This is rather stupid, in my opinion. Not one person I have ever professionally associated with in the cause of climate skepticism has ever said anything at all like what you are about to read below. For the record: Yes, both CO2 and CH4 are “greenhouse gases”, and yes they do have a warming effect by backscattered long wave infra red. The magnitude and risk from it is the central argument. Since it is a good time to review this, here is this graph of CO2 response, done by Willis Eschenbach in MODTRAN. Note it is logarithmic, not linear, as it is often portrayed in media. More here – Anthony
From Quadrant online: ABC fails listeners
by Tom Harris
ABC Radio fails listeners in climate change interview
What’s the worst radio interview ever conducted on climate change? Could it be Australian?
Maybe so. ABC radio’s Robyn Williams’ October 2, 2010 interview of UK-based public relations director Bob Ward is certainly a contender for the worldwide gold medal in the ‘worse ever’ category. The interview, broadcast on the nationally prestigious Science Show, is so bad that listeners don’t need to actually know anything about climate science to spot the most obvious flaws.
Ward says, “The uncertainties in the science are really about how much it will warm in the future and how it will affect the climate. We don’t know because this is a huge experiment that we’re running on our planet.”
Williams justifiably did not contest Ward on this point. The science of climate change is so immature that indeed we do not know “how much it will warm in the future and how it will affect the climate.” The warming could be large, medium (both unlikely based on recent trends), small, or even negative (known by climate campaigners as “interrupted warming” since “cooling” is not part of their lexicon). And, yes, it is effectively an experiment we are conducting. But then Ward’s UK government are already conducting another “experiment” to do with possible future hazard by not preparing for an invasion from Canada. You never know, Canadian forces with mass murder on their minds might hitch a ride on an American transport plane (we have few of our own) destined for Gatwick. Risk assessment also includes probability, Mr. Ward. Otherwise we would never fly in an airplane, drive a car or even cross a city street.
Despite his sensible initial caution, Ward also confidently asserts, “We know, despite the uncertainties, there is a significant probability that if we just carry on pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere we risk large changes in temperature with large impacts on the climate, impacts that will be very, very difficult for us to cope with and the kinda [sic] thing that I think most people would not want to risk if there’s a cost effective solution to reducing emissions.”
A good interviewer would have immediately cornered Ward since this comment contradicts Ward’s (correct) statement that we don’t know “how much it will warm in the future and how it will affect the climate”. Williams should also have asked, “What is “a significant probability” of large climatic changes due to human emissions?” 5%? 25%? 90%? This is important to approximate since we know with 100% certainty that if we spend trillions on Ward’s boss’ climate crusade (Ward works as Policy and Communications Director for Nicholas Stern, at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in London), there will be far less money available to tackle truly desperate world problems that we know are real and immediate.
Take the 5 million people a year, mostly children, who die due to contaminated drinking water in Africa, for example. This is not some abstract possible threat postulated by theorists with vested interests in forecasting catastrophe to keep research dollars flowing. The drinking water crisis, and many other on-going world tragedies, are happening right now; there is no doubt. The UN has shown that the 1.5 billion people who lack clean water, sanitation and elementary health care and education could all be provided with it for about $70 billion/year. Contrast this with the one trillion dollar price tag estimated by George Taylor, former President of the American Association of State Climatologists, for one year’s compliance of OECD countries with the Kyoto Protocol. If Williams was on the ball, he would have asked Ward, “which is more important – the health and welfare of people suffering today, or those not yet born who might suffer someday due to climate change that even you admit is highly uncertain?”
Even if there is non-trivial warming over the coming decades, how does Ward, or anyone else, know that human activity is making a measurable contribution? We don’t of course. Even if Williams didn’t know this, he still should have asked, “who is to say warming “will be very, very difficult for us to cope with” or that the warming will even be detrimental overall?” In one of the many peer-reviewed scientific papers that Ward seems to have missed, former Environment Canada scientist Dr. Madhav Khandekar has shown that India has done very well in a warming climate and concludes that wealthier nations such as Canada have essentially nothing to fear should warming resume (the UK’s Hadley Center shows that temperatures have plateaued in the last decade despite an increase in carbon dioxide levels of more than 5% – see graph below).
And when Ward asserts that dangerous global warming is “the kinda [sic] thing that I think most people would not want to risk if there is a cost effective solution to reducing emissions”, why didn’t Williams ask Ward what such “a cost effective solution” would be? Is it perhaps because no one can complete a meaningful cost/benefit analysis when future climate states are even less understood than the economic and social impacts of both climate change or energy rationing due to the sort of greenhouse gas controls Ward promotes? Ward’s statement is also self-evident – no one would oppose eliminating risk, no matter how small, in any field if a “cost effective solution” could be found. But then to formulate such a solution we first need to know accurately the balance of cost and benefit – which, for climate change, we do not.
Next, Ward attributes nonsense to climate skeptics:
Anybody who seriously argues that carbon dioxide and methane are not greenhouse gases; that increasing the concentrations in the atmosphere doesn’t warm the world; I mean they’re basically fighting against 200 years worth of science….
and …
Now, you’ve got to be very, very blinkered in your view if you are saying “I know for sure there will be no increase in temperature and there’s no risk.”
Why didn’t Williams ask Ward to tell the listening audience who has made these sorts of absolute statements? Is it because no one actually has? Certainly, Ward’s primary targets for vilification in the interview, Professors Carter, Lindzen and Plimer, never have. Even with his relatively weak science background, Ward must know that.
Ward’s conclusion is classic:
… what’s worrying about this is they [climate skeptics] are creating confusion at a time when we have to make very serious decisions because the climate responds slowly to changes in greenhouse gas emissions and actually the decisions we gonna [sic] make today about emissions are about what kind of climate we’ll see 20, 30 years from now and has very large implications if we make the wrong decisions.
Given Ward’s overconfidence about a science that he admits is grossly uncertain, Williams should have jumped at the chance to ask him an obvious question, which is:
Since the impacts of major greenhouse gas decisions are delayed for decades, shouldn’t we take the time to carefully consider what leading experts such as Carter, Plimer and Lindzen are saying? Why rush decisions when the consequences of being wrong are so high? Either we are headed towards climate catastrophe or we are on the verge of wasting trillions of dollars worldwide on a non-issue. Either way, we owe it to our children and grandchildren to perform due diligence on the issue before making any decisions at all.
Finally, Williams should have pointed out that Ward is not treating the public like adults. We may tell very young children that the world is predictable to help them sleep at night. But telling the public that ‘the science is clear’, as UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and other alarmists do all the time, when reality is precisely the opposite, does us all a great disservice.
Rather than labeling well-qualified experts such as Carter, Lindzen and Plimer as merely confusion generators who should be silenced, and trying to suppress their views, Ward should be helping the public to hear more of what they have to say.
For only if all sides of the science are on the table for discussion do we have any chance of making rational decisions about what may very well be the most complex issue humanity has ever tackled.
Tom Harris is Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition
=====================================================
The audio and transcript of this entire interview is online at ABC here:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/3023812.htm
Email addresses contacting people at ABC to express your views on this incident:
Chairman of the Board (Maurice Newman -via his personal assistant who is Angela Peters: Peters.Angela (at) abc.net.au
Robyn Williams: Williams.Robyn (at) abc.net.au
It has been said many times but I’ll repeat. “Journalists” will do anything to enable reporting on science except take a course on it. Combine this with larger laziness, a lack of mental ability, and a palpable bias, and we continue to get what we always got.
Going once
Going twice
“no Pressure”
I’m skeptical too, and I don’t like the screaming greenies one bit. But the graph does seem to show warming. The positive part is greater than the negative, so the overall is upward. Temp is more irregular than CO2 because the measurements are more complex.
Sure, Ward made some generalisations, but you do seem to be nitpicking over the risk factor.
Lindzen et al are clever guys, but anyone can get polarised. In my experience of university folk, clever people are more likely to entrench their position than laymen. In the academic world, it can be quite hard to get off a high horse.
The precautionary principal is an attempt to justify political actions when the science won’t do it.
There is a 100 % probability that a meteorite or comet will hit the earth and destroy all civilization. [Is that a big enough downside ?] The date is uncertain but the event isn’t.
We should have several spaceships out in space right now pushing meteors around so the first time we do it won’t be for “real”! Where are they. These needs and dozens of others are far higher priority than a possible global warming which probably will be mild and benign.
You know, I don’t mind getting put in a box and labeled. It’s wrong, but it’s what people do. I’m a conservative.(American style, I understand the word has different connotations in different parts of the world.) I believe in God, guns and the flag. In that order. I also believe in not spending money until you know what you’re going to get in return. I also believe in the individual’s rights and freedoms. Again, I don’t mind being put in a box where people freely generalize other’s stances and beliefs, it is what people do, but when the box is labeled wrong, I get irked.
I’m a climate skeptic. Climate skeptics greatly vary in their views and perspectives, but I’ve never seen anyone state CO2 wasn’t a GHG, or methane for that matter. Not here, not in any other skeptic blog, not in any conversation public or private that I’ve ever heard of or participated. This is a blatant mischaracterization of all skeptics. Just another effort to besmirch, degrade and otherwise dehumanize skeptics.
Instead of signing off with a once popular American colloquialism, I’ll sign of with a new variant. 10:10 good buddy!
The climate community uses the modtran data. I’m wondering if I am wrong, but is there a discrepancy between the results of the modtran model versus the hitran model? The Leckner curves that I am always on about seem to be related to hitran, whilst the climate model is based on modtran. Both were developed by the US air force, primarily as a means of figuring out how to “see” heat in the atmosphere. As both seem to be approximate solutions of the radiative transfer equations, which is more precise? Which is more correct?
Cheers
JE
ABC – no pressure
Nelson must be reading a different transcript to the one linked…Ward does not label Carter,Lindzen and Plimer as “..confusion generators who should be silenced..” He simply looks at some of their work and identifies some of the flaws. Ward is not “..trying to suppress their views..” He is actually highlighting them to point out their weaknesses.He is quite confident that the process of orthodox science rejects their views. Nelson is verballing Ward here.
