Guest post by Steven Mosher
In Climategate: The Crutape letters we tried to avoid accusing Professor Jones of CRU and UEA of outright fraud. Instead, based on the record found in the emails, we argued a case of noble cause corruption. I enlarged upon that charge at Pajama’s Media . Commenters took me to task for being too soft on Jones. Based on the extant text at that time I would still hold to my case. No skeptic could change my mind. But Phil Jones makes it hard to defend him anymore. On March 1st he testified before Parliament and there he argued that it was standard scientific practice to not share data. Those who still insist on being generous with him could, I suppose, argue that he has no recollection, but in my mind he is playing with the truth and knows he is playing with the truth.
In 2002 Steve McIntyre had no publications in climate science. He wrote to Jones requesting temperature data. The history of their exchange is detailed in this Climate Audit Post. Jones sent data to McIntyre along with the following mail:
Dear Steve,
Attached are the two similar files [normup6190, cruwld.dat] to those I sent before which should be for the 1994 version. This is still the current version until the paper appears for the new one. As before the stations with normal values do not get used.
I’ll bear your comments in mind when possibly releasing the station data for the new version (comments wrt annual temperatures as well as the monthly). One problem with this is then deciding how many months are needed to constitute an annual average. With monthly data I can use even one value for a station in a year (for the month concerned), but for annual data I would have to decide on something like 8-11 months being needed for an annual average. With fewer than 12 I then have to decide what to insert for missing data. Problem also applies to the grid box dataset but is slightly less of an issue. I say possibly releasing above, as I don’t want to run into the issues that GHCN have come across with some European countries objecting to data being freely available. I would like to see more countries make their data freely available (and although these monthly averages should be according to GCOS rules for GAA-operational Met. Service.
Cheers
Phil Jones
We should note these things: Jones sent data. That was his practice. Jones is aware of the problems in releasing this data. Jones believes that these monthly averages should be released according to GCOS [WMO resolution 40] rules. In 2002 his practice is to release data to a total unknown with no history of publication. And Jones releases the data to him knowing that there are issues around releasing that data.
In 2004 Warwick Hughes exchanges a series of mails with Jones. In 2000 Jones appears to have a cooperative relationship with Hughes. In 2004 the record shows the following
Dear Jean Palutikof, Dr P.D. Jones,
I was just reading your web page at; http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ and wish to access the station by station temperature data, updated through 2001 referred to on your CRU web page; http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow as
“Over land regions of the world over 3000 monthly station temperature time series are used.” Where can I download the latest station by station data which is a foundation of Dr Jones et al published papers ? Note, I am not asking about the CRU gridded data which I can see on your web site. Looking forward to your help,
Best wishes,
Warwick Hughes
Warwick,
The station data are not on the CRU web site. If you look at the GHCN page at NCDC, you’ll see they have stopped access and cited WMO Res. 40 for this. To my mind this resolution is supposed to make access free. However, it was hinted at to me a year or two ago that I should also not make the station data available.
The gridded data are there as you know.
I would suggest you take this up with WMO and/or GCOS. I have raised it several times with them and got nowhere.
Cheers
Phil
As Jones points out he believes that WMO Resolution 40 should make access free. Jones also says that he himself has taken up this issue with them. One can presume he took it up because he wanted to give access to data. Further, he knows that there may be agreements that preclude release of the data.
The start of 2005 is a critical point in the story line. Jones had cordial exchanges with Hughes in 2000. Jones shared data with McIntyre in 2002 and in 2004 Jones believed that the data should be shared. In 2005 he has been transformed. In January of 2005, McIntyre published a paper (MM05) critical of Mann. As luck would have it at this time former CRU employee Wigley sent an email to Jones about a flyer he has received that discusses FOIA. At this stage no FOIA have been sent to CRU. But Wigley and Jones are concerned about skeptics. What ever willingness Jones had to share data is gone. Again, Jones shows a clear understanding of the existence of agreements:
Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them.
At the start of Feb 2005, Jones’ attitude toward data sharing becomes clearer and also contradictory. Some people can get this data in violation of agreements, while others who ask for it using legal means will be thwarted.
Mike,
I presume congratulations are in order – so congrats etc !
Just sent loads of station data to Scott [Rutherford]. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs [McIntyre and McKittrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send
to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it. We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !
Two weeks after the publication of MM05, prior to the issuance of any FOIA whatsoever, Jones contemplates destroying data rather than sharing it. But read closely. Jones sends this data to Scott Rutherford. So what’s the standard scientific practice? The data is covered by confidentiality agreements. Jones shared it with McIntyre in 2002, and now shares it with Rutherford in 2005. Jones knows it is covered by agreements and he’s questioned those agreements—except when he finds it convenient to hide behind those agreements. He violates them as he pleases. He shares data as he pleases. And if he is pushed to share it he contemplates destroying it.
On Feb 21, 2005 Keith Briffa sends Jones a mail with a list of editorials that are critical of Dr. Mann for not releasing data. Jones replies to Warwick Hughes’ request for data that same day:
Warwick,
Hans Teunisson will reply. He’ll tell you which other people should reply. Hans is “Hans Teunissen”
I should warn you that some data we have we are not supposed top pass on to others. We can pass on the gridded data – which we do. Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. There is IPR to consider.
You can get similar data from GHCN at NCDC. Australia isn’t restricted there.
Several European countries are. Basically because, for example, France doesn’t want the French picking up data on France from Asheville. Meteo France wants to supply data to the French on France. Same story in most of the others.
Cheers
Phil
Jones has changed his attitude about the WMO. Prior to the publication of MM05 Jones believed that the WMO guidelines would make the data available. Moreover he argued with WMO that it should be released. Now, Jones changes his tune. He argues that he will not release the data even if the WMO agrees. His concern? Hughes will find something wrong with it.
When it comes to deciding whether to share data or not, standards have nothing to do with the decisions Jones made and he knows that. He knows he shared confidential data with Rutherford while he denied it to McIntyre and Hughes. He knows he regarded the confidentiality of those agreements quixotically. Violating them or hiding behind them on a whim. This was scientific malpractice. Lying about that now is beyond excuse.
April 2005 comes and we turn to another request from McIntyre: There is a constant refrain amongst AGW defenders that people don’t need to share code and data. They argue that papers do a fine job of explaining the science: They argue that people should write their own code based on description in papers. Here is McIntyre’s request. Note that he has read the paper and tried to emulate the method:
Dear Phil,
In keeping with the spirit of your suggestions to look at some of the other multiproxy publications, I’ve been looking at Jones et al [1998]. The methodology here is obviously more straightforward than MBH98. However, while I have been able to substantially emulate your calculations, I have been unable to do so exactly. The differences are larger in the early periods. Since I have been unable to replicate the results exactly based on available materials, I would appreciate a copy of the actual data set used in Jones et al [1998] as well as the code used in these calculations.
There is an interesting article on replication by Anderson et al., some distinguished economists, here [1]http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2005/2005-014.pdf discussing the issue of replication in applied economics and referring favorably to our attempts in respect to MBH98.
Regards, Steve McIntyre
When you cannot replicate a paper based on a description of the data and a description of the method, standard practice is to request materials from the author. McIntyre does that. Jones’ “practice” is revealed in his mail to Mann:
From: Phil Jones <p.jones@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Fwd: CCNet: DEBUNKING THE “DANGEROUS CLIMATE CHANGE” SCARE
Date: Wed Apr 27 09:06:53 2005
Mike,
Presumably you’ve seen all this – the forwarded email from Tim. I got this email from McIntyre a few days ago. As far as I’m concerned he has the data sent ages ago. I’ll tell him this, but that’s all – no code. If I can find it, it is likely to be hundreds of lines of uncommented fortran ! I recall the program did a lot more that just average the series. I know why he can’t replicate the results early on – it is because there was a variance correction for fewer series.
See you in Bern.
Cheers
Phil
Jones does not argue that code should be withheld because of IPR[Intellectual Property Rights]. It’s withheld because he is not sure he can find it and he suspects that it is a mess. More importantly Jones says he knows why McIntyre cannot replicate the results. Jones does not argue “standard scientific practice” to withhold code; he withholds code because it’s either lost, or sloppy and because it will allow McIntyre to understand exactly how the calculations were done. This is malpractice. Today when questioned whether people could replicate his work from the papers he wrote Jones “forgot this mail” and said they could replicate his work. And we should note one last thing. Jones again acknowledges sending data to McIntyre. So, what exactly is Jones’ notion of standard practice? To share or not to share? What the record shows is that Jones shared data and didn’t share data, confidential or not, on a basis that cannot be described as scientific or standard. He did so selectively and prejudicially. Just as he refused data to Hughes to prevent his work being checked he refuses information that McIntyre needs to replicate his published results. At the same time he releases that data to others.
