Why do scientists and news stories blame everything on global warming? Fortune and glory.
Guest post By Paul Driessen, Willie Soon, and David R. Legates
We’re often asked, What really causes all these alarms about global warming disasters?
As scientists and policy analysts who’ve studied our ever-changing climate for a combined 65 years and attribute the changes primarily to natural forces, we’ve wondered that ourselves and also asked: Why is warming always framed as bad news? Why does so much “research” claim a warmer planet “may” lead to more diarrhea, acne and childhood insomnia, more juvenile delinquency, war, violent crime and prostitution, death of the Loch Ness Monster – and even more Mongolian cows dying from cold weather?
We’re not making this up. In fact, this is just the tip of the proverbial melting iceberg of climate scare stories chronicled at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm.
Clearly, too much money is being spent on one-sided global warming advocacy cloaked as “research,” not enough on natural causes and adaptation. Despite the best of intentions, too much money can corrupt, or at least skew the science.
As they say, follow the money. Remember Indiana Jones’ immortal words: “Fortune and glory.”
Too many people in government, wealthy foundations and activist groups have decided they know what’s best for us, what kind of energy and economic future we should have, and who should be in charge. They intend to implement those policies – and global warming scare stories are key to achieving that objective. They’re pouring tens of billions of dollars into the effort.
A good example of how research money politicizes science is this May 4 headline: “Carbon dioxide effects on plants increase global warming.” The story enthusiastically reported the results of a science journal paper by Long Cao and Ken Caldeira from the Carnegie Institution. Carbon dioxide is not just making the atmosphere trap more heat, they say. It also enables plants to absorb CO2 more efficiently, so they don’t have to open stomata (pores) in their leaves as much, and they evaporate less water.
That should be good news, as it enables plants to survive better under dry conditions, even in desert areas where they couldn’t before. Any botanist or visitor to CO2science.org knows this. Indeed, hundreds of experiments show how growth, water efficiency and drought resistance of crop and wild plants are enhanced by higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. So more CO2 and better plant growth should be celebrated – not serve as another “climate crisis” to further the political goal of ending hydrocarbon use and controlling our factories, jobs, cars, lives and living standards.
But the Carnegie folks turned this good news into bad, ominously saying the reduced evapotranspiration means plants don’t cool down as much, and that supposedly raises global temperatures slightly.
Equally interesting, the researchers based their findings not on actual experiments, but on yet another computer model that allegedly predicts future temperatures. When they tweaked various assumptions about the physiological effects of CO2, global air temperature over land increased 0.7 degrees F (0.4 deg C) above what supposedly would occur just from doubled CO2 levels directly increasing the greenhouse effect. But just six months earlier, the same authors tweaked the same model differently – and got only 0.2F (0.1 deg C) of additional warming. The authors now say this earlier result is “unrealistic.”
However, what guarantee do we have that the new assumptions are “realistic”? Maybe they are but, face it, there’s far less “fortune and glory,” far less headline grabbing, in a mere 0.2 degrees. It’s also far less “realistic” to expect another research grant, if the first one could only come up with 0.2 degrees of crisis. That’s not even 9:00 versus 9:30 on an average summer morning.
Besides fortune and glory, and more research grants and publications in prestigious journals, there’s also the matter of reputation. Dr. Caldeira, besides being a reputable scientist, is also an advisor to billionaire Bill Gates on renewable energy, and in charge of the $4.5 million in geo-engineering research funding that the Gates Foundation has provided over the past 3 years.
How many climate scientists can rub elbows with Bill Gates? Glory indeed. So 0.7 degrees it is.
Of course, this does not mean more robust plant growth can never be harmful. But does it really take five researchers and six funding sources (including the National Environmental Trust, NSF, NASA and NOAA) to model ragweed under doubled CO2 computer scenarios and conclude, “there may be increases in exposure to allergenic pollen under the present scenarios of global warming”?
All this makes us wonder: Why is it a bad thing that more CO2 helps plants tolerate droughts better and revegetate deserts? Should we cut down more forests, to generate even more cooling than the planet has experienced since 2005? Why do “error corrections” always seem to result in more warming than originally predicted, instead of less? And why do taxpayers have to shell out Big Bucks on this stuff?
