Guest post by David Middleton
A framework containing the basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodology that are commonly accepted by members of a scientific community.
These examples point to the third and most fundamental aspect of the incommensurability of competing paradigms. In a sense that I am unable to explicate further, the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds. One contains constrained bodies that fall slowly, the other pendulums that repeat their motions again and again. In one, solutions are compounds, in the other mixtures. One is embedded in a flat, the other in a curved, matrix of space. Practicing in different worlds, the two groups of scientists see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction. Again, that is not to say that they can see anything they please. Both are looking at the world, and what they look at has not changed. But in some areas they see different things, and they see them in different relations one to the other. That is why a law that cannot even be demonstrated to one group of scientists may occasionally seem intuitively obvious to another. Equally, it is why, before they can hope to communicate fully, one group or the other must experience the conversion that we have been calling a paradigm shift. Just because it is a transition between incommensurables, the transition between competing paradigms cannot be made a step at a time, forced by logic and neutral experience. Like the gestalt switch, it must occur all at once (though not necessarily in an instant) or not at all.
–Thomas Kuhn, 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Vol. II, No. 2 p. 150
What is the current paradigm?
- Human activities, primarily carbon dioxide emissions, have been the primary cause of the observed global warming over the past 50 to 150 years.
- The atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration had stabilized between 270 and 280 ppmv early in the Holocene and had remained in that range prior to the mid-19th century when fossil fuels became the primary energy source of the Industrial Revolution.
- Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are causing the atmospheric concentration to rise at a dangerously rapid pace to levels not seen in 100’s of thousands to millions of years.
- The climate sensitivity to a doubling of pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentration “is likely to be in the range of 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C,” possibly even much higher than 4.5°C.
- Immediate, deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are necessary in order to stave off catastrophic climate change.
- The scientific consensus regarding this paradigm is overwhelming (~97%).
Why is the paradigm collapsing?
- There has been no increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature since the late 20th century.
- Every measure of pre-industrial carbon dioxide, not derived from Antarctic ice cores, indicates a higher and more variable atmospheric concentration.
- The total lack of predictive skill in AGW climate models.
- An ever-growing body of observation-based studies indicating that the climate sensitivity is in the range of 0.5 to 2.5°C with a best estimate of 1.5 to 2°C, and is very unlikely to be more than 2°C.
- Clear evidence that the dogmatic insistence of scientific unanimity is at best highly contrived and at worst fraudulent.
The paradigm is collapsing primarily due to the fact that the climate appears to be far less sensitive to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations than the so-called scientific consensus had assumed.
One group of scientists has steadfastly resisted the carbon dioxide-driven paradigm: Geologists, particularly petroleum geologists. As Kuhn wrote,
“Practicing in different worlds, the two groups of scientists see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction. Again, that is not to say that they can see anything they please. Both are looking at the world, and what they look at has not changed. But in some areas they see different things, and they see them in different relations one to the other. That is why a law that cannot even be demonstrated to one group of scientists may occasionally seem intuitively obvious to another.”
Petroleum geologists tend to be sedimentary geologists and sedimentary geology is essentially a combination of paleogeography and paleoclimatology. Depositional environments are defined by physical geography and climate. We literally do practice in a different world, the past. Geologists intuitively see Earth processes as cyclical and also tend to look at things from the perspective of “deep time.” For those of us working the Gulf of Mexico, we “go to work” in a world defined by glacioeustatic and halokinetic processes and, quite frankly, most of us don’t see anything anomalous in recent climate changes.
So, it should come as little surprise that geoscientists have consistently been far more likely to think that modern climate changes have been driven by overwhelmingly natural processes…
APEGA is the organization responsible for certifying and licensing professional geoscientists and engineers in Alberta, Canada.
This study is very interesting because it analyzes the frames of reference (Kuhn’s “different worlds”) in which opinions are formed. Skeptical geologists are most likely to view climate change as overwhelmingly natural. Skeptical engineers are more likely to view it as a matter of economics or fatalism. The cost of decarbonization would far outweigh any benefits and/or would have no measurable effect on climate change.
The Obsession With Consensus
In nearly 40 years as an Earth Scientist (counting college), I have never seen such an obsession with consensus. In geology, there are many areas in which there are competing hypotheses; yet there is no obsession with conformance to a consensus.
The acceptance of plate tectonics was a relatively new thing when I was a student. This paradigm had only recently shifted from the geosynclinal theory to plate tectonics. We still learned the geosynclinal theory in Historical Geology and it still has value today. However, I don’t ever recall papers being published claiming a consensus regarding either theory.
Most geologists think that granite is an igneous rock and that petroleum is of organic origin. Yet, the theories of granitization and abiogenic hydrocarbon formation are not ridiculed; nor are the adherents subjected to “witch hunts.”
One of the most frequent methods of attempting to quantify and justify the so-called consensus on climate change has been the abstract search (second hand opinions). I will only bother to review one of these exercises in logical fallacy, Cook et al., 2013.
Second Hand Opinions.
These sorts of papers consist of abstract reviews. The authors’ then tabulate their opinions regarding whether or not the abstracts support the AGW paradigm. As Legates et al., 2013 pointed out, Cook defined the consensus as “most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic.” Cook then relied on three different levels of “endorsement” of that consensus and excluded 67% of the abstracts reviewed because they neither endorsed nor rejected the consensus.
The largest endorsement group was categorized as “implicitly endorses AGW without minimizing it.” They provided this example of an implied endorsement:
‘…carbon sequestration in soil is important for mitigating global climate change’
Carbon sequestration in soil, lime muds, trees, seawater, marine calcifiers and a whole lot of other things have always been important for mitigating a wide range of natural processes. I have no doubt that I have implicitly endorsed the so-called consensus based on this example.
The second largest endorsement group was categorized as “implicitly endorses but does not quantify or minimize.” Pardon my obtuseness, but how in the heck can one explicitly endorse the notion that “most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic” without quantification? This is the example Cook provided:
‘Emissions of a broad range of greenhouse gases of varying lifetimes contribute to global climate change’
Wow! I contributed to Romney for President… Yet most of his campaign war-chest didn’t come from me. By this subjective standard, I have probably explicitly endorsed AGW a few times.
No Schist, Sherlock.
