A guest post by John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, and Chief Meteorologist of KUSI-TV in San Diego.
( Note from Anthony: I know John from way back. He’s a true pioneer in meteorology. I shared a table with him and Joe D’Aleo at the ICCC in New York in March, and I was there when you made his now famous challenge to Al Gore. I agree with John wholeheartedly when he says “do your good work” and “but don’t use scare tactics”. )
Thank you for your dedication to protecting our environment. Clean air and clean water are essential to preserving life on planet Earth. Protecting all species and natural lands and forests are admirable priorities. Recycling and a green lifestyle are wonderful. Making the environment the most important thing in your life is a good thing, not a problem. I support you.
But we do have a problem. You have vigorously embraced the Global Warming predictions of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and are using the warning of uncontrollable warming and a resulting environmental calamity to campaign for elimination of fossil fuels. Your environmentally conscious friends in politics and in the media have united with you to create a barrage of news reports, documentaries, TV feature reports, movies, books, concerts and protest events to build support for your goals. The war against fossil fuels has become a massive scare campaign that is giving children nightmares.
Here’s what’s wrong with that: the science is not valid. There is no Global Warming underway and the science on which the computer projections of weather chaos are based is wrong. Dead wrong.
I know many scientists are part of your movement and they have tried hard to give your uncontrollable climate change panic a scientific basis. The UN Climate Change Panel has a large staff, a big budget, a headquarters in Geneva and a strong champion in Al Gore to lead the charge. And thousands of well-intentioned politicians and the media of the world have supported your movement. It must seem to you that there can be no doubt: fossil fuels are destroying the environment and will lead to uncontrollable global warming unless we act now. With all that powerful support for your anti-fossil fuel movement, and with the worthy goal of saving the planet from the disastrous consequences of runaway Global Warming, how can you fail?
Here’s how: The science behind your global warming scare is bad and no anthropogenic global warming is happening. Dissenting scientists have now produced convincing evidence that the cornerstone of your scientific argument, increased atmospheric carbon dioxide forcing a rapid, irreversible rise in temperature, is invalid. All of the various “signs of global warming” you have so widely publicized have been proven wrong. They are normal variations in climate that result mostly from the cycles of the Sun. As the Sun cycle has changed in the last three or four years, they have reversed themselves. Arctic ice melting and polar bears dying, shrinkage of glaciers and the rise of ocean levels, increased intensity and number of hurricanes and intensified droughts have all been touted as signs of global warming. They are not. They are part of this natural variation in climate. The intensified hurricane claim never happened. Katrina was an isolated, random event. The droughts are part of the natural cycle and are reversing at this time. Glaciers are stabilizing. The Arctic ice cap is already back to normal.
Here is what I am suggesting you do. Campaign for your environmental goals on the basis of their own merit. Let go of the global warming frenzy before it leaves you discredited and embarrassed. Stop screaming, “The sky is falling.” It is not.
Do your good work. Devote your lives to our environment. In many ways you will succeed. We are all grateful for your love of the planet. But, don’t use scare tactics.
Most of all I urge you not to become extremists. And, may I encourage you to live your lives in a loving way, love your fellow human beings and our wonderful advanced standard of living and way of life as much as you love the Earth.
My very best regards,
John Coleman
P.s. – If you will read my briefs on the science that debunks the global warming frenzy and follow the links there, you will begin to realize the folly of Global Warming.
Go to ICECAP.us for a starter.JC
April RSS numbers:
http://www.remss.com/pub/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TMT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_0.txt
> Bob B (16:54:30) :
> April RSS numbers:
> http://www.remss.com/pub/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TMT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_0.txt
That’s the TMT channel (middle troposhpere), the low troposphere channel is TLT, its data is at
http://www.remss.com/pub/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_1.txt
Bookmark http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.htm and follow links from there to get to the monthly images. Be sure to check the anomaly selector.
The planet has no really hot or cold areas. The hot area in Asia last month is still warm but not remarkably so. I’d go as far as to say things look remarkably unremarkable.