That’s not the end of the story as we all know. In 2007 the first two FOIA were issued to CRU for data. One request for a subset of the data was fulfilled after some delay. The larger request was denied. By 2009 it became clear to McIntyre that the CRU data had also been shared with Webster. When McIntyre requested the very same data that Webster got from Jones, CRU started again with a series of denials again citing confidentiality agreements, inventing the terms of those agreements ex nihilo. Webster could have the data. McIntyre could not.
What the record shows is that Jones had no standard scientific practice of sharing or not sharing data. He had no consistent practice of abiding by or violating confidentiality agreements. He had his chance to sit before Parliament and come clean about the record. He had an opportunity to explain exactly why he took these various contradictory actions over the course of years. Instead he played with the truth again. Enough.
At least my ad hominem attack was entertaining, the alarmists can’t hope to sustain a trillion dollar enterprise on the back of “you wouldn’t understand, so trust us”.
The wild, unkempt hair, the jacket, open shirt/no tie; it all fits the image one would conjure up for Moshpit …
No time to digest the article, yet … so no critique there.
.
.
Kevin Trenberth (a climate science “expert”) wrote the following on October 14th, 2009:
“Hi Tom
How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where close to knowing where
energy is going or whether clouds are changing to make the planet brighter. We are not
close to balancing the energy budget. The fact that we can not account for what is
happening in the climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless as
we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a travesty!”
What this means is that the so-called “experts” have no idea how to balance the energy-budget of the earth’s climate. They do not know all of the variables involved, and they do not fully understand the interactions of all of the variables involved.
Kevin Trenberth further writes:
“”The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment
and it is a travesty that we can’t”
What this means is that the models of the “climate experts” predicted unabated warming, and the lack thereof cannot be explained by their models. This further means that their models cannot effectively predict REALITY.
So, we have an admission from one of the “experts” that A) the experts really don’t have anything even vaguely resembling a complete understanding of all of the variables involved in climate and how these variables interract, and B) their models failed utterly to predict 15 years with no statistically significant warming.
Yet, according to Peter Hearnden and Dashing.Leech, we should either trust these “experts” because they are the only ones who fully understand climate science (even though they freely admit that they have no such understanding), or we should act based upon the supposition that they MIGHT be correct, even though they have not correctly followed the scientific method.
Thanks again, but no.
‘Richard M’ (07:27:03) :
Is it possible we might discuss this without your best ‘argument’ being to accuse people of being ignorant?
‘Allen C’ (07:36:05) :
Sorry, but I’m not asking for proof, I’ve not used the word. I’m asking why if we need to scrutinise every last letter and figure of Dr Jones’s output because he might be wrong and it might cost us BILLIONS if he is, why we should not scrutinise ever letter of AGW sceptic output because it might also be wrong (ie the AGW science might be right) and doing what AGW sceptics want us to do (which is nothing) might also cost us BILLIONS in climate related costs. Could you please consider that?
Climate science is in very near danger of becoming something akin to some historical hoaxes and career destroying erroneous ‘science’ such as phrenology, cold fusion, Piltdown Man, Cardiff Giant, Feejee Mermaid, Bigfoot, Jan Henrik Schon, The spaghetti tree, The Nacirema Tribe, Disappearing Blonde Gene etc., etc.
The media should learn not to jump on bandwagons!
http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2008/hoaxes/hoaxes-08.html
The facts about AGW have not stopped Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Kerry and Jackson. They cannot be oblivious to the current revelations of scientific malfeasance.
Peter Hearnden, congratulations you win my “Troll of the week” award. You just kept them biting.
Smokey (07:53:08) :
“…Since neither of you can seem to grasp such a simple and straightforward concept, the likely explanation is cognitive dissonance; a condition that strongly resists treatment...”
Oh, not that we’re ignorant then?
Peter Hearnden
In response to your invocation of the precautionary principle. The cost of 2-4 C warming is smaller by at least an order of magnitude than the cost of cooling or than the cost of stupid ideas like cap and traede or so called renewable energy fixes. Further warmer temperatures would tend to have a net positive effect as does increased CO2 on the health and diversity of the biosphere.
To put it simply; the cure is far worse than the disease.
Peter Hearnden (02:04:34):
Those who make scientific claims are the ones who have to produce evidence, data etc., not Mosher. Maybe you didn’t know this Peter but that is the way science works. Sceptics don’t have to produce a damn thing. Sorry!
Q: What’s the biggest difference between Bernie Madoff & Co. and Al Gore & Co.?
A: Trillions!
“Dashing.Leech”, apt name for the suckiness of your post.