Ward also does not state that Carter,Lindzen and Plimer reject that CH4 and CO2 are GHGs, simply that some ‘skeptics’ do,which as anyone who has looked at blogscience over the years can attest,is true. It is not wrong to note such fringe thinking falls within ‘climate change skepticism’.
Chris Monckton,who is mentioned in the transcript,has been one to say there is no risk from increasing CO2 levels,and has frequently identified global warming as a ‘non-problem’. So I’d suggest Ward is alluding to Monckton in the remarks that Nelson disputes.
Nelson cannot dismiss the possibility of large or medium changes in GT by simply basing his assertion on ‘recent trends’. He knows full well the real bases for these possibilities relies on much,much more than simple trend analysis in a few indices.
“Is it because no one actually has? Certainly, Ward’s primary targets for vilification in the interview, Professors Carter, Lindzen and Plimer, never have.”
Plimer
” Carbon dioxide has an effect on the atmosphere and it has an effect for the first 50 parts per million and once it’s done its job then it’s finished and you can double it and quadruple it and it has no effect because we’ve seen that in the geological past, and we’ve seen it in times gone by when the carbon dioxide content was 100 times the current content.”
If one interviews Lord Stern’s mouthpiece, what does one expect?
I am tempted to offer a number of “ad homs” against Williams, but Harris’s analysis of the interview says it all. As the reality shows have it: Williams, it is time to go! It is time you handed your self-appointed position of science guru to a more objective mind. But what else can be expected of the ABC? I just do not listen to the service any more.
netdr2 says:
October 5, 2010 at 5:14 pm
The precautionary principal is an attempt to justify political actions when the science won’t do it.
Improperly applied, you are of course right. There is, though, nothing wrong with the precautionary principle if it is applied with an even hand.
In other words the precautionary principle must be applied to the proposed “solutions” to CACD (or what ever the fashionable acronym is this week).
Failure to do this will result in more death and hardship not less as the author of the piece states e.g. “Take the 5 million people a year, mostly children, who die due to contaminated drinking water in Africa, for example…”
Bob Ward……………….words fail me.
End comment.
Several years ago I used to listen to podcasts of Robin Williams’ science show from ABC [Australian] which was (and probably still is) available through iTunes. Robin had a segment about CO2 and global warming. He was pro AGW then and must still be. He has a biased outlook. Shortly after hearing that program, I stopped listening to those podcasts.
When you can’t argue with the facts, change the facts.
Oh No! the americans are on to us! Push up the invasion date, we need to catch them off guard – eh!
Journalists are not the legends of integrity and dispassionate objectivity that they were 50 years ago. Expecting a TV or radio host to be effective and intelligent is like asking Al Gore to debate on his own merits (insert exploding head joke here).
Its very rare that I see a media host that I am impressed with these days. Most simply tow a line of political correctness or draw out a controversial issue for the sake of shock value. Generally the best ones are apathetic and therefore – generally – not as biased. Of the ones that I do like, they are usually from 2 generations back at least and nearing retirement. But that seems to also hold true for the state of science.
Where have all the good people gone?
Just another example of why the state media has lost significance, continuous repetition of ” We are smarter than you, you must obey” . Funny how that never works out well. Is this ABC hack another english major portraying a sciency point of veiw?
Greenhouse gases do that which they should do, put a drag on climate-change. If not, we could not grow plants made from CO2.
The Carbon cycle depends on the British Thermal Unit. This will be critical as temperatures continue to drop and winters forget to have summers.
As for global warming skeptics, this is the third global warming period of the Inter-glacial period. Get an education.
It is too early for an Ice age, but not a mini-ice age. Some glaciers should be melting and some should be growing and some just sitting there.
How cold or warm do you want it before a skeptic gets the picture?
Present sunspot numbers tend to match 1700 to 1723 and the early 1800s. The Poles say it is going to get very cold this winter.
We will have a whole new crisis in the spring. School children will be laughing at their stupid global warming hoax teachers and hiding their blue UN pens and pencils.
netdr2 says:
October 5, 2010 at 5:14 pm
“The precautionary principal is an attempt to justify political actions when the science won’t do it.”
Very well said. The most famous use of the Precautionary Principle is known as Pascal’s Wager. I eagerly await Lisa Jackson’s order that all of us must begin attending religious services.
“But then Ward’s UK government are already conducting another “experiment” to do with possible future hazard by not preparing for an invasion from Canada.”
I would say that the probability of Canada invading the US is rather high sometime during the next ice age for which there is justification based on historical climate patterns. Just need to wait long enough (maybe sooner than later).
I think the general issue is that the “warmists” (I know a generalization) tend to think that all skeptics think the same, but generally those of us who have been around do not deny one tenant of AGW, we just question their accuracy which does not make a good news spin. We also question “their solution” so to speak which is why they are so angry at us in general. Again, all generalizations aside, we are at a crossing point which indeed may single the future of environmentalism for sure and more then likely science too.
If scientists and the media continue on this track, the general back-lash against all science will be terrible. I think environomentalism has gone too far at this point to reinvent itself so to speak, so in general real problems with the environment will be over-looked simply because no one will trust an environmentalist in a few years.
Gulf of Mexico dead zone? Why we do not hear one word of this for monthes and yet daily we hear about global warming. One is an issue that we can start planning for and fixing today, the other is one that we have no idea if its even a problem we can fix or if its worth fixing.
Pollution issues in CA because of China’s pollution? Yea, lets not get into that when theres global warming non-sense to continue to propagate because we started the process with terrible science and by golly we will go down with the sinking ship…
Davidovics claims, ¨Journalists are not the legends of integrity and dispassionate objectivity that they were 50 years ago. Expecting a TV or radio host to be effective and intelligent is like asking Al Gore to debate on his own merits (insert exploding head joke here).
Its very rare that I see a media host that I am impressed with these days.¨
Objectivity could not be found on US media: see Camelot, Kennedy and his SE Asia crimes. Legends: NOT – myths: for sure.
I seldom see a media host – no teevee – but I AM impressed: by their silliness, arrogance, ignorance, and ill-founded faith. As a person of faith, I exercize reason in assessing claims posited by talking heads and poseurs.
Jefferson trusted an informed electorate. WUWT, other blogs, and crowd-sourcing inform. Governments grant broadcast licenses. Neither condemn the J School dolts nor depend on them for ¨integrity and dispassionate objectivity.¨
If you need a laugh today, check out the Australian joke, Watching the DeniersATwordpress.com.
Well said Ben d.
It is always a matter of perspective, which Bob has problems with (Stern table scraps and such).
I have listened to far too many people longing for that past moment of investing into that IPO that would become the next Microsoft, Apple, etc., and for 30 years listening to people telling me that “…to get grant-work, you MUST have “GLOBAL WARMING” in your paper…”. They have created their market, but seem to be missing the demand 😉
Oddly, enough, ALOT of the skeptics or [snip]/realist types (Mods — Lindzen type, like myself) seem to have a lower carbon footprint than any of these “activists” could hope to imagine (Bicycle, bus, one car per family, $100-200 electricity/gas/water per month), I am sure Bob could not come close. I have no 10% to give back, and I need no further taxes to things that go nowhere (e.g. CRV tax moneies… should the government be COLLECTING my cans at the door?).
Conservatives are typically, a little thick, but I welcome the “reset button” to general craziness.
Want to see something, as in What’s Up with That?
http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101005/edm_total_101005/20101005/?hub=EdmontonHome
I assume that Bryn is an Australian like me and long ago gave up on most of the ABC and especially Robyn Williams. He is well thought of at the ABC and almost (if not) all of his programs have complete transcripts. They have another program called Counterpoint for the ABC’s idea of balance but where it’s usually only one of say three interviews that have such.
‘andy’ and others should keep in mind that a correlation in time between 2 events is not, of itself, sufficient to establish causality.
You want a critical, probing climate change interview from this Robin “100m sea-level rise” Williams?
Pascal’s Wager was mentioned.
The AGW movement makes a false appeal to Pascal. Pascal’s wager presumes the cost of the remedy is near-nil and the consequences of doing nothing is infinite. In this case, the cost of the remedy is hideous and will result in the inevitable early deaths of many, many millions. So until we take such measures, we had better make very damn sure the cost/benefit ratio makes even the vaguest sense. (Which, currently, at least, it does NOT.)
BTW, my carbon output is almost zip, a sad fact that I hope to be able to rectify in future! If i gave back 10%, I’d have to go back to living in the caves.
Williams journalistic integrity = log 1
The problem is that very few journalists have anywhere near the understanding of basic science to even know enough to ask the “tough questions”. In brief, they don’t know what they don’t know.
Lest anyone think that the current crop of journalists is any worse (or better) than a generation ago, I still recall the first time I ran into this remarkable lack of knowledge on the part of “science reporters”.
I was still in high school, so it was… a couple or three decades ago. NASA had run an experiment with 5 atomic clocks launched into orbit compared to 5 atomic clocks kept on earth. The experiment showed that the clocks in orbit travelled in time just a few fractions of a second less than the clocks on earth, and roughly correlated to Einstein’s equations on relativity. Then the shocker. The article went on to say that had the clocks been in orbit in the opposite direction, they would have gone ahead in time instead of lagging behind.
Just based on high school physics I knew that wasn’t right. My letter to the paper was soundly rejected on the basis that their science journalist had years of experience and they trusted that he had done his due diligence on the matter.
I have distrusted reporting of science in the media ever since, and have done my own research on contentious issues. I see no difference in the level of competant between then and now.
intrepid_wanders says:
October 5, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Oddly, enough, ALOT of the skeptics or denier/realist types (Mods — Lindzen type, like myself) seem to have a lower carbon footprint than any of these “activists” could hope to imagine (Bicycle, bus, one car per family, $100-200 electricity/gas/water per month), I am sure Bob could not come close. I have no 10% to give back, and I need no further taxes to things that go nowhere (e.g. CRV tax moneies… should the government be COLLECTING my cans at the door?).
