrong the ‘projections’ have been. All this ‘not monotonically warming’ business of which you speak was only invented when the world’s climate quit following the expectations of the modelers. If Koutsoyiannis is right, the future may be unpredictable. The bottom line emerging is that CO2 does not have the influence on climate that the alarmists would have us believe. So why cripple the societies of the earth by raising the cost of energy unnecessarily? Foolish, my friend, foolish. However, every day, fewer politicians seem willing to follow the mad scientists over the cliff. Hard and cold times are knocking sense into the policymakers. Let’s make the effort to discover the real sensitivity of climate to CO2. Please. For the sake of all of us.
I believe we’ll have 20-30 years of cooling from the PDO flipped to its cooling phase. If the Sun is entering a Minimum, Grand or Lesser, and if the sun controls the climate(Thanks Leif) the earth may cool for up to a 100 years. Hence:
We are cooling folks, for how long even kim doesn’t know.
===================================

John Philips (06:37:36)
Your sophistry is demonstrated by the timescales you’ve picked. Take a look at the last century and observe the approximately 30 year phase of the PDO alternating. The last few years, this century, show the crest of the latest rise, and the beginning of the latest drop. It’s hard to understand why you, as many of the alarmists do, only want to interpret data to support the CO2=AGW paradigm. C’mon, be a scientist. Wonder at the data instead of manipulating it to seem to prove your preconceptions.
==========================================

Join the Community of the Curious, rather than the Flock of the Fearful.
=============================================

Ooops! Here’s the same post, with tags.
Ah, but according to the CO2=AGW paradigm, it wasn’t supposed to cool at all. See lucia’s BlackBoard for how desperately wrong the ‘projections’ have been
Sorry, but this is not correct. Most model runs have periods of low or negative growth. Take a look at this graph of the spread of model projections from the 2001 IPCC report. It was posted by Roger Pielke on his blog in May. The black bar graph shows the trend in global temperatures projected by the different climate model runs used by the IPCC for the years 2000-2007, and the number of runs that projected each trend. The spread is centred on about 0.2C/decade and the pale blue lines are meant to show the 95% spread. The purple lines below show the actual observed trends in global temperatures as calculated by the various agencies that provide such indices, along with their uncertainty intervals. This demonstrates that precisely because the models include the short term natural variability some of them did indeed predict a cooling.
if the mean of one value falls within the 95% confidence limits of the other, which is the case for the global temps and the modelled projections, then in the normal statistical usage of the word, they are consistent. James Annan has the math. What Lucia has ‘falsified’ is just the mean of the models, ignoring the spread. I am not convinced by her novel methodology, however when Lucia did a similar analysis she came to the same conclusion
Using all the above, I find that the best estimate of the underlying trend in GMST based on the average of 38 runs (2.22 C/century ) is not inconsistent to a significance level of 95% with the observed trend of -0.59 C/century.
So while the mean trend of the models is a warming, some predicted a cooling and the actual trend was within the 95% range of the projections. However what the large spreads and uncertainties actually demonstrate is that it is impossible to draw meaningful conclusions from short-term (less than a decade, preferably longer) trends.

Stephen: Wow, quite an impressive AGW/CC diatribe. You certainly seem to have the propaganda down. Yes, completely ignore the MWP and LIA, and voila, you get Mann’s temperature hockey stick. How convenient.
Then, you trot out the consensus fallacy you Warmists are so fond of. Sorry, but it’s all a giant house of cards, and it’s collapsing. Do yourself a favor, and try reading a bit of actual science for a change. The truth, as they say, shall set you free.
Finally, the precautionary nonsense. Really. You might be able to fool school kids with that idiocy. It’s all based on fear and ignorance.

John, sure you run 20 models, one is going to be more right than the other 19. Big deal. Re: water vapor feedback, see Spencer.
The globe is cooling, John, for how long even kim doesn’t know. But kim’s pretty sure it will be long enough to bury the CO2=AGW paradigm and generate the curiosity to discover what the real sensitivity of climate to CO2 is. The alarmists don’t know now, and their cries and calls to foolish action are hysterical. Remember, the lives of the poor will be damaged and lost by mistaken action and it is an error to think that the more prosperous will escape the effects of that mistake.
========================================

John Philip
– but non the less, in recent years H2O concentration have been decreasing in most of the atmosphere.
You think you can have positive feedback CO2->Warmth->H20->Warmth when H2O is decreasing?
Most of the positive feedback talk just ends as there is not rising H2O in the atmospehere.
– How is the mechanism in details without H2O increase?

