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Foreword by the blog moderator:
One of the things that often happens once your blog and effort is well known is that people start sending you things to look at and/or do. That’s the case here. There has been much discussion web-wide over AIT and potential inaccuracies in the presentation by Gore, but I have not taken on the subject here in any detail since I have my http://www.surfacestations.org/ USHCN weather station census requiring a good portion of my time. Nonetheless, when I was offered this review, it seemed to be quite comprehensive in scope, and done by a person who worked in aeronautic systems engineering, a very detail oriented job that combines many disciplines. He had a thirty-three year career at Boeing, beginning as a software engineer in data reduction and flight simulation and retiring as the Chief Engineer of the Electronic Systems Division.
While AIT has been reviewed by many, I thought this review had some interesting points. Therefore, as a catalyst for discussion, here is Bob’s review of AIT with no editing nor commentary on my part.
UPDATE 10/5/07 A few commenters pointed out that there was a mistake that needed correcting. Mr. Edleman requested I repost his newly edited version that corrects a mistake in attribution of the institution Dr. Phil Jones is tenured at. Some additional format changes were made for readability by Mr. Edelman.
by Bob Edelman
October 3, 2007
My sister viewed Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and was disturbed enough to ask my opinion. In her words, “if the story is mostly true, we’d better stop the ideological wrangling and get busy salvaging what we can”. After some prodding I reluctantly rented the DVD and prepared the following comments in response. My conclusion is that the movie is mostly misleading and, yes, we’d better stop the ideological wrangling and consider the facts.
Comments on An Inconvenient Truth
Most of my comments pertain to the climatology science presented in the movie although I do include a discussion of charges made by NASA’s James Hansen that his scientific findings have been suppressed. I also discuss the issue of scientific consensus. I gave a pass to most of the trivial errors although I couldn’t help pointing out some that jumped out at me. Please forgive the nit-picking. A few words about the general circulation models (GCMs) used to predict climate change. Al Gore didn’t explicitly discuss the models that he used or the accuracy of his predictions so I don’t discuss them in my comments. Yet whenever he discusses future climate he necessarily is either guessing or relying on someone’s GCM. Given that no model has ever been validated I believe that the state-of-the-art still has a long way to go before climatologists can make predictions good enough to drive policy. One glaring hole in climate models is adequate modeling of precipitation systems. They are not modeled well because they are not understood. Yet precipitation systems are extremely important to moderating climate. A recently published study of tropical precipitation systems by Dr. Roy Spencer supports the existence of a strong negative feedback to temperature increases rather then the assumed positive feedback now modeled in GCMs. Once such systems are understood and modeled properly we may find why the earth’s climate is not as fragile as some would have us believe. After all, the earth once had an atmosphere consisting of mostly greenhouse gasses (carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor) and nitrogen, yet life and the climate evolved. The following comments are organized in the same chronology as the film. I suggest that you view An Inconvenient Truth on DVD and follow along since it is difficult to insert Gore’s slides into my comments. The most significant comments are in bold.
1. The story about his sixth grade teacher may or may not be true – she may have been reflecting her own sixth grade education. The point of his story, however, was fabricated. He ends the story by saying that “the teacher was actually reflecting the conclusion of the scientific establishment at that time: Continents are so big that obviously they don’t move.” When Gore was in the sixth grade (about 1960) the scientific community had generally accepted the concept of continental drift.
2. Gore’s explanation of the greenhouse effect is grossly over-simplified. The sun’s radiation reaches the earth in a broad spectrum, not just “light”. The warm earth emits long infrared radiation. Some of that radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gasses, the most significant of which is water vapor followed by CO2. The energy is re-radiated at wave lengths that differ from the excitation radiation. Most of the re-radiated energy is lost to space but some reaches the earth where it contributes to keeping the atmosphere at a comfortable temperature. The radiation is not “trapped”.
3. In his explanation of the greenhouse effect he incorrectly equates it to global warming. This helps create the perception that people who disagree with his conclusions deny the existence of global warming and/or the greenhouse effect. Actually, there is general agreement on the following:
- There is a greenhouse effect. It makes our planet livable.
- CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There is disagreement as to its significance since water vapor is, by far, the most important.
- There was global warming on the order of about 1ºF during the twentieth century. There is disagreement as to its cause.
4. The assertion that his professor, Roger Revelle, was the first person to have the idea to measure the amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere is false. Scientists have been measuring atmospheric CO2 since well before Revelle was born and the measurements showing increased concentrations were reported 20 years before Revelle’s study. Also, Gore implies that Revelle was concerned about the global warming effects of increased CO2 emissions. He wasn’t. In fact, Revelle is on record saying that increased CO2 could be beneficial and that it is too early (in 1991) for drastic action to prevent global warming effects.
5. The assertion that the ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro is disappearing because of global warming is not correct. It is generally accepted that the cause is desiccation of the atmosphere that resulted from deforestation. The temperature at the ice cap has remained at about minus 7ºC, indicating that ice cap loss has been from ablation (sublimation) to the dry atmosphere, not melting.
6. The use of Glacier National Park as an example of man-caused (anthropogenic) global warming is wrong. Those glaciers have been receding since the beginning of record keeping. In fact, the rate of retreat was greater 75 years ago then now.
7. The idea that the world’s glaciers are disappearing because of CO2 stretches credibility. Remember, the 20th century increase in temperature has been about 1ºF, much of which occurred before the era of large CO2 emissions. Most glaciers in temperate climates are relics of the ice age and have been receding since that time. Nevertheless, a large number of glaciers are growing, none of which were shown in the film, and only a small percentage of glaciers have been studied for mass balance changes out of the 67,000 that have been inventoried. (Note: the rate of recession and the rate of mass loss are two different things.)