The United States alone has been spending some $7 billion a year on “climate change research.” That’s a lot of money. But a majority of Americans now say climate change is due to natural forces, not to human CO2 emissions. To alarmists that means more “research” and “education” on the “climate crisis” is clearly needed – but not more on better oversight of questionable research or studying natural causes.
During a March 2009 closed-door meeting, Department of Energy senior advisor Matthew Rogers outlined his “dilemma” over how to comply with his new mandate to quickly spend $36.7 billion in grants and loan guarantees from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka, the Stimulus Act) on renewable energy and climate change. Today, with only $300 million of our taxpayer money and children’s inheritance left to spend, poor Matt says his “popularity continues to decline.”
Nearly $2.4 million dollars of that Stimulus loot may be funding the latest research by Penn State University Professor Michael Mann, father of Mann-made global warming, the debunked hockey stick temperature graph and many infamous Climategate e-mails. In one new project where Mike is the principal instigator, over a half-million dollars in grant money generated only “0.53” jobs in Pennsylvania. We must have missed the headline “Stimulus Creates Millionaire.”
We’re not suggesting fraud or corruption by Caldeira or anyone else. But we do find it curious that the vast bulk of the money goes to research that consistently discovers more “global warming crises.” We find several other phenomena equally curious.
* In an era when ExxonMobil posts all its grants on its website, and we have the “most transparent government in history,” government agencies, liberal foundations and activist groups jealously guard information on who’s getting how much money from whom, to finance all this crisis-oriented research.
* Universities are fighting attorney-general investigations, and insisting that any investigations into alleged misconduct must be conducted in-house and behind closed doors. Yet they are happy to give Greenpeace fishing-expedition access to emails and work product by climate crisis skeptics.
* Despite insisting that their research and findings are completely honest and above-board, climate alarmists still refuse to share their data, computer codes and methodologies, or discuss and debate their tax-funded work with scientists who might “try and find something wrong with it.”
If we didn’t know better, we’d think the operative rules were: Never seek logical or alternative answers, if you can blame a phenomenon or problem (like decreasing frog populations) on global warming. Do whatever it takes and fund whatever research is needed, to advance the goals of ending hydrocarbon use, increasing government control and “transforming” society. And always include the terms “global warming” or “climate change” in any grant application.
It may not be corruption. But it sure skews the research, conclusions and policy recommendations.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org). Willie Soon is an independent scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. David Legates is a climatologist at the University of Delaware.
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It is a basic neccessity for governments, for themselves to survive, to predict crises which can be dealt with only by large government intervention. Without such predicted crises, there would be little perceived need for large and controlling government.
Anybody catch the hatchet job ABC did on climate change/climate gate yesterday before Lost? A whole segment on poor Michael Mann and others who feel physically threatened by rabid “denialists.” They reference the latest Inhoffe report, and summarize Climategate in one sentence- that further investigations had found no wrongdoing whatever (also made it a point to claim the emails were stolen, which is not a proven fact). These guys are shameless.
‘The United States alone has been spending some $7 billion a year on “climate change research.” That’s a lot of money. ‘
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Seems like it’s high time to elect representatives and senators and presidents and governators and ministers (the non-denominational irreligious type) who vow to cut budgets and do away with waste in state and federal spending. The two main parties are mirror copies of each other so that little item is worthless as a means of distinguishing the credibility of the candidates. Maybe we should institute a vow of poverty as a prerequisite for nomination.
PS: I think we up a creek without a paddle folks.
The Gaia hypothesis was first posited in the 1960s by James Lovelock. This load of complete and utter hog-wash struck a chord with a group of people who rapidly developed this piece of cargo cult science to the status of religion – the worship of mother earth.
Time for people to wake up to the fact that far from being a benefactor, our environment has always been trying to kill us and this has made us who we are!
Tenuc says:
May 24, 2010 at 11:54 am
“The Gaia hypothesis was first posited in the 1960s by James Lovelock…”
Yes, well, even Lovelock has stated that this AGW stuff is nonsense, so I hope the Gaia-followers that visit WUWT has noticed this…….hehe.