Of course I know nothing about the climate being just a gardener/sheep hobbyist that comes from a family of farmers, but if we are in the grip of runaway global warming, why has the commercial growing region for citrus in the southeast contracted from including the lower third of Georgia in the 1800s to just in central and south Florida now? The orange groves extended to just south of Jacksonville in my lifetime. Seems like the inexorable march of the freeze line northward would have expanded the citrus growing territory to central Georgia by now. That is, if it were occurring.
In response to the above post…
I was just wondering why no one is blogging a response to the following news story that just came out. I would love to hear a response because these are scientist saying this about the Artic ice this summer. This claims to have scientific evidence for it. I hope the links works.
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/O/ON_THIN_ICE?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-05-02-21-12-09
Bob B,
Why are those RSS numbers different than the link provided on the What Spot? thread. Thanks.
Is this the same John Coleman who was a meteorologist in Chicago back in the 70’s and 80’s? He was always considered one of the tops!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
REPLY: yes one and the same, he left Chicago to found the Weather Channel
John:
I read this on Icecap this morning, and fully agree with the article, and applaud you for having the courage to write and publish it.
I did want to get one suggestion to you. You write: “There is no Global Warming underway and the SCIENCE on which the computer projections of weather chaos are based is wrong.” (emphasis mine)
I suggest that the models are not based on real science at all, but rather a long intricate series of semi-educated guesses. And I think the difference is significant and very important. There is science and there is AGW. And there is no commonality. Maybe some engineering equations are involved, but not science.
Over 13,000 dead in Myanmar, hundreds ill with fatalities in China. That’s what you get when nature comes calling and you lack technology. Higher standards of living through technology give us the best hope of survival. Living in mud huts with open sewage and lack of food and clean water is nothing but misery where your only hope of relief is death. Time to fire up the grill, pop open a cold one and watch my wide screen HD TV. I might even take the SUV out for an air conditioned spin later.
The environmentalist camp falls into two categories. Those in the majority are common sense folks who truly want things to be better in the future. However, there’s an extremist minority that has made environmentalism it’s religion. They’ve been joined by the anti-western, anti-capitalist forces that were shown to be philosophically mistaken when the Soviet Union collapsed. They’ve found a new vehicle for their destructive impulses and won’t take the advice offered by Mr. Coleman. They’re dangerous and need to be identified as such because they don’t want to conserve our resources, they want to prevent all use of them. Sensible environmentalists should be alert to reject their radicalism because it can only cause much suffering.
joe, jonh e anthony.
Eu moro no Brasil, voces são meus convidados para passarem aqui 2 anos, esqueçam esta história de aquecimento global, vamos ver o mundo por outra ótica …Antonhy traga teu amigo da cerveja…Eu não vou perder tempo escrevendo em ingles….se esta é a única linguagem que rss entende, vamos ao samba, churrasco e cerveja….
duvido que passa,,,, hmmm…braços
John Coleman is a very wise man. If only his words could resound throughout the various media of our nation and the world we could begin to focus on the real issues that impact us. We should all do what we can to spread his message.
Thank you Mr. Coleman for saying it and thank you Mr. Watts for posting it.
Great letter, Mr. Coleman. I just hope that environmentalists read it and take it to heart.
“In response to the above post…
I was just wondering why no one is blogging a response to the following news story that just came out.”
I am wondering if anyone will hold Jennifer Francis’ and the others collective feet to the fire if their predictions don’t turn out:
“The long-term prognosis is not very optimistic,” atmospheric scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University said at a briefing.
What is “long term”?
Francis added: “Over this entire fall, winter and right up ’till today the ice concentration, the amount of ice that’s floating around on the Arctic, has been below normal every single day.”
“All arrows are pointing towards, certainly not a recovery, something like we had last summer and possibly worse,” she said.
And who will post “Jennifer Francis is wrong!” and hold her personally accountable for her remarks? Part of the problem is that nobody seems to remember when these people make such claims and are not correct. When I do a web search for her name, I should find archived places where she was shown to be wrong. Not enough people call the scientists to task for their predictions, in my opinion.
swampie, I know that James J. O’Brien talked about this:
http://www.heartland.org/newyork08/audio/Monday/obrien.mp3
Apparently, much of the Southeastern US has been cooling.
