UPDATE 1/28: Full text of Dr. Theon’s letter has been post on the Senate website and below.
This is something I thought I’d never see. This press release today is from the Senate EPW blog of Jame Inhofe. The scientist making the claims in the headline, Dr. John S. Theon, formerly of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Arlington, Virginia, has a paper here in the AMS BAMS that you may also find interesting. Other papers are available here in Google Scholar. He also worked on the report of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident report and according to that document was a significant contributor to weather forecasting improvements:
The Space Shuttle Weather Forecasting Advisory Panel, chaired by Dr. John Theon, was established by NASA Headquarters to review existing weather support capabilities and plans and to recommend a course of action to the NSTS Program. Included on the panel were representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Air Force, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
For those just joining the climate discussion, Dr. James Hansen is the chief climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and is the man who originally raised the alarm on global warming in 1988 in an appearance before congress. He is also the keeper of the most often cited climate data.
EPW press release below – Anthony
Washington DC, Jan 27th 2009: NASA warming scientist James Hansen, one of former Vice-President Al Gore’s closest allies in the promotion of man-made global warming fears, is being publicly rebuked by his former supervisor at NASA.
Retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist, Dr. John S. Theon, the former supervisor of James Hansen, NASA’s vocal man-made global warming fear soothsayer, has now publicly declared himself a skeptic and declared that Hansen “embarrassed NASA” with his alarming climate claims and said Hansen was “was never muzzled.” Theon joins the rapidly growing ranks of international scientists abandoning the promotion of man-made global warming fears.
“I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made,” Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. “I was, in effect, Hansen’s supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his results,” Theon, the former Chief of the Climate Processes Research Program at NASA Headquarters and former Chief of the Atmospheric Dynamics & Radiation Branch explained.
“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! – See: Don’t Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom – Get the Facts on James Hansen – UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says ‘lock up the oil men’ – June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for ‘high crimes against humanity’ for spreading doubt about man-made global warming – June 23, 2008 ]
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
“As Chief of several of NASA Headquarters’ programs (1982-94), an SES position, I was responsible for all weather and climate research in the entire agency, including the research work by James Hansen, Roy Spencer, Joanne Simpson, and several hundred other scientists at NASA field centers, in academia, and in the private sector who worked on climate research,” Theon wrote of his career. “This required a thorough understanding of the state of the science. I have kept up with climate science since retiring by reading books and journal articles,” Theon added. (LINK) Theon also co-authored the book “Advances in Remote Sensing Retrieval Methods.” [Note: Theon joins many current and former NASA scientists in dissenting from man-made climate fears. A small sampling includes: Aerospace engineer and physicist Dr. Michael Griffin, the former top administrator of NASA, Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and Moonwalker Jack Schmitt, Award-winning NASA Astronaut and Physicist Walter Cunningham of NASA’s Apollo 7, Chemist and Nuclear Engineer Robert DeFayette was formerly with NASA’s Plum Brook Reactor, Hungarian Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Climatologist Dr. John Christy, Climatologist Dr. Roy W. Spencer, Atmospheric Scientist Ross Hays of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility]
Gore faces a much different scientific climate in 2009 than the one he faced in 2006 when his film “An Inconvenient Truth” was released. According to satellite data, the Earth has cooled since Gore’s film was released, Antarctic sea ice extent has grown to record levels, sea level rise has slowed, ocean temperatures have failed to warm, and more and more scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made climate fears as peer-reviewed studies continue to man-made counter warming fears. [See: Peer-Reviewed Study challenges ‘notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming’ & New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears ]
“Vice President Gore and the other promoters of man-made climate fears endless claims that the “debate is over” appear to be ignoring scientific reality,” Senator James Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Environment & Public Works Committee.
A U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008 details over 650 international scientists who are dissenting from man-made global warming fears promoted by the UN and yourself. Many of the scientists profiled are former UN IPCC scientists and former believers in man-made climate change that have reversed their views in recent years. The report continues to grow almost daily. We have just received a request from an Italian scientist, and a Czech scientist to join the 650 dissenting scientists report. A chemist from the U.S. Naval Academy is about to be added, and more Japanese scientists are dissenting. Finally, many more meteorologists will be added and another former UN IPCC scientist is about to be included. These scientists are openly rebelling against the climate orthodoxy promoted by Gore and the UN IPCC.