8. Gore shows a glacier calving to illustrate the horrors of global warming. “Here is what has been happening year by year to the Columbia Glacier. It just retreats more and more every year. And it is a shame because these glaciers are so beautiful. People who go up to see them, here is what they are seeing every day now.” Gore doesn’t seem to recognize that glacier ice slowly flows down-hill and calving is quite normal. A growing ice-cap will also calve.
9. The assertion that people in the Himalayas will lose their drinking water because of glacier melting in the next 40 years may be true, but not because of anthropogenic global warming. The Gangotri glacier has been receding as have most relics of the ice age. However, it is incorrect to blame it on recent global warming. Melting occurs in the summer and temperature records since 1875 show a history of decreasing summer temperatures. This illustrates the major problem with using glaciers to prove catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
10. Gore attributes the retreat of a Peruvian glacier to global warming without mentioning the fact that the region has been cooling since the 1930’s. He also fails to mention the other South America glaciers that have been growing.
11. Gore makes these comments when showing a video of an ice-core sample: “When I was in Antarctica I saw cores like this and the guy looked at it. He said right here is where the US Congress passed the Clean Air Act. I couldn’t believe it but you can see the difference with the naked eye. Just a couple of years after that law was passed, it’s very clearly distinguishable.” I will give Gore the benefit of the doubt and say that he was the victim of a joke.
12. Gore incorrectly shows the infamous “hockey stick” chart as temperature history from ice-core data. This was actually from a study published by Dr. Michael Mann in 1999. He used tree ring data as a proxy for temperature for data up to the 20th century and then tacked on thermometer data. The graph shows a slow decline in global temperature for 1,000 years (the shaft of the hockey stick) and then a sudden increase in the 20th century (the blade of the hockey stick). The study was quickly accepted by global warming alarmists without adequate review because it wiped out the pesky Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age. Some scientists raised a number of questions about the lack of agreement with previous studies and the historical record. Two Canadians, McIntyre and McKitrick, attempted to examine the methodology and, after much difficulty in acquiring data and software algorithms, were able to show gross errors in the use of statistical techniques. This controversy culminated in two studies requested by congress. The first was by the National Research Council (at the NRC’s suggestion) which gave some credence to Mann’s study although limiting it to 400 years. No statisticians were on the committee and, it turns out, most of the committee had professional connections to Dr Mann. A second independent study by a team of mathematicians was requested and headed by Dr. Edward J. Wegman. The Wegman study thoroughly discredited the Mann study because of invalid use of statistical techniques and found that the conclusions by Mann could not be supported. However, some still cling to the hockey stick. Gore is apparently one of them.
13. Gore uses the discredited hockey stick to downplay the MWP and deride scientists who have shown the importance of climate change cycles. There have been numerous studies before and after the Mann study that show, through other proxies, the global extent of and magnitude of the MWP. There is ample evidence that the planet was warmer during the MWP then it is now. There are also numerous studies that show the existence of various cycles, such as the earth’s orbital cycles, and how those cycles can affect major climate changes.
14. When Gore does display the ice-core data he incorrectly uses it to assert that CO2 is directly responsible for global temperature change. This is the most egregious error in the movie.
“Now an important point: In all of this time, 650,000 years, the CO2 level has never gone above 300 parts per million. Now, as I said, they can also measure temperature. Here is what the temperature has been on our earth. One thing that kind of jumps out at you is… Let me put it this way. If my class mate from the sixth grade that talked about Africa and South America might have said, “Did they ever fit together?” Most ridiculous thing I ever heard. But they did of course. The relationship is very complicated. But there is one relationship that is more powerful than all the others and it is this. When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer, because it traps more heat from the sun inside.“
All technical studies of ice-cores show the same thing; CO2 increases follow temperature increases and CO2 decreases follow temperature decreases. In other words, ice-core data show that temperature changes drive CO2 changes to a very large extent. The actual amount of the lag varies from different studies but it is approximately 800 years. The reason for the lag is postulated to be the delayed release and absorption of CO2 from the oceans, the earth’s largest reservoir of carbon. The reason for the large delay is the huge depth of the oceans and the time that it takes a temperature change to propagate. Gore and his technical advisors are certainly well aware of these facts.
15. The ice-core graph along with estimates of CO2 growth is used to give the impression that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is greater than ever before in history and that it is going “off the chart”. In truth, CO2 concentrations have been much higher in geologic history. During the Cambrian Period (543 to 490 million years ago), concentrations were as high as 18 times the present level. It was during this period that there was an explosion of diverse life on earth (called the Cambrian explosion) and almost all living animal groups appeared. At the end of the Ordovician Period (490 to 443 million years ago) the earth experienced an Ice Age, yet CO2 concentrations were almost 12 times the present level. CO2 concentrations were almost 5 times higher during the Jurassic Period (206 to 144 million years ago), yet life thrived. These facts are at odds with the assertion a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere will be catastrophic to life.
16. Gore’s claim that there is no controversy over the amount of CO2 growth in the next 50 years is wrong.
17. Gore shows a chart purporting to be actual temperatures since the Civil War. (Note that the film doesn’t expose the dependent axis. If he did it would emphasize how small the changes in temperature were.) Gore states:
“These are actual measurements of atmospheric temperature since our civil war. In any given year it might look like it’s going down, but the overall trend is extremely clear. In recent years it is uninterrupted and it is intensifying. In fact, if you look at the 10 hottest years ever measured in this atmospheric record, they have all occurred in the last 14 years. The hottest of all was 2005.“
He can be forgiven for having been misled by a close advisor, Dr. James Hansen who heads the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Hansen has recently been forced to admit that errors were made in correcting raw data and that the hottest year was 1934. Here is the new ranking: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, 1939.
