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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The claim that co2 doesn’t cause warming, which is a claim this guy makes, is akin to claiming the Earth is only 6000 years old. It is so divorced from the weight of evidence that it just calls into doubt the credibility of the other claims made. Spencer and Lindzen do not subscribe to such nonsense, accepting that co2 rise does have a warming effect.
On the matter of the IPCC remember the IPCC don’t create the science they report on it. The models include TSI forcing and there is no other quantifiable mechanism for solar forcing. So the argument that the models “ignore” some well known significant solar forcing is false. You can’t make any calculations based on unquantified forcing and so you can’t claim they “ignore” such.
What I find amazing is that people are willing to attack my arguments when I made them earlier, seemingly simply because, as one person put it -they thought I was an “activist” – and I guess that means I have to be challenged on every single point, irregardless whether my point is valid.
GerryM: “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”
I am not suprised he was, because what you quoted there doesn’t support “imply the human induced CO2 wasn’t the cause of GW” in the remotest way. Talk about taking someone’s quote out of context. Perhaps there is more to what he said, but I doubt you left out the best bits.
If you get the chance to see Plimer presenting in the flesh it is well worth the effort, especially in front of a crowd of AGW true believers. I had the chance to see this late last year at the “Great Energy Debate” in Adelaide where he confidently and effortlessly took their belief system apart piece by piece. No questions afterwards – they were all dumbstruck with their jaws on the floor.
Like many commentators here, all the geologists I know regard AGW as a fashionable joke.
Hopefully his book can result in the beginning of some honest mainstream debate before we are all locked in to punitive cap and trade regimes to no good purpose. I look forward to reading it.
Mike McMillan (19.49.10):
Estimates I have seen for % of TSI converted to biomass range from 0.4% to 0.8%. 5% of TSI is about 5.4W/sq.m.
What interests me is that there is so much assumption and dependence on uncertain estimates. E.g. according to NASA:- satellite measures of TSI vary by 6W; there is very lttle data on spectral changes in TSI; estimations of TSI absorbed by atmosphere vary from 20 to 25% of TSI- 5% of TSI is HUGE; the 0.8W of GHG forcing is **inferred** by measurements including warming and sea levels.
But the science is settled.
Cheers
Ken
Paul R (17:36:40) :
I’ve skipped down so if someone has already chinned you for missing the point with regard to celebrity alarmists I apologise – the OPT has nothing to do with climate change per se.
I don’t believe in AGW and anyone who does believe that we can influence such a large and complex system so dramatically so quickly is suffering from an incredible dose of arrogance in my opinion.
I do agree with the OPT
We have to stop the breeding before we strip this planet of every single resource and survivable habitat as no animal in nature so resembles the locust as the beast humanity.
One has nothing to do with the other!
chad (23:57:28) :
You do not have much in arguments.
The claim that co2 doesn’t cause warming, which is a claim this guy makes, is akin to claiming the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Is this an argument? “This guy”, whose by the way credentials we know, is not doubting the specific heat introduced by CO2 and the consequent expansion of the ability of the atmosphere to hold a bit more heat. He is quantifying the “a bit”, i.e. the anthropogenic part, the human induced part, and considers it minimal.
There is no scientists that will say that CO2 is not contributing to the atmosphere’s retention of heat. ( I am a physicist by the way). It is the amplified role of this puny 1% anthropogenic contribution to the total atmospheric CO2 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle ) that is shaken as a bogey man to stampede the hoi polloi into suicidal policies that he is questioning.
Chad wrote:
For some reason the cite didn’t work. I will try again. Moderators, you can delete the previous post.
Chad wrote:
The claim that co2 doesn’t cause warming, which is a claim this guy makes, is akin to claiming the Earth is only 6000 years old.
This honorable scientist didn’t say such a thing. What he said is that co2 doesn’t have as important an effect as the alarmists defend. I completely agree with him. Of the 0,7ºC warming we have seen since industrial revolution, co2 could be guilty of about half of the warming, and by 2100 with a doubling of co2 we should see even more warming, if the sun so allows us to have. However it won’t be anything like 5ºC, loss of arctic ice, Maldives disappearance and over 2 meters sea rise. It will be more like +0,6ºC, +40cm sea rise and plant growth, food and prosperity all around the planet. The main threat to such a good perspective is us, humans, behaving in a too “human” way. Please look back at the 20th century, at the whole picture of it, and tell me how terrible a 0,7ºC rise was for human prosperity when compared to comunism, fascism, the WWI and WWII, the H Bomb and so many awful things we can do by behaving in a “human” way. I’m certainly much more worried about those than about climate.
