From National Review online, the story a modern opera, though not by Wagner.
Image from Wikimedia
Exaggeration and alarmism have been a chronic weakness of environmentalism since it became an organized movement in the 1960s. Every ecological problem was instantly transformed into a potential world-ending crisis, from the population bomb to the imminent resource depletion of the “limits to growth” fad of the 1970s to acid rain to ozone depletion, always with an overlay of moral condemnation of anyone who dissented from environmental correctness. With global warming, the environmental movement thought it had hit the jackpot — a crisis sufficiently long-range that it could not be falsified and broad enough to justify massive political controls on resource use at a global level. Former Colorado senator Tim Wirth was unusually candid when he remarked in the early days of the climate campaign that “we’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” (Not surprisingly, after Wirth left the Senate and the Clinton administration he ended up at the United Nations.)
The global-warming thrill ride looks to be coming to an end, undone by the same politically motivated serial exaggeration and moral preening that discredited previous apocalypses. On the heels of the East Anglia University “Climategate” scandal have come a series of embarrassing retractions from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding some of the most loudly trumpeted signs and wonders of global warming, such as the ludicrous claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear within 30 years, that nearly half of the Amazon jungle was at imminent risk of destruction from a warming planet, and that there was a clear linkage between climate change and weather-related economic losses. The sources for these claims turned out to be environmental advocacy groups — not rigorous, peer-reviewed science.
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We can only hope that the Global Warming fraud is comming to an end. The top politicians still seem stuck on it though. We will see…
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (a simplification of course).
The backlash on this one is snowballing.
Amplification factors are at work here, and no, they are not the claimed scientific ones, they are of the mass-rejection reactionary type.
Every gamble has it’s price of failure.
With global warming, the environmental movement thought it had hit the jackpot — a crisis sufficiently long-range that it could not be falsified and broad enough to justify massive political controls on resource use at a global level.’
This is what angers me the most. Their irresponsible evangelical zeal is costing the west its economy. They should all be in gaol.
I sure hope climate mania may have run its course.
On the lighter side:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/02/10/adrian-macnair-global-warming-cancelled-on-account-of-snow.aspx
I don’t believe it has run its course. Politicians are continuing as if nothing has happened. They are ignoring the current realities and continuing to use “saving the planet” as a lever to get their programs adopted, many of which have nothing to do with “saving the planet” and are simply social engineering according to their political ideology. They use environmentalism as a lever to get people to buy into their programs with are not environmentalist at all. Many of them are nothing more than international redistribution of wealth, or the setting up of cronies to make billions in new markets that they create.
From FoxNews: In Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, four IPCC authors call for reform, including Christy, who suggests the outright dumping of the panel itself in favor of an effort modeled after Wikipedia (my italics), the online encyclopedia. A fifth author, writing in Nature, argues the IPCC rules are fine but need to be better enforced.
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There seems to be a battle brewing between various countries who have recently announced (or will announce in the near future ) their own versions of the IPCC. So I’d expect there will be a long running dispute over who’s “Climate Research Center” is to be believed. A pox on all their houses.
Many readers know that the Club of Rome, which became an elitist organization seeking to use CO2, global warming and other “threats” to promote one-world government as a solution to the “tragedy of the commons,” was the moral imperative behind Maurice Strong, Al Gore, and yes, Obama.
Now that the real climate is not cooperating with them, will they use the on-coming several decades of cooling as their next imperative disaster to put them in charge of our destinies?
You might note that two of the original founders of the Club of Rome we highly egalitarian, and quit in disgust when the organization moved towards what was best for the elites!
Talk about couting chickens!
It is not the end of climate alarmism yet.
Nor is it the beginning of the end,
but it is the end of the beginning of the dark light of perverted climate science.
Here is an example reported on by ABC news. 80% of the money spent on “green” energy projects goes directly overseas.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949
This is “redistribution of wealth” as would be along the lines of international socialism but “green jobs” is a big selling point for the politicians involved. The problem is that they are not providing “green jobs” in the areas where their constituents live, the jobs are created overseas.
nearly half of the Amazon jungle was at imminent risk of destruction from a warming planet…by droughts (GWR’s FICTION MODELS). Now let’s see reality:
Amazon FLOODS:
http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_sa/2010-02-09/327480291591.html
What is tragic here is that there are some areas that do have an environmental problem due to land management issues, but the blame was put on AGW instead. If the land management issue had been addressed, instead of the imaginary boggy man, a lot of folks would be better off. These manias are sadly diverters of valuable resources that could have been much more wisely spent. But Charles Mackay put it all down in black and white in 1839 and not much has changed since.