This change in ranking came about because of the efforts of non-professionals. GISS derives temperature from a large network of stations in the United States. They have been severely criticized for using stations that are poorly placed so that significant error is introduced by artificially induced local heating and urbanization. GISS filters the data to extract very low temperature change signals from the very large temperature noise. A former TV meteorologist, Anthony Watts, voluntarily maintains a web site where individuals have been recruited to examine stations in a systematic manner and post photographs and station characteristics. To date, records for about 33% of the stations in the US Historical Climatology Network have been surveyed. There are numerous examples of poor placement such as near heat exchangers, on or near concrete, exposure to jet airplane exhaust, and even exposure to a burn barrel. The record of one station located near two air conditioner exhausts showed a sudden increase in temperature readings when the air conditioners were installed. It was noted, however, that the discontinuity continued in the winter when the air conditioners were presumed to be off. This got the attention of Steven McIntyre, the same Canadian who discovered the hockey stick math problems. He attempted to get the data reduction algorithms from Hansen but was refused access. (Refusing review of one’s work is not how responsible scientists behave.) McIntyre was forced to reverse engineer data from a number of stations and found a “Y2K” problem, i.e., discrepancies were introduced in the year 2000. Hansen has now admitted that he made errors when transitioning to a different data set but still refuses to divulge his methods. (I have more to say about Hansen later.)
18. The connection of heat waves to global warming is grossly exaggerated. Remember, the 20th century increase in temperature has been about 1ºF.
19. Gore claims that the oceans have warmed (by about .2 degrees according to his chart). Harison and Carson of the University of Washington studied 50 years of data from 1950 to 2000 and concluded that there was no warming evident. (Their data actually show cooling from 1980 to 1999.) They concluded that “The ocean neither cooled nor warmed systematically over the large parts of the ocean for the entire analysis period.”
20. Gore claims that increased hurricane activity is caused by global warming. This claim is not supported by empirical studies. In fact, a recent study of tropical cyclones in Australia from 1226 to 2003 showed a decrease in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the last 100 years. (It is interesting how the researchers got records that old. They found that a heavy isotope of oxygen, O-18, is deficient in precipitation from cyclones. They measured the deficiency of O-18 deposited in stalagmite layers as a proxy for cyclone intensity and then validated their method against records of modern cyclones.)
21. The claim that Lake Chad drying is caused by global warming is not correct. NASA concluded that water use and grazing are the probable causes.
22. Gore shows a dramatic photo of a crack in the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf to illustrate “faster impacts from global warming” in the Artic and says that “scientists were astonished”. Some may have been surprised but scientists who have studied the ice shelf point out that it is a remnant of a larger feature that has been contracting since the end of the Little Ice Age and had already lost 90% during the period 1906-1982 due to calving.
23. Gore shows a photo of a house that was built on permafrost and sunk when the permafrost melted. Solution: Don’t build a house on permafrost unless you plan to keep the living areas below freezing. (Alaskans figured this one out a long time ago.)
24. A chart that purports to show that “there was a precipitous drop off in the amount and extent and thickness of the arctic ice cap” starting in 1970 is questionable. It has been reported that the data points were not all taken at the same time of the year. Also, 1970 was the end of a 25 year cooling period. Dr. Dick Morgan, a climatology researcher at the University of Exeter wrote: “There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001.”
25. The animation of the desperate polar bear is representative of nothing. Polar bear population is increasing or stable in all areas except where there has been cooling! As a species they have survived much warmer temperatures seen 6000 years ago.
26. Gore does a good job of describing the thermohaline pump and how the pump was shut down when a huge lake of fresh water was suddenly dumped into the ocean at the end of the ice age. However, he seems to imply that slow melting of the icecap will produce the same effect. This is not correct and no scientist worth his halide would make that claim.
27. The claims that global warming is causing “exotic” species to appear where they were never seen before and outbreaks of disease have little or no basis. For example:
- “You’ve heard of the pine beetle problem? Those pine beetles used to be killed by the cold winter, but there are fewer days of frost. So the pine trees are being devastated.” Actually the pine beetle is native to areas where large outbreaks occurred. Small outbreaks became large because of forest management problems.
- “There are cities that were founded because they were just above the mosquito line. Nairobi is one. Harare is another. There are plenty of others. Now the mosquitoes with warming are climbing to hirer altitudes.” This is nonsense. These cities have always had mosquitoes and malaria. Malaria was a world-wide disease, including the United States at one time.
- “The Avian flu, of course is quite a serious matter, as you know. West Nile Virus came to the eastern shore of Maryland in 1999. Two years later it was across the Mississippi. And two years after that it had spread across the continent.” More nonsense. Avian flu (or any other kind) is not associated with higher temperatures. West Nile Virus is a mosquito-borne virus that came from Israel. According to the CDC, the virus was never confined to tropical areas. The fact that these diseases spread to temperate areas contradicts Gore’s claim that they spread because of global warming.
28. Gore’s discussion of the Antarctic focuses on the dramatic break up of the Larsen B ice-shelf in Western Antarctica. Andrew Monaghan of Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar Research Center and 15 colleagues have been studying the thickness of the ice cap. They point to evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been thinning over the past decade, while the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has thickened. A lot of work needs to be done to explain just what is happening in the Antarctic and concentrating on one single event can give a very distorted picture.
29. Gore makes another absurd claim that Pacific islanders were forced to evacuate to New Zealand when part of the Antarctic ice shelf broke off. Dr Chris de Freitas, a climate scientist from the University of Auckland stated: “I can assure Mr. Gore that no one from the South Pacific islands has fled to New Zealand because of rising seas. In fact, if Gore consults the data, he will see it shows sea level falling in some parts of the Pacific.”
