This article from the Sydney Morning herald came with the message from Bruce saying: “a brick through the AGW window in Australia”. After reading it, and seeing that it is based on a book Heaven and Earth soon to be released by prominent Australian geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, I’ll have to agree. But as usually happens, he’ll probably be labeled a “denier” or an “advocate” as Gavin calls them, and ignored. Still, it is worth reading, since the journalist that has written it seems to question his own past writings. – Anthony
Beware the climate of conformity
Paul Sheehan Sydney Morning Herald
April 13, 2009
What I am about to write questions much of what I have written in this space, in numerous columns, over the past five years. Perhaps what I have written can withstand this questioning. Perhaps not. The greater question is, am I – and you – capable of questioning our own orthodoxies and intellectual habits? Let’s see.
The subject of this column is not small. It is a book entitled Heaven And Earth, which will be published tomorrow. It has been written by one of Australia’s foremost Earth scientists, Professor Ian Plimer. He is a confronting sort of individual, polite but gruff, courteous but combative. He can write extremely well, and Heaven And Earth is a brilliantly argued book by someone not intimidated by hostile majorities or intellectual fashions.
The book’s 500 pages and 230,000 words and 2311 footnotes are the product of 40 years’ research and a depth and breadth of scholarship. As Plimer writes: “An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, palaeontology, palaeoecology, glaciology, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history.”
The most important point to remember about Plimer is that he is Australia’s most eminent geologist. As such, he thinks about time very differently from most of us. He takes the long, long view. He looks at climate over geological, archaeological, historical and modern time. He writes: “Past climate changes, sea-level changes and catastrophes are written in stone.”
Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as “primitive”. Errors and distortions in computer modelling will be exposed in time. (As if on cue, the United Nations’ peak scientific body on climate change was obliged to make an embarrassing admission last week that some of its computers models were wrong.)
Plimer does not dispute the dramatic flux of climate change – and this column is not about Australia’s water debate – but he fundamentally disputes most of the assumptions and projections being made about the current causes, mostly led by atmospheric scientists, who have a different perspective on time. “It is little wonder that catastrophist views of the future of the planet fall on fertile pastures. The history of time shows us that depopulation, social disruption, extinctions, disease and catastrophic droughts take place in cold times … and life blossoms and economies boom in warm times. Planet Earth is dynamic. It always changes and evolves. It is currently in an ice age.”
If we look at the last 6 million years, the Earth was warmer than it is now for 3 million years. The ice caps of the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland are geologically unusual. Polar ice has only been present for less than 20 per cent of geological time. What follows is an intense compression of the book’s 500 pages and all their provocative arguments and conclusions:
Is dangerous warming occurring? No.
Is the temperature range observed in the 20th century outside the range of normal variability? No.
The Earth’s climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth’s climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.
“To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.”
Over time, the history of CO2 content in the atmosphere has been far higher than at present for most of time. Atmospheric CO2 follows temperature rise. It does not create a temperature rise. CO2 is not a pollutant. Global warming and a high CO2 content bring prosperity and longer life.
The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology. “But evidence no longer matters. And any contrary work published in peer-reviewed journals is just ignored. We are told that the science on human-induced global warming is settled. Yet the claim by some scientists that the threat of human-induced global warming is 90 per cent certain (or even 99 per cent) is a figure of speech. It has no mathematical or evidential basis.”
Observations in nature differ markedly from the results generated by nearly two dozen computer-generated climate models. These climate models exaggerate the effects of human CO2 emissions into the atmosphere because few of the natural variables are considered. Natural systems are far more complex than computer models.
The setting up by the UN of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 gave an opportunity to make global warming the main theme of environmental groups. “The IPCC process is related to environmental activism, politics and opportunism. It is unrelated to science. Current zeal around human-induced climate change is comparable to the certainty professed by Creationists or religious fundamentalists.”
