UPDATE: 11/10 From the Sydney Morning Herald
Michael Duffy
November 8, 2008
Last month I witnessed something shocking. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was giving a talk at the University of NSW. The talk was accompanied by a slide presentation, and the most important graph showed average global temperatures. For the past decade it represented temperatures climbing sharply.
As this was shown on the screen, Pachauri told his large audience: “We’re at a stage where warming is taking place at a much faster rate [than before]”.
Now, this is completely wrong. For most of the past seven years, those temperatures have actually been on a plateau. For the past year, there’s been a sharp cooling. These are facts, not opinion: the major sources of these figures, such as the Hadley Centre in Britain, agree on what has happened, and you can check for yourself by going to their websites. Sure, interpretations of the significance of this halt in global warming vary greatly, but the facts are clear.
Satellite derived lower troposphere temperature since 1979 – Click for a larger image
Reference: UAH lower troposphere data
So it’s disturbing that Rajendra Pachauri’s presentation was so erroneous, and would have misled everyone in the audience unaware of the real situation. This was particularly so because he was giving the talk on the occasion of receiving an honorary science degree from the university.
Below: find out how you can tell Mr. Pachauri directly what you think – he has a blog!
Later that night, on ABC TV’s Lateline program, Pachauri claimed that those who disagree with his own views on global warming are “flat-earthers” who deny “the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence”. But what evidence could be more important than the temperature record, which Pachauri himself had fudged only a few hours earlier?
In his talk, Pachauri said the number of global warming sceptics is shrinking, a curious claim he was unable to substantiate when questioned about it on Lateline. Still, there’s no doubt a majority of climate scientists agree with the view of the IPCC.
Today I want to look at why this might be so: after all, such a state of affairs presents a challenge to sceptics such as me. If we’re right, then an awful lot of scientists are wrong. How could this be?
This question was addressed in September in a paper by Professor Richard Lindzen, of the Program in Atmospheres, Oceans and Climate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindzen, probably the most qualified prominent global-warming sceptic, suggested that a number of changes in the way science is conducted have contributed to the rise of climate alarmism among American scientists.
Lindzen believes another problem with climate science is that in America and Europe it is heavily colonised by environmental activists.
Here are just two examples that indicate the scale of the problem: the spokesman for the American Meteorological Society is a former staffer for Al Gore, and realclimate.org, probably the world’s most authoritative alarmist web site, was started by a public relations firm serving environmental causes.
None of this is necessarily sinister, but the next time you hear a scientist or scientific organisation warning of climate doom, you might want to follow the money trail. Sceptics are not the only ones who have received funding from sources sympathetic to their viewpoint. (And yes, Lindzen did once receive some money from energy companies.)
Lindzen claims that scientific journals play an important role in promoting global warming alarmism, and gives a number of examples.
Someone else who’s looked closely at scientific journals (although not specifically those dealing with climate science) is epidemiologist John Ioannidis of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He reached the surprising conclusion that most published research findings are proved false within five years of their publication. (Lest he be dismissed as some eccentric, I note that the Economist recently said Ioannidis has made his case “quite convincingly”.)
Why might this be so? Later work by Ioannidis and colleagues suggests that these days journal editors are more likely to publish research that will make a splash than that which will not. They do this to sell more copies of their publications and of reprints of papers in it. Ioannidis believes these publication practices might be distorting science.
It’s possible the forces described by Lindzen and Ioannidis have imbued climate science with a preference for results that involve (or seem to involve) disastrous change rather than stability. Rajenda Pachauri’s recent Sydney lecture suggests that in this relatively new field, inconvenient truths to the contrary are not welcome.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
John Phillip and anna v:
Thanks for your thoughts re: Great Global Warming Swindle.
