Hey U.N. – show us your tipping points!

Pathetic handwaving double down from the UN

Eric Worrall writes: A number of MSM outlets are carrying news of a “leaked” UN document, which claims that global warming may be causing irreversible damage.

According to the Bloomberg version of the leak story;

“Global warming already is affecting “all continents and across the oceans,” and further pollution from heat-trapping gases will raise the likelihood of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,”

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-26/irreversible-damage-seen-from-climate-change-in-un-leak.html

The problem with this vapid handwaving nonsense is that it is so vague. I mean, in the good old days, alarmists made interesting predictions;

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past; http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

Al Gore’s ice free arctic (in 5 years!);

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/nature-proves-al-gore-wrong-again/

Rain will never fill Australian reservoirs again;

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/18/hard-times-for-aussie-alarmists-flannery-begs-in-new-video/

tipping_point_scrThe great thing about bold predictions is they are easily falsified – all you have to do is wait a few years, then point and laugh.

The survivors of that golden age of bold stupidity are far too timid – they issue vague predictions of calamity which won’t occur until long after we are all safely dead, and promises that if we wait a few decades we might see something worrying.

I mean, seriously folks, is this the best you can do? Can even the most rabid alarmists get enthused by such a pathetic effort?

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August 27, 2014 9:03 am

The end of the world is nigh*
*”Nigh” to be defined.

mjc
Reply to  M Courtney
August 27, 2014 10:03 am

Shouldn’t that be: “The end of the world is Nye”?

more soylent green!
Reply to  M Courtney
August 27, 2014 10:41 am

The Sheriff is nigh?

DrTorch
Reply to  M Courtney
August 27, 2014 12:33 pm

There’s a donut shop in Tooele, UT called Nigh Time Donuts.
Their wares are fair.

August 27, 2014 9:09 am

The sky is falling. Send money!

Randy
August 27, 2014 9:10 am

I’ve become immune to the ranting of the IPCC, and I suspect there are many others too.

jones
Reply to  Randy
August 27, 2014 1:49 pm

Exactly me too.
I’m embarrassed that I used to be one of the hand-waving doom n gloom merchants with respect to global warming.
They truly overcooked the pudding on this one.
To the exclusion of other genuine and pressing environmental concerns.
Jones

August 27, 2014 9:12 am

Convenient leak. Same crapola Alarmist story ran on weather.com’s Home page lead item last night, but it was gone by the morning.
Weather.com replaced the leak IPCC doc story with a “Warning: Threat Brewing the Gulf?” banner to gin up alarm sensationalism. Oh the Horror!!

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
August 27, 2014 10:41 am

Joel-the problem is that the mere appearance of nonsense in print means that the creators of K-12 curriculum can now include it in ‘science’ or ‘social studies’ materials as if it were factual. The publication creates an authenticity that students, now to be taught concepts instead of a body of facts, will be in no position to challenge.
Perfect for the shift in education from the traditional transmission of knowledge paradigm to the new shaping Worldviews and Mindsets paradigm. Because digital materials are replacing textbooks, parents will likely never know what their kids are being falsely led to believe. At least until the kid becomes rabid in his or her self-righteousness as their emotions have been consciously manipulated as well.

Ed
Reply to  Robin
August 28, 2014 3:32 pm

Robin, you are right. This is an old propaganda technique perfected by the Soviet Union. They would plant an absurd self-serving and obviously fraudulent story in a foreign publication that nobody gave a crap about, . Then they would have their agents in a slightly more respectable media pick and run that story. Then the process would repeat as often as necessary until finally a reputable publication (sometimes innocently) would run or refer to the story. At that point, it would cited by the Soviets as a true story running in a respected publication. But of course it was still the same old crap.

Reply to  Robin
August 29, 2014 11:48 pm

Daddy, the polar bears! Ed that worked till a nuclear power plant blew up.