Conservatives are typically, a little thick, but I welcome the “reset button” to general craziness.
=======================================================
See, just goes to show, it takes all types. In spite of your insensitive use of the pejorative word, “denier”(and the Holocaust diminishing connotations that goes with it), and your ludicrous insinuation that conservatives don’t conserve, I, too, welcome the reset button. Typically, I find people with the delusion that they are, themselves, moderate to be a bit given to the “craziness” and more apt to the knee jerk reactions without proper deliberation. Which, I consider quite dense.
You compare yourself to Lindzen? I’ve never once heard or read anything like your drivel coming from a person such as he.
This is the propaganda they want out there. This way they can label skeptics as those who do not accept basic science. While there are scientific arguments against the greenhouse effect these are not made by the most prominent skeptics,
Prominent Climatologists Skeptical of AGW Alarm
What they fail to mention is the common debate is not that CO2 causes some warming but exactly how much and the likely hood of a catastrophe.
Newly arrived in Australia from the UK, I naturally gravitated towards the ABC believing that a ‘state sponsored’ media organization would be neutral and unbiased on a range of subjects. It didn’t take long to discern a pattern though, namely frequent and widespread references to ‘Climate Change’ and always from an alarmist point of view.
That was two years ago and the country was experiencing drought conditions. There were daily stories of dying ecosystems, failing agriculture, cities running out of water, and of course to cap it all the horrendous bushfires in which 170 people lost their lives. It wasn’t hard for me to see why Australians genuinely believed that they were at the cutting edge of climate catastrophe, despite the fact that none of the above events were without precedent.
As a student of climate and history and the media I felt it necessary to ‘gently’ point out a few things to the ABC through comments pages and suchlike.
On one occasion I contacted Philip Adams who presents a generally interesting ‘intellectual’ chat show called Late Night Live. He had just had James Hansen on the programme and had basically provided him with a propaganda platform. I wondered if he might give some skeptical scientists a similar amount of airtime. To his credit he replied quite directly that he had been a ‘climate campaigner’ for thirty years, that I, as a skeptic was quite simply wrong.
It was then I realized that I’d walked into one of those scenarios you often find in old sci-fi movies…where the hapless hero or heroine runs up to someone in authority expecting help only to discover that ‘they’re in on it too.’
The ABC is openly, unashamedly and systematically pro AGW alarmism. They were given a pre-election handout by the Labour Government which holds a similar position.
Given the extreme conditions which prevail in this vast, beautiful continent it’s hardly surprising that people are spooked by global warming. But doesn’t a public broadcaster have some obligation to be balanced and informative? Apparently not.
The ABC’s morally bankrupt position has been highlighted in recent months… the drought has broken, the rivers are full and we’ve just had our coolest winter for sixteen years guess what the cause of all this cool wet weather is? You got it…Greenhouse Gases!
In response to Phil’s Dad’ October 5, 2010 at 5:50 pm:
By definition, the precautionary principle only demands that a society look at risks and considers any ‘benefits’ as virtually irrelevant. When people wish to make good judgments, they call for a study that includes both risks and rewards. When they want to enforce an agenda, the invoke the precautionary principle. There is no proper way to use the precautionary principle to make a sound decision, for all sound decisions are based on a firm knowledge of both the risks and rewards.
Use of the precautionary principle in decision making almost always causes more harm than good. Therefore, it is not precautionary. It is also not a principle because it is self contradicting. The precautionary principle is nothing more than Orwellian Double-Speak!
Maybe it time for a poll of WUWT readers.
True or false.
1. C02 is a greenhouse gas and is responsible for some of the warming we have
seen in the post industrial era.
No arguments about how much. no arguments about if its dangerous or what to do.
so frame the question this way
C02:
A. is responsible for some of the post industrial warming
B. None of the warming
C. more than half of the warming.
D. we don’t know.
E. cools the planet
Anyone that reads Dr Spencers blog knows that their are extreme examples of skeptics that got very upset in the comments when he attempted to explain that a greenhouse effect does exist.
If I had interviewed him, my first question to Mr Ward would be: how does the 0.7°C (not 0.8 of a degree “we’ve already had”) rise since c. 1950 objectively differ from the 0.6°C rise c. 1910 – c. 1945, when human CO2 emissions could not have been a major factor?
Since 1950 (when the IPCC says human emissions became the major driving force) there has been only one sustained period of net warming, c. 1975 – 2001.
How is that consistent with the hypothesis that the monotonic rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration (which is assumed to be 100% human caused), is now the climate driving force which overwhelms all other factors which previously affected climate (e.g. 1910-1945) and that accordingly would have to have ceased to operate?
If peer-reviewed papers are the only source of valid discourse on IPCC science, how is it that the thousands of PRPs published on the subject have not increased the certainty of projections of future temperature rises since the First Assessment Report (1990) i.e. that global mean temperature will increase by ~ 0.3°C per decade during the 21st century?
‘….In the present age — which has been described as “destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism,”— in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them — the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society….’.
Mr Ward, have you ever bothered to read John Stuart Mill ‘On Liberty’?
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645o/
Reading the transcript, it seems Ward spends much of the interview trying to discredit a few realists. He also talks about the improbability of 300,000 scientists participating in a global conspiracy. But the data key to this issue (That of Global Mean Temp Records which precede the satellite record) are managed by a handful of people. The entire justification of CAGW relies on CO2’s CORRELATION to a highly questionable and wholly inadequate proprietary construct. All those scientists who find further correlation of say, Seal migration, to this construct add nothing to the certainty of the hypothesis. Fail.
A hundred years ago in some states in this country racism was uniform and readily applied. Conspirators did not need to collude before acting. They shared a belief system which dictated their actions. CAGW belief is much the same. And Lo and Behold, the SOLUTIONS for CAGW are ready for application! …. Having been written more than a hundred years prior to discovery of the problem ………. by Malthus and Marx. What luck! Wow! What are the chances?
CAGW proponents will (rightfully) never be credible until/unless they embrace solutions to the “problem” not steeped in these philosophies.
Steven Mosher et al
D.
Oh, come on mods…… I only gave as good as was given. Fair play and all of that.
Steve, it can’t be true/false and then a multiple choice. Further, it isn’t that black and white. CO2 has potential to warm. And, once we know all of the interactions and forcings(paradoxes and all) we’ll have a more informed answer. The atmosphere isn’t a vacuum. Let’s frame the question better.
We know all the properties of CO2 in the atmosphere and all of the interactions with light, heat and all other substances in the atmosphere and the climatic effect all the interactions have. So, we can assert absolute statements regarding CO2 and all of its effects in its entirety.
True or false?
Steven A should be,
A. Maybe responsible for some of the post industrial warming.
ABC/BBC/CBC/CNN/MSNBC.
Who really listens and believes what they are told on these networks? When was the last time anyone heard an impartial balanced product from them?
They have lied too much for too long and deceived and exaggerated and manipulated without compunction or hesitation, happily for us these networks have gained a reputation for manipulative propaganda. The fewer people who listen the louder they shout, the louder they shout the fewer people who are prepared to listen. The alarmist side has never understood that shouting louder will not make people understand or believe and censoring out dissent or insulting ordinary people for asking awkward questions will not bring people round to their way of thinking.
People are trusting but when they realise that trust has been abused they become deaf to further pleas/threats/promises/predictions, the CAGW lobby/establishment has managed to break the automatic bond of trust that has been in humanity for thousands of years.
The CAGW establishment has yet to realise that you cannot bully and batter people into trusting you, you cannot insult and deride your way into a persons affections and you cannot lie and cheat your way into peoples hearts. As the wicked 10.10 snuff murder video shows all too clearly, all the CAGW cult has left in its bag of tricks is the threat of casual murder if you do not obey the orthodoxy.
I know the folks here are skeptical of models. Thankfully you don’t need to merely rely on the MODTRAN model graph above. There are a few studies from the past decade that use experimental evidence to demonstrate the enhanced greenhouse effect.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
From the abstract: “Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate.”
http://rose.bris.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/1983/999/1/paper.pdf
Abstract: “Measurements of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation allows signatures of many aspects of greenhouse warming to be distinguished without the need to amalgamate information from multiple measurements, allowing direct interpretation of the error characteristics. Here, data from three instruments measuring the spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation from satellites orbiting in 1970, 1997 and 2003 are compared. The data are calibrated to remove the effects of differing resolutions and fields of view so that a direct comparison can be made. Comparisons are made of the average spectrum of clear sky outgoing longwave radiation over the oceans in the months of April, May and June. Difference spectra are compared to simulations created using the known changes in greenhouse gases such as CH4, CO2 and O3 over the time period. This provides direct evidence for
significant changes in the greenhouse gases over the last 34 years, consistent with concerns over the changes in radiative forcing of the climate.
http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2004/2003GL018765.shtml
From the abstract: “Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Wm−2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) Wm−2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm−2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) °C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m−3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Wm−2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect. ”
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
From the abstract: “A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.”
Just trying to help out.
Regards,
Interesting to note that the study of carbon, yes, that black thing with dirty footsteps, has got this year’s Nobel prize
Steve,
I need further clarification on the definition of warming. Are we taking about the warming observed by the raw data or the warming observed by the filtered, homogenised, pasteurised, secret modelling, non-UHI factored, bristlecone data?
Steven Mosher says:
October 5, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Answer: D. We don’t know.
Steven Mosher says at 8:57 pm:
“True or false.
1. C02 is a greenhouse gas and is responsible for some of the warming we have
seen in the post industrial era.
No arguments about how much. no arguments about if its dangerous or what to do.”
I constantly argue that issue, and my argument has not varied:
If the effect of CO2 is insignificant, then there is no rationale for spending another dime on “mitigation.” But if the effect of CO2 is significant… well, it can’t be significant, can it? Just look at the chart in the article. It can not be shown that CO2 has any measurable effect on temperature, which goes up and down as CO2 steadily rises. Thus, any effect from CO2 must be minor. QED.