One of the most frequent refrains is the assertion that “climate scientists” endorse the so-called consensus more than other disciplines and that the level of endorsement is proportional to the volume of publications by those climate scientists. Well… No schist, Sherlock! I would bet a good bottle of wine that the most voluminous publishers on UFO’s are disproportionately more likely to endorse Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a documentary. A cursory search for “abiogenic hydrocarbons” in AAPG’s Datapages could lead me to conclude that there is a higher level of endorsement of abiogenic oil among those who publish on the subject than among non-publishing petroleum geologists.
These exercises in expertise cherry-picking are quite common. A classic example was Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009. This survey sample was limited to academic and government Earth Scientists. It excluded all Earth Scientists working in private sector businesses. The two key questions were:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
I would answer risen to #1 and my answer to #2 would depend on the meaning of “human activity is a significant contributing factor.” If I realized it was a “push poll,” I would answer “no.”
Interestingly, economic geologists and meteorologists were the most likely to answer “no” to question #2…
The two areas of expertise in the survey with the smallest percentage of participants answering yes to question 2 were economic geology with 47% (48 of 103) and meteorology with 64% (23 of 36).
The authors derisively dismissed the opinions of geologists and meteorologists…
It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.
No discipline has a better understanding the “nuances” than meteorologists and no discipline has a better understanding of the “scientific basis of long-term climate processes” than geologists.
The authors close with a “no schist, Sherlock” bar chart:
The most recent example of expertise cherry-picking was Stenhouse et al., 2014.
The 52% consensus among the membership of the American Meteorological Society explained away as being due to “perceived scientific consensus,” “political ideology,” and a lack of “expertise” among non-publishing meteorologists and atmospheric scientists…
While we found that higher expertise was associated with a greater likelihood of viewing global warming as real and harmful, this relationship was less strong than for political ideology and perceived consensus. At least for the measure of expertise that we used, climate science expertise may be a less important influence on global warming views than political ideology or social consensus norms. More than any other result of the study, this would be strong evidence against the idea that expert scientists’ views on politically controversial topics can be completely objective.
Finally, we found that perceiving conflict at AMS was associated with lower certainty of global warming views, lower likelihood of viewing global warming as human caused, and lower ratings of predicted harm caused by global warming.
So… Clearly, 97% of AMS membership would endorse the so-called consensus if they were more liberal, more accepting of unanimity and published more papers defending failed climate models. No schist, Sherlock!
What, exactly, is a “climate scientist”?
35 years ago climatology was a branch of physical geography. Today’s climate scientists can be anything from atmospheric physicists & chemists, mathematicians, computer scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, oceanographers, biologists, environmental scientists, ecologists, meteorologists, geologists, geophysicists, geochemistry to economists, agronomists, sociologists and/or public policy-ologists.
NASA’s top climate scientist for most of the past 35 years, James Hansen, is an astronomer. The current one, Gavin Schmidt, is a mathematician.
It seems to me that climate science is currently dominated by computer modelers, with little comprehension of the natural climate cycles which have driven climate change throughout the Holocene.
Climate scientist seems to be as nebulous as Cook’s definition of consensus.
What is the actual consensus?
The preliminary results of the AMS survey tell us all we need to know about the so-called consensus…
89% × 59% = 52%… A far cry from the oft claimed 97% consensus.
Based on BAMS definition, global warming is happening. So, I would be among the 89% who answered “yes” to question #1 and among the 5% who said the cause was mostly natural.
When self-described “climate scientists” and meteorologists/atmospheric scientists are segregated the results become even more interesting…
Only 45% of meteorologists and atmospheric scientists endorse the so-called consensus. When compared to the 2009, American Geophysical Union survey, the collapsing paradigm sticks out like a polar vortex…
In reality, about half of relevant scientists would probably agree that humans have been responsible for >50% of recent climate changes. And there might even be a 97% consensus that human activities have contributed to recent climate changes.
However, there really isn’t any scientific consensus if it is defined this way:
So… Why is there such an obsession with a 97% consensus? My guess is that it is to enable such demagoguery.
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Great article!
As part of my research I found that sceptics tend to focus on data whereas alarmists tend to focus on what is “socially acceptable”. So I suspect to an alarmists a consensus is seen as STRONGER evidence that something is true than seeing the data themselves. And this I suggest it because most alarmists really don’t understand data analysis and have very little confidence in their own ability.
So, to them the whole subject is really just a celebrity beauty contest. They don’t understand the data themselves and so they just want to see what everyone else thinks. Also they want to know “who thinks”. So social status is very key and an alarmist will utterly reject data of argument from someone they deem to be a low social status whereas they will swallow quite gullibly blatant lies from those they admire or respect.
I agree, great article.
It would be nice if you could convert your comparison of Academia/Scientists and Engineering/Doctors into a graphic file.
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2014/07/13/why-climate-engineers-beat-the-climate-academics/
Knowledge of the origin of ‘consensus’ in UN climate “science” proceedings is essential to understanding the entire AGW discussion. It’s an aspect of UK Wellington House, Tavistock Institute, SRI and Aspen Institute social engineering, based on the theories of psychiatrists Dr Kurt Levin and Edward Bernays; it’s one of the principles used in mind control, inner directional conditioning and mass brianwashing, the MK Ultra experiments, etc.; the formulation of the disinformation campaigns (psyops) used to inspire US participation in WWl, WWll, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, etc. The Aspen Institute is adjacent to IPCC founder Maurice Strong’s Baca Ranch in Crestone, CO, supposedly also the Trilateral Commission’s US headquarters. Aspen Institute holds seminars for upper management and elected officials using dialectic decision-making processes including consensus engineering.
It ain’t science.
One of the self-evident aspects of “climate science” in contrast to a real science is that the “scientists” in question are either working outside their specialty areas (astronomers, biologists, computer and political scientists, pyschologists, etc.) or are not scientists per se (mathematicians – don’t argue with me about that – call up the ghost of Kurt Goedel and dispute it with him).
Scottish Sceptic;
Over the last year or so there seems to be a well defined and fast developing consensus on all of that!