John, the full complaint at the ofcomswindlecomplaint.net site is 188 pages long. I have only perused a few pages, but it strikes me that this film must have been very effective for it to merit this much effort to discredit it. How many of their complaints are substantive and how many are picayune blather, it could take a person a month to research! I guess I’ve looked at enough data on this (wattsup) and other websites to know where I stand and have a decent sense of when a presentation is seriously departing from the known science. However, I will double check the graphs in the film, as I know there was some controversy about how they represented the Medieval Warm Period. The film has been slightly re-edited for DVD release, and they may have modified the graphs. I do think it is a bit rich for AGWers to complain about systematic deception in this documentary, when Pachuri himself is engaging in blatant falsehoods, and I doubt the group who was so concerned about the Great Global Warming Swindle will author another elaborate piece to discredit Pachuri’s lies.
anna v, I did not know about the controversy about the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. I’m not sure how we would definitively answer the question, either, without much more time and observation — which the AGW lobby does not intend to give us before they implement draconian anti-carbon measures. One reason I am passionate on this issue is that in a fragile economy, carbon cap and trade is just another regressive tax that Obama wants to impose on the USA (and McCain wanted it to), causing electric rates to “skyrocket” in his words. That would be adding insult to injury, as a practical matter, facing the worst economic dislocation since the 1930s.
–eric
Anna, it’s easy for you to find the evidence that the theory is false. Just look at a Mauna Loa graph of rising CO2 and compare it to the big 4 climate centres temperature graphs. What you will see is CO2 going up and temperatures staying stable and since 2007, reducing. No other proof is required to throw that theory out of the window.
evanjones (09:56:35) :
“And all that without any data to support it. I rest my case.
And here is my case (esp. the last two pages). Enjoy.
(And thank me for my support!) #B^1
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/22/global_warming_mitigation_vs_adaptation/”
Evan, Thanks for the link to that article…great reading.
Anne,
My understanding is that the whole of the man-made global warming argument rests on the statement: We can find no proof that the recent rise in termperature was caused by anything natural, therefor it must have been caused by CO2.
I’ve been reading on this subject for a few years now, and I’m not by any means a scientist, but I’ve yet to find 1) any documented proof of CO2 causing the warming, and 2) any reasonable response to any number of reasonable requests/challenges to the theory. Based on that alone, I have to be a skeptic…I’m left with no choice. I do not believe in “faith”, espeically when it comes to science as I understand it.
My 3D friends tell me I’m crazy, it’s settled. When I ask why they believe that, they say that “thousands of scientists all agree”. In fact, there is to my knowledge, one reference in Chapter 9 of the IPCC report that seems to be at the bottom of a lot of this. It was “peer reviewed” by approx 65 scientists. I have no idea what their background was, or what discipline they have studied…and I’ve read that 50 some-odd were “biased”. Forgetting that, 65 scientists is not a lot. There are likely 65 scientists between here and Climate Audit that all present what seem to be very credible arguments regarding experiements, measurements, processes, and results.
Additionally, the number is meaningless. It only takes one scientist to be right. I know you are aware of all of this, as you seem to be a very intelligent person.
The #2 part of my “skeptic” problem is when ACC scientists refuse to release their data, their methods, so that their research can be independently verified. Why is that? If you really stood behind your data and methods, why wouldn’t you want as many other scientists as possible to verify your results?
I don’t understand that at all.
Jim
Yes, option three is wise and I feel that is really the way forward. It is the one that is about leading by example.
A lady once asked Ghandi to please instruct her son to stop eating sugar. Ghandi said to come back in two weeks. The lady brought her son back two weeks later, and Ghandi told the son quite pointedly that he must stop eating sugar for it is very bad for his health. The lady thanked Ghandi, but asked, why did she have to wait two weeks? Ghandi replied, “because two weeks ago, I was still eating sugar.”
You may have heard the story, I’m sure it is quite famous. It also illustrates that leading by example is a slow process. But it is also the most effective way, as we avoid getting into conflicts about guilt and hypocrisy.
Someone said that we have been moving to progressively lighter and cleaner technologies for thousands of years–instead of burning down forests we burn oil, and more lately gas–it is a question of whether we can continue the slow move towards cleaner technology, which has been progressing anyway, or whether we actually have to stop further development until a new clean infrastructure is created?
