At the ICCC4 conference yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Richard Lindzen give his keynote address at the luncheon. As always, he made some very salient points.
I took this photo from my Blackberry and just moments later emailed Dr. Lindzen to ask for a copy of the presentation while he was still speaking. He graciously provided it. and you’ll find the link to it below.
Lindzen_Heartland_2010 (PDF)
Live web streaming coverage at Pajamas Media here for today’s speeches.
FYI – Today 18th May – The BBC Radio 4 Today programme had an item on the conference (sometime in the last 20 mins if you want to seek it out on the listen again). Came over to me as very biased e.g. implying that everyone on the sceptical side of the fence were old right-wingers and Bob Carter was there to sell his book. That said Bob gave a very reasonable interview albeit a short one. Time was, being a Brit, I was rather proud of the BBC and its impartiality; now long gone sadly.
One deeply rational and convincing voice that is unfortunately being drowned by the constant barrage of thousands of “screaming mimis”.
We need more people like the good Doctor, and the known truths must be expressed in short-and-to-the-point layman’s terms so that everyone can understand them. The “kicking dirt” analogy is a great start.
Thanks so much Anthony for making this available.
Jose
Am I the only one having trouble with the link to the live videos?
I only get a 40 second plug and nothing else?
Opening night worked OK though. Both live and a replay overnight.
Thanks
JK
It’s the sensitivity, stupid.
===============
No doubt the sneering and ad hominems will start raining down. Thank goodness for honest scientists holding the line against the dark forces of climate alarmism.
At least Dr. Lindzen is not afraid to call a spade a spade, unlike McIntyre. Maybe we can invent new excuses for why we are winning the debate.
Unfortunately, it is easy to be marginalized when you are on the margin.
Fortunately, logic, reason and the facts are a persuasive argument.
Hysteria and blinkered, agendized groupthink will run its course and gradually, finally the sense of the situation will become evident to enough individuals that a real tipping point will be achieved.
Very clear and precise. I particularly like the graph demonstrating the ‘catastrophic warming’ compared to a single month’s variation in temperature. I also like the scatter graph of temps and the resulting average line that looks most unalarming until you ramp up the scale by an order of magnitude. At that scale, the scatter graph would cover the entire graph and a lot more!
Normalised GMF – z (inverted) appears to be a good proxy for the recorded Arctic Temperature Anomaly (1850-2010).
The GMF-z data (1600-2010) are used as a proxy (initial results, work in progress), since there is no temperature record prior1850.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC3.htm
For more details on the GMF-z and Arctic temperature anomaly see:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
I seem to be having problems with the presentation. Many of the pages are blank when I open it. Is there another link for it somewhere? (Thanks in advance)
BTW:
Science Subpoenaed
Comment May 13, 2010
S. Fred Singer
Nature.com
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2787
The link to the BBC radio 4 show this morning.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8689000/8689038.stm
The libertarian Heartland Institute in Chicago is holding what it describes as the world’s biggest conference of climate change sceptics.
Environment analyst Roger Harrabin examines whether scepticism about climate change is becoming more widespread among experts.
Nowhere in the piece do I hear Harrabin examining anything.
Goodbye impartial BBC, hello spin.
Where do we go from here?
Given that this has become a quasi-religious issue, it is hard to tell. However, my personal hope is that we will return to normative science, and try to understand how the climate actually behaves
A Maunder like solar minimum will do the “trick”, Dr.Lindzen. No one can stop it, no matter how “convenient” SSN counts may be. (as recently exaggerated counts).
The idea that atmospheric water is acting as a “positive feedback” to possible warming effects of atmospheric CO2 puts a very small cart in front of a large horse. Space and and time variations of the rates of evaporation, condensation, freezing, and thawing are the horse that is pulling the weather and climate cart in which CO2 rides. These processes affect both the earths absorbtion of the sun’s energy and the energy radiated to space. CO2 does not have a measurable effect on these process rates. http://www.kidswincom.net/CO2OLR.pdf
If we hear major cries from the bed wetters, I suggest referring them to the written text and have them show their arguments to the written report in writing. The only complaint I hear is based on all warming is from CO2 and since CO2 is changing, all other variables remain constant.
Thanks for reminding us evacuation of ice from the arctic is based on wind moving icebergs.
Replay the conference <a href="http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/ClimateConference4" title="videos" , archived here.
kim says:
On this, I think we should all be able to agree…Which makes one wonder why so many “skeptics” spend lots of time arguing such silly things as the greenhouse effect violating the 2nd Law, the rise in atmospheric CO2 not being due to burning of fossil fuels, the radiative effect of CO2 being saturated, and so on. All such arguments do is reduce their credibility.
Dicks address; the file is damaged and could not be repaired. (windows xp)
REPLY: Try saving as a new file name. You had a bad download- A
Here is Lindzen’s dirt-kicking analogy:
“However, with global warming the line of argument is even sillier. It generally amounts to something like if A kicked up some dirt, leaving an indentation in the ground into which a rock fell and B tripped on this rock and bumped into C who was carrying a carton of eggs which fell and broke, then if some broken eggs were found it showed that A had kicked up some dirt. These days we go even further, and decide that the best way to prevent broken eggs is to ban dirt kicking.”
Living on a farm with chickens housed at the end of a dirt road, I would agree that banning dirt-kicking on this road is a good idea to keep the track smooth to avoid mishaps. Having said that, when one actually examines the empirical evidence, one finds that the dirt road is very uneven and rocky anyhow.
I doubt that A’s dirt kicking would change things at all. It may even change it for the better. Banning A’s activity (or taxing him every time he did it) is premature. We would be better to mitigate the effects of the uneven track – good shoes, alert egg-carriers.