The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists’ equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears. Reports from the conference found that Skeptical scientists overwhelmed the meeting, with ‘2/3 of presenters and question-askers hostile to, even dismissive of, the UN IPCC’ ( See full reports here & here ] In addition, a 2008 canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68% disagree that global warming science is “settled.” A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a “growing accumulation” of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the “science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.” More evidence that the global warming fear machine is breaking down. Russian scientists “rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming”. An American Physical Society editor conceded that a “considerable presence” of scientific skeptics exists. An International team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”. India Issued a report challenging global warming fears. International Scientists demanded the UN IPCC “be called to account and cease its deceptive practices.”
The scientists and peer-reviewed studies countering climate claims are the key reason that the U.S. public has grown ever more skeptical of man-made climate doom predictions. [See: Global warming ranks dead last, 20 out of 20 in new Pew survey. Pew Survey: & Survey finds majority of U.S. Voters – ‘51% – now believe that humans are not the predominant cause of climate change’ – January 20, 2009 – Rasmussen Reports ]
The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN’s and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.”
On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; Peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited “Hockey Stick“; inconvenient developments and studies regarding rising CO2; the Spotless Sun; Clouds; Antarctica; the Arctic; Greenland’s ice; Mount Kilimanjaro; Global sea ice; Causes of Hurricanes; Extreme Storms; Extinctions; Floods; Droughts; Ocean Acidification; Polar Bears; Extreme weather deaths; Frogs; lack of atmospheric dust; Malaria; the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.
# # #
ORIGINAL FULL TEXT LETTER SENT VIA EMAILS:
From: Jtheon [mailto:jtheon@XXXXXXX]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:05 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 12:50 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
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PaulHClark said:
For the record, I also am of the view that the evidence tells us that the earth over 4 Billion years old.
I am also of the view that there is exquisite evidence for those who wish to see it that evolution has occurred! There are particularly convincing examples for the vertebrate eye, for example, and alternative designs available among the octopodia or whatever.
I am also of the view that the evidence demonstrates that the Nazis did particularly nasty things to a particular group of humans, including working many of them to death and exterminating them via gas chambers.
Have I missed any other disgusting ad-hominems that might be cast my way? Oh yes. I am married to a person with a different skin color than mine and speak a great deal of her language.
Me too. not the skin color, but my wife is from a strange place called New Jersey.
Jeff Alberts (16:50:20)
Me too. not the skin color, but my wife is from a strange place called New Jersey.
New Jersey? Isn’t that a suburb of New York, New York?
PaulHClark says:
Paul, then do you also consider it arrogant when people around here bash Hansen and Mann and so forth? Actually, I personally think it takes quite a bit more arrogance to say, “I have an opinion on AGW which differs from the opinions of the acknowledged authorities of the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences and the analogous bodies in all of the other G8 + 5 nations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the councils of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the American Physical Society, etc., etc.” than it is to say, “I have an opinion which agrees with all of these authorities…but you can find a few scientists (such as Lindzen) who disagree with it.”
I’ve told you where to find it but you refuse to seek it out. In particular, look at Chapter 9 of the Working Group 1 report: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm That will give you plenty of references. (If you want a more historical presentation of the evidence, you can look at Spencer Weart’s “Discovery of Global Warming”: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ )
Doomsday Called Off had what I view as my epiphany post in the comments that addresses this far better than I could hope to do.
Matt said….
I feel the question boils down to, “Are you willing to bet your and your children’s future on the fact that you understand all the interactions of the earth’s systems to say you cannot be wrong?”
David said…
Matt,
We are betting our children’s future either way because what the politicians are saying is necessary could destroy the global economy. I think that, if we are going to spend $42 trillion to fix something, thus heaping debt and economic desolation upon our children, we should know if we are getting our money’s worth.
I’m willing to spend $100 to replace the spark plugs in my car if the engine is sputtering; I’m not willing to replace the whole engine on a whim when the problem might just be that I need new spark plugs. And the whole tone from alarmists comes off like a used-car salesman. Buy now or you’ll never have another chance!