but in fact for 10 years it’s been static to slightly down and for the last two it’s gotten quite cooler.
Not according to the data. The 10 year trend is now clearly positive, showing +0.11C/decade in the case of the UAH data. HADCRUT dropped from +0.473 in Oct 06 to +0.434 in Oct 08, a change lot less than the uncertainty in the measurements. A 2 year cooling trend is meaningless as a falsification of an underlying gradual warming – the last two years were dominated by the cooling effect of the 2007-8 La Nina event and nobody expects such events to stop as a result of AGW. This now sees to be behind us as evidenced by the stongly positive trend since the ENSO event peaked. This kind of uncorrelated stochastic variability (aka weather) is actually well-reproduced by the IPCC models.
Global cooling is just so last year. 😉
The globe is warming, albeit irregularly. How long it will continue, not even JP knows.

Let’s see if I can take the 40K foot view, and see what’s worse:
Warming = relocated beach fronts, increased food supply.
Cooling = diminished food supply, mass starvation.
UN, IPCC, idiot governments address non-problem warming by attempting to cripple everyone’s standard of living, forcing poor countries to remain as such, and enriching themselves through investment (i.e. Generation Investment Management). No attempt to research cooling.
What else am I missing?

Oops, I forgot:
We are cooling, folks. For how long, even kim doesn’t know.
Son of a gun, neither does John. So lay off the carbon demonizing until we do.
=================================

John (16:12:28)
Sorry, John, I’m talking about the three timescales you cherry-picked to sophistically make your arguments in previous posts. Were you defending a thesis, do you think you could get away with that baloney?
And please, don’t give me HADcrut. They are almost as suspicious as GISStemp. Depend on UAH and RSS, competing algorithms from publicly available data.
================================

But not monotonically. Heh.
==================

Brendan H. (23:58:41)
Yes, on that timescale, during a time that we have been emerging from the Little Ice Age, the trend has been warming. I say we are cooling now, because the PDO in its cooling phase puts a 30 year downtrend signal on that overall trend. But your point does help illustrate that CO2 does not seem to be modifying that long term trend. That there is a long term warming trend is part of the reason I say:
We are cooling, folks; for how long, even kim doesn’t know.
=========================================

#1 Question I want global warming people to answer.
We all agree there was an ice-age with ICE covering most of the planet. What caused that to melt? Cave-man cars? Shame on them!!! Come on smart people NON-man made changes and cycles are huge contributes.
Second on computer models….
If you don’t include all effects in your models they give you wrong results. An how do you explain the correlation discrepancies in the articles data? Seriously If I ask you to record the temperature on a summer day when you wake up until noon. Then I ask you to create a model and predict what temperature will be at midnight you will tell me seriously hot. Why? Because your model does not include all the cycles.
This whole global warming thing is next incarnation of the mob extorting money from people! Carbon offsets. What is wrong with people. If you have not 100% disconnected yourself from the power grid or if you use a car stop with the global warming mantra. You are a hypocrite.

Kim: “First of all, if CO2 was rising in the first half of the century, why didn’t the temperature rise in consonant with it?”
Temperatures did in fact rise in the early part of the 20th century, although increases in solar heating may have been a major factor in this rise.
“In the second half of the century, the temperature only rose in the last
quarter of it, representing, to my eyes, the greatest example of fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning ever, or at least the most momentous.”
Beg pardon? You are ware of the heat-retaining properties of CO2?
“Furthermore, if the mechanism by which the sun directs the climate is unknown, how can it be stated that it didn’t effect the climate?
The assumption is that increased solar activity would cause additional warming of the atmosphere. No increased activity, no warming. Seems like a reasonable assumption.
“If you look at the last century of temperature results, you will see the underlying gradually rising trend modulated by the alternating heating and cooling phases of the PDO.”
You may have a correlation, but to demonstrate a net effect on the amount of heat within the atmospheric system, you would need to show a mechanism for a PDO-type event causing a change in the amount of heat being retained/lost. As far as I know that has not yet been shown, so the PDO and similar events may merely be redistributing the existing heat.
“Else why does the earth cool, for how long even kim doesn’t know?”
Natural variation, such as volcanoes and changes in solar activity, and other man-made phenomena such as aerosols.

Kim asks, “Why does the Earth cool?”
Brendan answers, “Natural variation, such as volcanoes and changes in solar activity, and other man-made phenomena such as aerosols.”
You’re right Kim CO2, is a very minor player. Looks like the big player is “natural variation”. Thanks for clearing that up, Brendan.
It’s cool in Texas,
Mike