Assuming that the observed temperature fluctuations are due to a minor trace gas is simply a belief. It is not a conclusion based on the scientific method, which requires full cooperation regarding requests for all [raw] data, methodologies and metadata – requests that are routinely stonewalled and ignored by the same clique that is peddling the same CO2=CAGW hypothesis, which has enormously enriched them and their organizations at taxpayer expense.
The experimental standard for hypothesis testing is comparing the null hypothesis to the alternative hypothesis [CO2=CAGW], where there should be a quantifiable difference between the two. But there is no measurable difference; the CO2=CAGW hypothesis fails to show any difference from past natural temperature variability.
Therefore, it cannot be concluded that CO2 is responsible for any significant effect on temperature. There may well be a minor effect. But as stated above, if it is demonstrably insignificant, then spending more public money to “study global warming” is a misappropriation of public funds.
If testable, empirical evidence should suddenly appear showing that the rise in CO2 has a major effect on temperature [rather than being the result of the temperature rise], then climate alarmists would have an argument. But so far, no such evidence exists.
These guys who represent the global climate disruption front are all air and blowhards. They never show any doubt in their position, and when encountered by someone knowledgeable they simply dry up and blow away.
Ian Dunlop is promoting more alarmism in Australia on the ABC blog site (Unleashed):
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39714.html
What is funny is that this chap has a fine alarmist pedigree. Not only was he in the Club of Rome, he is also a Peak Oilist and now climate alarmist. Does that make it three strikes?
bgood2creation;
This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.”>>
Well sir, take a look at the chart by Willis Eschenback as the begining of this post. And there you shall find a chart that shows approximately the same thing as you just said. It also shows that an additional amount of CO2 equal to the increase since pre-industrial times would have about half as much effect as the pre-industrial increase. In fact, at 1180 ppm, an increase in CO2 10 times the increase from pre-industrial to now, the additional forcing is very little more than about what the we’ve seen so far. In other words, we would have to expand fossil fuel production by orders of magnitude for decades in order to achieve as much additional forcing in the future as you claim to have measured so far. And that is without considering increased uptake from the biosphere or negative feedbacks.
Almost everything that CO2 can possibly due to the climate it is already doing, and any additional contributions are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Pray the world doesn’t enter another ice age cycle because all the fossil fuel production we could through at if all we did was just burn everything we have would’t be more than p**sing into the wind to stop it.
It is ludicrous to keep pointing out that there are measurements that show the changes in outbound LW from CO2 and other GHG’s, while completeley skipping over the fact that any additional increases will have much, much, much smaller effects.
So without even going into a discussion of negative feedbacks, we’re already at reason for doubt.
Good old Robyn Williams!
Not so long ago the chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC)castigated the assembled journalistic staff on their biased pro-AGW reporting thus provoking an enraged outcry basically along the lines of “How dare he!”.
Robyn Williams sent a letter to “The Australian” stating that there was ABC balance on this issue because he had once interviewd a climate sceptic. Mate: your blood’s worth bottling isn’t it?
Sexton says . . .
“You know, I don’t mind getting put in a box and labeled. It’s wrong, but it’s what people do. I’m a conservative.(American style, I understand the word has different connotations in different parts of the world.) I believe in God, guns and the flag. In that order. ”
Well, I mind being put in a box and labeled. I’m tired of conservatives interjecting their religion and politics into AGW skepticism and liberals interjecting theirs into AGW belief. I’m not particularly interested in anybody’s god[s], guns, or flags, and I don’t like being lumped in with partisans and ideologues. If conservative Republicans in America insist on taking up the AGW skeptics’ banner, they will destroy the skeptics’ cause and credibility with the general public. Something like 67% of Americans dislike the Republican Party, and the numbers are almost the same for the Democratic Party. And in Congress, Republicans are viewed even less favorably (something like 15%) than Democrats (something like 20%). The minute I hear some moralizing, bible-thumping, god-fearing Republican say ANYTHING on any subject, I have an urge to immediate take the opposite position. Republicans are parodied in the media as stuffy, boring, superstitious, self-righteous hypocrites because so many, many of them actually are. Democrats, on the other hand, are depicted as modern, trendy, stylish, fun, loving, tolerant, and benign. It’s all a crock, but impressions count.
I’m fairly liberal on social issues, with the exception of abortion (whatever happened to birth control?), but always try to be fair and reasonable, and I do not want to be identified with any political group or party. And when it comes to climate change, I do not believe politics should ever be allowed to muddy the waters. This isn’t a political contest or a battle of religions, and all the windbag politicians need to shut up.
bgood2creation,
I know the folks here are skeptical of models. Thankfully you don’t need to merely rely on the MODTRAN model graph above. There are a few studies from the past decade that use experimental evidence to demonstrate the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Really?
1. Harries et al. 2001, “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997” (65 citations)
I cannot find the full paper anywhere but this paper’s conclusions are challenged,
Is the additional greenhouse effect already evident in the current climate?
(Fresenius’ Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Volume 371, Number 6, pp. 791-797, November 2001)
– E. Raschke
“Several greenhouse gases, which are in part or entirely produced by human activities, have accumulated in the atmosphere since approximately the middle of the 19th century. They are assumed to have an additional greenhouse effect causing a further increase of atmospheric temperatures near the ground and a decrease in the layers above approximately 15 km altitude. The currently observed near-surface warming over nearly the entire globe is already considered by a large fraction of our society to be result of this additional greenhouse effect. Complete justification of this assumption is, however, not yet possible, because there are still too many unknowns in our knowledge of participating processes and in our modeling capabilities.”
2. Griggs and Harries 2004, “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” (2 citations)
This is a proceedings papers and not peer-reviewed.
3. Philipona et al. 2004, “Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect” (37 citations)
This paper relies on models,
“Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm-2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+ 0.82(0.41) °C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m-3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
“Coupled atmosphere-ocean General Circulation Models (GCMs) were used to predict changes of radiative forcings and their impact on surface temperature and humidity,”
“Overall, model calculations predict anthropogenic greenhouse gases and feedbacks to increase LDRcf by a total of +1.58 Wm-2 on average over the eight years”
“We have shown that longwave downward radiation flux increases at Earth’s surface can be accurately measured, subdivided and explicitly explained and backed with model calculations as cloud-, temperature-, water vapour- and enhanced greenhouse gas radiative forcing effect.”
It also includes MODTRAN modeling, which you erroneously claimed they did not,
“Stand-alone radiative transfer calculations with the MODTRAN model predict a +0.26 Wm-2 LDR increase for 12 ppm CO2 and other greenhouse gas increases apart from water vapour. For water vapour, MODTRAN calculations”
“and is in reasonably good agreement with the expected +1.58 Wm-2 increase predicted by MODTRAN radiative transfer model calculations.”
4. Evans 2006, “Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate” (Zero Citations)
Another conference paper and not peer-reviewed.
So essentially you have no argument. For papers claiming to make an empirical case for AGW you would think they would all be published and widely cited. Funny how skeptics papers must be peer-reviewed and widely cited but AGW proponents can have 2 or less citations and be conference papers. Hypocrites?
I suggest in the future not looking at Skeptical Science for you sources.
Steven Mosher
The answer right now is “D” that we do not know but there is evidence both theoretical/technical(eg Thermodynamics) and measured for “B” particularly with CO2 lagging temperature (in long term-lag 800-1000yrs, medium term- lag 5-10 years and even daily- lag a few hours)
I agree that State/Governemnt funded media is biased and that media commentators have as a general rule no expertise in technical/scientific matters so they just repeat what they instructed to do or follow the fashion that supports the politics of their establishment which is normally towards socialism.
“The uncertainties in the science are really about how much it will warm ” 100% correct, there is positive warming (MWP) and negative warming (Little Ice Age), as my science teacher was fond of telling us, “there is no such thing as cold, only an absence of heat)
It’s not Stern who pays Ward’s salary. It’s the Granthams who are paying for this poor exercise in propaganda.
Slightly off topic, but we should respect what Australia’s ABC tells us.
I live in central Victoria, Australia and notice that our Blue Pacific (Ceanothus) bush is now more than two weeks late in blooming. While I know that this could be due to Victoria’s September weather having been the coolest in the last 16 years, I don’t know about that. Our ABC reports that:
and…
(My emphasis)
Avoid the Melbourne UHI at Laverton Hmmm?
Anyway I firmly believe that the late blooming of our Blue Pacific bush is an unequivocal indication that the climate is becoming colder. Clearly a precursor to the onset of the next interglacial!
Anton says:
October 5, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Anton,
No one tried to create a label for you. And unfortunately, this IS a political issue. The intent of the CAGW crowd is to utilize this issue to drive a political theology – Marxism. It isn’t conspiracy THEORY. It’s observable fact. The plans for taxation implemented by Cap N Trade and the COP 15 treaty are not theory. And these documents are not theory. So political ideology is the underbelly of this issue, and kindly observe that the Right did not bring it. They are defending against the slide into economic destruction. However stuffy and backward they may be, they’re the only thing standing in the path of US economic ruin.
It has only been in the last 2 years that the motives behind CAGW took shape in popular opinion, and among the GOP. Prior to that, they really had no idea. Inhofe was the best(and maybe only) known skeptic in congress. Fortunately due to blogs like this one, they have seen the light.
Conservative does not equal GOP, or Religious anything. Many of us who are financially conservative identify with this label. It simply means we want sane management of this country’s finances. You said it yourself that Republicans are parodied….. IN THE MEDIA…. Presentation is everything, and they’ve been the subject of smearing for decades.
what’s worrying about this is they [climate skeptics] are creating confusion at a time when we have to make very serious decisions….
snif…Yes, the sceptical component of the Scientific Method – you know, where you have to expose your “materials and methods” to the world and invite the criticisms of others in order to have a scientifically credible process – does make it a bit difficult to approach real Scientific validity, and to produce enough of it so as to be able to rationally base decisions; that is, in contrast to simply buying the result you want via a multitude of pre-fabricated “correct” studies reviewed by only a few “peers”, a process which is then quite incorrectly alleged to have warranted that the studies are now the given truth, and that any sceptical detractors of this particular process, some of whom have also broken through the Climate Science Priesthood’s secrecy to show critical flaws in the “given truth” studies, are only sceptical troublemakers impeding the “serious decision making”.