Secondly, in the empirical evidence we find no events in the 12-year historical record (my memory) of such a catastrophe as B crashing into C and eggs being broken. It is purely alarmism to suggest that if this happens then that happens then something catastrophic might happen. However, one reads examples of just this sort of alarmism in the MSM every day.
We need funding to explore the dirt-egg relationship in more detail. Field studies, interviewing of chickens, sensor placement (to detect the actual breakage), and movement-triggered cameras will be utilised. Meanwhile we will tax the crap out of A, B and C. It makes sense to do so as a precautionary measure.
Call me a skeptic.
Thanks for posting this. I am an avid admirer of Professor Lindzen. His points here bear the hallmarks of truth, in that they are both seamlessly simple and eminently logical. He routinely passes the Occam’s razor test.
Cheers!
Unfortunately, Galileo was prosecuted for heresy for his notions of science. The underlying works (his and that of Copernicus) were to remain on the index prohibitorum until 1835, nevermind that he was largely correct.
The question now becomes; has the church of AGW (or the larger church of human secularism in general) more or less influential than the Catholic church of the late middle ages.
They’ll not go quietly, and they have powerful friends.
Those who seek the truth against those who wield power, same as it ever was.
are the conference videos on archive.
REPLY: They will be later -A
We’ve often heard about the great volumes of Grant money for those who stick to the warming narrative…. and I see a quote from Lindzen about how Kerry Emanuel received sudden recognition when he began to do just that.
It would be very interesting if someone in this field provided specific examples of Grant requirements. I’ve read that some (all?) specify that a conclusion of unprecedented warming is necessary to receive funding.
Lindzen has a very clear head.
I’m glad he exists, and that he has the courage to speak out.
Worth to be commented: Snow storm over the driest desert on earth (Atacama):
You are all right and wrong. Dead right on the Science. Dead wrong on the politics. The Green movement is more popular than the truth. Unless the skeptical thinkers are willing to band together and take action, do something: march, protest, etc. in a way that makes us more ‘popular’ than the Green movement……the game is over. Power based on popularity which we call ‘politics’ which could be called ‘popularitics’ is where it’s at. We are being steam rolled by the sheer volume of stupidity out there.
Most peoples of the world at some time in their history have been steam rolled by the warped ideas of a few manifesting itself as a Zeigeist and against their own wishes, carried along by the tide of the time. WUWT is covering only a small fraction of the headlines appearing daily and without a dedicated staff will never be able to counter the volume of the onslaught. Let me think of a joke to explain what i mean……
What government funding do skeptics get? What government funding do the “catastrophic AGW fabulists” get? As is usually the case, follow the money. Prostitution is not limited within a sexual context alone.
From Dr. Lindzen’s concluding remarks:
“Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition.”
Hear, hear. I am not skeptical. I am in complete disagreement with the proposition.
Thank you Anthony and thank you Dr. Lindzen.
………….AL GORE !
Poptech,
There’s a difference between McIntyre and Lindzen. McIntyre is a guy narrowly but intently focused on particular questions he was drawn to. Lindzen has dedicated his life to the climate field and hence has a reputation that allows for broader assessments.
Off Topic: found it on the Drudge Report just now.
It’s a bit mean spirited but too good to pass up.
Dr. James Hansimian’s Hurricane Forecast
My gut feeling is that the AGW CO2 alarm and politic is a gift of a cod piece for the Think Tank’s recommended response to the reality of ‘peak oil’. What does Rand, etc. tell the Govts to do about Peak Oil? My guess is it’s indistinguishable from what Govt’s are prescribing as a response to invented CO2. They didn’t think they’d have the political capital to deal with peak oil for another 50-60 years. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. The development of a Nuke by Iran threaten’s Saudi’s fields…..the U.S.’s lifeblood. We should ween outselves off of the need for oil. This CO2 malarky will get us 1/2 way there, bogus as it is. Big thanks to Richard, staff @ WUWT. I’m going to forward the PDF to a top biologist acquaintance of mine and watch him launch of like a rocket in denial!
This is evidently a gathering of apostates. Faithful believers, their official “Church”, his most holy prophet Al Gore and their “mulahs” of the MSM, will excomulgate them to never publish sinful skeptic papers.
Off Topic: found it on the Drudge Report just now.
It’s a bit mean spirited but too good to pass up.
Dr. James Hansimian’s Hurricane Forecast
Submitted twice to fix the broken link. Editable comments would be nice.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editable-comments/
I hope Dr. Lindzen is not just preaching to the choir. He makes strong points about how we do and how we should do science.
Forgot the links above, about snow storm over the driest desert on the world (atacama):
http://www.terra.cl/actualidad/index.cfm?id_cat=2104&id_reg=1222334
http://www.chilevision.cl/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=263361&Itemid=81
Mike Jowsey says:
May 18, 2010 at 7:13 am
The best way to get through that dirt road is to adapt to its ever changing condition. Those that won’t adapt will break their eggs and starve to death. Unfortunately, the AGW promoters want to tax people in order to remove a few pebbles off that road and try to get rid of its imperfections. Removing a 50 pebbles out of a million won’t make the road smooth.
LarryOldtimer says:
May 18, 2010 at 8:36 am
… but intellectual prostitution is!
BBC news item? I have to say any mention is a breakthrough, regardless of tone. They can’t ignore it anymore.
As Oscar Wilde said ‘there is only one thing worse than being talked about behind your back, and that’s not being talked about behind your back!’
cheers David
Regarding Johnneythelowery’s comment as the AGW hypothesis is a way to address peak oil.
If getting us off of imported oil were the goal of the AGW folks, then the Kerry bill would not be full of all kind of cap and trade give-aways for the Goldman Sachs and Millenium Investment crowd.
The government would just put a 10-20% (and rising) tax on only IMPORTED oil or gas.
This would spur domestic production and discourage imports.
But NO, that is not the real goal.
