http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/05/the_australians_war_on_science_39.php

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25434629-7583,00.html

And ‘most eminent Australian geologist’? I’ve never heard him referred to as that, and I’m an Australian geologist.

No need to Google, Matt – it’s in the article: “It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on Blue Peter and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock.”

If he is lending his support to the global warming scam, it’s almost certainly because he’s been put under pressure to do so.

By the BBC, no doubt (who never now show us Dr David Bellamy, who was almost as common a sight on our screens as David Attenborough at one time, but who is now outcast as an unbeliever in AGW).

Should be a big boost to their economies.

Some comment http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=324516647690251

Suggest further reflection on dropping fertility levels should be considered before touting alarmist “Overpopulation will destroy us all” mantras.

chad (23:57:28) :

Dave – Excellent Post.

Cheers G

Pascal over Descartes? You will profit little on that bet.

Give me a Scotsman over a Frenchman any day, thank you; Hume to be exact.

Your bets from evidence, please, not dreamy.metaphysical.fairytale.unicorns-with-wings.moonbattery.

Richard Lawson (08:36:57) :
In the end, this is not an academic debate, because we and our children are part of the experiment. The consensus among scientists (yes, with a few exceptions, as is always the case in science) that we should decarbonise our economy as a matter of urgency.

Science is not a consensus building process. Prior to the Ptolemaic Solar System’s collapse under the increasing weight of contradictory observations, the “scientific consensus” was that the solar system orbited around the Earth. Plate Tectonics were first hypothesized in the early 20th century…It was 70 years before the evidence supporting it overwhelmed the geosynclinal theory. In the late 1960’s, the “scientific consensus” for mountain-building was that sediment load dumped into synclines pushed up mountain ranges behind those synclines. That consensus was sold right up until the weight of the contradictory evidence toppled it.

And there is no “scientific consensus” that de-carbonization of the economy is urgent. The consensus is that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a primary factor in climate change…That paradigm will shift in the next 10 years as the Earth continues to cool. If anything the “consensus” is that the talk of urgency is counterproductive to reducing carbon emissions because the alarmism is unwarranted.

Say we decarbonise our economy, and it turns out that IPCC view is wrong? Well, we will have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in insulation and manufacturing and taken thousands out of fuel poverty. Not bad, but that’s not all. We will also have reduced the shock of Peak Oil and Peak Gas. And addressed our energy security problems. And prosperity in hot countries. Not bad.

De-carbonize with what? The only viable alternative of sufficient scale for electricity generation is nuclear fission. Who’s going to pay for this de-carbonization? Draconian carbon tax schemes will only serve to make the world’s most economical energy sources more expensive…This will sap the wealth of rich nations and permanently impoverish the poor nations – if no lead to genocide in the Third World.

Say we go the way of the denialists/sceptics advocate? We will have problems with energy security, Peak Oil, Peak Gas, fuel poverty, unemployment, poverty, civil unrest and finally, massive, catastrophic climate disruption from droughts, floods, crop failures, disease, and war. With massive migration caused by environmental collapse. Not good.

If you go the way that the free market advocates…Fossil fuels will eventually be replaced because market forces make the alternatives more economically attractive.

The climate will do what the Sun, the stars and plate tectonics basically tell it to do irrespective of what mankind does.

If I were a betting man, I would put my money on decarbonising the global economy. AGW. I’m sure Pascal would agree.

Pascal would agree with what? De-carbonizing or AGW? If Pascal was a geoscientist, he’d know that AGW has no scientific foundation; and therefore Pascal’s Wager would not apply.

chad (23:57:28) :

The claim that co2 doesn’t cause warming, which is a claim this guy makes, is akin to claiming the Earth is only 6000 years old. It is so divorced from the weight of evidence that it just calls into doubt the credibility of the other claims made. Spencer and Lindzen do not subscribe to such nonsense, accepting that co2 rise does have a warming effect.

The fact is that over the entire Phanerozoic Eon (the last 650 million years) there is no long-term correlation between CO2 and temperature. Of the Phanerozoic’s four major ice ages, two occurred with far higher CO2 levels…Ordovician (4000-4500 ppm) and Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous (2000-2500 ppm)…And two ice ages with low CO2 levels Pennsylvanian to Lower Permian (200-1000 ppm) and Upper Tertiary to Quaternary (200-1000 ppm). We are currently living in the Quaternary ice age…We just happen to be enjoying an interglacial. There’s an online publication called “Plant Fossils of West Virginia.” This publication includes a chapter on Carboniferrous climate; in which you’ll find a very nice graph that shows the total lack of correlation between temperature and CO2 since the Cambrian Period.