Even worse than knowing Warmanism is no more than astrology is realizing that the use of numerology by secular, socialist schoolteachers in the government-funded education dropout factories — to further the global warming hoax — represents the dumbing-down of all Western civilization.
evilincandescentbulb says:
May 24, 2010 at 1:40 pm
government-funded education dropout factories So it was designed by UN’ s UNESCO: A factory of “gammas” for the “Brave New World” owners. Salaries and wages have been too high in Europe and in the US, with the appropiate currencies debasement and convenient inflations they will reach competitive levels with China and India.
I live in the Oakland hills at 1000 feet elevation. When I go down the hill to get a quart of milk I experience a temperature rise of about two degrees. If I were to go to San Jose a couple dozen miles south I would also experience a similar warming. So I guess I should stay here on my hill so as to avoid acne.
Years ago after reading about all the diseases that warming was going to bring I reasoned that San Francisco would come to have the same malaria rate as Los Angeles in a warmer future. LA is about three or four degrees warmer than SF. So I looked it up. The malaria rate of SF was zero. The malaria rate of LA was also zero. Hmmm?
I am puzzled as to why the AGW protagonists don’t vigorously dispute the arguments in these posts. Do they think their cause is best served by ignoring all the objections raised to human-induced GW? Or are they unable to? How on earth have they gotten such a hold over our decision makers with science that is looking increasingly shonky? There are catastrophes in the making – the destruction of scientific credibility, and deep harm to the economy.
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Parorchestia asks: …why the AGW protagonists don’t vigorously dispute the arguments in these posts. Do they think their cause is best served by ignoring all the objections raised to human-induced GW?
Speaking from recent experience, warmists do not commonly appear in this forum (or other fora like it) because their concept of an environment hospitable to disputation is one in which articulate and informed critics of the anthropogenic global warming fraud are suppressed.
Not only is this not the case on Mr. Watts’ Web log, but because it is not the case (and because Mr. Watts seeks central contributory participation from individuals like the authors of this post, who are unarguably both scientifically literate and articulate), this Web site tends to draw readers who value such literacy and who bring to their comments that proper attitude of skepticism which is required to participate effectively in the give-and-go of valid discourse.
Mr. Watts does most certainly see that his forum is moderated. What he does not do is to obliterate opinions contrary to those he himself espouses. That cannot be said about the warmist fellahin and their sorry and specious simulacra of disputation on the Internet.
What reason could a supporter of the AGW fraud have for posting in a virtual “place” like this one? They have no case that can be made for assertions that lack support, and even those who are utterly gormless when it comes to the usages of public debate sense (I’m reluctant to use the word “think”) that they have about as much persistence and efficacy in an open venue frequented by genuinely educated and honest men and women as does a paramecium in a blast furnace.
I myself take immense delight in leaping into the midst of the fascisti and whacking about in such a target-rich environment. Factual reality has pretty reliably “got my back.” These people, though….
Well, say what you like about their intellectual bankruptcy and their moral depravity, but they do show levels of animal cunning and a self-preservation instinct that any biologist must find worthy of thorough appreciation.
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When we insult and debase our fellow man, we debase ourselves. When we point a finger at someone, we have three pointing back at ourselves.
I enjoy the many references provided on this site. I have many bookmarks to keep me up to speed on information. Thank you for the excellent access to information. however some of the personal comments, though often entertaining, are a distraction and denigrate the site.
But then I live in Canukistan where I just rode horseback 25 miles in two inches of snow and enjoyed it (it almost always snows on the May long weekend in Alberta). Most Canucks (other than Green Peacers and Suzuki-ites – oops my apologies in advance for that ;-0 ) appreciate politeness and access to intelligent Internet sites. (and I too dropped my subscription to National Geographic a while back.)
WUWT is a great site. The recent dialogue with Environment Canada over the temperatures at Eureka was excellent. There were a number of interesting threads. But lately … I wonder why the dialogue has gotten a bit edgy … spring fever?
The sun is shining on my deck, the snow is mostly melted, the pastures are green and the grass is growing …
May EVERYONE have a great day.
Wayne Delbeke:
“But lately … I wonder why the dialogue has gotten a bit edgy … spring fever?”
A dozen, or maybe less, posters from climate progress, realclimate, tamino, or from their own blogs, come here intent on stirring things up by disputing everyone else over even the most insignificant points.