It will be interesting to see what press coverage the conference gets in the US.
-Jay
Enneagram says:
And yet, the story of what is actually happening is not that there are brilliant “skeptic” papers that aren’t seeing the light of day in peer-reviewed journals but rather that there are deeply flawed “skeptic” papers that have been published even though they contained errors that, in many cases, should have been caught by a good referee.
Just curious, Anthony – did Prof. Lindzen mention the locale used in Slide 11? Boston? (A very good graphic, indeed!) Thx.
But who will stop the EPA for whom bureaucratic bumbling is a way of life? They now have the power, the desire and their base of “green” idiots that can litigate stupidity into action. Just look at the wolves in Yellowstone. With the help of left wing federal judges there are way too many even by the standards that were set when they were “introduced” into that eco-system but the law suits fly while the elk are down to one third of their previous numbers and at this below where the numbers should be even given they were too high at their peak.
With the power of CO2 as a pollutant, the EPA and their sycophants can destroy our economy and turn us into a third world crap hole just like those some of our political leaders seem to admire.
The question that Pat Michaels asked him was right on-when he spoke of “normative science” I get the impression, from context, that he means “normal” in the idealistic Popperian sense, not the “normal science” of Kuhn. AGW definitely behaves like Kuhn’s “normal science” at times, although it is also going beyond that in many ways to be “post normal” to. And models are basically Popperian pseudo-science, explaining everything.
Layne Blanchard wrote:
“We’ve often heard about the great volumes of Grant money for those who stick to the warming narrative…. and I see a quote from Lindzen about how Kerry Emanuel received sudden recognition when he began to do just that. ”
I bet you believe Lindzen, eh?
In fact, Emanuel, a well-respect hurricane expert for 30 years, received recognition entirely by coincidence – when his paper on the effect of warming of sea temperatures on hurricane strength happened top come out just a month prior to Hurricane Katrina.
Two years later when he wrote an article in Boston Review on anthropogenic global warming, there was nary a whimper of protest.
“Phaeton’s Reins:The human hand in climate change”
See: http://e-courses.cerritos.edu/tstolze/Kerry%20Emanuel_%20Phaeton%27s%20Reins.pdf
Now, no one knows this better than Lindzen – and Lindzen knows full well he has misrepresented Emanuel and egregiously so. Which begs the question how people so easily fall for nonsense like Lindzen is feeding them, when, like Al Gore, they believe fervently that climate science is “all politics, all the time.”
“”” Joel Shore says:
May 18, 2010 at 6:49 am
kim says:
It’s the sensitivity, stupid.
On this, I think we should all be able to agree…Which makes one wonder why so many “skeptics” spend lots of time arguing such silly things as the greenhouse effect violating the 2nd Law, the rise in atmospheric CO2 not being due to burning of fossil fuels, the radiative effect of CO2 being saturated, and so on. All such arguments do is reduce their credibility. “””
Well maybe Joel, we can’t even agree on kim’s statement.
The one thing I have heard/read was Professor Lindzen’s Statement; which apologetically I must paraphrase here since I have already forgotten his exact words; but you can read them yourselves in his Powerpoint; and whatever it was he said, I agree with:- “THE SCIENCE IS WRONG.”
I’ve been saying that for quite a few years now; and nothing has happened to change that belief.
Now the legal disclaimer; do I believe that everything that is being done by thousands of climatologers is wrong ? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
I’m generally quite happy with the vast majority of the data that is being gathered by scientists all over the world; even barefootgirl catching some rays on her Hawaii beach; while her computer downloads satellite data (just kidding bfg). I think much of it is a waste of money though.
I’m less happy with what some of these people write in the Conclusions part of their papers.
As to kim’s statement; well in my view the very conception of “CLIMATE SENSITIVITY” is wrong. I’ve seen NO data, and know of NO Physics that would make the mean surface temperature of the earth, or any planet, vary as the logarithm of the atmospheric abundance of CO2.
Yet again Professor Lindzen says (or is it; says the IPCC says ?) that “climate sensitivity” is 1.5 to 5.0 deg. It bothers me greatly that Richard uses K (Kelvins on his Temperature anomaly and or climate sensitivity scales. The Kelvin scale is an absolute Temperature scale and 1 Kelvin is a specific and very cold absolute Temperature. Please stop using Kelvins as units of anomalies. But I digress; if the IPCC says that CS is 1.5 to 5.0 degrees C, then clearly the data is nowhere near precise enough to assert that the mean global surface Temperature falls on a logarithmic plot of the atmospheric CO2. With a 3:1 error factor you can match the mean global surface Temperature of the earth to some portion of the function:- y = exp (-1/x^2) simply by scaling the units of x and y appropriately.
If you aren’t familiar with that function; then your education has been sadly neglected. In that case match the Temperature and CO2 to the function y = m.x + c That will work just as well.
The whole notion that doubling the atmospheric abundance of the CO2 molecule raises the earth surface temperature by some fixed amount (maybe a fundamental physical constant) ; as a direct consequence of those CO2 molecules trapping certain wavelengths of the thermal radiation emitted from the earth surface, is just plain silly.
The emittance and the spectrum of the thermal radiation emitted from the earth surface, and addressed by the CO2 absorption bands, is itself a strong function of the very Temperature of that surface; and could (in principle) vary by more than an order of magnitide as you move from place to place on the earth, from the coldest spots to the hottest (surface Temp) spots; all at the very same moment.
Then there is the time factor; if CO2 increase CAUSES mean global surface Temperature to increase; there is a propagation delay (time lag) between CO2 increase and Temperature increase; and vice versa when CO2 goes down (which it does every year). Now Al Gore of course says that the propagation delay is negative, and the CO2 increase CAUSES the Temperature to increase BEFORE the CO2 rise; that’s exactly the way it is plotted in his book “An Inconvenient Truth.” on p66-67 if you want to look.