30. Gore postulates a 20 foot rise in sea level if the Greenland ice cap or the Antarctic ice cap melted. He then shows the devastation that would occur from such a chance in sea level. No reputable scientist is predicting such a huge magnitude rise in sea level. Even the global warming alarmists on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have projected a range of only 18-59cm at the end of this century based on various models and scenarios.
31. The map showing that the US contributed 30% to global warming is actually a map produced by the World Resource Institute that purports to show CO2 emissions resulting from fossil fuel combustion. Global warming and fossil fuel consumption are not the same thing. Nor are global warming and CO2 emissions the same thing. Even if they were the map doesn’t show other sources of CO2 such as the 30% that Gore claims comes from burning wood.
32. Gore says:
“There was a massive study of every scientific article in a peer reviewed article written on global warming in the last ten years. They took a big sample of 10 percent, 928 articles. And you know the number of those that disagreed with the scientific consensus that we’re causing global warming and that is a serious problem out of the 928: Zero.“
Anyone familiar with the scientific literature knows better. The study that he is referring to was conducted by social scientist Dr. Naomi Oreske. Another social scientist, Dr. Benny Peiser of the UK, attempted to verify Oreske’s study. The following is his summary:
“I replicated her study in order to assess the accuracy of its results. All abstracts listed on the ISI databank for 1993 to 2003 using the same keywords (‘global climate change’) were assessed. The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes’ findings and essentially falsify her study: Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (1%) explicitly endorse the ‘consensus view’. However, 34 abstracts reject or question the view that human activities are the main driving force of ‘the observed warming over the last 50 years’.
Oreskes claims that ‘none of these papers argued [that current climate change is natural]’. However, 44 papers emphasise that natural factors play a major if not the key role in recent climate change.
The most significant discrepancy with Oreskes’ results concern abstracts that are undecided whether human activities are the dominant driving force of recent warming. My analysis shows that a significant number of abstracts reject what Oreskes calls the ‘consensus view’. In fact, there are almost three times as many abstracts that are unconvinced of the notion of anthropogenic climate change than those that explicitly endorse it.”
Two German environmental scientist, Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, conducted an extensive survey of 530 climate scientists from 27 different countries in 2003. (A similar survey was conducted in 1996.) On the critical assertion, “human activity is causing climate change” only 55.8% agreed, 30% disagreed, and the rest were uncertain. This is hardly unanimous agreement.
In a recent analysis of peer-reviewed studies, Dennis Avery and Fred Singer listed more than 500 climate scientists whose studies confirmed that climate change is a natural phenomenon.
There is no consensus. Even if there were it would have no value in science. Proof leads to consensus, not the other way around.
33. Gore claims: “The misconception that there is disagreement about the science has been deliberately created by a relatively small number of people. One of their internal memos leaked and here is what it said according to the press. Their objective is to reposition global warming as a theory rather than fact.” I know of no efforts to “reposition global warming as a theory”. All reputable scientists recognize that there has been warming since the little ice age. However, “anthropogenic global warming leading to disastrous results” is properly positioned as theory.
34. The movie shows testimony before the Senate from 1989 where James Hanson reveals that the final paragraph in his testimony was written by OMB during its review. The movie leaves the impression that scientific findings were changed. What actually happened is this: OMB added a sentence that Hansen’s conclusions “should be viewed as estimates from evolving computer models and not as reliable predictions.” Hansen phoned Gore and requested that he ask about the changes during the hearing. As it turns out, Hansen’s predictions were not reliable and his faith in them was not scientifically based.
Hansen openly admits to ignoring NASA media policies and frequently has made accusations of political interference since 1988. Recently, the Washington Post reported:
“The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth’s average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would ‘imply changes that constitute practically a different planet.’
‘It’s not something you can adapt to,’ Hansen said in an interview. ‘We can’t let it go on another 10 years like this. We’ve got to do something.’
This tipping point debate has stirred controversy within the administration; Hansen said senior political appointees are trying to block him from sharing his views publicly.
When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to withdraw the information because he had not had it screened by the administration in advance, according to a Goddard scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More recently, NASA officials tried to discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for this article and later insisted he could speak on the record only if an agency spokeswoman listened in on the conversation.
‘They’re trying to control what’s getting out to the public,’ Hansen said, adding that many of his colleagues are afraid to talk about the issue. ‘They’re not willing to say much, because they’ve been pressured and they’re afraid they’ll get into trouble.'”
Again, Hansen turned out to be wrong and has had to revise his data. (See previous discussion about hottest years.) He now downplays its importance and blatantly lies about past practices. The following is from a recent article in the New York Times:
“Dr. Hansen and his team note that they rarely, if ever, discuss individual years, particularly regional findings like those for the United States (the lower 48 are only 2 percent of the planet’s surface). ‘In general I think that we want to avoid going into more and more detail about ranking of individual years,’ he said in an e-mail message. ‘As far as I remember, we have always discouraged that as being somewhat nonsensical.'”
Hansen has made a number of other incorrect predictions but he continues to hype the dangers of anthropogenic global warming. If past and present administrations have been attempting to suppress Hansen they have been spectacularly ineffective. Google his name and you will see what I mean.
Demonweed,
You seem to be focusing on the fact that Bob Edelman only refered to a few glaciers and did not give the status of all glaciers (which information, to date, does not exist). But he was actually addressing the cherry-picked examples used by Al Gore. Now Al Gore implied that these shrinking glaciers were specifically the result of human induced global warming, an assertion that has been clearly shown to be false. If you are that upset by liars, where are your ad hominems for Gore?