“we’ve got to ride the global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing ”
Reminds me very much of a scene from “The Oulaw Josey wales” when Captain Redlegs states ” doin good aint got no end” in reference to the murder of southern men, women and children…..and we all know what happened to him.
Lets hope global climate warming cooling change goes the same way as Redlegs.
It is part of the consequentialism embraced by the environmentalists whereby a lie is justified if it serves the greater good (as defined by them).
“The next frontier is likely to be a fresh debate about basic climate sensitivity itself. There have been several recent peer-reviewed papers suggesting much lower climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases than the IPCC “consensus” computer models predict. And alternative explanations for observed climate change in the Arctic and elsewhere, such as shifts in ocean currents and wind patterns, should receive a second look.”
They key question is specific humidity in the radiative zone. If it doesn’t go up, CO2 based global warming is toast. Latest papers (e.g. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/news/2010/stratospheric_water_vapor_impacts_global_warming.html ) indictate that specific humidity has gone down as CO2 has gone up indicating strong negative feedbacks.
Arctic sea ice extent went down in previous years due to wind and currents. So what’s next? Scientist will be empowered to speak the truth? Weren’t they already? Science needs a backbone transplant.
Mike Ramsey
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
Abraham Lincoln.
The warmers will not give up easily. They are too heavily invested in their cause. I would not expect them to give an inch. They will explain away any contradiction to their beliefs. You have heard it all, “that was discredited long ago, that is not peer reviewed, who is paying you, you are a denier, you are a polluter, this is weather, not climate, maybe it will cool for 20 years…this will just give us more time to prepare for the inevitable warming” and such.
These people, or at least some of them, have an end game in mind, the complete and radical ‘change’ of society and our political system as we know it. Global warming is a means to this end for some.
The word ‘change’ is often used by our President. He announced Monday his desire to create a new climate (global warming) department. It did not matter at all to him that Washington DC. where this announcement was made, had its biggest snow storm in history, with over 32 inches recorded at Dulles Airport, and that Washington was only inches away from the most snow in any one season in the history of our Capital.
Expect a long and hard fight, much like our victory over Germany and Japan in the War.
A better way to do it?
At this point, last I heard, it is only the lack of ability to generate truly random numbers that is keeping us from doing a “million monkeys with a million typewriters” computer simulation. Somewhere in the output should be something more accurate and scientific with no politics. Any recent developments on the randomness?
Besides, this could be helpful in preventing job loss. The UK Met office may soon be facing layoffs, and they have lots of people with modeling experience plus support staff for the supercomputer(s). Might as well put them to good use, at last.
I like this part of this post the most:
“The global-warming thrill ride looks to be coming to an end…”
I will read and cherish this forever, and pass it on to my grandchildren, reminding them that this is what “conservatives” of the early 21st century thought of global warming. It will either be a tesimony to the rationality of conservativism, or a testimony to the danger of not seeing beyond the politics of an issue to the basic science underneath. It gets more difficult for the average citizen, not well schooled in the basics of science, to cut through the BS on both sides, and see the underlying physics, which are actually quite simple. Either the earth is taking in more net energy from the sun each day than it is emitting back into space or it is not and if it is not, then either that imbalance is being caused by an increasingly dense blanket of CO2 and methane or it is not, and if is, then either that dense blanket of CO2 is human caused or it is not. These are simple questions, and have nothing to do with political leanings…
We are seeing systematic desensitization to the larmist claims. None of the tragedies have occured. If we do get one, it could be that we ignore it.
Last week I visited a building show. There was a “detect radon” vendor.
I haven’t heard much about the radon scare lately.
“R. Gates (12:42:59) :
[…]
the BS on both sides, and see the underlying physics, which are actually quite simple.”
Two words: Ferenc Miskolczi.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is REAL… but only in cities according to how NOAA computes global temperatures. They shouldn’t tax CO2, in fact they should tax concrete and asphalt.
The beautiful thing about global warming was the alleged cause from burning fossil fuels. That’s an environmentalist’s hat trick!
geoff pohanka (12:41:12) :
“The warmers will not give up easily. They are too heavily invested in their cause.”
I would rephrase that to say “ WE are too heavily invested in their cause.”
As long as
millionsbillions of taxpayer dollars flow to these government and academic “research” organizations, there will be no end to climate alarmism.geoff pohanka (12:41:12) – It also didn’t matter that the announcement had to be made over the telephone , as no one could get to the National Press Club for the news conference . This is even better than Hanson’s coal plant demonstration getting snowed out last year . In March .