Quite right S.S., the media programmed public want to be good citizens who are in the correct tier of the social environment. They will accept the authority of scientific consensus rather than exert the time and effort to learn for themselves, as that is “instant knowledge” to them. They have been programmed to believe that they “owe it to the planet” to adhere to the guilt and shame that accompanies all things human, and to seek retribution through taxation and high energy prices.
@ur momisugly Scottish Sceptic. “So, to them the whole subject is really just a celebrity beauty contest. They don’t understand the data themselves and so they just want to see what everyone else thinks.”
To me it is anything but a “beauty contest” . To me it is very dangerous dogma. There are way too many LIV (low info voters) that eat this like candy without understanding even 1% of what effect this dogma has on their lives. To me it is dangerous and even frightening. The way this is lapped up (as it seemed that way at Al Gore’s speech the other day in front of a young impressionable crowd of students ) by those young inexperienced people is scary, those may be our “leaders” one day
I think the author was alluding to the type of beauty contest described famously by Keynes, in which the winner was the person who best predicted what other balloters would select as the winners (top five).
The whole story. + the magic word: Status.
Hans
/ don’know how to lift my status but wish to be with ‘my’ peer group. magical, wishfull thinking. /
and the conclusion:
change / diminish the OBJECT of the wishfull thinking.
Solution of a / nonexistent / problem.
Hans
Great article! I agree with the explanation of the poll. However, why didn’t this analysis go further into the subject of “Human caused warming”. I would be interested in knowing how the percentage of those stating “human caused” define “human caused”. That is more black top roads, cutting forests down for agriculture, More physical structures, increased population, etc.
Nicely done.
Indeed. It is a clear and well written article. It is reasonable and rational.
I will be amusing, as always, to see if any troll is angered by it and how the misconstrue it in order to find fault with it.
The MMGW aka “climate change” paradigm was always a house of cards constructed on the shifting sands of lies, deception, and of course, money. Destined to fail, and fail big.
It hasn’t failed yet and it won’t fail as long as it has $350B of government money supporting it. What will happen is the same thing that happened under Nazi Germany – any skeptic, even people that don’t believe strongly enough, will be made into pariahs. Eventually they’ll just be sent to re-education camps.
“Why is there such an obsession with a 97% consensus? My guess is that it is to enable such demagoguery.” +1 and I don’t understand why the 97% meme is allowed to continue after being thoroughly trounced by the truth.
Because, no matter how loudly you bang the drum, nobody listens!
Empty vessels make the most noise. I tend to turn off when someone is too vocal. It makes no difference whether I agree with them or not.
Because it’s not about truth; it’s about control.
My guess is that MSM reporters probably DO agree at close to a 97% rate. Those reporters are obviously the smartest folk around, and they all agree with each other, so it must be true.
Hence, that is the way the issue is reported.
The 97% claim , has nothing to do with ‘truth’ therefore its can not be undone by pointing out how truth refutes it.
Concur
Why 97%? From marketing and psychology. It’s why stores price goods 1 to 5 cents below a round dollar amount. It looks “cheaper” and is easier to accept among the hoi poloi.
Actually that is more true now than in the past.
Early cash registers had a little bell inside that rang when they were opened. While 1 cent and 5 cents isn’t much nowadays it was a fair bit early on and people would want their change and this fact was used as an anti theft device..
An even dollar or pound amount allowed a cheating cashier to pocket the money without opening the cash drawer. So the price was set so that the cashier was forced to open the drawer to give change. This also rang the bell to alert supervisors to the fact a sale had been made.
The practice has continued both for the reason you said and from simple tradition.
Cheers.
JohnB,
Nowdays, the sound of the bell just results in a bunch of droolin hounds.
When all of the data shows AGW theory is wrong how can it be correct?
Answer it is not correct and the data shows this over and over again.
Because AGW data doesn’t have to be correct. It simply must convince enough laymen to raise an overwhelming outcry in their favor. That’s not going so well now.
97% is such a catchy number….
I like 98.6% better. That point-six really shows you lied very cleverly with your statistics!
The old number was always 99.44% (pure) from the old Ivory Soap commercial of ~50 years ago.
As Legates et al., 2013 pointed out, Cook defined the consensus as “most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic.” Cook then relied on three different levels of “endorsement” of that consensus and excluded 67% of the abstracts reviewed because they neither endorsed nor rejected the consensus.
Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009 An invitation to participate in the survey was sent to 10,257 Earth scientists. The database was built from Keane and Martinez [2007], which lists all geosciences faculty at reporting academic institutions, along with researchers at state geologic surveys associated with local Universities, and researchers at U.S. federal research facilities (e.g., U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) facilities; U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories; (and so forth). This brief report addresses the two primary questions of the survey
With 3146 individuals completing.
In our survey, the most specialized and knowledgeable respondents (with regard to climate change) are those who listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change (79 individuals in total). Of these specialists, 96.2% (76 of 79) answered “risen” to question 1 and 97.4% (75 of 77) answered yes to question 2.
Gee no private sector people need apply?
the AMS survey Stenhouse et al., 2014.
In this survey, global warming was defined as “the premise that the world’s average temperature has been increasing over the past 150 years, may be increasing more in the future, and that the world’s climate may change as a result.”
Questions – Regardless of the cause, do you think that global warming is happening?
2a./2b How sure are you that global warming (a. is /b. is not) happening? How sure are you? –Extremely –Very sure –Somewhat sure –Not at all sure -Don’t know –Not at all sure –Somewhat not sure – Very not sure – Extremely not sure
So answering the questions –
1) most warming since 1950 is anthropogenic?
2) When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? (Yes/No?)
3) Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
4) Regardless of the cause, do you think that global warming is happening?
5) How sure are you that global warming (a. is /b. is not) happening?
Answers and questions use generalized words of most, think, significant, contributing and no values or significance is asked for.
Do these questions really provide the answer that man-made, catastrophizing, CO2 control knob, ever increasing (global warming / climate change / disruption / weirding ) [pick 1 or more] which can only be prevented by giving your money, control & freedom will keep us all from floating down the River Styx in a handbasket?
Seems ‘Climate Science’ the outcome to Geography Study has devolved into a religion of hatred.
To which we raise our voices with Tom Lehrer’s ‘National Brotherhood Week’.
Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks.
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.
But during national brotherhood week, national brotherhood week,
Lena horne and sheriff clarke are dancing cheek to cheek.