CHAD –
[1] What are the falsification criteria for the idea that man made emissions of CO2 cause measureable global warming? I.e. What events if they were to happen would disprove the idea that man made emissions of CO2 cause measurable global warming? For example (a) lack of a tropospheric hot spot, (b) continued global cooling while CO2 levels increase?
[2] What # of PPM would CO2 concentrations be considered “saturated”?
[3] For man made emissions of CO2 to cause catastrophic global warming requires that water vapour provide “positive” feedback to cause a run-a-way warming process. What compelling physical evidence do you have that water vapour provides positive feedback?
[4] How do you explain the cool/cold conditions that have been experienced over the world for the last two years – if CO2 is a potent GHG that causes serious warming? I.e. what’s stopping the warming from happening.
[5] How do you explain that the world temperature seems to have flatlined over the current decade, when the IPCC forecasts are for an average 0.2 degrees celcius rise from 2001 to 2010?
[6] Was the world warmer than now at any time since the end of the last ice age? If not, on what evidence do you base the conclusion that the current period is warmer than any period since the end of the last ice age approx 10K to 12K years ago?
[7] What would be worse, a 4 degree average rise in temperature world wide, or the return of an ice age likely to run 70K to 100K years with 1 km high sheets of ice over much of Europe, North Asia and North America?
[8] The current Pro AGW movement would like to shut down the debate, i.e. “The science is settled”, “The debate is over”. How do you reconcile such an attitude with human liberty and the open and free discussion of ideas that have been central values of western civilization and arguably core forces that have led to the prosperity that the modern world enjoys today?
[9] Some commentators has professed the view that the recent bushfires in Victoria, Australia that killed several hundred people can be attributed to AGW, and hence to man made emissions of CO2. If you agree with this position, are you able to provide a measurable distinction between those weather events that are “natural” and those that are due to “man made emissions of CO2”?
[10] The IPCC and Climate Science in general relies heavily on the outputs of Computer Models. Could you please describe what has been done to validate those models against empirical physical evidence?
[11] The GISS data relies on a network of ground stations (USHCN), are you able to provide information on how many, or what proportion, of those stations are well sighted according to the Climate Reference Network Rating Guide?
[12] Given that the IPCC use a single paper “Jones et al 1990 letter to Nature” to determine that UHI was 0.05 degrees Celsius per century, and the same author recently asserts that China UHI is around 0.1 degree celsius per decade – a difference of a factor of 20. How do you know that UHI is correctly factored in the measurement of surface temperature. I.e. is surface temperature measuring global warming, or urbanisation? REF: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/18/finally-an-honest-quantification-of-urban-warming-by-a-major-climate-scientist/
[13] Given that CO2 is a necessary imput in the photosynthesis process conducted by plants that supports all life on planet Earth – how could it be a pollutant? Have you noticed that gardeners often pump CO2 into greenhouses to increase productivity. Are you able to provide an estimate of the increased biological production of land plants and phytoplankton under 385 PPM of CO2, as opposed to pre-industrial CO2 levels od less than 300 PPM?
[14] If we reduced CO2 to pre-industrial amounts, and given a best case scenario of “green” electricity production. How much food could be produced at <300 PPM of CO2? How many people could be supported? How many people would have to die to meet the available food production?
[15] Are you willing to go without electricity?
Any assistance with these questions would be much appreciated.
Lee (01:09:00) :
Paul R (17:36:40) :
I’ve skipped down so if someone has already chinned you for missing the point with regard to celebrity alarmists I apologise – the OPT has nothing to do with climate change per se.
I don’t believe in AGW and anyone who does believe that we can influence such a large and complex system so dramatically so quickly is suffering from an incredible dose of arrogance in my opinion.
I do agree with the OPT
We have to stop the breeding before we strip this planet of every single resource and survivable habitat as no animal in nature so resembles the locust as the beast humanity.
One has nothing to do with the other!
What’s the natural birth rate (i.e. not migration) of the countries that make up the developed world?
Wake up – it’s typically below replacement level. The drivers are economic development and personal freedom. Once people have the capacity to limit breeding in a meaningful way – they typically do so. Women in developed countries average less than 2 children each.
The key to solving the worlds population problem is sustained economic development and the promotion of individual liberty.
Lee,
Oh the irony:
“anyone who does believe that we can influence such a large and complex system so dramatically so quickly is suffering from an incredible dose of arrogance”….
is followed hotly by,
“We have to stop the breeding before we strip this planet of every single resource and survivable habitat as no animal in nature so resembles the locust”…
Hmmm, is it just me?
And what happens if the stats for 2009 come back with a global temp anomaly greater than or equal to ’98/’05, despite our US friends having had to huddle a little closer to the hearth this season? I can just hear the cries of foul play already – everyone has a tendency to give unwarranted weight to their personal experience. We’ll see….