At 44, I’m old enough now to know better.
_____
Couldn’t agree more. The trillions the AGW alarmists are demanding that we spend on mitigation, with no proof that it will do any good whatsoever whilst in the midst of a global economic crisis is foolhardy.
Joel Shore (18:41:10) :
Chapter 9 and the various references in that chapter give no more than an assessment that the climate models might be suggesting that the climate models could be right.
Many have commented that the findings in the report are biased with other contrary findings being ignored as they did not agree with the central thesis of the core team driving the desired output for AR4.
Since AR4 I have little doubt that those ‘confidence levels’ would be in increasing doubt from recent evidence.
You can see that proponents are becoming so concerned that they are having to adjust data retrospectively by suppressing temperature records in the past and amplifying recent trends. The reality is that recent trends in temperature are flat and this does not correspond with the expected outcome from the radiative forcing and feedback mechanisms that are postulated.
Time will tell, but it will take a surge in temperatures over the next ten years to convince me that the catstrophic prediction is right and that the draconian measures now being planned are required.
You should not worry though because those that advocate what you do are driving the political agenda and the policies in the UK are already set in support of it. They will shortly be set in the US to a similar degree.
PaulHClark says:
Well, I don’t think that is a very fair statement of Chapter 9. More accurate would be that it assesses climate models and their predictions by looking at the comparison between what they predict and empirical data, which is remarkably like what is done in many other fields of science.
And, this is different than what you would expect that people who are opposed to the conclusions would say exactly how? If you use this same standard in the field of evolution, you would most surely conclude that reviews of that field are biased too.
The conclusion of most scientists working in the field seems to be that the IPCC AR4 report represents a fair, comprehensive view of the science. A few surely argue that it tends to be too alarmist…but others actually argue that it is too conservative in some of its projections (especially in regards to sea level change).
The fact is that this argument has been used constantly by the “skeptics”. In between the 3rd Assessment report and AR4 they were saying how the Third Assessment was out-of-date and all sorts of new evidence increased the level of doubt. Then, AR4 came out and, in fact, the scientists were more confident of their conclusions.
That’s not so. Over short periods, the error bars in the trends are very large…and, in fact, the climate models forced with constantly increasing greenhouse gases themselves predict a wide variety of trends over such time periods: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/langswitch_lang/in
Joel Shore (17:45:10) :
Except that the predictions suggested by the models are not being borne out as time passes. Moreover, remarkably unlike what is done in other fields of science there is no falsifiabilty of the AGW hypothesis.
There is now a large and growing body of scientists who do not support the IPCC AR4. It is not surprising to me that there aren’t more such scientists given that speaking out against the AGW mantra can cost you your tenure and that to get government funding you have to toe the line.
Furthermore a good number of scientists were party to the workings of the IPCC and then ignored with the final conclusions being drafted by just a few.
This hardly seems an appropriate way to develop the science in this field.
Your suggestion that my argument here would lead me to a similar conclusion in the field of evolution is baseless. Oh and BTW I think the earth is round before you try that one next.
The fact is that climate science is intolerably complex and we are no way close to having worked it out. Yet the arrogance of people like you is to suggest the science is settled.
The models are very poor at taking account of the ocean temperature impact because we still do not know how or why they oscillate as they do. The IPCC takes the sun out of the equation because it is assumed to be constant but we know very very little about how the sun works and impacts on the earth’s climate. There are then countless other variables each with their own variable cycles or chaotic behaviour. Putting all those variables together and predicting how they may come together to change the earth’s climate is well beyond us at the moment.
So in summary it looks to me like we do not know what we are doing.
Joel Shore (07:08:49) :
‘…..(roughly because the feedbacks interact (pure speculation)in a way that makes it hard to separate (no hot spot in the upper troposphere) their effects): Doubling CO2 would directly raise temps about 1-1.2 C. (backed by controlled experiments) The water vapor feedback roughly doubles (more speculation) this although the closely related negative lapse rate feedback (flat or cooling oceans and water vapor being a negitive feedback to “heat”) takes some of that back, so that the net effect of the two is about a 1.5 X factor (more speculation). The ice albedo feedback then adds a little bit more. And, finally the (“heat” trapping) cloud feedback (no observed increase of “heat” trapping clouds) adds some more (and ranges from close to neutral to a quite positive feedback, depending on the model).