It’s fun to eulogize
The people you despise,
As long as you don’t let ’em in your school.
Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It’s american as apple pie.
But during national brotherhood week, national brotherhood week,
New yorkers love the puerto ricans ’cause it’s very chic.
Step up and shake the hand
Of someone you can’t stand.
You can tolerate him if you try.
Oh, the protestants hate the catholics,
And the catholics hate the protestants,
And the hindus hate the moslems,
And everybody hates the jews.
But during national brotherhood week, national brotherhood week,
It’s national everyone-smile-at-one-another-hood week.
Be nice to people who
Are inferior to you.
It’s only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year!
Ha ha
masint,
Tom Lehrer is the best! A scientist/musician. Here is a pointless tune that I’ve always liked.
“Tom Lehrer is the best! ”
And, who said that dbstealey and myself could never find anything that we’d agree on?!?
☺
Masint– Governments’ use propaganda tools to generate hate, anger and envy among the Takers, and generate fear, quid pro quo and guilt against the Producers to achieve their agenda of increasing property confiscation, control and power.
It’s a game of divide and conquer. Now, 50% of Americans pay no income taxes and 50% of Americans are dependent partially or entirely on government largess for their livelihoods…..
Humans are intrinsically social animals that have historically worked together to achieve their own mutual benefit. Through massive government propaganda, human nature has been twisted upside down, where the people serve the state, rather than the state protecting the natural rights of individuals.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we’re beginning to see what that means….
Eventually, this era of MASSIVE government theft, power and control will come to an end, and humanity will return to minimal governments, where societies are based on mutual cooperation and the principles of non-initiation of force.
It may take hundreds of years to accomplish this natural order, but technology will eventually make governments redundant institutions for all intents and purposes.
The Kingston Trio had it right long before “climate science” went completely left:
“The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don’t like anybody very much!”
“The total lack of predictive skill in AGW climate models.”
Also this important one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/24/are-climate-modelers-scientists/
Excerpts:
Climate modelers are not scientists. Climate modeling is not a branch of physical science. Climate modelers are unequipped to evaluate the physical reliability of their own models.
I will give examples of all of the following concerning climate modelers:
* They neither respect nor understand the distinction between accuracy and precision.
* They understand nothing of the meaning or method of propagated error.
* They think physical error bars mean the model itself is oscillating between the uncertainty
extremes. (I kid you not.)
* They don’t understand the meaning of physical error.
* They don’t understand the importance of a unique result.
Sometimes I think modellers are like bad CAD drafters. “Meh – I’ll just draw some stuff. If it’s wrong, I’ll just re-do it later, ’cause CAD is fast.” (And then there’s no time later, so original crappy design stands)
VS
Old-timey draftsmen: “I don’t want to have to draw this frikkin’ thing again, I’d better get it right the fist time.”
Piping designer/engineer?
Good guess, eyes.
😉
Been there, done that!
IPCC climate modelers are social engineers working on a political/economic process, not an environmental research project, consciously or unconsciously. Anthropogenic effects on the environment are an idea that a group of globalist totalitarian government depopulation supporters “came up with” to disguise their agenda. The science is irrelevant.
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome
http://green-agenda.com/
Who would ever suspect an ulterior motive concealed in protecting the environment of the planet? or perceive a need to explore the history of AGW-alarmism?
It’s nearly impossible to discuss anything with someone who believes that Mankind is some sort of unnatural phenomena or “virus” plaguing the planet.
Concur
Beautiful essay. Needs to be published far and wide.
I will second that!
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/12/agw-falsified-noaa-long-wave-radiation-data-incompatible-with-the-theory-of-anthropogenic-global-warming-2/
AGW enthusiast are in denial of the data once again.
I was looking through some of the ClimateGate-related posts this morning and saw comment after comment along the lines of “now that the outright fraud had been exposed, AGW (as it was called then) would surely be recognized as wrong and the whole political movement would fall apart”.
That was more than 5 years ago, and all that seems to have happened is that AGW became ClimateChange (TM). Unfortunately, it will take a lot more than truth, rationality and real science to kill the meme.
Jim,
Got a number for that email? If so, please post.
And thanks to Dave Middleton for another excellent article. You always do such a great job. I look forwared to all of them.
We made the mistake of assuming the public and academics were rational and that they would look at the evidence like we did and quickly change their view.
It turns out that the “establishment” are very very slow to respond. I use the metaphor “that it takes 5-10 years between kicking the dinosaur between the legs for the signal to travel all the way up the neck to the brain”
http://uclimate.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/dinosaur-between-legs.png
The UN’s program, in addition to global government, is ‘redistribution of assets’; nominally from developed to developing nations; in practice, from the US to the UN and NGOs, with green projects financed through Rothschilds and Rockefeller and other international bankers; Edmond de Rothschild announced the sale of shares in his private Geneva bank to UN bureaucrats and international bureaucrats at the 1989 Fourth World Wilderness Conference – truth, rationality and real science won’t kill it; the wrong kind of green.
Allan Cheetham’s website, Appinsys.com has the best description of the history of UN agencies (and many other topics) in AGW that I’m aware of.
http://appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_History.htm
Well Jim, I thought a couple of harsh winters ought to do it. Silly me.
“…it will take a lot more than truth, rationality and real science….”
Not that much more, actually, just reality – a few more winters with snow and freezing weather penetrating into the Deep South, Mexico, Egypt, etc., and a few more winters with unprecedented numbers of cold and snow records broken in the higher latitudes will completely eliminate any public support for the meme. More winters with the Great Lakes freezing over, along with massive amounts of sea ice forming in the bays and inlets along the northeast coast, bringing maritime traffic to a standstill, will contribute to the demise of the AGW theory. Ultimately, a few cool summers with unexpected snow at higher latitudes and altitudes, along with earlier, cooler Autumns and later, shortened Springtimes will finally put the icing on the cake.
All of the above is unavoidable, I’m afraid. The climate is indeed changing, if not the way alarmists would have us believe.
Nonagintaseptemist : A statistical subdiscipline of the social sciences which studies the art of getting the answer to be 97%. From the latin “nonaginta septem” meaning 97.
Nonagintaseptemist – It’s the flashy new field to get into, pays extremely well, and attracts all the hot women… oh wait…
.