….too bad, so sad, isn’t it that scepticism is in fact necessary to the Scientific Method in order to have any scientifically valid idea as to what you are dealing with and what to do about it, if anything, and especially to attempt to insure that any alleged cure is not in fact worse than its corresponding alleged disease?
And when the Chinese and Indians, with full knowledge of the ipcc’s alleged Climate Science, have made their own very serious decisions but have set about to actually massively assist the alleged CO2CAGW disease mechanism by essentially producing as much fossil fuel CO2 as possible, in what category did Bob Ward place them, “stupid” at best, “Satanic Destructors of Creation” at worst?
The FUTILITY of Mankind trying to Control Climate
Just running the numbers
On average world temperature is +15 deg C. This is sustained by the atmospheric Greenhouse Effect 33 deg C. Without the Greenhouse Effect the planet would be un-inhabitable at -18 deg C. The Biosphere and Mankind need the Greenhouse Effect.
Just running the numbers by translating the agents causing the Greenhouse Effect into degrees centigrade:
• Greenhouse Effect = ~33.00 deg C
• Water Vapour accounts for about 95% of the Greenhouse Effect = ~ 31.35 deg C
• Other Greenhouse Gases GHGs account for 5% = ~1.65 deg C
• CO2 is 75% of the effect of all accounting for the enhanced effects of Methane and Nitrous Oxide GHGs = ~1.24 deg C
• Most CO2 in the atmosphere is natural, more than 93%
• Man-made CO2 is less than 7% of total atmospheric CO2 = ~0.087 deg C
• the UK contribution to CO2 is 2% equals = 1,740 millionths deg C
• the USA contribution to CO2 is ~20% equals = 17.6 thousandths deg C
So closing carbon economies of the Whole World could only ever achieve a virtually undetectable less than 0.01deg C. How can the Green movement and their supporting politicians think that their remedial actions can limit warming to only + 2.00 deg C?
So the probability is that any current global warming is not man-made and in any case such warming could be not be influenced by any remedial action taken by mankind however drastic.
As this is so, the prospect should be greeted with Unmitigated Joy:
• concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be discounted.
• it is not necessary to damage the world’s economy to no purpose.
• if warming were happening, it would lead to a more benign and healthy climate for all mankind.
• any extra CO2 is already increasing the fertility and reducing water needs of all plant life and thus enhancing world food production.
• a warmer climate, within natural variation, would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for human development. This has been well proven in the past and would now especially benefit the third world.
Nonetheless, this is not to say that the world should not be seeking more efficient ways of generating its energy, conserving its energy use and stopping damaging its environments. And there is a real need to wean the world off the continued use of fossil fuels simply on the grounds of:
• security of supply
• increasing scarcity
• rising costs
• their use as the feedstock for industry rather than simply burning them.
The French long-term energy strategy with its massive commitment to nuclear power is impressive, (85% of electricity generation). Even if one is concerned about CO2, Nuclear Energy pays off, French CO2 emissions / head are the lowest in the developed world.
However in the light of the state of the current solar cycle, it seems that there is a real prospect of damaging cooling occurring in the near future for several decades. And as power stations face closure the lights may well go out in the winter 2016 if not before.
All because CO2 based Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming has become a state sponsored religion. And now after splattergate thanks to 10:10 we now know exactly how many of them think.
bgood2creation,
How about:-
http://kirkmyers.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/miskolczi-destroys-greenhouse-theory/
“ClimateTruth: You used empirical data, rather than models, to arrive at your conclusion. How was that done?
Dr. Miskolczi: The computations are relatively simple. I collected a large number of radiosonde observations from around the globe and computed the global average infrared absorption. I performed these computations using observations from two large, publicly available datasets known as the TIGR2 and NOAA. The computations involved the processing of 300 radiosonde observations, using a state-of-the-art, line-by-line radiative transfer code. In both datasets, the global average infrared optical thickness turned out to be 1.87, agreeing with theoretical expectations.
ClimateTruth: Have your mathematical equations been challenged or disproved?
Dr. Miskolczi: No.
ClimateTruth: If your theory stands up to scientific scrutiny, it would collapse the CO2 global warming doctrine and render meaningless its predictions of climate catastrophe. Given its significance, why has your theory been met with silence and, in some instances, dismissal and derision?
Dr. Miskolczi: I can only guess. First of all, nobody likes to admit mistakes. Second, somebody has to explain to the taxpayers why millions of dollars were spent on AGW research. Third, some people are making a lot of money from the carbon trade and energy taxes.
ClimateTruth: A huge industry has arisen out of the study and prevention of man-made global warming. Has the world been fooled?
Dr. Miskolczi: Thanks to censored science and the complicity of the mainstream media, yes, totally.”
Anybody who seriously argues that carbon dioxide and methane are not greenhouse gases; that increasing the concentrations in the atmosphere doesn’t warm the world; I mean they’re basically fighting against 200 years worth of science….
Anybody who seriously argues that air is not an insulating gas; that increasing the thickness of double glazing doesn’t improve the insulation; I mean they’re basically fighting against 200 years worth of science….
Except they are because when you use Noddy science like this you forget simple things like the air moves … air in double glazing starts to move if the air gap becomes too large with the result the convective currents between the panes of glass override any increased insulation.
Similarly, CO2 & methane do not only absorb IR (obviously according to the conservation of energy) they emit IR. Basically they are far more “air-conditioning gases” than “greenhouse” gases (greenhouse work because they prevent convective currents not because of IR blocking!!!!!)
Basically they help emit IR from convective air currents – they increase cooling in the atmosphere!! …. And no doubt if we were facing natural cooling instead of natural warming, we’d all be told that anyone who denied the cooling effect of CO2 is flying in the face of 200 years of science.
u gotta love that graph (temp anomoly). the end point fallacy aplied 3 times in 1 graph. with nice simple linear fits each time. why didn’t they let me do that in uni?
CO2 and CH4 are definitely greenhouse gasses? Well, Anthony, not really if you believe the laws of thermodynamics. This so called back-scatter, or re-radiation in another form, violates the basic law that heat can only flow from warm to cold. If any gas has convected due to being heated, as they all do, then this parcel of gas will cool adiabatically and will become cooler than the surface. So this particular mass of gas cannot heat the surface only radiate heat to cooler above. Also any gas which adsorbes incoming energy is reducing energy reaching the surface. If it radiates this energy it is not increasing the incoming solar energy just releasing the energy that it has adsorbed so raising the level of total energy to that of the solar, less any system losses. Nothing can store energy, as stated by the GHG theory, due to 2nd law violations. As soon as any substance gains energy it must release that energy to a system at a lower energy level.
Atmospheric energy levels all come from the sun. Whatever energy exchanges happen will not change the overall energy in the system, law 1 applies.
The usual warmist emotive hyperbole from Ward:
“…if we just carry on pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere…”
Greenhouse gases can be emitted or released. But just who “pumps” greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? This sounds serious!
What this really shows up is that a person such as Robyn Williams can live off the public purse f0r the whole of his life and get accolades from the people he reports. He has acquired honorary degrees yet his own personal input has been a basic Bsc .
“Is it because no one actually has?”
You must lead a sheltered life. Did you not read the howls of outrage when Spencer explained that the greenhouse effect did not violate the laws of thermodynamics? Have you not seen Gerlich & Tscheuschner’s masterpiece “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics”?
Many readers on this site have problems with Engelbeen’s arguments that burning fossil fuels increases atmospheric CO2 levels.
Short holidays in Australia some years ago was enough to convince me that the ABC is as biased to the left and to Warmism as the BBC and may even use the BBC as its model.
Bob Ward’s specious attempts to deny the truths laid out in ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’ and his attacks on scientists who agree with the author in their reviews of that book is enough to give a very clear picture of Bob’s mission; to deny any fact which does not agree with his particular alarmist biases.
I am happy to be labelled a sceptic. I believe everyone, even those of us who have the tiniest scintilla of scientific knowledge, must be persuaded of the validity of any argument or theory rather than being told we are too ignorant or stupid to understand. I am not happy to be labelled either a ‘Liberal’ or a ‘Conservative’ as I believe those labels are too often applied without much thought or knowledge.
“The CAGW establishment has yet to realise that you cannot bully and batter people into trusting you, you cannot insult and deride your way into a persons affections and you cannot lie and cheat your way into peoples hearts.”
Cassandra,Liked your post – that has been my observation as a sceptic trying to make sense of the CAGW claims and the methods that have been used to belittle people like me and discredit the few scientists who were speaking out against Al Gores hyped propaganda film.
I found closed minds, sloppy thinking, regurgitation of half truths and a general disdain at the intellectual capacity of anyone that dared question CAGW. That, disdain later turned to rather dark threats, extremist suggestions, with the worst bile directed at sceptical scientists most qualified to comment. Of course they accepted without question the concept of universal scientific consensus and purity of “their” side!!. nuff said!!
Steve Mosher, we got into this gross stupidity by those with an agenda applying certainty, where they knew no such certainty existed, but in their lofty perception dumb people (the lesser of the world ?) should be lead by the nose and presented with clear cut choices, lest they think, question, and destroy a perfect opportunity to advance those agenda.
Unfortunately your “simple” choice poll, is sufficiently cas,t to be a spin doctors dream in presenting whatever view they want, it does not really help. Smokies true or false is better, with some adjustments to the question.
Alternatively I kind of like Judith Curry’s attempt to define the uncertainties of climate science and present alternative theories for discussion. This is what the Media and the ABC should be doing and following closely…. though I must say that in following Judiths blog, its a bit like a headmistress trying to control unruly children who wont concede even the most insignificant point, in a quest to prove their own theory.
