From Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. Climate Science Weblog
There is a letter to the President published by the Cato Institute that headlines [thanks to ICECAPand Dr. Patrick J. Michaels to alerting us to it];
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
The letter is signed by over 100 scientists.
Climate Science wants to comment on the specific statements of science in the letter which is reproduced below:
“We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.”
Comments by Climate Science
- “Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.”
This is correct using the global average surface temperature. An effective analysis of this issue has been presented at the weblog http://rankexploits.com/musings/category/climate-sensitivity/. However, using the global average upper ocean heat content changes, the warming in the 1990s and early 2000s ended in 2003, so the more rigourous metric for global warming indicated “no net global warming” for 6 years.
- After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.
This is a correct statement which has been extensively discussed and summarized at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/category/climate-change; see also Chapter 2 in Pielke, R.A., Jr. and R.A. Pielke, Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their nature and impacts on society.
- The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.
This is a robust conclusion both on the global scale (e.g. see) and on the regional scale (e.g see and see).
The dismissive response on Real Climate and on Grist to this letter do not provide the objective scientific rebuttal to these science claims. This is unfortunate and is misleading policymakers, but, as we have learned and reported many times on at Climate Science and elsewhere (e.g. see and see), this is the way the IPCC and CCSP community deals with solid science that disagrees with their perspective.
So, what, if you don’t have a degree in “climate science” your opinion is irrelevant? Again with the ad hominems. Between you and BTW, you almost have no real argument.
I suppose we should tell the “climate scientists” to get out of statistics, feedback control systems, and physics since, well, they aren’t any of these things either.
Mark
UK John (11:54:18) :
Climate AGW Alarmist blinded by self interest and self belief.
Climate AGW Skeptic blinded by Cynicism and mistrust.
Does it matter?
Blinded! Oh no!
I thought it was just dark in here!
ick
Channel 4 UK is showing Al Gore’s scifi horror comedy documentary this weekend.
DJ:
You say: “Many on that list have no qualification or expertise in climate and many have never published a science paper relevant to human induced climate change.”
Name Einstein ring any bells? Unpublished when he came up with e = mc^2. Name Wright Brothers mean anything to you? Not scientists but drop outs.
In the world of scientific discovery, many of the greatest discoveries were not by Ph.D scientists.
Dr. Hathaway has predicted the start of Solar Cycle 24 several times. His predictions have not come true. http://www.solarcycle24.com/news.htm. Does the fact that he has papers published on the solar cycle, mean that we should believe the cycle started way back in 2007. Does it really matter if a paper is published or not when it comes down to whether it is fact or not.
Your argument as all who use such tactics are no less than a complete subterfuge of the truth.
a person who does believe that the earth is 10000 years old can NOT understand climate change.
I’m not going to defend creationism, but what you said is untrue. Understanding of the climate or human biology can be achieved even if one believes the world was created a thousands of years ago and Adam was a real person. Scientifically speaking it’s not ideal but is achievable.
Has anyone cared to ask what most Alarmist’s religious beliefs are?
I hate to rain on the parade, but this letter won’t make a bit of difference. It’s like a gnat to an elephant. Is it true? Absolutely. Is the President, an official member of the Alarmist Brigades, going to change one wit of his stance on global warming? Nope. The only thing that may moderate his stance is the self-preservation instinct politicians seemed to have honed to work under the economic and political pressures we face today.
I see more and more data supporting the skeptic view. I see more and more urgency in the AGW Movement. I predict the G20 will put out some harsh, negative energy guidelines which they will claim to “create jobs”, even knowing they will drag down society and make more people poor and far fewer people wealthy. I feel even more strongly that Copenhagen’s UN meeting will push this agenda further – no matter what comes to light over the next 6 months. I believe the UN rub their hands and cackle, when the doors are closed, and don’t even pretend among themselves that they believe in the tripe they put out.
My only hope, and it’s a bit wistful and doesn’t seem very likely today, is that responsible, democratic countries (whether their policies are socialist or free market) will correct those leaders that make up the balance of power today in the next elections and that this will lead to the repeal of what damaging legislation will come down in the next few years.
Citizens are being educated to the hoax. Nature is continuing to prove unpredictable – even cooperating at the moment.
The really sad commentary is that rational people are left hoping for cooling effects that hurt all of mankind, to reverse the progress of these scoundrels who are leading this Green Movement.
Environmentalism, think about the word. Every sane person should be a champion of the environment. In today’s World, it stands for liars, cheats and greedy people. I don’t know that much about GreenPeace, maybe some other readers do – are they misguided or simply as corrupt and lazy as the UN?
Sorry if I went on – sometimes it does seem that hope is far away.
Dave
Global warming, global schmarming. This problem has already been solved.
So
I like this response to this little mess…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/30/cato-institute-advert-climate-change-scepticism
On top of that I took a look at six of those “experts”, and only the Geophyscist may have something useful to say. The creationist engineer is right out, as is the professer of Marketing, or the computer scientist.
Really now, if the Cato institude has to cast it’s net that wide, it’s lost it already.
sod (12:01:20)
There was nothing of substance to respond to in the 2nd half of your comments, but once again the logic escapes me:
Why Newton believed the answers to questions about the future of the earth were bound up in the BIBLE of all things, therefore we should discount all that stuff about math, physics, and other silly notions of his, eh?