“The problem here is harassment by people who don’t know what they are doing.” – Yet again the classic I’m smarter than you argument, getting oh so boring now. I’ve yet to see one AGW proponent PROVE man made CO2 will have catastropic effects. All we read is that the models “suggest” this or that. There is no evidence to support any catastrophic claims, none.
” Climate scientists study climate science.” – WOW
“They understand what the data means” , Who are they, and apparently they only know what they want the data to reflect vis their models.
” It is an annoyance to have to go and explain climate science and analysis processes to people who clearly don’t know. Should we burden every scientist with becoming a teacher to every skeptic, or is the onus on the skeptic to learn the science first?” Again the we’re smarter than you elitist attitude that is so pervasisve these days, and not just in this arena.
The real noise is the whining from the very people who would usurp my money and have me thank them at the same time, sorry not today. This issue is all about control, problem is it just might be too late. Might be.
Ken Hall (01:32:32) wrote:
“Climate science is a unique scientific discipline where research begins at the conclusion and works backwards, selectively adopting (and manipulating) evidence to fit the conclusion. Where the hypothesis never changes, but the evidence changes instead to fit the hypothesis.
In short, climate science is NOT science.”
Ken, sadly climate “science” is NOT unique.
This kind of backwards justification for theories is standard practice in much of the astronomical community.
Rather than admit their a priori theories have been falsified by subsequent observation & measurement, they “massage” or manipulate the data to fit the theory — and they have done this to such a great extent — that they, in effect, have climbed out onto a thin branch and, so, their only recourse is to trash those that point out the falsification of their theories.
Astronomy used to be considered the “Queen” of the sciences — no more, now, it is in crisis.
And, woe to those that would openly challenge them.
Of course, now, much of the general public knows about this practice in climate “science”. Eventually they will know this about astronomy, too.
And, then, the “woe” will be on the other foot.
Peter Hearnden (07:03:13)
[i]So, to re phrase my questions, suppose (just suppose, OK?) AGW science is right and we see 2-4C global warming for a effective CO2 doubling. 2-4C warming is a lot, it’s something that will cost humanity a lot – BILLIONS, TRILLIONS probably.[/i]
Actually this is an assumption based on a less than 5% possibility. Warming does not automatically equal disaster. The world was warmer during the medieval period and did very well. The most likely result of warming is simply improvement in living conditions. The disaster scenarios that are constantly being painted are actually extreme unlikely events that might result from warming.
Note that the only scenario you hear out of the AGW side is the disaster. Why is that? Remember the disaster isn’t a very likely result, instead the likely result is improved growing belts and better living conditions world wide.
Dashing.Leech (06:56:13) :
Climate science is an infant discipline. Furthermore, it is a composite of a lot of other, much more well established disciplines, such as physics and statistics. Assuming that people outside of the field, which includes a lot of contributors here, have no idea what climate scientists are doing, is foolishly arrogant, at best.
Coming from quantitative economics, I have no problems reading the average ‘climate science’ paper. That said, I would like to see Jones et al digest an average Econometrica publication (given that the IPCC can’t even interpret a p-value properly).
Now stop excusing the inexcusable.
As Jones’ institute received millions in public funds, their results have been used by scores of individuals and organizations (Academic / Government / NGO’s / Business etc), ergo they should have released the data and codes, instead of breaking the law in avoiding to do so.
Period.
Peter Hearnden (07:03:13) :
Your alarmism is flawed. Costs of limiting carbon emissions, or of ‘action’ if you will, are extreme, especially for developing countries. Even if we set aside the enormous costs to developed countries, we still have the following (e.g.):
(1) Due to their unsaturated industries, poor countries require a higher % of CO2 emissions growth for 1% of GDP/c growth than do rich countries (i.e. the income elasticity of emissions is decreasing in wealth). The negative effects of cuts on their economies, and thereby all development indicators (which are tightly linked with GDP/c), will thus be much more severe than in developed countries.
(2) Energy is more expensive in developing countries (in both relative and absolute terms), and it’s scarcity is already taking its toll: clinics and factories can barely operate. Mandatory emission cuts will make this situation only worse.
(3) The opportunity cost. Consider the amount of money we are going to spend on trying to ‘revert the climate’ (I can’t even type this without chuckling 🙂 and save ourselves from this unproven threat, when we have a (obvious and proven) global pandemic (i.e. HIV/AIDS) killing millions each year. In Sub Saharan Africa alone, there were over 7.5 million AIDS orphans in 2007.