Now even Professor Lindzen included NO PROPAGATION DELAY in his model of his feedback circuit. At this point all the analog circuit designers or process control engineers are doing the ROTFLMAO thing.
Well maybe in climatology the time factor simply doesn’t matter. I should be able to plot the log of the atmospheric CO2 abundance since 1958 agaisnt the mean global surface Temperature that prevailed 800 years ago during the Mediaeval warming period, and get a straight line graph. Evidently I could use the Temperatures since 1958 instead; and still get a straight line graph.
Hey either the time relationship matters, or it doesn’t; and maybe all you climatologers; who believe in “climate sensitivity” should state what you believe in that regard; well do it in a peer reviewed paper of course; not on a blog like this; where people can say anything they feel like. And if you think it matters; then how about stating what the time lag is in your papers that purport to show evidence for logarithmic climate sensitivity.
But Joel; to your comments about greenhouse effect/ second law/ CO2 saturation/ human CO2 origin. Generally, I am in agreement with you. We know; ad infinitum, that real greenhouses do not work that way; but we do understand what we mean when we use the term “greenhouse effect” in climate related instances; a no brainer. And we don’t have much of a dispute about the fact that molecules like H2O, CO2, O3, and CH4 do absorb LWIR emitted from anything around them, including the land, sea, and air; another no brainer. There should be no confusion about the second law; Clausius makes it clear that it applies to cyclic machines. Nothing in it, allows EM radiation from the earth at a mean temperature of perhaps 288 K to fall on and be accepted by the dark surface of the moon; which may be way below288 K; yet somehow have the very same 0.5 degree full angle cone of radiation to be refused entry by the 6000 K surface of the sun.
I’m a little gray on accepting that ALL of the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to manmade burning of fossil fuels. Apparently CO2 atmospheric mixing is not all that it is cracked up to be; otherwise why would it matter that the ML observatory is at 4000 metres up an active volcano in Hawaii; and needs “corrections” for volcanic CO2 emissions. North polar CO2 abundance goes through an 18 ppm p-p cycle every year; but the south polar CO2 hardly cracks 1 ppm, while ML is at 6 ppm p-p. Some uniformity isn’t it ? So let’s admit it CO2 is not uniformly mixed everywhere on earth; and why would it be; when there are various and sundry processes emitting it constantly or absorbing it; and it takes time to get from place to place.
So that simple observation causes me to be highly suspicious of the declarations of origin based on isotopic analyses.
However for me it is NOT a big issue; because basically, I don’t believe that CO2 has much effect at all, when it comes to regulating the mean global surface Tempertaure of the earth; so I am personally, quite unconcerned about the origins of any particular CO2 molecule; it’s irrelevent.
But it is refreshing to see in print; that Professor Lindzen says the science is wrong; of course it’s wrong;
“IT’S THE WATER !”
Lindzen is absolutely right with saying that one should not call himself a sceptic, for the reasons mentioned. So true.
From now on I will call myself a NCC-theorist (natural climate change).
I think the clear message from Prof. Lindzen’s slides is that the absolutely key issue for politicians is to require scientists to come to a concensus on what the feedback truth is, since this is the one thing which determines runaway warming or little/no warming at all.
To me, the simplest way to explain ice ages and interglacials is if, for some reason, that feedback coefficient went from a minus range to a plus range, prior to returning to a minus range at a new homeostatic temperature………
Does any research address this and, if not, is it simply because there are no tools to allow scientists to do so??
Thanks Dr Lindzen, I have copied the presentation and will forward a copy to anyone with whom I have a discussion about AGW in the next few weeks. It is an excellent calm rejoinder to the alarmists.
Hooray for the Heartland Institute! At least the Koch brothers know the value of truth.
I wonder though, why his temperature plots leave off the last 20 years of data?
Also, why did he not expand upon this? “The claims that the earth has been warming, and that man’s activities have contributed to warming, are trivially true”
Also, I don’t understand how he says “If one assumes all warming over the past century is due to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, then the derived sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of CO2 is less than 1C.” – we are well below a doubling, less than half way there, so we should have seen less than 0.5C warming vs his claim of 0.7C to date.
Calm, reasonable, authoritative and scientifically sound. Prof. Lindzen convinced me years ago and I am flabbergasted, jaw-droppingly amazed that he has been ignored by the politicians and the MSM. Is Monckton correct with his world government theories?
The bias of the BBC was explained by Richard North at Euroreferendum when he exposed the heavy investment of their pension funds in carbon trading. I bitterly resent the compulsory licence fee one is forced to pay for endless repeats and mindless competitions. Lord Reith must turn endlessly in his grave.
The head of the UN’s climate change panel has defended the use of unproven science to justify climate change by saying the “grey literature” cannot be ignored.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/7725266/Climate-body-chief-defends-use-of-grey-literature.html
Taking up a collection to buy McIntyre a spine, and if we can afford it, a set of cajones. C’mon Steve, you cannot show how manipulative they are and then not be able to look them in the eye. Figuratively speaking. How many times do they have to be caught making “mistakes” that are always in the direction of their agenda. If the mistakes occasioanlly fell to the other side, I can see how you might be uncertain. This is not the case. You do not have to come out and say it, but at least look them in the eye and let them know that you know what they are up to.
Roy UK,
Have you ever heard anything by Harrabin that questions the environmentalist position?
Years ago he did a R4 programme on depleted uranium. I contacted him with a detailed critique, for which he thanked me and said he would respond. After a while I contacted him again. He said my letter was on his desk as he wrote. That was the last I heard. Of course, no response was ever forthcoming.
A few years back the BBC decided that the debate about AGW was over. Its reporting of the issue cannot now be taken seriously.