.
.
.
Completely off topic but, how’s John Cook doing these days?
…and:
…and:
Three salient points. Draw the line therefrom.
What I have often said, but really can’t be repeated often enough (with apologies to Paul Samuelson): People who oppose the current scientific paradigm have correctly predicted 1000 out of the last 3 paradigm shifts.
I’ll also note that there is another rather obvious explanation for why petroleum geologists have tended to be more skeptical about AGW than other earth scientists.
Because they work in the real world and if they screw up they get fired, instead of getting renewed grant money, promotions and peer support? Is that what you mean, Joel?
First of all, I’ve worked “in the real world” of industry too. And, it bears very little resemblance to your free-market-fundamentalist fantasy real-world. It has every bit as much cronyism, stupidity, and promotion of incompetence as the academic world.
Second of all, I mean: (1) that their expertise in climate science is rather limited…it is not what they are trained or actively working in and (2) that they have strong financial incentives to believe that using fossil fuels is not the major factor in a serious global problem.
And Big Government “self-selected” climate scientists have pure and unadulterated motives in seeking to justify their next 22 billion in climate change money coming from Big Government bureaucracies that pay their salaries and computer fees – but only if the computer theories justify continued Big Government and Big Finance 1.3 trillion dollar carbon schemes, don’t they?
LOL, good comeback 🙂 We all know what he meant, but the facts are the alarmists are the ones on the crony capitalist’s payroll.
(1) If climate scientists want to make tons of money, they wouldn’t have gone into climate science. They would have gone to Wall Street. (Although they would also probably do at least somewhat better by becoming petroleum geologists.)
(2) Big government bureaucracies fund science in ways that are at least somewhat insulated from what the funders want to see the results to be. Furthermore, what the funders want is complex because in a Democracy, those in control of the government purse-strings may or may not be sympathetic to the ideas of stopping AGW. Congress now certainly isn’t and the executive branch wasn’t when Bush was in charge. And, right now in Florida, we have a classic case of the politicians at the top trying to squelch the scientists (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article13576691.html).
Joeldshore:
You wrote of petroleum geologists
One can more accurately say of climatologists earning their living promoting AGW:
(1) their expertise in climate science is rather limited…it is not what they are trained or actively working in
and
(2) that they have strong financial incentives to assert that using fossil fuels is the major factor in an imagined global problem.
Richard
Richard,
Alas, just saying something does not make it true. In fact, the climate scientists who agree with the overwhelming consensus on AGW are generally actively working and publishing in the field.
And, as I pointed out, incentives to please funders are much complex: Some politicians controlling the purse strings would like nothing better than for AGW to be shown to be insignificant. Furthermore, the way grants are awarded at least tries to separate the politics of the funders from the process.
And, while there may indeed be some incentive to go with the dominant paradigm to get funding, there is another incentive that to make a name for oneself in science, one wants to change the paradigm, not just say “me too”.
One of the things that I have noticed about you guys is that you only seem capable of seeing the incentives that go in one direction and are completely oblivious to any incentives that go the other way.
joeldshore commented”
“One of the things that I have noticed about you guys is that you only seem capable of seeing the incentives that go in one direction and are completely oblivious to any incentives that go the other way.”
Are you saying some scientists are becoming rich with their skepticism? Refresh my memory on “incentives that go the other way”.
joeldshore
You reply to my rebuttal of your untrue and unjustifiable assertion by saying
Yes, Joel, that is what I said.
And you add
No, Joel, playing computer games in an office is NOT “working and publishing in the field”. Very few of them have ever worked in the field.
Richard
I’m sorry, Richard. I didn’t realize how the game is played by people like you. Yes, if you are free to define who constitutes an active researcher in the field, ignoring all standard ways of defining this in favor of your own perverse definitions, then what you say is true.
Apparently, everything you say is true just by virtue of the fact that you have made yourself the arbiter of all truth. My bad for failing to understand this simple point.
joeldshore
My reply to your offensive, abusive and evasive nonsense is here.
Hopefully, this pointer will be in the right place.
Richard
Joel wrote, “First of all, I’ve worked “in the real world” of industry too. And, it bears very little resemblance to your free-market-fundamentalist fantasy real-world.”
You answered your own question… Since free-market capitalism has been destroyed by the US government through: $2 trillion/yr needless and senseless rules & regulations, $100’s of billions of subsidies, insane anti-trust laws, crazy labor laws, a 75,000-page tax code, onerous corporate taxes, cronyism, too-big-to-fail bailouts, crazy union regulations, huge income taxes, massive government debt, etc., free-market capitalism no longer exists, so it’s illogical to assume free-market capitalism doesn’t work since governments have purposefully destroyed it….
Were all the natural mechanisms of free-market capitalism allowed to work: corporate taxes were a flat 10% (no tax breaks), income taxes were replaced by ONE national 14% sales tax, federal spending was limited to 10% of GDP, federal and state governments were unable to run up debts, public sector unions were made illegal, interest rates were market based, a gold standard were reestablished, etc., the economic boom and technological advancement would be incredible.
But, alas, none of these things will occur until the existing “mixed/hindered-economy” paradigm is allowed to collapse; which is should do shortly.
Ah yes…The old libertarian argument that if we only had a purer free market economy, life would be all peaches and cream. That is indeed what I call “free market fundamentalism”, which means a religious belief in free markets rather than a scientific understanding of markets, when and how they work and when and how they fail.
The reason that we have evolved toward a “mixed economy” of regulated market capitalism is that the pure free market paradigm has failed time and time again. While the mixed economy may have its problems, I think it is basically like what Churchill said about democracy: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Joel,
Free Markets have never failed for the simple reason they have never been tried. The local governments are always interfering, whether that government is a local king, chief, or Congress. The closest thing to a free market is the local farmers market that sometimes exists, and that is already constrained by the formal markets around it.
edcaryl said:
Free Markets have never failed for the simple reason they have never been tried.
——————————————————————————————————–
That’s a dangerous line to take – that’s what lefties always say about communism.
However, I agree that free markets as such don’t fail – in the same sense that gravity doesn’t “fail”.
(If you fall down and break your arm, you don’t say that gravity has failed.) The problem is that
people subvert free markets. So joeldshore’s prescription is right even if I don’t agree with his
diagnosis.
rw: Yes, that is a very apt analogy…Both true believers in Communism and true believers in free markets are very similar.