The government crashed a lot of rockets based on wrong assumptions and bad math models.
Why don’t you first study and learn how to model water vapor, (the major greenhouse gas), cloud formation, precipitation from observed data and then worry about any trace gas?
PaulHClark says:
This is a claim often made by those who haven’t actually worked in other fields of science (or have but are being disingenuous). The fact is that it works the same in climate science as anywhere else. However, one has to conclude that the data really does falsify the hypothesis, which means that the data is not itself problematical and there is no way for the hypothesis to be consistent with it.
In almost any field of science, there will be various observations that appear to contradict the prevailing theory. However, that doesn’t lead to immediate abandonment of the theory. If it did, we’d be back in the dark ages, with no theories around to explain anything.
The fact is that those people who make this claim actually want climate science to operate by a different standard than other scientific fields, simply because they don’t like the conclusions that it is reaching.
Yes….The old mass conspiracy theory. If there is really that much good science contradicting AGW, why are many of the examples that are always trotted out so poor…like Gerlich and Tscheuschner or Beck or some of the stuff with horrendous errors in the analysis that Roy Spencer has put out lately ( http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/a-bag-of-hammers/ )?
Just because we don’t understand everything does not mean that we understand nothing. And, what we do understand should lead us, if anything, to be more cautious and concerned about what we don’t understand. And, what we do understand is that “The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks!” as Dr Wally Broecker has said. We have a good idea of the kind and magnitude of perturbation we are putting on the climate system, even if there is still uncertainty in predicting exactly how it will respond.
This page:
http://globalwarmingnot.blogtownhall.com/2008/07/28/bribery_at_nasa.thtml
Makes some claims about monetary support for Hansen and Gavin Schmidt of Realclimate by George Soros and claims that may be in violation of various goverment rules, laws, or at the least, decorum…
I don’t know enough about it to assess veracity. If anyone knows the truth about receipt of monetary support by government employees (or contractor agents) I’d be interested in knowing it. (I could convince myself either way. As a contractor, especially, what I do on my own time is my business; but if either of these guys is a ‘real’ employee, I’d expect “buckets ‘o money” to fall under some kind of prohibition (conflict of interest, at least… As an employee of a non-gov’t company I once had to refuse a ‘gift’ of nominal value from a Japanese visitor even though that was considered an insult of sorts.)
BTW, please don’t bother with ‘attack the messenger’ arguments. I’m just interested in the facts, not the envelope…
“The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks!” as Dr Wally Broecker has said.
This statement is certainly an alarming one, however it seems to me that this beast has been domesticated in the last century. I am sure that you have seen the work of Indur M. Goklany here:
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf
As the people of earth have become wealthy, this beast has been chained. This beast’s wrath is now concentrated only in the poorest of nations. Surely the answer to climate change is increased freedom and wealth for the people, not chains and taxation. Take more of our earnings in taxes and other redistribution schemes, and watch the beast break free to kill us and plunder whatever little the UN and IPCC have somehow neglected to take.
Mike Bryant
Joel Shore (17:33:17) :
I’m sorry but your comment:
“However, one has to conclude that the data really does falsify the hypothesis, which means that the data is not itself problematical and there is no way for the hypothesis to be consistent with it.”
rather baffles me.
I do not for one moment suggest that we should abandon theories because observations appear to contradict the theory – but I do suggest that when observations do not support the theory we should be ever more questioning of the theory and that the authors should be re-evaluating the soundness of the assertions. I do not see any of this – indeed I see the contrary.
I strongly object to your comment:
“The fact is that those people who make this claim actually want climate science to operate by a different standard than other scientific fields, simply because they don’t like the conclusions that it is reaching.”
The fact is the proponents of the AGW theory believe the science is settled already and the conclusion has already been reached. Those that argue against it, reasonably ask to see evidence to support the theory and for the scientific community to make the judgement that the data supports the proposed hyothesis otherwise how can anyone suggest a conclusion to the debate? – ergo the science is not settled in my view.