From a geological perspective, the only evidence of a “correlation” between CO2 and temperature is found in Pleistocene-aged ice cores. However, the changes in temperature always precede the changes in CO2 by an average of 800 years. Even Real Climate Dot Org acknowledges the lag-time problem…Well they acknowledge it and dismiss it.

As far as Lindzen and Spencer go…My understanding of their views is that they believe that anthropogenic CO2 has a minimal effect on climate forcing and that natural drivers overwhelm any anthropogenic effects and that the climate’s feedback mechanisms to CO2 are more likely to be negative; rather than positive. Spencer also correctly asserts that Kyoto-style remedies won’t cool the planet and will waste trillions of dollars and the misdirection of gov’t spending will harm people – particularly poor people.

As a geoscientist, I’ve come full-circle on this issue. Twenty years ago, I did not believe that anthropogenic CO2 had any influence on climate. By 1998, I started to accept the fact that maybe it did…It seemed to be getting hotter and hotter…Mann’s paleoclimate reconstruction sure looked convincing and some of the initial correlations of CO2 and temperature in ice cores made be think that CO2 was a significant driver. Since then, the Earth has begun to cool, Mann’s work was shown to be seriously flawed and the lag-time in the ice cores became obvious.

Since then, Svensmark and others have clearly demonstrated the correlation of solar cycles, cloud cover and climate…I’ve discovered that plant stomatal data contradict the ice core data (CO2 has routinely been 300-500 ppm throughout Pleistocene interglacials and the early Holocene) and the ad hominem attacks against dissenting scientific opinion on the part of people like Al Gore has grown to a McCarthy-esque scale.

I’m now convinced that Anthropogenic Global Warming is akin to the Ptolemaic Solar System. It’s only a matter of time until it collapses under its own version of retrograde motion. Hopefully it will collapse before the politicians waste too much of our money.

On the matter of the IPCC remember the IPCC don’t create the science they report on it. The models include TSI forcing and there is no other quantifiable mechanism for solar forcing. So the argument that the models “ignore” some well known significant solar forcing is false. You can’t make any calculations based on unquantified forcing and so you can’t claim they “ignore” such.

The IPCC proactively ignore most solar forcing…particularly the cloud/albedo effect. They mention Palle’s paper on albedo forcing in the 4th AR (or was it 3rd?) and then summarily dismiss it because it doesn’t fit the models and another way of measuring albedo effects fit the models.

What I find amazing is that people are willing to attack my arguments when I made them earlier, seemingly simply because, as one person put it -they thought I was an “activist” – and I guess that means I have to be challenged on every single point, irregardless whether my point is valid.

I have to admit that my initial reaction to your post was that you were an activist.

Say we decarbonise our economy, and it turns out that IPCC view is wrong? Well, we will have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in insulation and manufacturing and taken thousands out of fuel poverty. Not bad, but that’s not all. We will also have reduced the shock of Peak Oil and Peak Gas. And addressed our energy security problems. And prosperity in hot countries. Not bad.

Say we go the way of the denialists/sceptics advocate? We will have problems with energy security, Peak Oil, Peak Gas, fuel poverty, unemployment, poverty, civil unrest and finally, massive, catastrophic climate disruption from droughts, floods, crop failures, disease, and war. With massive migration caused by environmental collapse. Not good.

If I were a betting man, I would put my money on decarbonising the global economy. AGW. I’m sure Pascal would agree.

Your ‘model’ is the best illustration we’ve seen!

For the record, he is and has been for the past 40 or 50 years the public face of British naturalism. He has produced series after series of TV programmes about the natural world. He has brought to millions his enthusiasm for wildlife of every kind, and helped shape a generations’ attitudes, in Britain at least. And he has become a greatly respected grand old man.

He’s never been an advocate. He’s never been an ideologue. His love for all living things just shines out of him. He never goes shoving his beliefs down people’s throats. If he is lending his support to the global warming scam, it’s almost certainly because he’s been put under pressure to do so.

His brother is the actor Richard Attenborough, who I last saw in Jurassic Park.