Perhaps you ought to re-evaluate your assumptions about its former impartiality. I think it’s much more likely that they were equally far from the truth in the past, but now thanks to the wonders of the Internet we can see the distortions clearly.
CLIMATEGATE
THE LEBENSRAUM FALLACY
The Lebensraum doctrine of Green activists rests on three tenets they accept with an act of faith:
· We are running out of space. World population is already excessive on a limited planet and grows exponentially.
· We are running out of means. The planet’s non-renewable resources are being depleted by consumption at a rate that renders economic expansion unsustainable.
· We shall fry. Carbon dioxide emitted by human economic activity causes global warming that shall make the planet uninhabitable.
When such tenets are quantified, the contrast between true and false stands out sharply.
Is overpopulation a grave problem? The sum of urban areas of the United States is equivalent to 2% of the area of the country, and to 6% in densely inhabited countries such as England and Holland. And there is plenty of green in urban areas. If comparison is limited to land covered by buildings and pavements the occupied land in the whole world amounts to 0,04% of the terrestrial area of the planet. With 99.96% unoccupied the idea of an overcrowded planet is an exaggeration. Population forecasts are uncertain but the most accepted ones foresee stability of world population to be reached in the 21st century. According to some, world population may begin to decline at the end of this century. With so much elbowroom it is untenable that world population is excessive or shall ever become so.
Strictly speaking, no natural resource is non-renewable in a universe ruled by the Law of Conservation of Mass. In popular form it holds that “Nothing is created, nothing is lost, all is transformed.” Human usage is not subtracted from the mass of the planet, and in theory all material used may be recycled. The possibility of doing so depends on availability and low cost of energy. When fusion energy becomes operative it will be available in practically unlimited quantities. The source is deuterium, a hydrogen isotope found in water, in a proportion of 0.03%. One cubic kilometer of seawater contains more energy than can be obtained from combustion of all known petroleum reserves of the world. Since oceans hold 3 billion cubic kilometers of water, energy will last longer than the human species.
There is no growing shortfall of resources signaled by rising prices. Since the middle of the 19th century The Economist publishes consistent indices of values of commodities and they have all declined, over the period, due to technological advances. The decline has been benign. The cost of feeding a human being was 8 times greater in 1850 than it is today. In 1950, less than half of a world population of 2 billion had an adequate diet, above 2000 calories per day. Today, 80% have the diet, and world population is three times greater.
There is a problem with the alleged global warming. It stopped in 1995, after having risen in the 20 previous years, and unleashing a scare over its effects. Since 1998 it has been followed by 12 years of declining temperatures, in a portent of a cold 21st century. This shows that there are natural forces shaping climate, more powerful than manmade carbon dioxide and anything mankind can do for or against world climate. The natural forces include cyclical oscillation of ocean temperatures, sunspot activity and the effect of magnetic activity of the sun on cosmic rays. All such cycles are foreseeable, but there is no general theory of climate with predictive capacity. What knowledge exists comes from one hundred fields, such as meteorology, oceanography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, paleontology, biology, etc. with partial contributions to the understanding of climate.
Devoid of support of solid theory and empirical data, the mathematical models that underpin alarmist forecasts amount to speculative thought that reflects the assumptions fed into the models. Such computer simulations offer no rational basis for public policy that inhibits economic activity “to save the planet”. And carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is the nutrient needed for photosynthesis that supports the food chain of all living beings of the planet.
Stories of doom circulate daily. Anything that happens on earth has been blamed on global warming: an Australian dust storm, a Himalayan earthquake, a volcanic eruption, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, tribal wars in Africa, heat wave in Paris, recent severe winters in North America, the hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, known for five centuries, the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota. Evo Morales blames Americans for the summer floods in Bolivia. Hugo Chavez received a standing ovation in Copenhagen when he blamed global warming on capitalism. He has the support of the Castro brothers,, Mungabe and all such dictators, With friends like these does the cause need enemies?
Global warming is not a physical phenomenon; it is a political and journalistic phenomenon that finds parallel in the totalitarian doctrines that inebriated masses deceived by demagogues. As Chris Patten put it: “Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off”. In the view of Professor Aaron Wildavsky global warming is the mother of all environmental scares. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” Their dream is the hippies’ lifestyle of idleness, penury, long hair, unshaven face, blue jeans, sandals and vegetarian diet, imposed on the world by decree of Big Brother, and justified by the Lebensraum fallacy.
Bad media turnout?
Bad media coverage?
If you had the big people come out, algore, Pelosi, Obama etc. the turnout would have been better.
Copenhagen set the standard.
Ladies of the night
Booze
Big parties
Expensive suites
Looooong limos
Based on the party, even the heavy snow can’t keep the players at home.
HankHenry,
I understand behaving professionally and respecting fellow scientists but Mann and the team have personally ridiculed McIntyre repeatedly, they have never offered him any respect and here we have a clear case of fraud with confirmed intent thanks to the climategate emails and McIntyre sounds like their biggest apologist. Enough is enough.
I also was taken back by his refusal to question government authority. Maybe he has spent too much time in the socialized state of Canada.
To those people who believe Stephen McIntyre should have said more, I say he has already done most of the hard work. He doesn’t need to draw more criticism from the AGW establishment. Why would he want an expensive lawsuit to fight against government organisations with deep pockets full of taxpayers money.
It’s now up to us, the public, to pick up on the issues and convince all of our elected officials that they need to question the AGW science.
@Bob Kutz (May 18, 2010 at 7:48 am),
For the record:
Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1616 as a result of Galileo’s advocacy of heliocentrism. However, it was not proscribed; it was listed as “needing corrections.” It was taken off the Index in 1758.
Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1633, immediately after the (in)famous “trial of Galileo”. (It was taken off the Index in 1824, if I remember correctly.) Today, that book would not be called a work of science, but rather an exercise in hypothesis mongering. Moreover, it made fun of the Church (which had been Galileo’s staunch promoter) and the Pope. The trial was arguably more about “getting even” and lèse-majesté based on what was then an unproven hypothesis than it was about science. That may explain why Galileo remained on the Index more than 60 years after Copernicus was taken off. Galileo produced most of what is today remembered as his scientific work after his condemnation (and he did so, again, with the support of the Church, whose nominal prisoner he was).
By 1632, the Church had lost a sizable part of Europe to protestantism. It had no means to enforce the Index, either directly or indirectly via the intervention of a handful of remaining Catholic rulers. In contrast, the present “AGW orthodoxy” is political dogma for most governments and public mass media.
Joel Shore says:
May 18, 2010 at 6:49 am
“Which makes one wonder why so many “skeptics” spend lots of time arguing such silly things as … the rise in atmospheric CO2 not being due to burning of fossil fuels,… and so on. All such arguments do is reduce their credibility.”
You’re probably right, because intricate concepts cannot be grasped by lay people, and even experts in other fields, who have not spent a lifetime of study in these specific milieux. But, the word “credibility” is derived from Latin crēdibilis, to believe. And, belief is a matter of faith, not of science.
The AGW faith has a simple message:
A) We release CO2 through combustion, which we have been doing on a major scale in the last century
Nobody on the planet is unaware of this, even if they understand nothing else, and they are easily persuaded that bad things must come of it. The remaining planks are almost unnecessary.
B) The measured CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is increasing, hence post hoc ergo propter hoc it is our fault
C) CO2 traps significant heat on the planet because the “experts” say it does
Hence, we are on the verge of worldwide catastrophe, and can only be saved by repenting our sins of recent and relative prosperity, and flailing ourselves in abject penance, renouncing our worldly goods and comforts, and donating our wealth and surrendering our freedoms to the priesthood which has interceded with wroth Holy Nature on our behalf. It is very difficult to counter that kind of medieval, superstition laden message with rationality and facts which only a very few people have the background and acumen to comprehend.
Dr T G Watkins says:
May 18, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Is Monckton correct with his world government theories?
———–
This global ‘crisis’ demands a global solution with global governance, doesn’t it?
Given that this ‘crisis’ is a well orchestrated invention with a UN front, that does seem to be the most logical explanation.
I’m shocked: I read that Lindzen said that cancer and cigarettes are weakly linked. Is that true? Is it true that he’s changed his arguments against global warming several times as they have been been proved false? Did he really only agree to bet on his predictions if offered 50-1 odds? Can someone please de-bunk this website for me?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen
Joel Shore says;
“On this, I think we should all be able to agree…Which makes one wonder why so many “skeptics” spend lots of time arguing such silly things as the greenhouse effect violating the 2nd Law, the rise in atmospheric CO2 not being due to burning of fossil fuels, the radiative effect of CO2 being saturated, and so on. All such arguments do is reduce their credibility.”
Sure, silly just like the AGW your faith demands.
Social Antisocialist said:
Sure. First, it starts out with the Wikipedia template, attempting to obtain authority through a false front.
Next, it conflates travel expenses with “funding,” which has a specific meaning. They are not the same. Funding is provided in the form of of grants, which pay salaries. Grants are normally given to study a specific question. Had Prof Lindzen received grants from oil companies, it would certainly have been reported.
But they only report – with no verifiable documentation provided, but only uncorroborated second hand comments – that some twenty years ago Lindzen had received consulting and expert witness fees. Expert witness fees are normally paid during a legal action, which energy companies are always embroiled in, and Lindzen certainly qualifies as an expert witness.
It is also not mentioned in the article that paying academics to be expert witnesses is a a very common practice. Likewise with consulting services. And the only specific date mentioned is 1991; the article admits that since Dr Lindzen was paid to be an expert witness, he “has taken none of their money since.”
Nothing in the article mentions the fact that Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Caspar Amman and numerous other climate alarmist scientists are receiving ongoing funding from outside entities such as the Joyce Foundation, several Soros foundations, the Heinz Foundation, the Grantham Foundation, the WWF, etc.
These outside entities all have one thing in common: they are pushing a CAGW agenda. But as the writer admits, Dr Lindzen does not take outside funding. He has received expert witness and consulting fees. Would anyone refuse compensation if they were subpoenaed to testify? The article further acknowledges, as reported by Newsweek, that Prof Lindzen “receives no funding from any energy companies.”
The comments under the heading “Lindzen’s Discarded Global Warming Arguments” is a case study in spin. It devolves into the writer arguing the state of the science, rather than simply reporting it. It is propaganda couched as a report, and it evades confronting the problem that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Further, it assumes that Prof Lindzen has never commented on his hypothesis, and then it presumes that must be taken as an admission that Lindzen’s hypothesis is incorrect. However, they did not ask Prof Lindzen for his response. Rather, this is a hit piece portrayed as a report.
Finally, the comment on the wager gives neither adequate background nor does it remain on topic, instead slyly changing its reporting to a wager between James Annan and two Russians. And it winds up with a quote by a Newsweek reporter that is in the realm of personal opinion, not factual reporting.
To summarize, that link is simply slick propaganda. The tobacco quote is so vague that it could mean a lot of things. And again, it is clear that Prof Lindzen was never asked to vet or clarify what was written about him, or what he meant by his purported comment, or even if he made the comment, which is only the unverifiable opinion of a hostile reporter. Since Lindzen was not asked to clarify what he meant, or even if the quote was accurate, it is disingenuous to cherry-pick a putative quote on the inflammatory subject of tobacco.
This is simply a Media Matters-style hit piece, camouflaged to look unbiased and factual. But it is filled with half truths, and as we know, a half truth is a whole lie.
Smokey vs. Smokey.