Ian Plimer is not some isolated gadfly. He is a prize-winning scientist and professor. The back cover of Heaven And Earth carries a glowing endorsement from the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, who now holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Numerous rigorous scientists have joined Plimer in dissenting from the prevailing orthodoxy.
Heaven And Earth is an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence.
“I think it would be helpful to write up some procedure, to give our green friends the language to concede the reality about the AGW movement in as painless a way possible.”
Agreed. How about:
CO2 is not causing catastrophic warming.
CO2 is not a pollutant, it’s a plant food.
But pollution remains a critical issue and now more funds are available to fight worthwhile causes.
Michael (19:13:35) :
…
Moderators – I think a response to the stereotype that is alluded to here should be allowed as it is often repeated on this site and probably disappoints some of your otherwise ardent supporters.
The stereotype that I refer to is that the overall thought process of a religious fundamentalist and a global warming alarmist are similar. It then follows from this arguement that either AGW alarmists are just like religious kooks (fundamentalist is being deliberately defined in a negative sense above) and can be discounted/discredited, or that those with fundamentalist religious beliefs are unable/unwilling to embrace science and the scientific method and are just like AGW alarmist kooks and can also be discounted/discredited. If this isn’t an ad hominem attack I don’t know what is.
…
Kind Regards
Michael
Michael – You are correct, it’s a sloppy ad-hom, lacking in nuance and an off the cuff remark. If I have offended you, please accept my apologies and I will endeavour to be more nuanced in my comments in the future.
Cheers Graeme
Edward Mitchell (16:29:45) :
Any skeptic worth his salt will use more then a biased sources, they look at “ALL” sides to form an opinion. In the future CHAD, do your homework, look at non-biased sources, and yes, spelling and grammar count in a written debate.
Muphry’s Law strikes again 🙂
.
Robert Bateman (17:14:06) :
If the Earth was capable of storing excess Solar Energy in the form of fossilized or liquid biomass once, it’s capable of doing it again.
The only other form of energy on Earth that is not related to the Sun is weak nuclear, which was formed not in our Sun, but in a nova from a larger star.
Just plain old nuclear energy, s’il vous plait. Weak nuclear is not energy but a fundamental force, albeit the one responsible for releasing nuclear energy. Your other point about biomass storage is a good one on the energy budget front. Just how much of the energy of the sun is captured by plants as biomass, rather than going into heating the planet? I recall someone suggesting there was a “hidden” heat sink in the equation he couldn’t find. Maybe that’s it.
That geologists are sceptical about climate change is nothing new…
Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
EOS, VOLUME 90 NUMBER 3 20 January 2009
By P. T. Doran and M. K. Zimmerman.
Mike Bryant (19:28:34) :
I agree with Michael about the comparison of warmists to religionists. Ninety percent of the American people believe in God, and I think it would be wrong to alienate those people. The science stands by itself without denigrating those who believe in a supreme being. These comparisons ultimately hurt the cause of science and freedom.
Mike – Agreed – please see my apology to Michael above.
Cheers Graeme
Graeme Rodaughan (18:52:51) :
Mike Bryant (18:23:23) :
“I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.”
What about the problem of Fascist aggression in WWII?
I’m gob-smacked, – what an excellent refutation.
Yeah it was pretty good, we might be needing those numbers again because it looks like Deja Vu all over again.
Edward Mitchell (16:46:12) Check out the post on WUWT by Frank Lansner, ‘Making Holocene Spaghetti Sauce by Proxy’. The hockeystick and its ilk are from tree ring proxies, that tend to ajust the local temperature to suit their photosynthesis needs: http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=08061131
Frank and the comments that follow shed light on the poor use of tree ring proxies. For more detailed investigation, see Steve McIntyre’s blog, Climate Audit. Look at Steve’s dissection of Mann el al and Briffa. Mann used some enormous amount of tree ring proxies, then heavily weighted the ~1% that showed the response he wanted to show. Even the good proxies have a muted response to temperature, as Frank points out.
