Global warming skeptic tells group that cure is worse than problem.
By Lee Roop, special to The Huntsville Times
HUNTSVILLE, AL – Science doesn’t support current global warming alarms and, even if it did, current proposals to fix things won’t work and might make life worse.
That’s the well-known view of Dr. John Christy, a University of Alabama in Huntsville climate scientist, and Christy spelled out the “whys” and “why nots” of his perspective Tuesday to the Huntsville Rotary Club.
“Consensus is not science,” Christy began, quoting the late author Michael Crichton.
Christy, the state climatologist, is well-known in the global warming debate. He has testified before Congress many times and was an unpaid expert witness for the automobile industry in a federal lawsuit against fleet mileage requirements.
Here’s Christy’s basic argument:
* The data being used to predict catastrophic warming is suspect.
* Models generated from that data “overstate the warming” actually taking place. The earth is warming, but not that much, and it has warmed and cooled for eons.
* The Earth’s atmosphere is nowhere near as sensitive to carbon dioxide as some environmentalists believe.
* Any “solution” to perceived global warming must balance the growing worldwide demand for energy against cutting carbon dioxide output.
Fleet mileage requirements now proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency “would reduce global temperatures by about 1/100th of a degree,” Christy said.
You would need to replace 1,000 coal-fired power plants with 1,000 nuclear plants to change global climate even .15 of a degree, he said.
“This is the scale (of global climate) we are talking about,” Christy said.
* One cost of mandating harsh energy controls is the migration of industry to areas where requirements are less, Christy said.
In his talk, Christy also took aim at several other widely discussed pronouncements.
* Temperatures in the Arctic have increased over the last 100 years, he agreed, but that’s only because 100 years ago “was the coldest it’s been in a long time.”
* Arctic ice has melted, but ice has grown in Anartica. Between the two, there’s about as much ice as always.
* There are more polar bears now, not fewer. Canada issues 800 bear-hunting permits each year, he pointed out.
* Temperatures may be warmer in Greenland, but scientific experiments with ice fields show “that 4,000 years ago, it was warmer in Greenland than it is today.
“Greenland did not melt,” Christy said.
Why is the apocalyptic view of climate change so widespread?
“Funding comes if you have an alarming story,” Christy said.
He also cited “group think” and said scientists revel in the attention their views about climate brings.
“It’s almost a drug,” Christy said.
h/t to Climate Depot
He looks pink on my monitor.
Now to read the article.
The drug metaphor is facile, but fatuous groupthink could be symptomatic of a general abandonment of academic and scientific integrity coupled with (driven by) a desire to get funding.
He is very kind. The AGW’ers are merely deluded drug addicts hooked on funding – they can’t help it.
WRONG – they are a bunch of fraudulent con artists. They are crooks. In many other disciplines one would be sued for criminal negligence for the typical kind of inaccuracies and outright false statements found in many AGW papers. Liars and cheats and eco-fascists that masterminded this kind of fraud are not merely people who lost their way.
You would need to replace 1,000 coal-fired power plants with 1,000 nuclear plants to change global climate even .15 of a degree, he said.
Hmm. That’s a pretty big chunk.
Since CO2 increase has diminishing returns in effect, replacing, say, 4000 would virtually wipe out 20th century warming. Providing the forcing assumptions are correct.
I wonder how much that would cost compared with what is being proposed at Copenhagen?
(Costs are a couple of $bil. each, but that would come ‘way down if that many were built.)
MIke D
In the case of certain (NYC based) scientists, the drug metaphor might be close to the truth, they already have funding.
You would need to replace 1,000 coal-fired power plants with 1,000 nuclear plants to change global climate even .15 of a degree, he said.
Having read Dr. Chisty’s work before, and if I am not mistaken, this calculation is based on IPCC models. In other words, he is assuming, for the sake of argument that the alarmists are correct.
In this case, he’s not disputing the science, although he doesn’t agree with it. He’s merely demonstrating that the suggested solutions wouldn’t make any meaningful difference even if you are a believer.
“Funding comes if you have an alarming story,” Christy said.
This is a piercing truth of the information age.
…& it doesn’t just apply to climate. As a civilization we need to get beyond this stage. What I am saying is that we need to get jaded, comfortably numb, whatever you want to call it.
Alarmism is a weakness that will be capitalized upon. It is not safe.
It IS a drug.
Maybe the current DEA could think about Schedule 1’ing it.
Certainly has no medicinal–or scientific, for that matter–value.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
@ur momisugly Jeremy (20:53:20)
In the past Christy talked about “the ones who know”, the press wants to know your opinion about global warming/climate change, now what can you do as a climate scienctist? Tell the thruth or go with the populair opinion also known as “the consensus”? It is definitly not science, but absolutely human.
And yes attention becomes addictive, because it is also human, afteral we are still social apes, we crave for attention, getting attention means that you for example can move up in the pecking order. In my opinion people like Mann and Hanssen are clearly under the influence of this social motivation to keep up the scary stories. And with them there are a lot more who dare not to say that “The science is unsettled about AGW and that predictions are overstating the actual warming that will take place”.
So apart from a very selected few there is no widespread conspiracy in science about AGW, just the fear what happens when you say “no!”.