In this thread, he says:
In another thread ( http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/16/kerry-emanuel-and-richard-lindzen-the-climatic-odd-couple/#comment-391452 ) he says:
So, let’s see, when someone makes a statement about what Lindzen said or did, then it is simply a “unverifiable opinion” and one must make sure that Lindzen has been given a chance to fully explain what he meant. However, if someone makes a statement about Emanuel, then one must assume that Emanuel is guilty because he hasn’t yet rebutted this statement (which only appeared in print a few days ago).
The double-standard would be amusing if it wasn’t so pathetic.
Thank you for posting the .pdf file of Dr Lindzen’s presentation. I know Dr Lindzen is a widely respected ‘heavyweight’ in this area, so I began to read the presentation with interest. However, the line of argument he was following quickly became troubling to me.
Specifically, the slide following the cover slide mainly comprises two statements which Dr Lindzen characterises as “facts” and claims they are “completely agreed on by the IPCC”. The latter of these states that the forcings from aerosols and solar variability used in all the climate models are “arbitrary”. This characterisation of arbitrariness is then picked up on in the following slide as a reason to discredit the models.
I will admit that I am struggling to hold back from the suspicion that the widely respected Dr Lindzen might potentially be misrepresenting the position of the IPCC in order to falsely reinforce the point he is trying to make to begin his talk. So, just to put my mind at ease, may I ask that somebody reading this could please provide a link to a statement from the IPCC that ‘completely agrees’ those model values for the forcings are “arbitrary”? Thank you.
Thanks Smokey!
Can someone please de-bunk this website for me?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen
Source Watch is a site hosted by the “Center for Media and Democracy” with
“Patricia Barden” identified as the registrant contact of record ( who.is ).
The “Center for Media and Democracy” is “progressive” organization.
From Wikipedia:
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit American-based media research group founded in 1993 by environmentalist writer and political activist John Stauber.
Progressive, liberal, environmentalist, bigger government? Maybe?
Joel Shore knows the two situations are different. One is a second-hand comment by a reporter, and the other is a statement by a close co-worker. As pointed out, Lindzen and Emanuel both work every day in the same building, with numerous mutual co-workers. It would be incredible that either one doesn’t know what the other says about him in print. See? Apple & oranges.
Anyway, I’m getting some real enjoyment out of Joel’s fixation on my posts. He’s like a mouse watching a cobra. Not too long ago Joel wrote here that if he could permanently ban me from commenting again, he would.
Don’t be such a hater, Joel. This isn’t the RealClimatte echo chamber, where everyone
thinksbelieves the same thing.And please quit putting your quotation marks around the word skeptic. It’s disingenuous. Without scientific skeptics, which most folks on this site are and you aren’t, there wouldn’t even be a scientific method. Then where would we be? We’d be taking it on faith alone that Al Gore is right.
Alarmists hate skeptics because skeptics keep debunking the repeatedly falsified conjecture that a tiny trace gas is the primary driver of the climate, and that it will lead to a thermogeddon catastrophe. Relax, it won’t.
Joel Shore, be careful with the double standards , as they can cut both ways. Andrew Weaver and Micheal Mann are suing because people have said disparaging remarks about them. The remarks made about them are NOTHING compared to what DePropagandaBlog (among others) has been saying about my father. Example: http://www.desmogblog.com/tim-ball-your-source-lies-slander-and-misleading-climate-science ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is but a small sample of the vilification of my father. Is this OK to you? Getting awful tired of your spinning.
Poptech,
I view McIntyre as a guy who realizes he’s not really a full participant in the debate since he’s not really (in the narrowest sense of the word) a climate academic , therefore he tries to be careful to stick those things he has focused himself on. Personally, when McIntyre turned off commentary on Cuccinnelli at his blog, I read it as McIntyre realizing that he had strayed too far and didn’t really know enough about the law and the prosecution of the law to be opining. I admire McIntyre for his dogged pursuit of this hockey stick and temperature issue. I am not going to fault him if he retreats from broader political discussion. Long term it should help keep the points he is making clean of distracting considerations.
I think somebody ought to send Dr Lindzen an updated temperature series. The data on slide nine are more than quarter a century old, conviently omitting the warmest years of the global temperature record.
Smokey says:
That makes no sense. I can’t even follow the logic. It is just a pathetic attempt to find some distinction. One might also note that Lindzen has had years to rebut the statements that he hasn’t, regarding both the bet with James Annan and his $2500 / day consulting gig (which was talked about in Harper’s in 1995). Emanuel has had a full three days to rebut what Lindzen is quoted as saying in that article.
You are right about the apples and the oranges; you’re just confused about which is which.
This is a gross distortion of what I said, but why should I expect anything different from you?
The quotation marks are because calling oneself a “skeptic” doesn’t make one a skeptic. And, you are the furthest thing in the world from a “skeptic” in the normal sense of the word.
jakers says:
As I understand Lindzen’s logic, it is this:
(1) He adds up the total positive anthropogenic contribution due to ALL the greenhouse gas forcings, including methane.
(2) He ignores the negative anthropogenic contribution due to aerosols (and any natural forcings), usually with some belittling comment such as the comment “The higher sensitivity of existing models is made consistent with observed warming by invoking unknown additional negative forcings from aerosols and solar variability as arbitrary adjustments”.
(3) He ignores the possibility that there is any “heat in the pipeline”, i.e., he assumes that the transient climate sensitivity and the equilibrium climate sensitivity are the same thing.
(4) He compares the total positive anthropogenic radiative forcings to the radiative forcing that would be due to doubling of CO2 alone and thereby arrives at a claim that we are something like 70% of the way to a doubling.
I’m not saying you got to like it (I certainly don’t), but that is his train of thought, as I understand it.