Graeme,
Michael’s post woke me up. I have often taken some silly delight in those comparisons that are really beyond the pale and not worthy of the posters, commenters, moderators and lurkers who people this site. Now I understand why Anthony would prefer that religion stays completely out of the mix.
I also apologize for my similarly ad hom remarks in the past.
Mike
Michael and Mike Bryant
I think the point is that the AGW crowd purport to have science on their side. Their actions, words and the facts show that, to the contrary, they beleive that they have God, whom the call Gaia, on their side. This is not science – and it is very dangerous to humanity.
Moderator, I just made a post that apparently hit the spam bucket, no indication of waiting for moderation. Should be 20:18 or so. How can I avoid this, it’s the second time today, and why is California two hours behind western Colorado since we went on DST?
Reply: Stuff with links sometimes hits the spam filter. It’s nothing to worry about. It is checked regularly. I have no idea about the system clock. If in the mood sometime I will look into it. Otherwise, maybe Anthony may or may not jump on it. ~ charles the moderator
Reply2: Ok. I also have manually adjusted the site for daylight savings. It is apparently a known issue at wordpress.com to be fixed at unspecified date. ~ charles the moderator
Re: Graeme Rodaughan (19:41:39)\
No worries Graeme. It is very gracious of you, thanks.
Regards
Michael
Michael, Mike.
All good – happy posting.
Cheers Graeme
I would appreciate a short tutorial from a geophysicist on how Deep Time temperature and CO2 levels are ‘read’ from the rocks.
And I wonder if David Attenborough has considered that to reduce the human population by a billion means that you must murder one million people a day for one thousand days. Oh, wait, that doesn’t cover the births that occur during that time. Makes my skin crawl to consider that level of inhumanity. How self-alienated you must be to desire such a project.
I think we have had enough of coulds and mights. We should carry on with our progress. It is most likely that if we make a wrong choice we will have time to correct it before it gets expensive.
The Twelve Step Plan to Shake Off the AGW Indoctrination”
Step 1: Honesty
Tell the truth, and listen to the truth.
Step 2: Faith
Believe what can be proven.
Step 3: Surrender
Don’t let pride keep you from freedom.
Step 4: Soul Searching
Listen to the voice of reason within you.
Step 5: Integrity
Don’t allow yourself or others to advance falsehoods unchallenged.
Step 6: Acceptance
Don’t think you are less of a person because you were wrong in the past.
Step 7: Humility
Realize that no one knows everything and that science is still advancing.
Step 8: Willingness
Make a list of those you convinced and set them straight.
Step 9: Forgiveness
Forgive yourself and also forgive those who still believe that CO2 is bad.
Step 10: Maintenance
Nobody likes to admit to being wrong. But it only hurts for a little while.
Step 11: Making Contact
Stay in touch with scientific advancement and those who also stay informed.
Step 12: Service
Help everyone around you remember that as you pursue truth, you are also pursuing happiness.
Chad, in post #4 you said:
You had the really bad luck to be right next to the solar chart where we see the sun till with “000” sunspots and Ap Index = 68! Yes 68! Not seen since 1913 and 1795!
The *evidence* is currently supporting the sun as the main driver of climate, through the effects of Jovian cycles and baricenter position in the solar system.
Wamers are becoming the new breed of deniers! The blogosphere is exploding now with ranting and spining full steam ahead.
Too bad Mother Nature is not cooperating. Bad luck. Next time, perhaps in 100 years more you can run in the streets yelling “warming! warming!”
“Jerk, jerk”, go the knees of the doubters! “Jerk, jerk” go the knees of the true believers. Many of the responders herein are endorsing (or occassionaly opposing) a body of work they have not read and are mostly unqualified to judge in any event. While I applaud a site the invites participation from all comers (otherwise, I certainly would not qualify), it should by now be apparent that interest in “scientific truth” is taking a back seat to political inclination. Political liberals generally tend to embrace AGW because they like where it takes us politically. Political conservatives are generally skeptical because they do NOT like where AGW would take us. In neither case is any real interest in scientific truth very much in evidence amidst the cacophony.