It was pretty clear to me that Mr. Edelman was refering to the overall retreat of the glaciers since the last ice age, and was not suggesting that this was a perfectly linear trend, as you imply. Also, where do you get your information that the glaciers were stable for most of the Holocene? The fact that slowly receding glaciers in Iceland and Greenland are revealing human settlements from 1,000 years ago certainly suggests that your statements are false. Are you misinformed or are you one of the liars you claim to despise?
No one here denies, all things being equal, that increasing CO2 would tend to increase global atmospheric temperatures. The science puts this increase around 1 degree C for a doubling of CO2. Calling anyone here a global warming denier is not only inaccurate, but demonstrates the weakness of your arguments by resorting to name calling.
Several of your arguments seem to grow from some sort of an Eden myth, or belief that the climate was stable and unchanging before humans started to meddle, and that any observed changes today must be due to humans. All physical evidence indicates that the climate is and always has gone through constant cycles and that the current warm cycle is similar to many of the previous (Holocene) warm periods, and cooler than some. The tropical convergence zones also shift at times. Ethiopia has had a long history of droughts and floods.
As to the oil companies…they are not a volcano pumping CO2 in the atmosphere. They produce products which we consumers use to better our lives. In the process of bettering our lives, we (you and I) release the CO2 into the atmosphere. If you think this is criminal, stop using their products. No one is forcing you. Also, do you have any evidence that anyone commenting here has been funded by the oil industry or worships big oil? No, of course not. This is just another empty ad hominem, further revealing the weakness of your arguments.
Finally, a little economics…If alternative energy is more costly to produce and use than fossil fuels, forcing the use of such alternative fuels will hurt the economy and all of us partaking in it. Siting just a few industries that will benefit from such regulation and claiming that it will be good for the economy is the same as siting a few expanding glaciers and saying that they are all expanding. If Bob Edelman made such a claim, your indigation would be legitimate. Since it is you making the bogus arguments, perhaps you should take a few minutes and make derogatory comments to the mirror.
I never contended CO2 was the only force that shapes climates around the world. However, I do continue to believe that it is the driving force behind a warming trend ongoing at present. In fact, if we really want to get technical about it, there are two opposing forces produced by human industry. “Global dimming” is a worldwide decrease in direct sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. Fine particulate matter emitted by industry directly obscures light and increases the longevity of rainclouds. Thus, if some genius came up with a perfectly safe clean way to make as much energy as industry could possibly require without any unwanted byproducts at all, the end result could be a brief surge in global warming as particulate pollution quickly falls from the sky and atmospheric CO2 remains at present levels.
I never brought up global dimming because it introduces another level of complexity to a discussion where so many people seem intent on reducing the entire matter to a single simple cause and effect relationship. Reality is not that simple. Yet reality does feature a slight global rise in temperatures, a remarkable and abrupt global rise in atmospheric carbon, and a tendency for modern air with its higher levels of CO2 to retain a little more warmth than pre-industrial air with its lower levels of CO2. There are other factors at work to be sure, but so what? Unless we have comparably solid evidence that an major natural upheaval is pending and could be addressed by deliberately continuing to raise atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, the prosperity of our nation and our world is being put at risk in the name of political inaction. What about doing nothing is so wonderful that it justifies surrendering countless beaches, countless harvests, and most of the worlds great urban centers to a potentially preventable change?
When I was a youngster, (well over a half century ago), one of the most valuable things my mother taught me was, “if you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.” With that lesson in mind, I’d like to offer up a compliment to Demon Weed: he’s one helluva typist.
I am Bob Edelman’s son, and I will attest to the fact that my father’s review was originally intended solely for his sister and not public consumption, and I was surprised by some of the ad hominem arguments.
Demonweed, you may be surprised to know that my father drives a Toyota Prius, installed environmentally friendly fluorescent lighting throughout his home, and is a conservationist and protector of his local environment.
Unscientifically documented scare tactics that drive specific behaviors are dangerous to society. The banning of DDT has resulted in untold malaria deaths in Africa, and it is possible that a worldwide restriction of fossil fuels may prevent poverty stricken countries from developing self sustaining economies.
Everyone I know wants a cleaner environment. However, we must be very cautious when politics drives scientific consensus, and not the other way around.
Re: wattsupwiththat (19:47:04)
The link that I used was as reported by Robert (20:01:21).
Various sources have referred to the paper. Steven Milloy’s evaluation of the reference, Friday, August 31, 2007, http://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20070831.html
seems to impartially sum up its potential significance. In his evaluation Milloy says, “No doubt the iris effect will require more research to confirm its existence.”
Excerpt from Milloy’s evaluation follows:
____________________________________________
… Analyzing six years of data from four instruments aboard three NASA and NOAA satellites, the UAH researchers tracked precipitation amounts, air and sea surface temperatures, high- and low-altitude cloud cover, reflected sunlight and infrared energy escaping out to space.
Rather than the hypothesized positive feedback of the climate models, the UAH data actually shows a strong negative feedback. As the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease, allowing infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space.
“To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce [climate model-based] estimates of future warming by 75 percent,” said UAH researcher Roy Spencer in a media release.
“The role of clouds in global warming is widely agreed to be pretty uncertain,” Spencer said. “Right now, all climate models predict that clouds will amplify warming. I’m betting that if the climate models’ ‘clouds’ were made to behave the way we see these clouds behave in nature, it would substantially reduce the amount of climate change the models predict for the coming decades.” …
Ed Edelman
I have not had the opportunity to meet you yet, however, as I stated on this site early, I am a “very” good friend of your dad and I confirm everthing you have stated here.