…
So applications of the ‘precautionary principle’ approach are inappropriate in this context, as there are both direct (1 and 2 above) and opportunity (3 above) costs tied to ‘action’. We do not live in the binary world of Pascal’s wager, my friend.
Mr Hearnden –
One thing at a time: Let’s do the “what if the AGW scientists are wrong?” thing first, given all the recent evidence and revelations at hand.
And then do the “what if the AGW theory is right?” thing.
And do you also realize you’ve backed off from the AGW camp’s previously held position? You’ve backpedalled from your position that said – “we are right. Period.” to “what if we are right?”. The belligerence of the AGW camp in its red-eyed certainty makes it hard for anyone to feel sympathetic right away. Too bad its that way.
Your billions trillions (in full caps) argument cuts the other way too. It is equally expensive and disastrous to implement effective ‘mitigation’. Just look at any well-reasoned pro-AGW source.
Stop being a troll. Join the fun, open up your mind.
Regards
Dashing.Leech (06:56:13) :
“The problem here is harassment by people who don’t know what they are doing. Climate scientists study climate science. They understand what the data means, how it is gathered, what the processes are, what standard methods have been built up in past works and why, the lingo, etc.”
Dear Mr. Leech,
you suggest that the study of climate “science” is so esoteric, so arcane as to be understood only by the very few, self-anointed high priests of the four winds? This is utter rubbish and the fundamental reason we are immersed in a climate fraud. Professor Jones’ own words impeach his integrity:
“The two MMs [McIntyre and McKittrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send [ ] to anyone.”
The Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemical engineers, and hundreds of thousands of honest scientists are outraged. Professor Jones is neither a competent professional nor an adherent to the scientific method. He and you had best get used to having publicly funded research scrutinized by a variety of experts. The former mechanism of “knowledge filtering” has been dismantled. The data, code, and methodology of climate research has been dragged into the light of day. Get used to the glow.
Jimbo (08:01:49) :
Good list. Leave out cold fusion. There is lots of evidence of LENR.
Dashing.leech,
“Then people come along who have no idea how climate science works with question after question, perform poor analysis of data because they haven’t bothered to learn how to do climate science.”
Dashing leech, you have spent too long in the great echo chambers of desmogblog and Rabbett run. Because sceptics have criticised the work of people like Mann, Briffa and Jones, and have found errors, that means they don’t understand climate science.
Steve McIntyre doesn’t need to understand how a photon reacts with a CO2 molecule when he’s auditing the MHB98 hockey stick. He applied standard statistical techniques that apply to the analysis of any data sample, whether they be widths of tree rings or geological data from a mining study. His findings falsified the conclusions of Mann’s hockey stick and was upheld by Wegman’s report.
However, if it was only a handful of amateurs who had made these criticisms, then you might, just might, be able convince some people with your appeals to authority. Fortunately for the rest of us, not only your logic, but also your facts are up the Swanee. Considerable criticism has come from other climate scientists such as Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Soon, Douglass, Loehle, Scafetta, Ball and Pielke. Are they all in need of climate science lessons from Jones?
Maybe you should do some reading before posting such nonsense.
I agree that e.g. Jones in person was in a state of chaos, doing whatever he found doable, convenient, or whatever he was forced to do. So in this sense, it’s “morally neutral” – not good enough for a well-known scientist.
However, the “system” has been distorting various things in a non-chaotic fashion, statistically losing the things that are convenient to be lost, and finding and inventing other things that could be convenient. This statement is a matter of statistics. So while it’s hard to attribute many individuals “strange events” to a moral collapse, it can be seen statistically that there had to be many ethical failures during those years.
What a wonderful site this is! And it’s made even livelier by the spirited arguments of warmists and the subsequent give-and-take.
What is fascinating about these arguments is that, when one thinks about them, they rarely make any sense. So Peter H. wants sceptics to release their materials, just like they have asked to climate scientists to do. Okay. But what material is there in this case? If Steve McIntyre analyzes the Hockey Stick and finds it faulty, what is there to release beyond the analysis that is already published? The notes he made while working out the derivations? Early drafts of the paper? What?
He didn’t collect data from which wide-ranging conclusions were drawn, but which remains inaccessible. In fact, the empirical evidence in this case is the set of claims themselves, which are already in print – so the situation in the two cases is completely different. Which is what makes comments like these so interesting. They have a kind of soap-bubble plausibility, which dissolves as soon as attention is focused on them.
I have described the steps of the scientific method above. I would suggest that both Peter Hearnden and Dashing.Leech actually read what I wrote.