Regarding: He Says:
“As the Sun cycle has changed in the last three or four years, they have reversed themselves. Arctic ice melting and polar bears dying, shrinkage of glaciers and the rise of ocean levels, increased intensity and number of hurricanes and intensified droughts have all been touted as signs of global warming. They are not. They are part of this natural variation in climate. The intensified hurricane claim never happened. Katrina was an isolated, random event. The droughts are part of the natural cycle and are reversing at this time. Glaciers are stabilizing. The Arctic ice cap is already back to normal.”………………………………
Awww…..Jeeeze Wally, I feel better already. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing it’s all ok. Thanks a bunch…!
Jd
REPLY: And this is why activists aren’t always good as scientists. Smarmy comments don’t elevate professionalism.
Good message John
Maybe a few people will be swayed.
But I’m afraid a lot of these AGW true believers are just irrational radicals who only want to hear things that will further justify ramming through their Stalinist-type agenda.
“Not enough people call the scientists to task for their predictions, in my opinion.”
You’ve just volunteered, thank you very much. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a lot of melting this spring and summer, I can’t imagine the sea ice is very thick. NH sea ice is “below normal,” though I’d quibble that normal is a range – I would have said “below average.”
I did take a brief look at her web site at Rutgers, but she doesn’t have anything posted from this year. Her most recent paper Drivers of declining sea ice in the Arctic Winter looks interesting, I only had time to skim it. She does mention the positive PDO in the Conclusions and I think hints at the AMO, so it might be worth asking her about what the PDO shift may bring. She also says “As the oceans continue to warm and storminess increases in response to inceasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, as predicted by state-of-the -art global climate models…”. That’s worth a challenge!
Before criticizing what she has to say, especially what makes it through the mainstream press, it’s worthwhile to learn what she really does have to say.
Perhaps you can write up a summary of this summer’s Arctic see ice melting, ask her for her comments, and post both here this fall.
John Coleman makes the mistake of assuming that all environmentalists are true believers in the man-made global warming myth. It is important to distinguish between the two. I agree with most of the text of his letter. Global warming is not a huge problem and most of it is not manmade. But I would regard myself as an environmentalist. I recycle, compost, I’m concerned about destruction of rainforest and other habitat, and I belong to various environmental organizations. Let’s make this distinction, to further isolate the global warming scaremongers.
Unfortunately these extremists tend to be the ones in charge, like Maurice Strong.
I would like people like the gal who says the ice sky is falling to include her reference point for floating ice concentration comparison. Things are ALWAYS more or less than they were. The key is “were”. Compared to yesterday? Last year? 10 years ago? 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? Last 10 year average? Last 1000 year average? If she is called on the carpet for being “wrong”, she will have an immediate number that she is using for comparison that will prove her “right”. Raw data is the playing field. Statistical analysis is a game you play on the field of data.
Linda said: “I was just wondering why no one is blogging a response to the following news story that just came out…
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/O/ON_THIN_ICE?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-05-02-21-12-09
Good article Linda. It’s one of those things we can add to our “predicitions” file and review it after the “summer melt” ends.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Awww…..Jeeeze Wally, I feel better already. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing it’s all ok. Thanks a bunch…!
Awwww……Jeeeze JD (must stand for “Just Dumb”) is that the best you can come up with? Pathetic, Alarmist sarcasm?
So, don’t sleep. Just continue basking in your “the sky is falling” alarmist pseudoscience. Enjoy it while you can.
If global warming were real, then why would GW believers be pushing ethanol production from food, when science shows ethanol production actually increases GWG emissions? Because food-to-fuel results in increased global hunger, and it IS increasing terrorist recruitment, could it be that the increased warfare and death toll will lower population numbers so that the human footprint is less? That’s similar to the proponents of abortion who advocate fewer babies.
Good article. Am putting Icecap.us on my reading list.