If the accumulation of CO2 is not an immediately severe problem, then we can continue the gradual slow lead by example towards cleaner technology, and India and China can continue their gradual development using the materials they have most cheaply available, even if that is coal, until they can later progress to cleaner technology as that becomes available in the future. This is the path of least conflict, blame, and aggression.
But if the situation is truly dire and we need immediate cuts, then leading by example is not an option–much as we may desire it–instead it will look a lot more like a messy divorce, with winners and losers. And right now the industrialized nations are the ones with the upper hand in any such conflict. At least, that’s how I see it.
Everyone wants a clean environment and lighter footprint and more efficient energy. It is a matter of at what speed we have to go to get there? Are we in a dangerous crisis, or are we just eagerly anticipating a clean future? Most conflict in these debates seems to hinge on what speed people think we need to go at.
Anne (07:42:47) :
“The consequences of climate change are not all negative. Nobody in the AGW camp disputes that. But the question is: do the postives outweigh the negatives? Do you have proof of that?”
If everyone in the AGW camp agrees that some climate change impacts are positive, why is it so damn hard to hear them. I can envision them whispering behind closed doors, but why don’t they say it publicly?
Anne (10:12:28) :
“Since historical records have shown that CO2 and climate change are deeply linked, it’s up to the skeptics to first prove that this time the change of CO2 levels will not cause climate change.”
I agree that CO2 and climate change are linked because long term (200-800 year) ocean cycles bring old cold water to the surface that is full of CO2 and also because overall sun induced ocean surface temperature changes lead a change in CO2 (CO2 lags ocean temperature change rates) with about a 5 year lag, but the linkage relations are not well quantified/modeled. CO2 lagging ocean temperature makes sense because that’s where most of the carbon sits, dissolved in the oceans.
The 2nd part of your sentence seems to be based on a different CO2/climate change linkage then what I based my agreement with you on, so I will now disagree but based on what I think you meant. Its up to the warmists to prove that CO2 does not primarily lag ocean temperatures over the last interglacials. I believe that because they can’t, they misdirect and propagandize instead.
Also, I assume that you use “climate change” in lieu of “Catastrophic Anthropogenic CO2 induced Global Warming”. Any reason for that?
Climate alarmists believe that CO2 persists for a very long time in the atmosphere, because that hypothesis contributes to climate alarmism. Some alarmists estimate that CO2 persists for centuries.
As usual, their ‘facts’ are wrong:
The quote is by Prof. Freeman Dyson. [source]
The fact that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for only a short time makes the proposal for carbon [dioxide] sequestration spectacularly wrongheaded. There will always be much more CO2 produced – both manmade and natural – than we could possibly store underground. And for what? CO2 is beneficial. More CO2 is better, up to at least a doubling of current atmospheric levels.
Additional CO2 is constantly being produced naturally. In addition, as Paul Shanahan points out above, CO2 has been steadily rising at the same time that global temperatures have been flat to declining.
Where is the cause and effect between rising CO2 levels and global warming? Unless the climate alarmists can answer that question, they have lost their argument.
Stefan (11:09:24) :
This is something that puzzles me. World energy use is something like 60% oil and coal. How do you stop this?
The right question would be: “How do you replace this?”
You can see that one coming: the usual enviro-hippie 😉 view. Reduction and renewables. Perhaps even nuclear if the renewables don’t fulfill their promise. CCS may become viable, or biofuels (algae-based or something else not competing with food production). There are many options, and there is only one way to find out which are the best.
The main problem holding back renewables is cost. If you see what mass manufacturing does to cost of nearly everything imaginable (cars, telephones, televisions, air travel, computers and even space travel), then there is only one way where that cost is heading: down. That is why I believe that nearly all renewables will become cost-effective sooner or later.
I’m sure somebody may have already mentioned it but didn’t Pachauri recently back an Indian Government report that supported the increased use of coal fired power stations in India, even at the same time he is constantly saying the West needs to reduce its CO2 emissions from such stations?