Dan Hawkins
August 27, 2014 9:15 am

Seth Boorenstein on the Weather Channel this morning:
“IPCC used the word irreversible 36 times.”
Repetition = truth.

kenw
Reply to  Dan Hawkins
August 27, 2014 9:23 am

Weather Channel=pathetic

Reply to  Dan Hawkins
August 27, 2014 9:56 am

Some seem to have forgotten Authority is no safe criterion of credibility.
IPCC never was a reliable source no matter how many so called experts they refered/refers to
Fallacies in argumentation

PeteLJ
Reply to  norah4you
August 27, 2014 1:38 pm

IPCC — the Wikipedia for Bureaucrats

Reply to  PeteLJ
August 27, 2014 3:49 pm

In “Old” Ages Bureaucrats were said to spend their days turning papers….. In Post-Industrial Age they fight hard to prove they are needed…
Question is: Who needs Bureaucrats today?

kenw
August 27, 2014 9:23 am

data, please…….(crickets)

August 27, 2014 9:28 am

“Can even the most rabid alarmists get enthused by such a pathetic effort?”
Unfortunately, the answer to that question is Yes.

Peter Miller
August 27, 2014 9:28 am

Global warming? Irreversible damage?
One ‘for instance’ might be helpful, as I just cannot think of any.
Perhaps if I wasn’t a practicing geo-scientist, but an economist, bureaucrat or politician instead, I might be able to dream up one.

Alx
August 27, 2014 9:31 am

“…further pollution from heat-trapping gases will raise the likelihood of…”
First of all heat trapping gases are not pollution.
Secondly “raising the likelihood” is meaningless without knowing the likelihood first.
Anyone can “raise the likelihood” of marrying a young, beautiful and wealthy actor by moving to Hollywood, but the improvement in likelihood is unlikely of any consequence.
You can significantly, actually double your likelihood of winning the lottery by buying two tickets instead of one, but again I would not quit your day job over your massively improved likelihood.

Legend
Reply to  Alx
August 27, 2014 10:20 am

Well played.

PaulH
August 27, 2014 9:36 am

Can even the most rabid alarmists get enthused by such a pathetic effort?
I’m sure I read somewhere that global warming will cause more rabies, unless of course it will cause less rabies.
/snark

Ed Barbar
August 27, 2014 9:50 am

While I’m a skeptic, and have my arguments with my (intelligent) CAGW friends, I am a skeptic. That means I don’t know what will happen if say we were to quadruple CO2 over 1940s values.
A half century to deal with the issue seems much more reasonable than “We are all going to die” if we don’t build out solar/wind all electric fleet in the next 10 years (10 years ago). It seems like plenty of time to migrate to nuclear power, for instance. Or, less likely, for some breakthrough in some other energy source to come about.
If the costs are low, and a world-wide solution can be developed, I say why not? Like the molten salt nuclear reactor idea, made cheaper over thirty years such that it costs on par with coal.

Louis LeBlanc
August 27, 2014 9:52 am

Alx: Love your point of logic…

cg
August 27, 2014 9:56 am

All this BS after last weeks GeoEngineering Globalist’s Meeting in Germany. It already smells like another UN Fairy Tale.

Resourceguy
August 27, 2014 10:00 am

There is obviously a lot more money in this UN game than dealing with Ebola or various jihadist war games.

August 27, 2014 10:24 am

On tipping points:
So, it is true that many Texans go to Colorado this time of year due to the need to cool off.
Another of my buds and wife are driving today from Pueblo Col. to Aspen where they will
soak up some cool.
He called around 8:00 Texas time said he was driving in a snow storm west of Pueblo.
So a nice read on the National Weather Service for western Colorado for today.
http://www.weather.gov/
under the radar and weather forcast area…
in part ” cool air has infiltrated a low pressure area and along with strong thunder storms and an inch or more rain some snow above 12,000 …. only thing is my bud is not at 12,000,,, and it is snowing on him.
“infiltrated” sort of give the weather/climate a human face,, makes the sheeple feel good to know it is only an “infiltration”.
Just weather but the weather now includes snow.