M. Jeff and wattsupwiththat,
In discussing his research on precipitation systems and the lack of negative feedback modeling in GCMs, Roy Spencer recalled the Joni Mitchel lament
“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
Its cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all”
There is a short discussion as part of his excellent Global Warming primer at http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
Thank you BarryW, it was Eric Hoffer, not Fromm who wrote The True Believer as valid today, when attempting to grasp the pyschology behind the attraction that mass movements often based on little or no evidence hold for certain personalities, as it was in the 1950’s. I recommend the book to those wishing to probe the sociopolitical dimension of the AGW debate, as Hoffer’s insights are particularly relevant.
I watched AIT again with Mr. Edelman’s critique at hand. AIT is quite self-consciously designed to frighten the lay public with revelations of an impending global apocalypse unless the global economy is forced to change. Force will be necessary, as Gore points out, recalcitrant corporations are already conspiring against his crusade. AIT won an Oscar not for its production values but for its propaganda punch.
Gore, in a folksy used car salesman style, spent at least a quarter of the film musing about himself, implying trust me folks–I’m just your honest, average (millionaire) shoulda-been-president sorta guy who just happens to be on a globe trotting crusade to save the planet with all this secret information I have gathered. What facts Honest Al did have were used selectively to make emotional impacts on frighten children, rather than to illustrate the actual state of understanding on AGW.
If Al Gore had made an honestly rational film about what we do and don’t know about AGW, what the risks of inaction are versus the risks for precipitous action that might waste resources, then we wouldn’t be here today. He wouldn’t have won an Oscar and he probably wouldn’t have even found a distributor.
Instead he made an ideological film based on the most extreme AGW positions available. Why? I believe it is about wielding insinuation, fear and blame in a political smear game. The subtext of the film is that global capitalism and consumerism are to blame. And, of course, Al might really believe that he needs to save the planet by any means necessary. What higher calling could there be than to thwart the imminent destruction of the biosphere? Might as well take out your political foes while your at it.
Al Gore has attempted to create the basis for an enduring new mythology, which he hopes will skew the political balance of power in the US towards his side for a generation or more. People like Demonweed are eager acolytes in this new secular religion. He believes we need a revolution rather than more facts that might muddy the clarity of the vision, distracting from the high moral crusade.
The one fact that everyone seems to agree upon is that the Earth’s surface temperatures have risen by some unknown amount in the last circa 40 years. That one side of politics is attempting to blame the increase on the other side speaks volumes about how thin the line between scientific fact and propaganda has now become.
The blindingly obvious solution is to require our government research agencies, NASA, NOAA, GISS and others, by new federal legislation if necessary, to get serious about doing transparent, reproducible science and stop obscuring their methods, biases and fudges from independent researchers.
That’s the real urgency that wild claims of a 20-foot ocean level rise demand. If GW is possibly that bloody catastrophic then the above mentioned complacent agencies need to be shaken up from the top down. The revolution we need is a return to good old fashion enforced scientific method sans the high moral pronouncements and obscurantism from tax-payer funded technocrats and researchers.
Let the real peer-reviewed, independently verified facts and analysis fall where they will, transparently and reproducibly, that is all we can ask for. Kind of like a John Lenon song, hold up your Bic lighters–all we are asking is to give scientific method a chance!
Meanwhile, Hansen, Mann, Gore, et al have convinced a section of society that the End is Nigh in what might well be the greatest fear campaign ever and the first that is truly global in scale. Nothing in history really compares to the AGW apocalypse scenario. Not even the fear of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War compares, because that fear was quite demonstrably real!
An Inconvenient Truth is a gorgeous technocolor myth with all the elements–battles between good and evil, monsters,plagues, cures, a prophet and crystal balls, while thin on facts. Myth is the foundation of dogma. With the AGW apocalypse myth now firmly in place, encourage the media to cite it over and over again, refining the language, until it becomes a creed in the lay public’s mind. Eventually even global cooling will be an unwelcomed side effect of AGW.
There go the assumptions again, bringing religion into a scientific “debate”. You are just wrong, wrong, wrong. How about leaving politics and religion out of this? Or is that something you’re not capable of?
Which is exactly what you want us to do, jump before we have even a moderate understanding of what we’re doing. And you bring politics in yet again, interesting. Keep pushing that agenda, dude, hope it works out for you.
Actually we know virtually nothing about gravity, only that it exists.
So when are you going to start practicing what you’re preaching and stop using all fossil-fuel-related products? The clock is ticking….
As can be seen from my previous comments, I tend to get rather glib with “True Believers” like Demon Weed. One of the main components of their arguments, as he alluded to a few posts back, is that this is basically a Left/Right issue, and that Conservatives are satisfied with the status quo and just don’t want to rock the boat, regardless of the future consequences. He alludes to the fact that we are all against alternative energy research, which, at least in my case, could not be farther from the truth.
So, I’m curious. Are there any other GW/climate change skeptics here who don’t think we, as a civiliazation should be constantly exploring and seeking out new, better and cleaner forms of, preferably, renewable energy?
We may not know everything about gravity but we can measure it and acurately predict its behavior. We can do experiments that can be repeated by others with the same outcome.
Look at climate models or better yet how about simple weather forecasts out 5 days. Try getting repeatable results.
Stan wrote: “Are there any other GW/climate change skeptics here who don’t think we, as a civiliazation should be constantly exploring and seeking out new, better and cleaner forms of, preferably, renewable energy?”
I not only agree with it, but I’ve put my money where my mouth is, putting a 10KW solar array on my own home and a 125 KW solar array on a local school as part of my position as trustee with our local school district.