The mass conspiracy theory is as much promoted by believers of AGW on the counter side of the argument you use. If you refer to the topic of this thread and read Dr Spencer’s thoughts on it on his site you will see there is real evidence to support the point I made. The Theon issue is not isolated – a good number of those that speak out have been vilified and government funding for any studies that may challenge the AGW theory is …. well where?
Your final comment is one I have empathy with because we do not really understand the climate and how it works so we should indeed be cautious – but look at the reality – we are sure the science is settled even though the data may be suggesting otherwise. Politicians are making policy in a time when we should be cautious. That seems inappropriate to me.
Mike Bryant:
First, I wouldn’t become too overconfident in regards to our now being at a point where we, even in the 1st world, are no longer dependent significantly affected by the climate (and all the things related to it, like a stable water supply, a healthy ecosystem, etc.) And, the fact is also that the poor in this world still exist and probably would continue to exist in some libertarian eutopia that you might imagine.
Second, it always amuses me when those railing against “alarmism” adopt this alarmist talk about “chains and taxation”. If we were simply running out of fossil fuels, I am sure you free market fundamentalists would not be running around saying that the sky is falling; you’d be telling us how the wondrous market will save the day by coming up with alternatives and better technologies. However, when it is proposed that we somehow emulate such scarcity of fossil fuels by taxing them (which could then be used to reduce other taxes…as Hansen has proposed) or adopting a cap-and-trade system, the same people predict economic catastrophe. Yet, the only real difference that I can see is that in the current case where we aren’t actually running out of them (at least not yet), we have a bit more flexibility since sequestration of carbon emissions is a potential option that can be thrown into the mix.
PaulHClark:
In fact, the areas where there seems to be disagreement between observations and theory are getting a lot of attention but, as with any well-established theory, that attention is not immediate abandonment of the theory but trying to better understand the theory predictions and where they might be wrong and to better understand the potential problems with the observations.
Well, I am not big on the phrase that “the science is settled” because I don’t really know what it means. Technically, all scientific knowledge is provisional, so in some sense the science of gravity is not settled (after all, noone has yet figured out how to make it compatible with quantum theory) and neither is evolution. And yet, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t base public policy on gravity’s existence and teach evolution to students as the important unifying theory of biology that it is.
Scientists will continue to investigate the scientific questions. But, in the meantime, that doesn’t mean that we can’t say anything about what scientists believe with a reasonable degree of certainty (while noting that complete certainty…i.e., absolute proof…is outside the realm of science).
I don’t think you support this claim whatsoever…or at least I am not following your logic. It is not a mass conspiracy theory to say that there will be a few scientists, especially ones like Theon who aren’t active in the field (and a few like Spencer and Lindzen who are), who for whatever reasons will not embrace the theory. What is a mass conspiracy theory is when you have to start to explain away why the overwhelming proportion of the peer-reviewed papers, almost all of the major world scientific societies, etc. endorse the theory.
Well, you seem to be equating caution with doing nothing. However, that is not the cautious approach at all in my view. The cautious approach would be to base our policies on the best science currently available, with the flexibility to adjust that policy as the science evolves. I am not advocating aiming for what Hansen believes to be necessary, i.e., reducing CO2 back down below 350ppm, but I also don’t believe we should adopt the “do-nothing about CO2 emissions” policy that would be the correct one only if it turned out that almost all the climate scientists (except, e.g., Spencer and Lindzen) were wrong.
Joel Shore:
I notice you have now promoted the AGW/CO2 hypothesis to a theory.
How’d that happen?
Joel Shore (17:54:56) :
AGW is not “well established theory”.
To take action as proposed on an unsubstantiated hypothesis has tremendous known cost and is high risk. Moreover with developing countries being exempt it is highly likely that it will have no effect at all.
PaulH Clark says:
But, the point is, it is an “unsubstantiated hypothesis” according to who? Not according to the most of the scientists in the field or according to the scientific academies of all the G8+5 countries that are urging action: http://www.leopoldina-halle.de/cms/fileadmin/user_upload/G8_Statement_Climate.pdf Labeling it an unsubstantiated hypothesis doesn’t make it one anymore than labeling evolution an unsubstantiated hypothesis makes it one. (See here for one example of such labeling: http://www.evolutionordesign.com/code/evolution_or_design_evolution.html or type “evolution unsubstantiated hypothesis” into google for several more examples.)