Reply to  fobdangerclose
August 29, 2014 11:58 pm

just up the road about 60 miles is CoSpgs, didn’t need to go to Aspen. It has been a cool summer here, and while still warm in Pueblo, I didn’t see hardly any 100 F+ days or any at all that one can normally expect. A couple of days in July we turned on the heat.

Admad
August 27, 2014 10:35 am

May I suggest it should be termed “Anthropogenic Gullible Warming”? (This suggestion may not be original).

Reply to  Admad
August 27, 2014 12:14 pm

New to me.
I like it.

Reply to  Admad
August 27, 2014 1:07 pm

Or the meetings at which they divine tipping points might be called Calamitous Seance.

August 27, 2014 11:30 am

Reall? There is no global warming, there has not been any since the around the middle of the 1990’s, as can be seen from my own investigations
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
Note my graph on the very bottom. Minimum temperatures are supposed to be affected by greenhouse gases, but it seems to be going down naturally?
\
If you do not believe me, believe 4 of the major global data sets that show that it is global cooling from 2002
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2015/plot/rss/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2015/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/to:2015/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1987/to:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2002/trend

August 27, 2014 11:49 am

Hasn’t it already been too late several times? I’m sure I remember that we only had 18 months at one point to reverse the warming before it became unstoppable. And there were other tipping points I recall, one of them, I believe, being five years. It would be interesting to collect all the tipping points together in one spot.

Robert of Ottawa
August 27, 2014 11:51 am

The timing of this report, amplified by climate expert Seth Borenstein (yup, heard that on radio news this AM), coincides with media reports of Obama doing something all by himself on “climate change”. Hmmm.

Eric
Reply to  Robert of Ottawa
August 27, 2014 12:33 pm

Totally agree with this…
The timing is remarkable that this story just happened to “leak” today.
The blatant manipulation of the media by this US Admin still impresses me…the audacity is incomparable to any before it.

James Ard
Reply to  Eric
August 27, 2014 1:16 pm

When your administration employed spouse comes home and says “dear, we could really use a little more noise on the topic from your newspaper” you either oblige or you aren’t getting any that night.

Mike Bromley the Kurd
August 27, 2014 12:01 pm

M Courtney August 27, 2014 at 9:03 am
The end of the world is nigh*
Bill Nigh, the Science Gigh.

Greg
Reply to  Mike Bromley the Kurd
August 28, 2014 1:11 pm

Bill Nye, the science Lie, more like. After his pathetic attempt to design an experiment that would never work and then allowing his name to be associated with a false and inaccurate result faked by post production video editing.
Not only was he too crap to design an experiment, he did not even have the intelligence to realise what the results were telling him: that the experiment as he had designed it would not cause warming.
This guy is a TV clown who dresses up in a silly tie to entertain children.
What sort of qualification ( apart from a bow tie ) are required to have the title of science “guy”?

August 27, 2014 12:32 pm

Science is all about using your hypothesis to make forecasts, not just “scenarios”.
I commend those bold enough to make them, even when they are wrong. But, for those sleazy ones that want us to pay their salaries and dodge the task at hand, I have no sympathy.

August 27, 2014 1:14 pm

Isn’t this convenient? During the first draft you put in all sorts of unsupported alarmist nonsense. You then leak it and garner screaming headlines. In subsequent re-writes you take out the sensational junk leaving a bland summary that no one reads. And you’ve left the public and the press with the impression that we’re all doomed even though there’s not a whit of proof or science to back it up. *sigh*
Did you notice this in the Bloomberg article:
——————————————————————————————————————————————–
The pace of temperature increases slowed to about 0.05 of a degree per decade from 1998 through 2012 from 0.12 degrees per decade for the longer period spanning from 1951 to 2012. The IPCC said 111 out of 114 climate models predicted a greater warming trend than was observed from 1998 to 2012. And for the period from 1984 to 1998, most models showed less warming than was finally recorded, they said.
———————————————————————————————————————————————
So they admit the models aren’t very good, but we still must believe them. I like how they then say if you take a LONG enough time period the models are almost good.