I think most everyone wants cleaner, better, energy methods, and will adopt its use given the chance. What many people don’t want are artificial limits and caps and taxes and penalties. Let the free market drive change. Trying to mandate social change never works well, just look at prohibition. I think the AGW’s miss the fact that there are probably a lot of people that will embrace the clean energy message, given choices, but will wholeheartedly reject mandates.
Gore’ carbon credit schemes won’t work, except for the very gullible.
Sr. Weed,
Yes, you have put a cat among the pigeons. But please consider that both sides of the debate have a basic fondness the planet. Even conservatives are said to favor the place if for no other reason that it’s where they keep their stuff.
Also consider that many of the posters here actually know a fair bit about the little-known subject, and are not corporate shills, either. Not even I am going to be swayed one way or another by what dubya thinks this week; he’s no more of an expert than I am.
Besides, “corporate shills” have been making valuable scientific discoveries ever since there have been corporations. Heck, you think it’s wrong for scientists to be partisan? I don’t think they can help it. And I think it perfectly natural. Why, I think it’s part of what drives their processes and parameters. And that’s where scientific method comes in.
It is up to the scientific process (the key being full disclosure of data and method) to filter out the partisanship on either side.
Isn’t science supposed to be about scrutiny? Why would every scientist just lay down and say the theory of AGW is real? Einstiens laws of physics were settled until quantum physics challenged him. When the strongest voices for AGW are hypocrites like Al Gore and Laurie David, you should question who you are following. Then when the debate starts to sway away from your beliefs, then I hear the “even Bush” believes in it. Well that settles it. For years now, EVERYTHING Bush has done has been shouted down as wrong, but now, just now, he is right. Please.
Stan wrote: “Are there any other GW/climate change skeptics here who don’t think we, as a civiliazation should be constantly exploring and seeking out new, better and cleaner forms of, preferably, renewable energy?”
I used to work for Capstone Turbine Corporation (www.microturbine.com) as a Systems Engineer. The microtubine efficiently burns waste gas that is usually flared into productive electricity to supplement or run independently of the power grid. In addition, the clean burning exhaust can be “recycled” (co-generation) to increase efficiency to as high as 90%. The microturbine uses no coolent fluids and oil (air bearings protect moving parts).
I am a strong believer that the private market (not government regulation) will drive new efficient and clean technologies.
Some excellent points have been made here – increasing solar and wind energy production still require base loading (the wind stops blowing and the sun goes down), and the most efficient base loads are hydroelectric and nuclear (both of which have been distained by some environmentalists). Most power plants built today use natural gas or coal because of this.
“I not only agree with it, but I’ve put my money where my mouth is”
My personal belief is that the US is better off not importing oil and oil based products, so ~ 2yr ago I took steps to reduce my personal vehicle transportation fuel useage by 75%.
As far as I can tell, the AGW alarmists (led by the wanton CO2 producer AlGore with his 10x utility bills and private jet use) want the gov’t to do something to make “everybody” reduce so they can continue without any real sacrifice on their part. I’d suggest that if they believe that things are at a crisis point to “save” the Earth that they quit exhaling CO2 at all to show the rest of us the way. If half the population follows, problem solved! (though there’ll likely be others arising). I’ve yet to see much of any personal action on the part of any alarmist sheep I know (The Wabbet doesn’t want to discuss this at all I’d note).
Excellent review! BTW, the new site looks great!
Wes George,
Had I read your words 17 years ago, I would have thought that you were way out there, but I have come to much the same conclusions over the years. Ten years ago, I read an essay by a history professor whose name I can no longer recall. The essay outlined the 5 steps that all of the despots of the 20th century used to gain their ruthless power.
1. Adopt a noble cause
2. Exaggerate the threat to the noble cause
3. Demonize your opponents as being against the cause
4. Claim to have the only solution to the crisis
5. Require the people to sacrifice money, freedom or both to save the noble cause
Does this sound familiar? While this process is dishonest in the extreme, it can be very effective. Hey, if it worked for Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, why not modern environmentalism?
The ironic thing about using this method is that it almost always ends up severly damaging the noble cause. For Hitler, the noble cause was saving the Father Land. He nearly destroyed it. For Communists, the noble cause was the elimination of poverty. They made poverty nearly universal. For Pol Pot, the noble cause was ending corruption. What can be more corrupt than murdering millions of your countrymen.
The defense of a noble cause must be made honestly and openly. If decisions are made on false or exaggerated claims, the result will likely do more harm than good to the cause.
History is repeating itself with the AGW crisis scare, only this is the first time the 5-step method has been tried on a global scale. Will we have the wisdom this time around to prevent the misery, or will we continue to abandon rationality in favor of emotion and manipulation.
Many in society, including our political leaders, are already drinking the kool-aid.
Re Jim Clark (16:50:25) :
Let us not forget the Inquistion and the French Revolution’s Terror both which were the product of noble goals and degenerated into blood. When faith in a cause becomes so all consuming that no facts can change your beliefs then anything is possible. We’ve only seen the tip of the ecofascist movement and the ecoterrorism that we’ve experienced so far is nothing compared to what is to come.
BarryW,
I hope you are wrong on your prediction. We live in an age where global communication allows these movements to become global. But the communication revolution also makes it impossible to suppress desenting voices and much more difficult to ‘get away with murder’.
Back in the ‘pre-Internet’ days, I thought I was the only one who had a problem with the dire predictions being made about the AGW faithful. Then came the Oregon Petition, Still waiting for Greenhouse, and the many blogs presenting peer reviewed science that contradicted the ‘consensus view’. When I read Mann’s orginal paper on the Hockey Stick, I had a good idea that the methodology was not legitimate, but did not have the statistical background to prove it. Along comes M&M and the Climate Audit website gradually revealing the whole tawdry affair.