Dave D (12:41:08) :
Scoot over Dave, I’m in the same boat!
Barry (12:16:43) :
How can you carry on a discussion with people who refuse to use logic?
Reminds me of a story from the 1770’s.
That was the time of James Hutton and the problems that he was faced with in 1770’s Scotland.
“There are no such things as Volcanoes”, the Neptunists told him.
He replied, “What about Etna and Stromboli?”
“They are coal mines which are on fire”, they retorted.
What a put down!! Coal mines on fire. Good one. Most people had seen a coal mine on fire!! Bang! Flames!!
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, there is no coal at Etna or Stromboli.”
“Well just shows you that the fires have burnt up all the coal.”
“So there”.
So how do you carry on a discussion with people who refuse to use logic, well quite simply you cannot they have a belieif they have a faith.
They just know!!
Hutton he produce a book “Theory of the Earth”.
Quite a book, even today.
Totally unreadable, trust me, but never a less quite a book.
sod (12:01:20) :
Lets back your graph up one year and try it again.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1998/plot/wti/from:1998/trend
See I can cherry pick start dates as well :).
AGW alarmists are just too set in their religion. They are believers and followers, not thinkers or users of common sense. 99% of believers that I get into global warming talks with always have the same answer:
me: so why do you believe that c02 is going to fry up the earth?
them: i heard it on the news
They kind of remind me of kids believing in Santa Claus. You believe because you believe anything your parents tell you. Some of us grow up and learn to research and think for ourselves.. others, well we never learn and continue to live our lives on propoganda.
I would consider that the end game climate ‘done deal’ is perilously imminent politically, and urge reading the following from FoxNews last Friday
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,510937,00.html
In my opinion, for politicians, the validity of ‘anthropogenic climate change’ is not a priority as long as it attracts sufficient popular support -job done. It has been a successful popular distraction, the convenient all-embracing justification, not the target political goal. Much as Vroclav Klaus concludes (Blue Planet in Green Shackles). Whether a climate tax funded UN global administration would be benevolent or malevolent is for each of us to decide, but Klaus predicted freedom as an inevitable casualty.
solenadon (12:46:14) :
So
I like this response to this little mess…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/30/cato-institute-advert-climate-change-scepticism
Read the comments. Monbiot gets shown up.
In response to BTW (07:58:46) :
Following your recommendation, we better discard the research of Galileo and Copernicus because they also believed in a young earth. Oh, and we better call the airplanes down out of the sky — the Wright brothers believed in a young earth and anyone with such beliefs can produce neither anything useful nor anything consistent with laws of nature. And what to do about Einstein’s work given his belief in God? And perhaps we should reject anything from Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, because he believes in reincarnation.
OH…. and to BTW and DJ:
You like to pick apart people from this list who are not up to your “credible standards”.. yet you worship the Oh Mighty Goracle.. Were you people aware that Gore majored in History. He is an arts student.. An arts student is not a science student.. The majority of environmental activists are arts students. His opinion is bias. He probably signed the petition to ban dehydrogen monoxide. How can you pick apart 1 or 2 of the thousands upon thousands of skeptical scientists, but yet you praise your leader Al Gore. Hypocrites.
Mike86 (06:41:55) : I wrote both of my Senators and my Congressman. If there was ever a time for a grass-roots movement, now is it.
Hmm… Boxer or Feinstein decisions decisions … Sadly, for some of us writing to our Congress Critters is about as effective as banging our head on the sidewalk…
There needs to be some kind of process to short circuit the power grab by the left via organizational infiltration and seniority districts. Parliamentary maneuvering ought not to be able to usurp representation…
solenadon (12:46:14) :
So
I like this response to this little mess…
Don’t you mean….Solenodon?
Wow, solenadon, you’re joining the ad hominem club, how am I surprised.
Computer scientists are the types of people that write the software for climate models, btw, so I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them.
Again, using your obviously well founded logic, you should tell the climate scientists to stop practicing statistics as they are not statisticians, control system analysis as they are not engineers, and physics as they are not physicists. Hell, Mann flunked out of his physics program… using your logic that’s a good reason to reject him outright.
Mark
Hareyreynolds above feels are witnessing a phenomenon. I agree, we are witnessing and participating in the last throw of the dice for the green left.
Participation is the key, not just posting comments.
I regard this blog, and others as valuable resources for my own anti-AGW musings, we have been handed this technological tool at a desperate time, and it must be used…thanks Anthony, from New Zealand.
solenadon (12:46:14) :
So
I like this response to this little mess…
Don’t you mean….Solenodon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solenodon
I wonder if Hathaway et al. could predict how long this “green cycle” will be, hope it will also follow SSN 🙂
sod (12:01:20) :
here has been no net global warming for over a decade now.”
this is simply false.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1999/plot/wti/from:1999/trend
the TREND over a decade shows pretty strong warming.
Perdiste pisada, amigo (you missed your footing, pal)… Heh! The trend over 12000 years shows pretty strong cooling… 🙂