And meanwhile the world’s glaciers curl their toes a little further each year from the rising onslaught of an itinerant lowland climate.
Chad = Clearly Has Agw Disease
Please read the book ! You may even get cured !
Why is it that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of examples like Mr Sheehan who were once AGW proponents but became “skeptics” after really looking at the science and virtually none going the other way? In fact, I cannot think of one prominent scientist or even journalist that started out a “skeptic”, reviewed the science, and then became a proponent. Not one…
MattN,
It’s easy to just make numbers up out of thin air. I started firmly as a skeptic (through most of the 1990s) awaiting what I felt was sufficient confirmation of the science before finally gaining an understanding and acceptance of the urgency of the issue through very wide reading of books, websites and esp scientific literature. I can think of a number of persons of ecological influence who took this approach and are now firmly assured of the man-made nature of our problem. Dr Suzuki and David Attenborough spring to mind as measured thinkers who are slow to rush to conclusions.
Given that a few thousand (wherever you got that figure from) have decided that their understanding of the issue doesn’t give them confidence in its validity, how does that in any way stack up to the literally millions of informed persons who now understand that AGW is real who obviously at one point either didn’t know enough or, like me, needed to await further confirmation? How could you possibly assert there are “none going the other way”? It’s a multi-decadal, multi-disciplinary stampede that must be kind of hard to miss unless this little corner of the web is your sole solace….
I will feebly try to defend myself by drawing a disticntion between merely using up all the fossil fuel and cutting down all the trees which we can do in fairly short order and completely altering the entire planets atmosphere/oceans and weather patterns away from the trend they were on all on their lonesome.
I’ll stand by my opinion although I’ll admit the internal contradiction if you aren’t concerned with scale
The Guardian is attempting to push more alarmism on us
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/14/global-warming-target-2c
Graeme Rodaughan
The OPT recognises your point which is why they call for stabilisation of the population in the developed world and reduction of the birth rate in the 3rd which is why they have a GLOBAL statement split into appropriate responses, you need to think a little bigger than Europe.
You may be particulary interested in the last sentence of the of the Global statement – that is your point right?
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.policies.html
From The Guardian article above:
World will not meet 2C warming target, climate change experts agree
Hmmmm… Isn’t it rather odd that attendees of the Copenhagen Conference would come to that conclusion?
In related news The Guardian reported that attendees of the Westminster dog show agreed overwhelmingly that dogs make better pets than cats.
Isn’t this whole AGW thing a bit like ‘ozone depletion’ or ‘millenium bug’.
Remember 1999 turning into 2000? Many rushed out buying up stuff ’cause the world as we knew it was about to end. Yeah right……. Oh and be sure not to sit on Bondi beach.. its right under the ozone hole…..
I for one have never believed the hype surrounding global warming and taught my kids to beware the motives behind those purporting global warming will be a diaster to their future lives.
Oxfam and others now infiltrate schools and brainwash young students into believing this stuff. At what point does a government outlaw an organisation from preaching GW to kids……..
Something else that annoys me…… Earth Hour….. a great marketing plan with little effect.
Graeme Rodaughan…I too would like to see Mr Chad respond to your list of fifteen questions!
Just one comment on question 13 though….you quote the pre-industrial level of CO2 as just under 300 ppm. If you follow the link from Smokey’s post [13:22:53] to one of Dr Pilmer’s lectures, Pilmer makes a seemingly convincing case to argue that 280 ppm is far too low for pre-industrial CO2 levels. His graph shows that as recently as 1820 it was more like 440 ppm!
“Muphry’s Law strikes again :-)”
Good old Muphry – always ready and waiting… 🙂
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
Since this site has an international audience (thank you Anthony), it would be nice if there was a note somewhere (About page perhaps?), explaining the current time difference to GMT of the time stamps. Some of us don’t even know exactly *where* you are 🙂
Graeme-Bravo! as for me I’ve felt the the left is for Population control of the third world because they cannot stand free-thinking healthy,prosperous dark skinned people…
Lee (01:09:00) :
Paul R (17:36:40) :
I’ve skipped down so if someone has already chinned you for missing the point with regard to celebrity alarmists I apologise – the OPT has nothing to do with climate change per se.
I’m not familiar with the term chinned, I feel guilty for taking this thread off topic already and deserve chinning for that but i was only answering a question. You and I have a different opinion about population perils and all I will say is that I see a correlation between those who push the AGW agenda and the overpopulation agenda. You obviously will have to be discarded as bad data since you upset my model with your AGW skepticism. 🙂