Now, through the online efforts of people like the Pielke’s, Mr. Watts, Joe D’Aleo over at Icecap and many others, we get both sides of the story and can judge what is truly happening. As much as the AGW folks would like to shut these people up, they can’t, and their constant demonizing is starting to backfire.
In the end, global cooling should put an end to this particular episode of silliness, but the good works of private, knowledgable citizens may go a long way at preventing much of the harm that is being proposed.
That is my hope.
Stan wrote: “Are there any other GW/climate change skeptics here who don’t think we, as a civiliazation should be constantly exploring and seeking out new, better and cleaner forms of, preferably, renewable energy?”
Absolutely, but as others have noted – we should be realistic about which energy sources will meet our needs and let the market drive the change.
Government mandates which force the of “renewable” energy are a bad idea. [note: renewable in quotes due largely to the “1 gal of ethanol requires 3/4 gal of fossil fuel to produce” problem. I’m not sure how renewable that is.]
If you live in the SW US – solar is easy to come by. If you live in the NE US (or Alaska!) however, there aren’t 300 days of clear skies per year. Mandating “X percent” of energy from renewable sources will just punish people who live in areas where renewables aren’t prevalent (or practical.) Not every state has consistently windy or sunny days or major rivers for hydro-power.
In addition – we could plant the entire US in corn and not produce enough ethanol even to drive our cars, let alone all the other things we use oil for. Solar is great, but there are serious efficiency problems with (current) solar technology and panels are easily damaged over time by abrasion. No doubt the technology will improve, but it will still occasionally be dark and/or cloudy.
Wind is also great, but (again) the amount of windmills required to satisfy our energy needs is enormous. Also, as Christopher Columbus always used to say: “It sucks when the wind doesn’t blow.” [Columbus day tomorrow – couldn’t resist!]
I’m all for building nuclear reactors – it’s a shame that a third of our electricity comes from oil when there are better uses for oil. If we could displace coal as well that would be nice, but coal is plentiful and cheap – whereas fissionable materials are not. I don’t know if anyone has done a “peak uranium” study, but I’m not confident that we could go “all nuclear” and meet our current total energy needs.
Ironically, oil has been demonized – but it’s probably the best thing to happen to the human race since creation. Man started pumping oil out of the ground (in earnest) circa 1850. It was much cheaper and more prevalent than the product it replaced and so – it was adopted quickly by consumers without any government intervention. I know most of you have guessed the nature of the product that oil replaced: whale blubber – processed into an oil commonly used for lighting.
Believe me – if somebody discovered something which would power my car for a week (or 400 miles) at half the cost of gasoline with half the pollution – I’d sell my brand-new car tomorrow and buy one of those!
Ideally, of course, I’d want that technology to be able to provide a third of our electric power generation, to lubricate nearly everything mechanical and to make up a significant portion of nearly everything I own (plastics, fabrics etc) – sort of like oil does! But that might be going too far!
Dang it. I hated questions like this on the SAT!
Stan wrote: “Are there any other GW/climate change skeptics here who don’t think…
Yeah, I read that “don’t think” part too fast. I was agreeing that we should pursue better cleaner energy.
I didn’t mean to suggest that there were “Absolutely” people on this forum who don’t support that research! I suspect most people posting here would support newer, cleaner, better energy sources.
Wes George, very well and eloquently said.
I would add, the most disturbing aspect of the AGW political hysteria is that it exposes a deep flaw in our advanced technological society, namely the small and shrinking pool of people who know enough to follow the science and have a reasonable chance of sorting through the often deceptive and misleading arguments.
Gore’s AIT is propaganda to sway the scientifically ignorant. It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with belief. Al Gore has put his religous studies to good use.
The debate becomes dominated by the like of Demonweed with his endless stream of ‘I know’ psuedofacts, interspersed with examples of his lack of understanding. I’ll pick one example more or less at random.
How could it be that ancient ice was always melting rapidly away when at the same time we have a concession that there are times much more recently when it was accmulating?
Answer: All glaciers accumulate new ice at their sources and melt ancient ice at their terminus. This is true of all glaciers at all times and pretty much defines what a glacier is.
I was hoping we could let this die on “environvmentalists are just like Hitler” because that does seem to sum up the powerful feelings that substitute for thinking on this issue. However, I couldn’t let Philib_B’s underhanded sleaze pass unanswered.
For people who were actually following along, one of Mr. Edelman’s contentions was that glaciers had always been shrinking since they were originally formed in the previous ice age. This argument for continuous retreat was supported by comments from others. Yet it is also contradicted by the assertion that glaciers grew during a cooling period. I was pointing out the flaw in claiming that glaciers were only composed of prehistoric ice while the same post also claims that they have at times expanded.
Again, this stuff isn’t brain surgery or even freshman algebra, but apparently some people seem so proud of getting it wrong they cannot help but chime in, and take a few sock puppet style digs at us nasty lib-er-als along the way. It seems like all anyone has to do to “debunk” global warming is throw out one or two facts and conclude “therefore Al Gore is an idiot.” Has no one here any analytical skills? I realize that means reading first and coming to conclusions after, but I’m confident everyone here is capable of doing that with apolitical subjects. Believe it or not, this is a question of science, not a question of politics.
It is simply wrong to argue that existing mountain glaciers are “relics from the ice age” that are entirely or even chiefly composed of ice deposited during the last full blown ice age. That more recent accumulations contribute to their mass may be a fact. So what? If someone tells you that the sky is blue and the sky is not blue, do you thank him for his expertise because one of his claims about the sky was accurate? I’m not expecting many hearts and minds to change from this, but it would be nice to see global warming denial defended by something -many- notches less underhanded and feeble than that last comment.