I found that a bit frustrating in the discussion on the Bangladesh floods, when the scientists lost sight of the need for weather science (World Meteorology) to try and bury competing science theories and work towards providing early warning of approaching extreme weather and thus save lives. Judith did bring them back to that reality, but that didn’t stop the theorising and point scoring.
Judith has the patience of a saint IMHO!
There is a golden opportunity in Australia for introducing as a viable alternative to the present closed Political Climate committee,(proposed by the greens and Julia Gillards Labor) where you must be committed to accepting the green consensus on climate change and therefore, the introduction of a carbon pricing and tax regime before you can meet in secret (closed sessions) to determine how this will be foisted on the Australian public (Spin)
The golden opportunity is for the alternative government to sponsor an open and searching Senate investigation into the true strengths and weaknesses of the Climate Science underpinning this carbon taxing adventure.
I am sure that Anthony would give such an open public examination the publicity and the accolades necessary to win the hearts and minds of the people, for their better information on Climate Science. By opening up the science, to wider and unbiased scruitiny, people are better informed to apply a thoughtful vote in a proper exercise of democracy.
Just sick of spin and stupidity!!
I’m not surprised anymore by the climate dogma that pervaids the ABC and its journalists. There was at one time an attempt by one senior individual from the ABC to state that that the ABC should not have a “position” on the climate change issue. This advice has however been totally ignored. At every opportunity the ABC anounces some “evidence” for global warming or climate change that has now morphed into whether its hot or cold or wet or dry or ice disappearing along the west coast of Antarctica or the disappearance of a species of penguin, or plants in a greenhouse that are stunted by increased CO2 levels etc etc.
Does anyone expect to get a fair shake from the media or the warmists? SkepticalScience (very active pro warming site) has an article now that basically states that the only possible way to be “coherent” is to believe in AGW.
I will put up the commentary on my website tonight when I am done asking the following question there:
“So do any of you believe that skeptics can be coherent?”
It will be interesting to see what they say. I think we can all expect what they will say, but I am hoping that someone has an open mind.
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
Anthony Watts thinks C02 has a small warming effect. Warmists say C02 has a big warming effect.
I think more C02 will have a cooling effect. Explained more fully here
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
Warmists have one theory, sceptics have many and I see this as a plus for the sceptics.
These different theories are defended on WUWT. That is good for science.
Bob Ward says
Anybody who seriously argues that carbon dioxide and methane are not greenhouse gases; that increasing the concentrations in the atmosphere doesn’t warm the world; I mean they’re basically fighting against 200 years worth of science….
Older science is most likely to be wrong.
ABC: Anything But Credible.
Anton says:
October 5, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Sexton says . . .
“………It’s all a crock, but impressions count.
I’m fairly liberal on social issues, with the exception of abortion (whatever happened to birth control?), but always try to be fair and reasonable, and I do not want to be identified with any political group or party. And when it comes to climate change, I do not believe politics should ever be allowed to muddy the waters. This isn’t a political contest or a battle of religions, and all the windbag politicians need to shut up.”
=======================================================
Friend, I’m sorry to inform you, but it is a political issue. What I was attempting to point out, is that it isn’t fair for skeptics to be lumped all together in the same box as alarmists attempt to do. I also pointed out, it is human nature to do so. Climate skeptics traverse the entire political spectrum. This is to the credit of skepticism, not to the detriment of skepticism. Further, skepticism attacks the CAGW theory on all issues, not simply one or two. More to the credit of skeptics. As NoMoreGore shows, the politicization of the issue is the direct result of the alarmist activism and the proposed solutions. They read like a rewrite of Das Capital. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. For the record, conservatism doesn’t equal Republican. Further, I’m sorry about your reaction to “moralizing, bible-thumping, god-fearing Republicans”. I would have thought by now, at least in the skeptic community, we would have taken the time to examine our own prejudices and preconceptions of others. It seems I may have been overly optimistic. I’m also sorry about your fear of being mischaracterized by the media. Welcome to our world. Perhaps we can aim for doing away with some other misconceptions while we fight the alarmists? Or is that just too much to ask? Or is that too moralizing?
The science is ALWAYS clear when you have a vested interest in it~!
Lowering my carbon footprint would be a disaster. I own one rig that I use to drive to work during the week in town, and then use for work on the ranch on the weekends and in the Summer. It is a Jeep Commander. I used to have a Toyota Corolla as my only rig. I scratched it up loading it with barbed wire and tore up the underside on rocky ground while fixing fence.
I have one thing to say to any politician who wants to raise my taxes because of use of carbon.
Nuts.
Robin Williams is so PRO warming it is close to , No it IS! fanaticism.
Any complaints as I have written he will tell you to go to journalNature for proof..
yeah right..
What I find really interesting is Plimer wrote Books on Science with ABC promotion and Rave reviews Eureka awards 2x even
suddenly hes no scientist worth listening to according to the outrageously biased Williams.
2 saturdays before he was interviewing another Science Journo who stopped his smug warmist rant cold by saying he also fell for it..UNTIL…he did his research and he was angry at the lies and mistruths on warming.
williams shut up, it was pure Gold I tells ya:-)
the constant ridicule of both Ian Plimer and Bob Carter has been non stop and the ABC has lost me as a lifetime listener who trusted their No Bias Charter to be held to,
its a crock of **it, just like most of the fearmongering on EVERY ABC show, Bush telegraph and even life matters are all pushing it.
finding ONE show where it isnt mentioned as fait accompli? bloody hard to do that.
the one ray of truth is the COUNTERPOINT show late arvos, last week was brilliant.
the best thing ABC could do is fire Williams. I eagerly await that day
Pamela Gray says:
October 6, 2010 at 6:06 am
A wonderful invocation of General A.C. McAuliffe, the American fighting spirit, and the resolve necessary to be victorious in this current difficulty!
Posted comment on Judith Curry’s blog;
Richard Holle | October 6, 2010 at 9:17 am | Reply
So far the only “clear and present danger” that has come of the use of burning fossil fuels, have been cleaned up with the advent of modern coal power plant construction. The use of powered fuel, particle separators, flue scrubbers, exhaust to intake heat exchangers, and periodic maintenance schedules, has removed almost all of the real pollution problems associated with older models, due to be replaced from wear anyway.
Now with the export of coal burning power plants in India and China, they are not using any of the new advances in pollution controls, due to the additional unwanted cost of construction, then are importing all of the coal they can get, at resultant reduced prices due to lower domestic demand for consumption. How is that decreasing the output of the “real toxic non CO2″ pollution coming out of the ground?
The real effect of the Kyoto treaty and this new push for additional tax and regulation of CO2 as well as of soot, “black carbon”, SOx NOx and heavy metals, has been to move all coal combustion for the production of electrical power and resultant industrial production jobs and economies to countries where the lessons of the early regulations are totally ignored.
There has been a loss of control over keeping the real life threatening pollution products contained, just as the domestic industry has gotten rid of them and found ways to increase efficiency at the same time. The real clear and present danger is detailed in the effects of the atmospheric haze, and toxic levels of heavy metals now being released uncontrolled and unabated in someone else’s backyard into the Earth’s common atmosphere.
Granted the highest concentrations are “over there” but they will still have any/all of the effects on the range of proposed “climate change problems”that might become real, this is truly giving a child a machine gun, after taking it from the “big mean” soldier trained in discipline and with a first hand knowledge of the atrocities of war to under stand restraint is a good thing.
Why bother to demand tighter control and tax penalties on those who have responded to fixing the problems associated with fossil fuel burning, just to give an economic advantage to those who will not listen to reason at all. The additional transportation cost for the use of the coal far from it’s origin is just less ERoEI and wasteful of a somewhat limited resource.
Setting up a straw man of global warming is just a clever distraction from the movement of industrial production, jobs, and incomes by a process that results in the loss of regulation over the use of the coal, that has been counter productive for the real environmental progress we were making, while at the same time looting the jobs and incomes of those who were being responsible in the first place.
The international banks and corporations who have moved their investments onto preselected politically stable third world countries are the profiteers behind this displaced drive to “Change the world for their better incomes”.
It is still the undeveloped nations of extremely poor people with unstable governments that will suffer the most, and receive none of the benefits of investments just because of the untrustworthy forms of unstable governments they have. The environmental movement that was founded on the principals of cleaning up the real pollution problems, have been high jacked into being the dedicated free labor useful grassroots idiots to help drive this ploy.
Climate science has been corrupted and derailed to help with this process, there by ruining the reputation of all science in general, to dis empower it’s ability to fix anything, except what the giant international banks and corporations want to be worked on for their own ends. The developed world now properly saddled with domestic regulations, [blindered by alternate energy] and soon to be bridled with more taxes in some form, then will be ridden off into the sunset of western civilization.
I laughed at “not preparing for an invasion from Canada”.
That reminds me of the much missed Satire Wire website.
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0111/threats.shtml
U.S. “GROSSLY UNPREPARED” FOR UNLIKELY THREATS
No Plans in Place to Deal with Drying Up of Oceans, Giant Moon Explosion,
Or Potential for Everyone to Be Pecked to Death Like in “The Birds”
Richard Holle says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 6, 2010 at 7:24 am
Posted comment on Judith Curry’s blog;
Richard Holle | October 6, 2010 at 9:17 am | Reply
*who said time (zone) travel was impossible?*
Phil’s Dad says of the precautionary principle: “Improperly applied, you are of course right. There is, though, nothing wrong with the precautionary principle if it is applied with an even hand.”
But it is designed so that it cannot be applied with an even hand. That principle is deeply and multiply flawed, as I argued here: http://www.maxmore.com/perils.htm
James Sexton says . . .
“Further, I’m sorry about your reaction to ‘moralizing, bible-thumping, god-fearing Republicans’. I would have thought by now, at least in the skeptic community, we would have taken the time to examine our own prejudices and preconceptions of others. It seems I may have been overly optimistic. I’m also sorry about your fear of being mischaracterized by the media. Welcome to our world. Perhaps we can aim for doing away with some other misconceptions while we fight the alarmists? Or is that just too much to ask? Or is that too moralizing?”