They both seem to be suggesting the following:
Pre-suppose X to be true, then also pre-suppose that consequences Y and Z will DEFINITELY occur, because X is true. Further, take action based upon the certainty that Y and Z are going to happen, because we have pre-supposed X to be true.
That is not science, that is religion.
Kinda ironic that Pascal’s wager was applied to religion. The Peter Hearnden’s of the world are approaching the problem from the same angle. Its religion to them, so why not apply medieval logic to the problem.
Even the term “denier” has religious connotations. I wonder if they know how evangelical they sound?
Lubos,
“However, the “system” has been distorting various things in a non-chaotic fashion,”
But the “system” consists of people too, including Jones himself. Could it be that the system is greater than the some of its parts, a self organising intelligent entity with an autonomous will and direction?
Ideas have consequences, Peter Hearnden, though I hate to get started on my little soapbox by skeptics of skeptics, kinda becomes paradoxymoronic.:) Hall of mirrors. But I think this is possibly an unprecedented mass delusion of the worst kind. In reality, I think this was just another dot com/housing type investment scam looking for naive investors among world governments.
The possible consequences of investing so heavily in fruitlessly attempting to change the normally capricious climate back to “normal” are huge. Considering just one bigger picture of human nature shows this to be not only dangerous but extremely naive and foolish.
The entire developed world has already over speculated, lost ALL of its financial reserves, and is afraid to further sully the pure innocent planet by using their own natural resources. China has already won this Monopoly game and is packing up the board.. anyone notice yet or are we off on our bikes to the farmers market to pick up some fresh organic arugula on our credit card? (Or to WalMart in our Dodge Ram to pick up a boatload of Chinese plastic underbed Christmas wrap organizers using our government unemployment check, depending on our social/political affiliations)
China is a masculine culture with an excess of males, (think high IQ prison gangs) not to mention some 10,000 annual engineering graduates who are unemployed. China has more children involved in just the serious study of MUSIC than America has children! India also has an excess of males, innovative dudes who can make anything they want out of discarded broken lawn mowers from the US. Masculine cultures/governments are much less likely to fall for old wives tales and fuzzy stories about sad little polar bears. They will have to control millions of unemployable/unmarriageable young men by having them in the armed forces or prisons. They have plenty of money now to do whatever serves their interests. Islamic cultures are also masculine in outlook and policy.
Remember, “old” Europe isn’t having children. I recall reading somewhere that the US college guys only developed “green interests” because that’s what the chicks were into. Western males are basically spilling their seed [squandering their power] through video games and porn.
There is nothing left to “invest” (substitute borrow from China) that isn’t needed desperately, here and now. When before in history have we all witnessed in real time the repeated destruction of entire cities, even nations, by the forces of nature? Haven’t we learned anything about the crushing power of natural forces and the necessity of putting something away for emergencies that we know we absolutely cannot control? We have to borrow from China for our grandiose foreign aid gestures to Haiti.
America is now like a whole nation of unemployed, indebted, twenty something college grads who live with Mom and Dad (China) use their parents’ credit card for micro brews and stay up all night playing video games, while lecturing Mom and Dad about their mean rules and their incandescent light bulbs. Meanwhile Mom and Dad are both working full time trying to figure out when to throw out the kids and who’s going to care for Grandma and Grandpa, since they didn’t have any daughters or marriageable sons.
The entire undeveloped world is now enraged, not about AGW but CLIMATE CHANGE, expecting massive financial compensation forever for any and all changes in the weather. You think they won’t exaggerate or falsify in order to stay on the dole? Nigerian corruption manages to skim the equivalent of all world aid to Africa every year! I think that in itself was the biggest eye opener at Copenhagen, enough, perhaps, to make everyone think again and slowly back away from the multi-headed monster they have created.
The real horror in life is not the ever changing climate. It is not tsunamis, hurricanes nor earthquakes.
The human horror is Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Idi Amin, Hitler, the French Revolution, the Red Guards, the US Civil War, Rwanda, Ukraine, WWI, WWII…… Watch some of the Okinawa footage on the History Channel. Just a little.
Blindly inviting, allowing, accepting the massive unbalancing of world power, as we have irrevocably already done, is our crime against HUMAN nature. I think the Western nations originally hoped we could control China and India through the UN, human rights pressure, environmentalism, peer pressure. Think again.
Selling our birthright for a bowl of soup comes to mind. The Grasshopper and the Ants. Aesop’s dog dropping the bone in the water …. Foxy Loxy and the true fate of Chicken Little….