They are certainly not all objectionable, and several of them do a good service by keeping the rest of us on our toes.
But a few of them have their On/Off switch wired around; they argue with everyone else about everything that goes against their world view.
It is the price WUWT pays for its rare no-censorship policy, which opens up the rest of us to incessant polemics by a few. But it also makes WUWT a place completely unlike the heavily censoring warmist blogs. Ideas and concepts from both sides get thrashed around here, until the only ones left standing are the un-refuted ones [like natural variability explaining the climate – had to throw that example in here].
Anyway, it sure beats being an echo chamber for true believers.
You have a nice day too.
I thank Rich for his explanation as to why the warmists do not enter the debate on fora like this, but if they do think disdain is the best strategy, they must have forgotten their Shakespeare. Polonius (he was the one who, to the the snickering amusement of countless generations of schoolboys got stabbed in the arras) advised Hamlet thus:
“Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.”
Good advice, in my opinion.
The warmists’ position is weakened by their refusal to debate – it speaks volumes of the poverty of their arguments. If they are not aware of this; the public will be – they aren’t fools.
Incidentally, the warming here in New Zealand has been minuscule since the 1850s. We have extremely good records that show this. Our glaciers are advancing, we have even had icebergs appearing off our south coasts. The animals I am interested in, which include some semitropical creepy-crawly imports, stubbornly refuse to recognise global warming and refuse to move South towards cooler climes.
Warmists try to explain this by saying our climate is not representative because we are surrounded by ocean which strongly moderates our climate. But this argument can be refuted by the fact that temperature stations situated on islands remote from anywhere, without deserts or smoke stacks, and unaffected by urban heat island effects must reflect global background temperatures.
Vincent says:
May 24, 2010 at 5:29 am
“Anna v’s analysis of how alarmism works is interesting but doesn’t appear to apply in this case. Although in theory a larger brain should create alarm from abstract dangers, in reality this alarm of which Anna speaks – rising heartbeat, adrenalin rush etc – does not exist in the world of AGW hysteria. ”
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It doesn’t have to. It is the same herd-stomping and rushing….just SLOWED down from the amygdala response….to a pattern of mass cognitive dissonance.
Both conditions are emotional and reflex based…not on science, reason, or logic.
In fact, the amygdala flight instinct is sometimes correct. So it deserves some credit.
Think of the throngs of New Yorkers migrating on foot away from lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001.
But cognitive dissonance is rarely, if ever, legitimate.
Cognitive dissonance is rather unique [and unfortunately endemic] to our species.
And cognitive dissonance…is the chief mechanism in the embarrassing phenomenon of CAGW. We see it all the time. Bypass the data. Circumnavigate logic with clever fallacy. Conveniently slip out of honest debate. Try and instill fear in the masses, as opposed to honestly educating them to think for themselves.
The foregoing are all hallmark characteristic behaviors of individuals who convince themselves subconsciously to believe what they WANT to believe, and selectively denounce everything else. James Hansen? Michael Mann? Al Gore?
The groupthink, herd mentality is all too evident. Anna V was dead right about this being an indictment on our evolution.
And her prescient analysis very much does apply to our species, and to the Church of Hotter Day Saints…an organization that rules the current worldwide scientific community with a sweaty, hand-wringing, Inquisition-like hands.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Brent Hargreaves says:
May 24, 2010 at 3:18 am
Is the AGW theory a vast conspiracy? I think not. It’s more likely a form of mass delusion afflicting especially the intelligentsia. Does it “at least raise green awareness”? Perversely, yes, but I think it diverts precious resource from vitally important areas such as habitat conservation, and is more likely to lead to green-fatigue among the general public.
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Bravo. Extremely well said.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Chris, Norfolk, VA, USA — Church of Hotter Day Saints
I’ll salute that one, Chris!
Why does the AGW enviro-whackpot religion reject the scientific method? For the global warming alarmists, truth is measured by its utility, i.e., the means of rationality is only useful if it justifies the desired ideologically-motivated end result. The dispassionate search for truth for its own sake holds no value when the maximization of political power is the sole objective and perquisite of the few. The `few’ always will reject humanity’s authority and eschew all principles that underlie a belief in enduring primacy of individual liberty and personal responsibility as a God-given right that is foundational to a free people in a just world.