As for saying that the markets fail, well markets fail for example when there are externalities, i.e., costs or benefits not borne by the buyer or seller. And, when there’s issues with information (e.g., the buyer doesn’t know that the medicine the seller is hocking has adverse effects he’ll experience 10 years from now).
At 5:31 PM on 19 March, joeldshore demonstrates that he’s unfamiliar both with the practice of clinical medicine and government regulation of the pharmaceuticals industry, writing:
First, common law mechanisms had been devised to address “externalities” long before politicians began to normatively intervene in the market process (ostensibly) to protect “third parties” from the “costs and benefits not borne by the buyer or seller.” An example of early government regulatory intervention is found in the onset of the industrial revolution in Great Britain, when H.M. government issued rules “holding harmless” those politically-favored enterprises which produced air and water pollution incidental to their operations, nugating the common law processes whereby those parties injured by those fouling the water and the air had sought – and gotten – redress.
Therefore anent negative “externalities,” rather much more often than not, government “protection” hasn’t so much addressed how “the markets fail” as to have purposefully deranged the ways in which trespass upon the property rights of injured parties were protected.
Second, with regard to medicines and similar products, the effects of regulatory measures like the Pure Foods and Drugs Act include not only “capture” by the established actors in the market sectors being politically controlled (popularity contest winners – elected politicians – and arrogant “Iron Law of Bureaucracy” government employees are, ex officio, the ne plus friggin’ ultra in their knowledge of pharmacology, epidemiology, pathology et alia, ain’t they?) but also disarmament of the caveat emptor imperative among the consumers of the products being regulated.
Y’see, with the propaganda-promulgated presumption that “government knows best” and that the politicians are actually looking – benignly – out for the consumer rather than for the “campaign contributors” who batten their warchests and the sources of “honest graft” shuffling to them obscenely profitable IPO opportunities and guaranteed successes in equities and in the real estate and futures trading markets, the average yutz (like you, most definitely!) is suckered into thinking that the Office of New Drugs of the United States F.D.A. is really purpose’d primarily to secure you safety and efficacy in the pill bottles on your medicine cabinet’s shelves.
Jeez, how blazingly stupid can you be?
Tucci78
March 20, 2015 at 6:03 am
There is a plant medicine that, if fully exploited, could destroy 25% to 75% of Big Pharma. It is illegal. Big Pharma in connivance with government works very hard to keep it that way.
Government in this case is not fixing the market externality. Government is the externality.
Msimon, this is not the place for one of your drug rants.
Geologists have a good understanding of chemistry and physics. Earth scientists consider scientific apparatus as ‘magic’.
my comment is in the wrong spot
My degree is in Earth Science.
Geology, marine science, meteorology, environmental science and sometimes astronomy are generally classified as Earth Science.
David Middleton
I’m an ancient and in my day there really wasn’t the environment/earth science thing.
As an intelligent human being you should also understand where I am coming from.
Science is taught in universities and so is environmentalism.
Earth Science sounds like a legitimate science and it probably is (as a generalisation) but it is probably being done a disservice by being polluted with environmentalism.
Where does my opinion come from? From dealing with universities and Marine institutes in Queensland since the 1980s. I knew these people on the ground and even assisted with grant applications (to sell my equipment). I know how smart they are and I also know how dumb they are. I have even worked in a chinese university for the last 10 years and have found that the administration and faculties work in a similar way to the west. I haven’t worked out who is worse. The administration/faculties or the students. Both lots are lazy good for nothings. However there were some exceptions.
In industry, in Australia, we the workers groaned when a graduate was hired. They didn’t have a single clue about how things worked even though they had been in university and supposedly used this equipment in their studies. I could continue ad nauseum , but I am boring myself.
Colour me sceptical about qualifications.
You seem to have a reasonable head on your shoulders and worth reading.
“I hope I wasn’t out of line with my remark about Earth Sciences, chief”
joeldshore
This may be a “game” that is “played” by you but it is much, much more important than that to me.
This is about a bunch of pseudoscientists whom you support who have usurped what was the scientific discipline of climatology; i.e. the study of climates.
You want to redefine climatology as being the playing of computer games. Field work for real climatologists consists of obtaining real data and determining the quality of that data for their analysis: it does NOT consist of sitting in an office playing games.
That is not me “being the arbiter of all truth”. It is me stating the dictionary definition of climatology. Do you know what a dictionary is?
Temperature measurement results are one basic data set for climatology and the pseudoscientists resisted conduct of field work to determine its data quality so that was not done until our host established a project to do it for them.
To you the promotion of pseudoscience is a game you play.
To me the opposition of pseudoscience is defence of the advances obtained by the reformation.
Richard
When climatology mutated into “climate science” it ceased to be a science. Time to take away the game-players’ supercomputers.
The 97% number came from a piece of really sloppy work, cited below, which is pretty much junk. If you look at the selection criteria for this work it’s a haphazard convenience sample…. I would flunk a grad student in a nano second if they proposed this as a sampled design…
W. R. L. Anderegg, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 107 No. 27, 12107-12109 (21 June 2010); DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107.
Ooooops! That’s sample design, not sampled design, hey it’s 8PM here and I’m on my second cocktail… and I really don’t care about grammar anymore because graphs work so much more better…
Excellent read. I am just reading ‘how the hippies saved physics’ and was shocked to see young scientists kicked out of jobs in the 60’s and 70’s or not hired due to their interest in looking at the fundamental nature of quantum mechanics, ‘shut up and calculate’ was the watch cry of the bigoted majority. I guess nothing changes it is the same old thing, agree with the rest of our herd or go out and die on your own.
What?
Follow the money….green bs everywhere you turn.
It is a runaway train of (our) money going to useless
Windmills, solar power plants. Elec. Cars, coal plants
Converted to wood. Nuts
Meanwhile, the NOAA global analysis today puts February at 0.82C, the third highest reading ever. The average for the last 12 months was 0.74C, 0.04 degrees over the 0.69C record for the 2014 calendar year.
‘the third highest reading ever. ‘
remind us again how 200 years ago they could get temperature measurements accurate to two decimal places?