If CO2 is such a problem it surely needs to be tackled on a worldwide basis does it not? (I think I already know the answer to that rhetorical question 🙂 )
Dr. RK Pachauri suggested that the west should pay the price as we are the greatest producers of CO2.
Has anyone done a study on the amount of CO2 produced by 1 billion Indians burning cow dung and firewood?
the Dr’s speech is here:
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/wallacewurth.html
His interview here:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2399649.htm
Exceptional post. Those who are truly scientific do not lend themselves to easy deceit. http://www.changingthepast.wordpress.com
So Rajendra DOES HAVE an agenda!
(Love the alliteration too)
Let’s call him Ragenda Pauchauri
Anne (10:12:28) :
“Since historical records have shown that CO2 and climate change are deeply linked, it’s up to the skeptics to first prove that this time the change of CO2 levels will not cause climate change.”
CO2 has been shown to follow temp and not the other way around!
The right question would be: “How do you replace this?”
Unfortunately there is no right answer.
The counterquestion would be, “At what cost?”
And remember the payment is in human life.
i see you dancing
damn you look good
i wish i could dance like you
but i ain’t got no legs
[…] For the full article by Australian columnist Michael Duffy, which originally appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, click here. […]
I have to share this:
Last month, I had breakfast with a friend and we talked about global warming. He said that global temperatures are rising. So I asked how he knew that and he replied, “Thousands of scientists say so.” I asked who they were and he said he heard about them on Air America. I then told him about the Chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, and Secretary General of the WMO (World Meterological Organization), Michel Jarraud, both of whom acknowledge there has been no warming so far this century. That did not change his mind. Temperatures are still rising. I pointed out that the four major satellite temperature tracking systems (NASA/GISS, UAH, RSS, Hadley) recorded that temperatures have actually dropped about a half degree since 2007. Right over his head. “Temperatures are rising and if we don’t cut back on CO2 emissions, it will be disaster.” I then asked him if the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) agreed with Pacharui, Jarraud and the tracking systems, would that change his mind. “No it would not. There’s no point in you trying to change my mind.” Finally, I asked him if the scientists he heard about on Air America should contact the IPCC, WMO, NASA and NAS to inform them they are wrong. “Yes, they should.”
This story is true, honest injun.
leebert (07:04:47) :
Here’s the problem: At what point are they responsible? Before the knowledge that CO2 might pose a pernicious emission?
That is a good point. Although be careful how you phrase your question, you might not like the answer 🙂 The exact answer to your exact question is Arrhenius somewhere end of the 19th century, so before most of the CO2 emissions occurred. What would be a better criterium? Perhaps a more justified question would be: when did the evidence became convincing enough so that it could no longer be ignored? I am afraid most of you will say: that moment hasn’t arrived yet. I’m not prepared to start a new debate on that.
And even if those emissions were done without knowledge about the consequences, we still reap the benefits. So your point is half valid.
And as the West loses competitiveness to Asia from globalization and Asian industrialization, we’re also supposed to bear green burdens alone? Green taxes will create yet more incentives to move jobs & production abroad.
I will concede that my opinion regarding that matter is more a question of principles than practical consequences. Sometimes principles require sacrifices. And I think I did not suggest the developing countries should be completely left off the hook. My proposal is not: we everything, they nothing, but: we first, they later.
What is often overlooked is the fact that the market for renewable energies may be the main growth area for the next decades. If you want a piece of that pie, better start developing the technologies. So the disadvantage you percieve, may turn around to be an advantage as soon as those developing countries start implementing renewable energies. China is already seriously investing in wind power. Will they have the biggest piece of the pie?
The internal contradiction in your thinking arises almost instantaneously however, since an equivalent good manufactured in China realizes 40% more CO2 emissions than were it manufactured in the West.
No, firstly I don’t think China is a developing country, more like half way in between. Secondly, I do not propose to let China, and other more or less developing countries, off the hook. Thirdly, it is based on the premise that implementing green technologies will shift all production to China. If it happens, there are much more factors at play in the global economy.
never mind the question as to how much threat is in fact posed by CO2 emissions.