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evilincandescentbulb writes:
I would ask that people please drop these incessant appeals to religious belief when railing against the warmists as themselves being religious True Believers.
There are ample objectively verifiable reasons for supporting the “primacy of individual liberty and personal responsibility” and really none at all when it comes down to dependence upon an appeal to the ineffable. To cite the putative ratification of a deity (“whatever you perceive him to be: hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin“) is not only unnecessary but positively pernicious.
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Seems to me that most stories I read tell us how bad things will get when it warms, but never address the fundamental question if or whether the warming is very likely to occur.
This simpleton always thought that more CO2 would stimulate more plant growth leading to more food and oxygen. Is that such a bad idea?
It always seemed to this simpleton that more CO2 would lead to more plant growth which leads to more food and oxygen. Is that such a bad idea??
Why does the AGW enviro-whackpot religion reject the scientific method? Why can’t global warming alarmists admit basic facts? How can the secular, socialist schoolteachers of the government’s fascist education complex continue to support MBH98 (aka, the ‘hockey stick’ graph) when it is a proven scientific fraud? How can the Democrat party continue to support AGW commie dogs who are driven solely by their ethos of anti-capitalism and Anti-Americanism? How can an agency of the government define CO2 as a poison and a pollutant? “Why do scientists and news stories blame everything on global warming? Why is warming always framed as bad news? Why does so much ‘research’ claim a warmer planet ‘may’ lead to more diarrhea, acne and childhood insomnia, more juvenile delinquency, war, violent crime and prostitution, death of the Loch Ness Monster – and even more Mongolian cows dying from cold weather? Why is it a bad thing that more CO2 helps plants tolerate droughts better and re-vegetate deserts? Why do ‘error corrections’ always seem to result in more warming than originally predicted, instead of less? And, why do taxpayers have to shell out Big Bucks on this stuff?” How come Leftist-libs are incapable of seeking logical or alternative answers and are compelled to blame America for the problems of the world, “like decreasing frog populations.” How far will the AGW fearmongers go to do “whatever it takes and fund whatever research is needed, to advance the goals of ending hydrocarbon use, increasing government control and ‘transforming’ society” into their socialist Utopian state? For how many more years will legitimate science be polluted with the inclusion of, “the terms ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ in any grant application,” to gin-up the funding for more filing cabinets full of junk science? How much fiat currency will be printed to pay for the lifestyles of those whose only job is to ride the backs of the productive?
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evilincandescentbulb (26 May 2010 at 9:49 am) voices a bunch of good questions.
Might I venture to suggest that answers are to be found in the writings of positive (as opposed to normative) economists, with specific attention to Adam Smith, Richard Cobden and John Bright (of the Anti-Corn Law League), Frédéric Bastiat, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Thomas DiLorenzo, and Walter Block
Sorry if I’ve left anybody out.
In terms of expense associated with such reading, the Web gives access to much that these scholars have written, including the opportunity to extensively sample the recent promulgations of currently practicing scholars such as Dr. DiLorenzo, Dr. Block, and Dr. Sowell.
For light entertainment incidental to this process, permit me to recommend the novels Alongside Night (J. Neil Schulman, 1979) and An Enemy of the State (F. Paul Wilson, 1980).
If you haven’t read either of those two works of fiction – which bear up remarkably well despite their ages – you really ought to get your hands on ’em.
Especially now that the Euro is descending to its intrinsic value (i.e., the smelter price of the base metal tokens into which a one-Euro note can be broken) and our Mombasa Messiah is channeling Rudolf E. A. Havenstein (look up “Weimar Republic” and “hyperinflation”) to make the U.S. dollar worth precisely as much as that JPG computer graphic image he’s been passing off as a legitimate Certification of Live Birth.
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The other night I was driving through a bad neighborhood and I saw Climate Change stealing a TV out of someone’s house.
Seriously though, it’s a fad. It’s a straw-bogeyman that everybody can feel good about taking a swipe at as a blanket excuse. As soon as it’s cool to boo someone off a stage for bringing up Climate Change it will disappear. That time might be near!
AGW prognosticating was a smithy’s craft. In an age of technology, reason and hope, they traded for sheepskins by pounding out the coffin nails that were used to bury science.