I mean they did not even have the ‘magic models ‘ then so could not ‘prove’ that reality was mistaken in way modern climate ‘scientists’ can.
There are no instrument global readings from 200 years ago. And why would you expect any average from the little ice age to be warmer than now? It’s unlikely that even during Medieval times it was warmer.
trafamadore says:
It’s unlikely that even during Medieval times it was warmer.
So you completely disregard mountains of evidence, such as the fact that Viking villages keep emerging from the permafrost in Greenland, and assume — just because Michael Mann tells you so — that we’re burnin’ up here and the MWP was cold.
Like many others, you can’t see the BIg Lie. Not because you’re stupid, but because you want to believe it.
Poor db, your name calling always reminds me of grammar school children.
What with the salt in your wounds, I guess this isn’t the time to bring up the pending record low max up north…
opps.
“opps”?? What is this “opps”?
Good thing you’re not in .edu, or you would understand spelling/grammar.
And:
…the pending record low max up north…
In only 7 words, two major errors:
1. “Pending”? Are you making weather predictions now?
2. “Up north”? You still don’t understand that the ‘climate paradigm’ refers to GLOBAL warming? Oops.
No, you just drive by, taking potshots like that. FYI: global warming has stopped. But you can’t accept that fact, can you?
Wow. No names. Good job db.
But look at this, just in and on google news, maybe my “pending” is now not so pending.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
It’s a new new record (although there are still cases where the ice extent jumped in the ghosts of late March past, but I am thinking that maybe the arctic scientists know something about the weather forecast that I don’t)
Sort of fits in with the statically warmest last year (2014) and the almost record Feb.
and the Jan-Feb 2015 combined record.
What with the all the records, it’s interesting that there is no El Niño powering this one. I am thinking it sort of wrecks the Tisdale hypothesis of El Niño powered GWing. Either that, or we are in for a 44 figure walk back of his position. (That’s a joke, Bob)
Anyway, db, not sure how your “big lie” is playing out. You should be more skeptical of your position, I think, like I am of mine.
Really.
trafamadore,
You need to change your last sentence. “Really” is not part of your world.
I did read your link, and I note the blatant cherry-picking in your comment. Your link refers to “satellite” data. Does that mean you accept satellite data now? If so, then here is current satellite data for you:
Regarding [Arctic] ice, once again: the discussion is about global warming. Referring only to Arctic ice disregards half the planet, and is simply more of your alarmist cherry-picking — because global ice cover is right at its long term average. Charts on request.
Finally, Arctic ice is the same now as it was a decade ago:
You don’t have a leg to stand on. But since you have no skin in the game and you use fossil fuels just like every other green hypocrite, I suppose we can discount everything you say.
DBStealey (correcting trafamadore)
Arctic sea ice (at maximum) is 14 millon sq kilometers, the whole planet is 510 million sq kilometers.
He is ignoring 97% of the planet by looking only at Arctic sea ice.
Wow.
You people (db and ra) like to zero in on my arctic observation when my major claim is on global temp? Look, the _globlal_ temp is up in Jan and Feb this year, higher than the entire year last year, which was record, and the arctic ice reflects this. (and db, switching to some other web site than the nsidc is silly, and you know it.)
The antarctic doesn’t, for reasons that are different, even though the total amount of antarctic ice is lower. But it doesn’t matter, this is a false augment.
The main pt is that you ignore my major claim. Which says something, doesn’t it.
trafamadore,
Your comments are becoming more and more irrational and disjointed. You really got nothin’. Do you? Nothing but your baseless assertions, and your beliefs.
Certainly you have no understanding of the climate Null Hypothesis, which has never been falsified. It shows that there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening. That is supported by this chart of long-term global ice cover:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
As we see, there is nothing unusual or unprecedented happening. Global ice is right at its long term average.
Face reality, mr. alarmist: exactly none of your scary predictions have happened. Every one of them has failed, just like your pathetic arguments. You keep wishing and hoping that the planet goes into runaway global warming or some kind of climate catastrophe, so you can say that you were right.
But you are wrong. The planet itself is showing that you’re wrong. And if it were not for your refusal to face reality, you would admit it, too.
To add more empirical information, here is the Antarctic ice accumulation record:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
Notice that 2015 is on track to be one of the highest ice years on record. The Antarctic holds about 10X greater volume of ice than the Arctic, so really, the Arctic doesn’t much matter.
The ONLY reason the alarmist cult hangs its hat on the Arctic is because Arctic ice declined for a short time. But that’s in the past now, as Arctic ice is naturally rising again.
The believers in the ‘disappearing ice’ narrative are… on thin ice. The real world is debunking their entire belief system. Don’t ask me, though. Ask the planet. She will show us who’s right, and who is wrong.
“I would answer yes to #1…” ? Do you mean all three (rising, falling & stable temp) have existed during post 1800’s?
I would answer falling. Since the HTM 8,000 ybp, temperatures have been generally downward.
Yes.
At this point in the warmists’ dilemma, with data and observation not on their side, all they have left is their models. That those models fail scientific rigor is inconsequential as long as the broader public is not aware of that failure, I,e. they remain scientifically illiterate, and think science is akin to a popularity contest. Hence the parroting of the 97%consensus lie is part of a disinformation campaign.
From the perspective of the Green Socialists, the GC models must now be protected at all cost. The very foundation of the IPCC’s AR rests on the circular logic built into those models. Reputations and literally Trillions of dollars are at stake.
Skepticalscience.com’s hacked emails show that the results of John Cook’s and Dana Nuticelli’s survey of abstracts was known in advance; Cook acknowledged the importance of promoting the concept of a consensus prior to the project; similar to statements made before the Rio conference, truth isn’t the issue; the focus is on what people believe.
Transient stuff, beliefs…
Indeed one of the great unanswered questions , along with what would disprove CAGW, is if you take away the models what proof do you have ?
We can guess the answer to that is little if anything , hence has you write the need to defend that which is indefensible.
I notice the trolls who occasionally pollute this blog are noticeably absent from this discussion.
doesn’t leave much room for their lurking
Maybe the short bus is late today.
The “short bus” is an offensive,obnoxious saying that reflects negatively on those who use it.
I too have noticed this lack of trolls with some disappointment.