Sorry back Sexton, but yes, it is. My remarks are not based on prejudice, preconception, or misconception, but on empirical observation. In this country, “Republican” more often than not equals “moralizing, Yahweh-fearing bible-thumper,” as evidenced by Christine O’Donnell, the GOP Senatorial candidate in Delaware. Her public rants against homosexuals, immorality, evolution, and other favorite Republican targets have been recorded for years, and yet she WON the Republican primary in her state because she speaks for a fair percentage of Republicans. If she joins the AGW skeptics’ bandwagon, it will be a disaster. She’s a fanatic who spouts off on issues about which she knows nothing. That’s the problem with fanatics. They yell first, and think later, if at all.
The AGW issue has been politicized because people on both sides want it that way, but it doesn’t have to remain so. You’re the one who brought up God, guns, and flag–almost as if a switch had been thrown, though none of them has any relevance to the debate.
If skeptics don’t want to be pigeonholed, they need to make a concerted effort not to look, act, and flap around like pigeons, or to invite pigeons to the gathering, or to feed and harbor pigeons, or to identify with pigeons. Politics may make strange bedfellows, but science should stick to facts.
netdr2 said (October 5, 2010 at 5:14 pm): We should [by the ” precautionary principal”] have several spaceships out in space right now pushing meteors around so the first time we do it won’t be for “real”! Where are they[?]
In fact NASA does monitor near Earth asteroids and there is research on ways to deflect a potentially dangerous one. But there is no evidence of a serious threat in the next few decades. GW however is here. There is no basis in the science for assuming it will be mild.
Tom Harris: “Since the impacts of major greenhouse gas decisions are delayed for decades, shouldn’t we take the time to carefully consider what leading experts such as Carter, Plimer and Lindzen are saying? Why rush decisions when the consequences of being wrong are so high? Either we are headed towards climate catastrophe or we are on the verge of wasting trillions of dollars worldwide on a non-issue. Either way, we owe it to our children and grandchildren to perform due diligence on the issue before making any decisions at all.”
We have been delaying for 20 years. The impact of today’s GHG emissions will last for hundreds of years. If the handful of sceptics turn out to be right it is easier to change policy than to undo the climate change if they are wrong. The projected economic impact on GDP of C&T by the CBO is fairly mild, although job losses in some sectors will be hard on some. We will need to reduce fossil fuel use sooner or later anyway. The technological advances C&T will spark will likely be useful regardless. Cleaner air and not having to defend Sandi Arabia do not seem too bad to me.
Should the below statements from the “well-qualified experts” Carter, Lindzen and Plimer be spread more to “help the public”?
Plimer:
Or Lindzen and Carter:
.
They have his number from Khilyuk and Chilingar, whose calculations go as follows:
In other words, Plimer claims that volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans in just one day, while Carter and Lindzen appear to believe that AGW is about humans directly heating the planet by combustion. (Fans of climate science might know that humans emit about 150 times as much CO2 as volcanoes on a yearly basis, while AGW is about humans changing the radiative balance by emitting absorptive greenhouse gases, but never mind).
So, is anybody here seriously willing to argue that these ridiculous points of view are not nonsense deliberately stated to generate confusion? (This would require making a convincing argument that Richard Lindzen does not understand the greenhouse effect). If so, I would honestly be very interested. If not, then any fair-minded individual can only agree with Bob Ward that those people are merely noise generators without serious scientific arguments.
PopTech
—1. Harries et al. 2001, “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997″ (65 citations)
I cannot find the full paper anywhere but this paper’s conclusions are challenged,
Is the additional greenhouse effect already evident in the current climate?
(Fresenius’ Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Volume 371, Number 6, pp. 791-797, November 2001)
– E. Raschke—
Actually that paper does not challenge the Harries paper. It merely questions modelling and correlations. Griggs showed evidence of an increased greenhouse effect and Raschke, as far as I can see, doesn’t say anything about that. And also, the Griggs paper was published before the Raschke paper, so I fail to see how the Griggs paper has been “challenged”.
—2. Griggs and Harries 2004, “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” (2 citations)
This is a proceedings papers and not peer-reviewed.—
Actually, I don’t know where you getting that from. It was published in the Journal of Climate. A peer-reviewed journal. Please provide you justification for saying this.
—So essentially you have no argument. For papers claiming to make an empirical case for AGW you would think they would all be published and widely cited.—
The first papers to discover the enhanced greenhouse effect effect are widely cited. Griggs 2001 was cited 67 times. His second paper was merely an extension of the first experiment, so the fact it was cited twice shouldn’t surprise you. The Philipona paper was cited 37 times. The Evans paper is just another extension of the previous papers and really isn’t very old. And these papers are all peer-reviewed, can you show that they weren’t please?
—I suggest in the future not looking at Skeptical Science for you sources.—-
And yet you’ve not at all shown why he/she shouldn’t.
The CET anomaly for 2010 remains steadfastly below the 1961/1990 average despite the malign machinations of our wonderful Met office, not least of which was a change of temperature measurement sites in the late 20th century from those that had applied since 1760.
Be that as it may, there is no way that the graph below could be used to imply that AGW or any other warming or cooling is happening.
Now get your hands away from my pocket and GET A REAL JOB!
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif
Anton says:
October 6, 2010 at 8:03 am
………..
If skeptics don’t want to be pigeonholed, they need to make a concerted effort not to look, act, and flap around like pigeons, or to invite pigeons to the gathering, or to feed and harbor pigeons, or to identify with pigeons. Politics may make strange bedfellows, but science should stick to facts.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Anton, you managed to miss and prove my point, almost in its entirety. Reality isn’t some club in which people can participate in to the point of exclusion. Yes, I mentioned God, guns and flag to make a point. The point was that people tend to make sweeping generalizations about people with points of contention in the arguments being made.
People often make incorrect assumptions about myself and other people with similar perspectives. It happens, and there isn’t much to be done about it, because we all engage in it. Right on cue, you engaged in the very same act, all the while railing against the ‘guilt by association’ and the broad brush alarmists try to paint us skeptics, and all the while painting conservatives with the same broad brush. Yes, I brought up God, guns and flag, and make no apologies for it. It doesn’t diminish my ability to reason, nor does it diminish my skepticism about climate science or the arguments I make.
BTW, admittedly, my knowledge of O’Donnell is limited, but there is another politician that this entire country (world?) owes a great debt of gratitude to. He’s not always correct on the science, but he was entirely correct about keeping the debate alive when no one else would stand up for the skeptics. He’s been leading the fight since the CAGW theory was first embraced by other members of our legislature. That would be Senator Inhofe. Yes, a moralizing, conservative republican, from the Bible belt. I dare say, without him and his influence, we’d be suffering under some form of cap and trade today. The fact is, there are many conservatives that are wondering about these “johnny-come-lately’s” in the skeptical debate. Glad you guys finally caught up, and welcome to the debate!
Christoffer Bugge Harder says:
“Fans of climate science might know that humans emit about 150 times as much CO2 as volcanoes on a yearly basis…”
Neither you, nor anyone else, ‘knows’ that humans emit 150 times as much CO2 as volcanoes, because the number and extent of volcanoes is unknown. And comparing the scientifically illiterate Mr Ward – a “public relations director” – with the head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department is ridiculous. Re-read the article to see just how silly that comparison is.
Bob Ward’s psychological projection regarding “noise generators” applies to public relations directors like himself – not to an internationally esteemed climate expert such as Prof Richard Lindzen, who is anything but a ‘noise generator.’
When P.R. flacks like Ward are the cards the alarmist contingent have been dealt, that’s the hand they have to play. Best to fold, when a public relations guy is your authority.
Anton,
I myself am a Canadian, member of the National Democratic Party and vote for he/she who will do the least damage always. Own a successful business, don’t mind the enormous cost of Uni-Health to me at all, have more First Nations in my family than you’ve ever seen in a western movie, have worked hand and shovel conserving wetlands since 1980 and would have voted for Hillary Clinton if I was an American. To call out Republicans as religious zealots yet not deal in turn with Democrats who put Pierre Elliot Trudeau and David Suzuki to absolute shame is paradigm dishonesty. Call them all or not at all.
There are already people posting here I skip as their content alters not a whit regardless of the topic in question.
Mike:
We have been delaying for 20 years.
Exactly! When is Climate Science going to subject itself to the Scientific Method?
And very briefly, Christoffer Bugge Harder, why has water vapor, with an essentially infinite source for its supply, not already boiled us all many times over? Isn’t water vapor ~”a ghg which will likewise doom the World”? Why hasn’t the much greater “natural” CO2 concentrations of the past, which so far have been shown at best to follow temperature increases and decreases instead of preceeding them, not done the same thing; and why did water vapor apparently not assist it then, when it allegedly will now?
What sane person wants to create a known disaster – such as exists right now in the underdeveloped world and is being dealt with there by massive fossil fuel CO2 producing construction projects involving coal fired electricity plants – in order to allegedly prevent a condidtion which has apparently never happened before with much greater CO2 concentrations and which the ipcc Climate Science has never shown by a proper analysis of benefits and detriments to be a net disease to begin with?
And shouldn’t the alleged cure to an alleged disease not be so far provenly worse than the alleged disease, an conclusion which China and India have apparently made?
Alternatively, for a mere $10 billion I will assemble a bunch of scientists who will “prove”, just as the ipcc Climate Science does, that Global Warming will produce the closest thing possible to Heaven on Earth.
Who in their right mind still listens to ipcc Climate Science which has been shown over and over to not only intentionally not be following the Scientific Method but even actively resisting it? Who would listen to my equally biased Propaganda Operation?