Mike McMillan (19:49:10)
Just how much of the energy of the sun is captured by plants as biomass, rather than going into heating the planet?
Perhaps there are geologists about that know of different ages of fossilized biomass? How many distinct ages are known to exist? How do they correlate with ice ages and interglacials?
“mr.artday (21:34:50) :
I would appreciate a short tutorial from a geophysicist on how Deep Time temperature and CO2 levels are ‘read’ from the rocks.
And I wonder if David Attenborough has considered that to reduce the human population by a billion means that you must murder one million people a day for one thousand days. Oh, wait, that doesn’t cover the births that occur during that time. Makes my skin crawl to consider that level of inhumanity. How self-alienated you must be to desire such a project.
I think we have had enough of coulds and mights. We should carry on with our progress. It is most likely that if we make a wrong choice we will have time to correct it before it gets expensive.”
During the ’70’s, on TV, he was one who followed the consensus of the day (Ice age coming), the only unfortunate thing is that I cannot find any reference/link to the statement.
Chad, I had a mental lapse and said the A index was 68 when it is really 4. However it is the lowest since 1913 and 1795.
The number 8 is the Solar Flux that indicates we are heading towards a Dalton minimum. Sorry for my blunder.
Chad, while I don’t want to undermine your belief in AGW he is right about one thing and the IPCC agrees with him the models aren’t all that good. They haven’t actually predicted anything that has come to pass, but don’t take my word for it:
Dr. Jim Renwick, a top UN IPCC scientist, June 2007″Half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don’t expect to do terrifically well”.
UN IPCC lead author, Dr. Kevin Trenberth:
“In fact there are no predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been. The IPCC instead proffers ‘what if’ projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios,” Trenberth wrote in journal Nature’s blog on June 4, 2007. He also admitted that the climate models have major shortcomings because “they do not consider many things like the recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents. There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess.”
Dr Trenberth, Nature Climat Blog, 2007:
“There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess. … Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil causing it. He concludes,
… the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate. But we need them. Indeed it is an imperative! So the science is just beginning. Beginning, that is, to face up to the challenge of building a climate information system that tracks the current climate and the agents of change, that initializes models and makes predictions, and that provides useful climate information on many time scales regionally and tailored to many sectoral needs.”
Drs. Trenberth and Renwick are supporters of the AGW theory by the way and Dr. Tenberth was mortified that his words were used by sceptics to imply the human induced CO2 wasn’t the cause of GW, but he and Dr. Renwick are the quality of scientists we need in this debate, they tell it as it is. Typical Kiwis.
Chad, I’m surprised you pointed to Richard Lindzen who has described the AGW theory as “junk sicence”.
HSEHL Thank you so much for this Website, Anthony and thanks to David L Langen for the post: The Inconvenient Professor.. Excellent tool for getting the truth out.
GerryM,
His point being that even someone that cherry picks [snip – no evidence of that] the data in the manner of Linzden knows better than to argue the toss on that easily rebutted canard. Climatologists have known for decades that CO2 sometimes leads, sometimes lags temp. No mystery there. None. Never was. Its only chosen as a point to misdirect lay readers/listeners. [snip – lose the ad homs]
Mike Bryant (21:37:49) :
Would change :
1O. It is OK to be wrong . Science advances by testing hypothesis and tossing the wrong ones out the window. You are a scientist !
Matt Bennett (22:53:46) :
Climatologists have known for decades that CO2 sometimes leads, sometimes lags temp. No mystery there. None. Never was. Its only chosen as a point to misdirect lay readers/listeners. So, as Chad points out, even the denier’s go-to man acknowledges that the ‘CO2 lags’ assertion is a schoolboy error.
The mystery is in the climatologists minds, how from this “sometimes leads, sometimes lags ” , they can extract causality. Both fish and fowl. Schoolboys know much better.
And on such a causality thread demand that the industrial world commits hara kiri.