The other parties in this story, well kool-aid is very addictive.
How to save the Planet by shutting it down, by our man Gore.
Ok. You go first. Oh, well I changed my mind, after I saw what condition your condition was in. That’s gotta hurt, Spain.
Meanwhile, I have a forest to save. The ‘let it burn/shut it down/no salvage-no planting-no restoration’ bunch hugs their trees but wants to destroy ours.
I see you talking; damn, you look good!
I wish I could speak to you but I ain’t got your love.
I see you flying; damn, you look good!
I wish I could fly like you but I ain’t got the drugs.
I see you riding on a bicycle straight to Hell.
I wish I could ride with you because you and me and the devil make two.
I rode the bicycle of the devil
Driving straight to Hell.
The bicycle of the devil will take you straight to Hell.
If the press wants to know what I think about Global Warming, I think it’s another one of those alarming predictions that fall by the wayside under close inspection.
Stop worrying about the Planet getting too warm, worry about keeping your body warm in the cooling years ahead. Your children will thank you.
The drug analogy is good.
[snip]
What I find puzzling lately is that only small amounts of CO2 increase would cause wast changes in climate if one would believe the Green’s but on the other hand they claim even vast reduction in CO2 output to the tune of 80% reduction result in only very small improvements of the situation.
Is that your typical Green double talk? That’s what I’m thinking.
Paul Vaughan (21:14:11) : ” What I am saying is that we need to get jaded, comfortably numb, whatever you want to call it.
Alarmism is a weakness that will be capitalized upon. It is not safe.”
No. It is not safe.
Agree across the board, Paul. Some major reality in your words. (Roger Vaughan Carr)
“You would need to replace 1,000 coal-fired power plants with 1,000 nuclear plants to change global climate even .15 of a degree, he said.”
1000 reactors was also an estimate of what is required to electrify all N. American autos. You know… the electric car solution.
However, nobody proffers a hint or suggestion as to where we could possibly find the uranium fuel to power even a few hundred big, new reactors. Someone better accelerate prototype thorium reactors if fission is going to give us energy while waiting for fusion. Otherwise, coal, oil, gas, will still be our future. GK
Paul Vaughan (22:08:15) :
The drug analogy is good.
[snip]
Try a unicycle, Evan. Much more likely to tip you off before you get there…
Semi OT – Youth trapped on ice floe forced to shoot polar bear
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/youth-trapped-on-ice-floe-forced-to-shoot-polar-bear-1818058.html
A teenager spent two nights adrift on an ice floe in the Canadian Arctic with three polar bears for company before being dramatically rescued, it emerged today.
The 17-year-old youth, named as Jupi Angootealuk, was forced to shoot dead one of the bears after it ventured too close while rescuers desperately tried to locate him from the air…
…The polar bear season had just begun and the two hunters headed out on to the frozen seas with their rifles to test the ice and look for prey.
I thought all the ice was melting because it was too hot and the Polar Bears are endangered?
I recall Michael Mann on TV, (Climate wars perhaps). He came over like a whining kid caught out in a lie, still protesting his innocence!
Once I finally convince a warmist that the hokey stick is bunkum, I get, “it doesn’t matter, global warming is out of control!”
They can’t see that the whole point of the hokey stick was to prove that warming wasn’t natural and without it, there is nothing left!
DaveE.
New (and modern) scientific method
When you have facts, argue about the facts, unless arguing about the facts will not result in large government grants.
When arguing about facts will not result in large government grants, come up with a speculation, and call it a theory, which will result in large government grants. Make up data to “demonstrate” the “theory”. Say that the planet will be destroyed if whatever the “theory” says will happen happens.
When the “theory” is falsified again and again, pound on the table, wave your arms and shout: “We need more large government grants for further study. Else the planet will be destroyed.”
My God, someone speaking plain, understandable truth. I’d almost given up hope that such people still existed in science. What ever I can do to be of aid to him, he has it.
G. Karst (22:26:16) : However, nobody proffers a hint or suggestion as to where we could possibly find the uranium fuel to power even a few hundred big, new reactors. Someone better accelerate prototype thorium reactors if fission is going to give us energy while waiting for fusion. Otherwise, coal, oil, gas, will still be our future. GK
Um, no problem getting the U or the Th. India is prepared to offer for sale a Th based reactor, LTBR Lightbridge is putting Th fuel bundles in Russian reactors for licensing trials somewhere between Real Soon and “now”. There is about 11,000 years of U on land that we know of, and extraction from the ocean is a proven technology at economical prices (thought a little more expensive than land sources.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ulum-ultra-large-uranium-miner-ship/
Jeremy: maybe the AGWers are cocaine drug addicts who need to get the substance, so they have to become con artists, promote AGW, and get the grants. Drug addiction is sometimes convoluted. 😉
Arctic is not warmer than in 40ties
http://climate4you.com/images/MAAT%2070-90N%20HadCRUT3%20Since1900.gif
Greenland was even warmer in 40ties than now
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431042500000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=5
In both cases, temperature goes down the cycle again.
It was nice to see such attention media wh*re getting kicked out, as happened few months ago in New Zealand.