Yes, they are certainly going to have to be included eventually. However, many of them want the industrialized countries to take the first step, which seems reasonably given that we are the ones who are responsible for most of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere at this point. (China has overtaken the U.S. in yearly emissions but is still far behind in cumulative emissions.) Also, the industrialized countries have greater capacity and resources to come up with the solutions that the developing countries will then be able to harness also.
Joel Shore still fails to get it: CO2 is NOT A PROBLEM.
Is that so hard to understand? The evidence is all around us. Sheesh.
And saying that “developing countries” are going to have to be included “eventually” means this: They will never have to abide by G-8 standards. Never! The UN will always give them a pass.
Some people know absolutely nothing about human nature, or how the real world works.
“However, when it is proposed that we somehow emulate such scarcity of fossil fuels by taxing them…”
The government should not be in the business of deciding how much things should cost. Surely, anyone who has lived the last forty or fifty years knows this simple truth.
Even the USSR and China now acknowledge that capitalism is their road out of poverty. Unfortunately, they will have no one to sell to in the west, since our governments are busily emulating us into poverty.
Mike Bryant
Joel Shore (10:22:27) :
You seem to have an ability to link science that is well understood, such as evolution and gravity, with AGW which is embyonic and, given our very poor understanding of the complexities of how the climate works, far from being supported by the empirical evidence.
As I have said I would suggest there are many more people who have increasing doubts about the hypothesis. That is not to say that the overwhelming ‘politically correct agenda’ is that the case is proven and we should get on and fix it – which creates great tension for those who have doubts.
I have a challenging mind about the hypothesis nothing more. I do not want to trash our planet nor do I not want to trash our way of life.
I object to daft policies – for example some of our brightest people are suggesting that UK citizens should be restricted as to how many flights they can take in a year. The carbon tax in the UK already adds 16% to UK electric bills that many people can ill afford. We have made significant investments in wind power which produces the power of 1 medium sized coal fired plant at huge economic cost relative to more traditional forms of power generation (some of which are carbon neutral).
It’s bonkers in my view to embark on such draconian and ill thought out measures until we are reasonably convinced that the warming of the last century was so obviously down to human contributions to CO2 in the atmosphere.
For goodness sake we can see that from 1940 to 1970 CO2 levels rose significantly and temperatures went down. We have leading proponents of the AGW theory saying that the MWP must disappear if we are to get people to believe. We have the first Co-chair of the IPCC saying; “Unless we announce disasters no one will listen”. Now we have temperatures not behaving as predicted over the last 10 years.
That’s enough doubt in my mind for me to humbly suggest we should be a great deal more clear about whether the hypothesis is supported.
Not involving the developing countries as you suggest is incredibly naive. If you seriously believe we have 4 years to fix the problem then we should exclude no-one. But I suspect the propents know their theory doesn’t stack up and that they could in no way convince those countries to believe.
The Chinese have made a great poker play – ‘you pay we’ll play – over to you’. Would you like to bet with me that the ‘West (which means the USA) will support them?
Just to emphasise the point on some the daft and ill thought through things that are being done in the name of reducing carbon emissions see this:
http://co2sceptics.com/news.php?id=2738
Engineers have also told me that the ‘end-to-end’ carbon footprint of wind power is worse than conventional power when you take into account build and maintenance carbon footprints related to the wind turbines.
I say we don’t know what we are doing yet
Mike Bryant (11:25:14) :
I think Mr Shore has shown his true colours
Mike Bryant:
I suggest looking up “externality” in an economic textbook. Your statement just shows your fundamentalist views, i.e., that you believe in markets / capitalism as a religion. You do not want to deal with the virtues and limitations of market economics as understood by economists.
Reply: Both of you back it down a tiny notch or at the very least avoid escalation ~ charles the moderator
Smokey:
Almost every time you have put up that graph, I have explained patiently to you what is very deceptive about it. You have not even tried to defend it and yet you continue to use it to try to score points. That to me, seems pretty indefensible.