The fact is that the post was written so skilfully that it is easy to miss it was also written “defensively” (as we say in academia), leaving little room to find wrong with it even if you disagree with it. It is a tactic that Ridley could use… unless his purpose is to provoke, of course.
kami,
Haven’t you noticed mr t @5:17 above?
+++++
[markl: I didn’t know what a ‘short bus’ meant, so I went online to look. There are lots of different meanings, not all of them what you’re probably referring to. The most common meaning seems to refer to a mentally challenged person.]
My apologies to markl (and all) for lapsing into a midwestern redneck. Yes I meant the mentally challenged. A poor analogy, in retrospect, of those who refuse to open their minds and learn.
Dawtgtomis commented:
“My apologies to markl (and all) for lapsing into a midwestern redneck.”
Accepted. I’m sensitive to remarks like that because my wife volunteers to help those “short bus” riders several times a week. Some have brilliant minds trapped in unforgiving bodies. Stephen Hawking?
dbstealey commented on Anatomy of a Collapsing Climate Paradigm:
“[markl: I didn’t know what a ‘short bus’ meant, so I went online to look….The most common meaning seems to refer to a mentally challenged person.]”
I had to look it up as well and when you put the phrase in the derogatory context it’s been used (a couple of times) on this forum it’s making the analogy that the targets were mentally deficient….like those children that get picked up on the “short buses”. Which 1. Isn’t necessarily true as some have physical problems, and 2. Is in very poor taste to use some people’s natural condition as a slander against anyone.
Agreed,as the brother of an autistic occupant of a group home, my skin must have gotten too thick about the mentality of said remark when it was used around me. These are the most well-adjusted of all souls and are a lesson to the rest of us when it comes to the important stuff.
markl,
I’m not arguing with anything you wrote. [I never get into heated debates with folks on the skeptic side anyway.]
For the record, my wife has her Master’s degree in Special Ed, and teaches mostly adults who have cerebral palsy [for those who don’t know, it’s what results when the umbilical cord gets wrapped tightly around the neck in uterus, cutting off oxygen; the result is a child that never progresses beyond 1st or 2nd grade intelligence].
I see from Dawtgtomis’ response that he meant no harm. I agree with him that those folks “…are the most well-adjusted of all souls”. They are. So let’s all have a big group hug, and forget it. We’re no the bad guys here. ☺
dbstealey commented:
“I see from Dawtgtomis’ response that he meant no harm. I agree with him that those folks “…are the most well-adjusted of all souls”. They are. So let’s have a group hug, and forget it. We’re no the bad guys here. ☺”
I’m already/been there. Just pointed out that it’s an obnoxious term and shouldn’t be used. So far everyone agrees. I’m not militant, just vocal….. 🙂
Beers for both of you on me, if ever…
To dbstealey, Your wife might be happy to hear that one of my brother’s friends is a 60-something woman with CP, who drives, works and takes care of her elderly parents. Incredible person to meet.
Of course since you’re a geologist you must be in the pay of “Big Oil” and they’ll discount anything you say regardless of the facts you present.
The Koch brothers are now the US Left’s primary bogeyman.
Heartland isn’t far behind…
Every Big Brother needs an Emmanuel Goldstein.
Funny, I saw a post on an article from CD stating that models can be used even if they aren’t making good predictions because there is no such thing as a “Bad model.”
It’s easier to win if they discount your facts and move the goal posts.
He been in ‘good company ‘ has so is the IPC, CRU and a lot of ‘the Team’ , but I guess that is ‘different’
Thanks for the revealing dissection and good, hard work.
This might be my new favorite chart:
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/dhm1353056/Kerry_01_zpsgdfkz0oa.png
That 64 is very generous – it’s the total before subtracting the abstracts written by psychologists and economists and the ones that explicitly disputed AGW. The problem is Cook’s poor experimental design; his search term should have been “unconditionally support all IPCC global warming predictions”, rather than ‘global warming’ and climate change’.
It’s obvious that global temps have recovered since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, so, yes, the earth has warmed about .8C over the past 164 years.
Since CO2’s forcing effect is (5.25*log(400ppm/280))*(.31 Stefan-Boltzmann constant)*(.5 negative cloud feedback)= about .3C, I’d have to answer, yes, to the second question, as CO2’s contribution to total warming (.3C/.8C) is roughly 37% of total warming, which is “significant”.
BUT…the most salient question is whether or not 0.018C/decade of warming (.3C/164 years) is anything to worry about, and the answer to that is a definitive NO; especially since CO2 forcing effect is logarithmic..
To the contrary, .3C of CO2 warming over the past 164 years has likely been a net positive phenomenon, and if you include the roughly 16% increase of crop yields and forest growth from higher CO2 concentrations, it’s been a huge advantage to the environment and humanity. Moreover, it’s irrefutable that cheap fossil fuels have contributed incalculable positive economic and social benefits to humanity since 1850.
Moreover, China’s first test thorium reactor goes online THIS YEAR, with the goal of having a large-scale commercial LFTR design ready for rollout by 2024… By 2050, most of world’s energy will come from thorium, so this stupid CAGW hoax is moot anyway.
CAGW is dead.
It all hangs on the feedbacks. I can come up with anywhere from 0.2 to 0.4°C of anthropogenic contributions.
David- Yep. It’s all about feedbacks. The CAGW hypothesis is 100.00% dependent upon a “runaway positive feedback loop”, which clearly doesn’t exist.
CAGW advocates feigned ignorance of negative cloud feedbacks is their get-out-of-jail-free card. When the CAGW hypothesis ends up in the trash bin of failed ideas, CAGW advocates will blame their “ignorance” of cloud formation/feedbacks for CAGW’s demise. Since all IPCC AR reports clearly state CAGW advocates are clueless on how clouds are formed and their net effect on climate, they’ll point to this feigned ignorance to explain why their models were so useless…
The physics and empirical evidence now show ECS will be around 0.5C~1C by 2100, which isn’t a problem… In about 5~7 years, the discrepancies will be 3+ standard deviations off from reality, over a 25-yr period, which will be sufficient criteria to toss this CAGW scam on the trash heap of history.
The start us date has been set back. Still time for the US to enter the race for safe nuclear…
http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2012/10/30/completion-date-slips-for-chinas-thorium-molten-salt-reactor/