Jay says:
May 18, 2010 at 10:13 am
Regarding Johnneythelowery’s comment as the AGW hypothesis is a way to address peak oil. If getting us off of imported oil were the goal of the AGW folks, then the Kerry bill would not be full of all kind of cap and trade give-aways for the Goldman Sachs and Millenium Investment crowd. The government would just put a 10-20% (and rising) tax on only IMPORTED oil or gas. This would spur domestic production and discourage imports. But NO, that is not the real goal. It will be interesting to see what press coverage the conference gets in the US.
-Jay
————————————————————————————-
Jay: The governments are buying this B/S. Are they buying the actual B/S or buying the power that comes with it? There has to be a plan of action, a contingency, outlined by think tanks and presented to the Highest Govt. level, about ‘peak oil’ and the same goes for plans to deal with scenarios such as if Saudi oil is detonated by Iran, Straight of Hormuz shut, Suez shut effectively bringing Peak Oil from the distant future to now. Saying ‘we’re going to invent something to replace oil’ is not a plan. The case for AGW CO2 was thoroughly debunked years ago. What i’m saying is: the CO2 response is very likely similar or the same as the ‘peak oil’ response. The NET effect is the same.
I’m not skeptical . I ‘know’ AGW is B/S.
Joel Shore says:
May 19, 2010 at 10:24 am
commenting on:
jakers says:
May 18, 2010 at 12:59 pm
“… we are well below a doubling, less than half way there, so we should have seen less than 0.5C warming vs his claim of 0.7C to date.”
You are assuming a linear relationship. It is logarithmic.
Bart says (commenting on jakers’ numbers):
That’s a fairly minor correction. At values of 280ppm pre-industrial and 390 ppm now, we are 39% above pre-industrial levels. This corresponds to being 48% to a doubling on a log-scale (calculation: [log(390/280)/log(2)]*100%).
“”” Bart says:
May 19, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Joel Shore says:
May 19, 2010 at 10:24 am
commenting on:
jakers says:
May 18, 2010 at 12:59 pm
“… we are well below a doubling, less than half way there, so we should have seen less than 0.5C warming vs his claim of 0.7C to date.”
You are assuming a linear relationship. It is logarithmic. “””
I’m assuming (dangerous thing) from all the above that Bart said this:-
“”” Bart says:
………..
You are assuming a linear relationship. It is logarithmic. “””
So we have Global mean surface Tmperature: T = T0 + cs.Log((CO2)/CO2)0) where if Log is base 2, then cs = “Climate Sensitivity” and T0 was the Temperature (mean global surface) when CO2 had the value (CO2)0.
I’d like to see either observed data; or real Physics theory that asserts that.
In my opinion the observations are a better fit to a function of the form: y = exp(-1/x^2) ; properly scaled of course.
All that need be done is to keep the link http://realzoldek.hu/dok/PeteriLaszlo/Klima/2006-10-29-MiskolcziFerenc-Klima-cikk-angol.pdf
to Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi’s paper “Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres” circulating (QJHMS, Vol III, No.1,January-March 2007, pp.1-40).
This is the truth, laws and constants showing that water vapor and CO2 are in equilibrium on Earth. No matter how much or little CO2 is put into the atmosphere, there is always balance. James Hansen, and the rest of the preachers in the church of agw take note. The truth is out and will no go away. Your days of lying out loud about agw are numbered. Dr. Miskolczi’s findings shall prevail. Pass the link along.
HankHenry,
I would have rather seen McIntyre not even engage in the legal debate at all and simply say he was not a legal scholar and no comment but he came out almost like a Mann apologist in his defense. I found that odd and certainly not helping his case or anyone else. It is not his reluctance to go after Mann as much as comments like this that bother me,
“…and even offered Mann my support.”
Mann has done everything he can to ridicule and smear McIntyre and here Steve is trying to play what comes off as the naive nice guy. All this does is give those supporting the team more Propaganda that there is nothing really wrong with Mann’s work.
I believe Steve could have achieved the ends he was seeking by simply stating that he does not have the background to comment on legal matters. That would be honest and he would not have to come off as in support of Mann.
George E Smith says:
The approximately-logarithmic dependence of radiative forcing on CO2 concentration for the regime that we are in comes from line-by-line radiative calculations. Basically, it is because we are in the regime where the dominant absorption line (around 15 microns) is already saturated in the middle but not in the wings. And, it is actually a little bit faster than a logarithm, but the logarithm is a reasonably good approximation. At low CO2 concentrations, the dependence is closer to linear…and then at considerably higher concentrations, weaker absorption bands come into play and the dependence is something approximating a square root.
#
#
Joel Shore says:
May 19, 2010 at 1:00 pm
“This corresponds to being 48% to a doubling on a log-scale (calculation: [log(390/280)/log(2)]*100%).”
True enough. But, Lindzen did not say there had been 0.7 degC warming over the last century. He said, and I quote: “This quantity is highly uncertain, but may be on the order of 0.7C over the past 150 years.”
Poptech,
It *is* surprising to me to see people jumping up to vouch for Mann. What use is it to Mann to be vouched for by people don’t know him except to have read his papers? McIntyre just would prefer to see Mann dissected by his scalpels rather than bludgeoned by the Attorney General’s club.
What is it with you AGW types? A few very reputable scientists start to openly challenge the AGW paradigm, and you get all flustered, seemingly, offended. What’s up with that? Help me understand. Are you afraid you might just be wrong about the whole pseudo-hypothesis of AGW? Are you afraid public opinion will start to force government & private funding away from AGW research? Or are you going to publicly take the high-ground, and just say your afraid for the future of humanity? Can any of you honestly say why the vitrolic response to folks like Lindzen, Ball and others? You AGW types seem a bit thin skinned to me. This all seems backwards. AGW skeptics are the clear minority I believe, and my personal experience is that AGW types are tend to be liberal! What’s up with that, too?