John Innes
August 27, 2014 1:28 pm

How long will it be before the AGW crowd stop making upward predictions, and start claiming credit for the flat temp record since ’97 ?

Jimbo
August 27, 2014 1:42 pm

There will be many laughs. [I have the links for these quotes, but it may get held up in the spam].

Xinhua News Agency – 1 March 2008
“If Norway’s average temperature this year equals that in 2007, the ice cap in the Arctic will all melt away, which is highly possible judging from current conditions,” Orheim said.
[Dr. Olav Orheim – Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat]
__________________
Canada.com – 16 November 2007
“According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
“And it’s probably going to happen even faster than that,” said Fortier,””
[Professor Louis Fortier – Université Laval, Director ArcticNet]
__________________
National Geographic – 12 December 2007
“NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.” ”
[Dr. Jay Zwally – NASA]
__________________
BBC – 12 December 2007
Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,”…….”So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
[Professor Wieslaw Maslowski]
__________________
National Snow and Ice Data Center – 5 May 2008
“Could the North Pole be ice free this melt season? Given that this region is currently covered with first-year ice, that seems quite possible.”
__________________
National Geographic News – 20 June 2008
North Pole May Be Ice-Free for First Time This Summer
“We’re actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history],” David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker.
[Dr. David Barber]
__________________
Independent – 27 June 2008
Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer
“…..It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this summer – it’s not happened before,” Professor Wadhams said.”
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]
__________________
Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment Report – 2009
“…There is a possibility of an ice-free Arctic Ocean for a short period in summer perhaps as early as 2015. This would mean the disappearance of multi-year ice, as no sea ice would survive the summer melt season….”
http://www.arctis-search.com/Arctic+Marine+Shipping+Assessment+%28AMSA%29
__________________
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Vol. 40: 625-654 – May 2012
The Future of Arctic Sea Ice
“…..one can project that at this rate it would take only 9 more years or until 2016 ± 3 years to reach a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer. Regardless of high uncertainty associated with such an estimate, it does provide a lower bound of the time range for projections of seasonal sea ice cover…..”
[Professor Wieslaw Maslowski]
__________________
Guardian – 11 August 2012
Very soon we may experience the iconic moment when, one day in the summer, we look at satellite images and see no sea ice coverage in the Arctic, just open water.”
[Dr Seymour Laxon – Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling – UCL]
__________________
Yale Environment360 – 30 August 2012
“If this rate of melting [in 2012] is sustained in 2013, we are staring down the barrel and looking at a summer Arctic which is potentially free of sea ice within this decade,”
[Dr. Mark Drinkwater]
__________________
Guardian – 17 September 2012
This collapse, I predicted would occur in 2015-16 at which time the summer Arctic (August to September) would become ice-free. The final collapse towards that state is now happening and will probably be complete by those dates“.
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]
__________________
Sierra Club – March 23, 2013
“For the record—I do not think that any sea ice will survive this summer. An event unprecedented in human history is today, this very moment, transpiring in the Arctic Ocean….”
[Paul Beckwith – PhD student paleoclimatology and climatology – part-time professor]
__________________
Financial Times Magazine – 2 August 2013
“It could even be this year or next year but not later than 2015 there won’t be any ice in the Arctic in the summer,”
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]
__________________
The Scotsman – 12 September 2013
“The entire ice cover is now on the point of collapse.
…….It is truly the case that it will be all gone by 2015. The consequences are enormous and represent a huge boost to global warming.”
[Professor Peter Wadhams – Cambridge University]

jones
Reply to  Jimbo
August 27, 2014 1:57 pm

Lovely Jimbo,
Publish your efforts please.

EgoCombusto
August 27, 2014 2:04 pm

In Python pseudocode the scheme looks something like this:
carbonDoom = (“some hysteria”) #Carbon Priest defined before runtime!
socialism = (Carbon_Excuse_Command_Economy)
doomForMoney(Globehop_conference_agitate, from government(steal_Moolah))
while not True(carbonDoom):
doomForMoney()
if True(socialism):
break
Note how there’s no way this loop ever ends until CarbonDoom or Socialism come true.