Now I have come all the way down your response, only to discover that you actually think the whole discussion is irrelevant. Well thanks a lot :-).
Stefan (12:38:21) :
I couldn’t agree more that most conflict hinges on what speed people think we need to go at.
If we assume the warmists possess cognitive dissonance or haven’t done ALL their homework, as they are still just reading from the Cliff Notes, then they will likely not change their opinion. However, they could still agree on a more measured pace of change based on the arguments about;
a) future value of money,
b) the expectation that future technological advances will arise,
c) the current projections that natural cooling cycles will dominant for 10-30 years, and
d) the concept that we can adapt relatively easily as long as we are thinking of 20 to 100 year time frames and much of our infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life.
If I was a climate catastrophe warmist, these arguments would seem very pragmatic to me. That warmist don’t consider these makes me think they are either irrational, have other agendas or are in negotiation mode, wherein they are ready to back off from stopping energy generation in the western world dead in its tracks (while the rest of the world laughs at our insanity.
BTW – I wish the catastrophers hadn’t given ‘warmist” such a bad name, because I was one under the definition that a warmist believes a few more degrees is a very good thing.
Anne (13:15:12) I agree with this post. Those hydrocarbon bonds were much too lovingly and labouriously formed to destroy merely for the energy within them. We need them for structure to clothe and house the teeming billions.
============================================
He’s not accepting any comments on his blog. Perhaps he’ll allow them in his next life.
Anne (09:36:05) If the coming cooling is prolonged and deep then the small effect CO2 has to warm the earth and the large fertilizing effect it has will keep millions on the margin from freezing and starving to death. The degree of this catastrophe is dependent upon the severity of the cooling, but it will be quite palpable even if mild. Severe cooling will be holocaustic. I know you doubt that the PDO and/or the Sun will lead to 20-100 years of cooling, but it would require an extreme lack of imagination for you to contend that cooling would be harmless. At this point, with the lack of knowledge we have about climate regulation, to encumber carbon is far more likely to do harm than good.
Now, how cold does it have to get, and for how long, to convince you of this. Alternatively, how many have to die?
======================================
Right now, the actual cost of producing ethanol is about $1.50/gal. That’s without Any subsidies.
There is approx. One Billion Acres of abandoned farmland in the world (from a study by Stanford University.)
It costs less than $100.00 to make a vehicle flexfuel.
Pete (12:40:31) :
If everyone in the AGW camp agrees that some climate change impacts are positive, why is it so damn hard to hear them. I can envision them whispering behind closed doors, but why don’t they say it publicly?
I will concede that a good reason of course is human nature to filter facts on whether they support their view or not.
But this article raises some doubts about the most frequently touted advantage of higher CO2 levels:
High carbon dioxide levels can retard plant growth, study reveals
I am not really sure how big the advantage is and am pretty sure that it does not outweigh the risks.
Smokey (12:50:07) :
…“…the average lifetime of a molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, before it is captured by vegetation and afterward released, is about twelve years.” The quote is by Prof. Freeman Dyson. [source]”
I read a recent compilation of studies that indicated closer to 5 years for the residence time (?) of a molecule of CO2 based on a given CO2 perturbation, and that most of it goes into the ocean. I think that of those studies, 12 years was at the upper range. Perhaps that was based on ignoring the oceans and just looking at land based vegetation absorption and decay.(?)
On top of that 5 year cycle, throw in the long term ocean cycles and the annual northern hemisphere vegetation cycles, a volcano here and there and a 3% anthropogenic contribution .. did I miss anything?
BTW, when can we move on from the CO2 BS?
Anne (10:12:28) I see others have trashed your ‘deeply linked’ sophistry, but I’ve got to add my licks. You know, or should know, that issues of correlation and causation are not explained well in the ancient record. You have demonstrated an acuteness of rhetoric and base of knowledge to have known that yours is an unsupportable point. [*snip* We must not so presume ~ Evan ]
==============================================