Poptech:
I should be more specific about the above papers:
The E. Raschke paper was submitted in March 2001, which was the publication date of Griggs paper. But I now see Raschke had been revised in May 2001 and did cite Griggs paper. But there is nothing here that I can see without looking at the paper that calls Griggs results into question. The abstract, “The currently observed near-surface warming over nearly the entire globe is already considered by a large fraction of our society to be result of this additional greenhouse effect. Complete justification of this assumption is, however, not yet possible, ” doesn’t question the results, is just says that there is not evidence for “complete justification” of attribution. It just wants more research into defining how much of the warming is due to natural and anthropogenic causes. The IPCC itself only says “over 50%” of warming is due to humans and put a 90% probability on that. I’m not sure how this paper disagrees.
Mike says:
October 6, 2010 at 8:07 am
“In fact NASA does monitor near Earth asteroids and there is research on ways to deflect a potentially dangerous one. But there is no evidence of a serious threat in the next few decades.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
“GW however is here. There is no basis in the science for assuming it will be mild.”
No evidence the we can actually control the climate in any way, shape, or form. No basis in the science for assuming that it won’t be mild either.
@Andy
Andy the graph shows warming because you did not go back far enough in temperature records… If you had gone back to the 1930’s there would still be warming but you would have seen a temperature dip for 40 years before begging to climb again… This does not mean there is no causation only that the direct correlation is a little sketchy.
This also does not mean an increase in Carbon Dioxide, or Methane, or Water Vapor does not translate to an increase in temperature only that the mechanisms are most likely far more complex and the end result ( detriment vs positive impacts on nature ) are far from only being one or the other.
Christoffer Bugge Harder says:
October 6, 2010 at 9:00 am
Plimer says: “One volcanic cough can do this in a day.”
You said: “In other words, Plimer claims that volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans in just one day, …”
He makes no such claim. Please note the word “can”. This quote does not say what you have attributed to him. He does not use the word “does” or “is” he uses “can” which only says that is capable or has the ability.
If Yellowstone went off it may do what Dr. Plimer says, but I doubt anyone would worry about the CO2 content of the gasses belching from the volcano at that point. Larger things to worry about.
Nor will I buy into the ridiculous morphing to Climate Disruption. Look at the dates of the various UK extremes from the Met office. No correlation with CO2 increase there.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/extremes/
It seems that the warmistas are tilting at their own windmills
mkelly (October 6, 2010 at 11:53 am) says:
See Plimer, Monbiot cross swords in climate debate-2, where Professor Ian Plimer squeals to the question whether humans or volcanoes produce more CO2 🙂
David L. said (October 6, 2010 at 11:30 am):
[Regarding near Earth asteroids:] “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
See here if you are really interested: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
“No evidence the we can actually control the climate in any way, shape, or form.”
We have influenced the climate. The question is, and it is an open one, can we control ourselves?
“No basis in the science for assuming that it [climate change] won’t be mild either.”
Read something on risk assessment and expectation values. The bulk of the evidence is that AGW is real and serious. See: http://americasclimatechoices.org/. Yes there are alarmists activists and sloppy reporters, but that doesn’t negate the science. On the “skeptic” side we have economic alarmism.
joe at 1:13 am:
“…u gotta love that graph (temp anomoly). the end point fallacy aplied 3 times..”
An end point fallacy (as used by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri) is the selective use of endpoints to make a specious claim like the rate of ‘global warming’ is increasing:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo5.png
The graph above shows that any anthropogenic signal, if there at all, is patchy or muted.
desmong says:
October 6, 2010 at 12:43 pm
As I only commented on what was posted I find you must agree with what I said.
I would like to see a Global Warming believer respond to Richard Holle’s comment at 7:42 am. If I can paraphrase, his basic question, which I happen to fully agree with, is this: Even if you are convinced that human caused CO2 emmissions are causing harm to the environment, can’t you see that the proposed solutions are having the exact opposite effect of what you purport to desire??????
Adding taxes and regulations to western nations which generally have better technology and environmental regulations simply forces production to nations with much less efficient technology and very little regard for the environment. Do you honestly think China and India are going to agree to or abide by any environmental restrictions? Until you can give me a reasonable explaination as to how this benefits the environment, your “precautionary principle” is a fool’s errand.
desmong says:
October 6, 2010 at 12:43 pm
The US geological Survey has no idea how much CO2 volcanoes put out – they quote one paper Gerlach 1991!! Try and find it. Their link to it is a recycle back to the same page. How much knowledge re volcanoes, especially submarine volcanoes, did they know about in 1991? 19 years later they are still discovering new submarine volcanoes every day and they still have no idea how many there are.
According to a leading British vulcanologist when asked how much CO2 the recent Iceland volcano emitted replied that no one actually knows how much CO2 volcanoes emit because no one has measured it precisely.
That TV interview with Plimer, Monbiot and Tony Jones was the most despicable piece of TV journalism ever!!
@JPeden says:
“[W]hy has water vapor, with an essentially infinite source for its supply, not already boiled us all many times over? Isn’t water vapor ~”a ghg which will likewise doom the World”? Why hasn’t the much greater “natural” CO2 concentrations of the past, which so far have been shown at best to follow temperature increases and decreases instead of preceding them, not done the same thing; and why did water vapor apparently not assist it then, when it allegedly will now?”
The amount of water vapor the atmosphere can hold is a function of the temperature. Your statement that there an essentially limitless supple of liquid water has no barring on the matter. Most past climate changes were triggered by “wobbles” in earth’s orbit. These small changes are amplified by feedback mechanisms such as a slightly warmer air temps leading to more CO2 which in turn causes a greenhouse effect which is further amplified by increased H2O vapor greenhouse effect. But the cycle can be started by higher CO2 levels as has happened from increased volcanic activity and is now happening because of human activity. Since you know so little of the science maybe you should not smugly lecture insinuate that the world’s leading climatologists don’t understand the “scientific method.” See The Discovery of Global Warming by Wert.
“What sane person wants to create a known disaster – such as exists right now in the underdeveloped world and is being dealt with there by massive fossil fuel CO2 producing construction projects involving coal fired electricity plants – in order to allegedly prevent a condidtion which has apparently never happened before with much greater CO2 concentrations and which the ipcc Climate Science has never shown by a proper analysis of benefits and detriments to be a net disease to begin with?”
There is no basis for assertion that cap and trade or a carbon tax would result in economic disaster. This is pure alarmism. It is agreed the developing countries will be permitted to further increase their GHG emissions for now. In the West initial reductions will not be that costly as there is plenty that can be done through greater efficiency. In the medium run nuclear power will be up and running. Major long term reductions may be difficult unless new technologies are developed – so better to start now. Any reductions we can make now we should do. The cost of adaptation is likely to be higher than the cost of mitigation although both will be needed. We should mitigate as much as is cost effective. We will have to develop post fossil fuel technologies someday anyway.
@Canadian Mike:
We could impose a ‘carbon tariff’ on goods from countries that do not comply with negotiated agreements if this were to become a problem.
@Mike
So, if I follow you, current CO2 emissions from western countries are an immediate threat but you will deal with significantly higher CO2 emissions and real pollutants from “developing” countries if they “become a problem”.
Further, “developing” countries are generally exempted from reduction agreements so your solution would have no real impact.
It seems clear to me the solutions being proposed by the left will have a negative environmental impact and will drastically redistribute wealth.
gryposaurus,
1. Harries et al. 2001, “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997″ (65 citations)
“Actually that paper does not challenge the Harries paper. It merely questions modelling and correlations. Griggs showed evidence of an increased greenhouse effect and Raschke, as far as I can see, doesn’t say anything about that. And also, the Griggs paper was published before the Raschke paper, so I fail to see how the Griggs paper has been “challenged”.”
Yes it does challenge the paper’s conclusions and directly references it. Harries et al. was published in March 2001. Raschke was published in November 2001.
2. Griggs and Harries 2004, “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” (2 citations)
“Actually, I don’t know where you getting that from. It was published in the Journal of Climate. A peer-reviewed journal. Please provide you justification for saying this.”
Really? The paper explicitly named “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” was published in the the Journal of Climate? Please provide the link. Here I will help you.
Looks like you conceded on 3 an 4. The paper full of modeling (3) and the conference paper (4). Another epic fail for Skeptical Science.
“And yet you’ve not at all shown why he/she shouldn’t.”
Because it is a worthless source but Skeptical Science doesn’t care about their hypocrisy right?
For papers claiming to make an empirical case for AGW you would think they would all be published and widely cited. Funny how skeptics papers must be peer-reviewed and widely cited but AGW proponents can have 2 or less citations and be conference papers.
Steve Mosher:
Regarding your poll. Have you been here?
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/design-a-poll/
I see you link to Jeff’s blog on your blog.
I would suggest a “criteria for being counted”. I’m not sure how to do that, but I suspect such a poll would be a magnet for sock puppets.
Cheers
JE
James Sexton says . . .
“People often make incorrect assumptions about myself and other people with similar perspectives. It happens, and there isn’t much to be done about it, because we all engage in it. Right on cue, you engaged in the very same act, all the while railing against the ‘guilt by association’ and the broad brush alarmists try to paint us skeptics, and all the while painting conservatives with the same broad brush. Yes, I brought up God, guns and flag, and make no apologies for it. It doesn’t diminish my ability to reason, nor does it diminish my skepticism about climate science or the arguments I make. ”
No. Right on cue, YOU brought up God, guns, and flag. They have nothing to do with the issue, and make the skeptics’ side look retarded. You are behaving exactly the way the [liberal] warmists claim we all do.
Alan F. says . . .
“I myself am a Canadian, member of the National Democratic Party and vote for he/she who will do the least damage always. Own a successful business, don’t mind the enormous cost of Uni-Health to me at all, have more First Nations in my family than you’ve ever seen in a western movie, have worked hand and shovel conserving wetlands since 1980 and would have voted for Hillary Clinton if I was an American. To call out Republicans as religious zealots yet not deal in turn with Democrats who put Pierre Elliot Trudeau and David Suzuki to absolute shame is paradigm dishonesty. Call them all or not at all.
“There are already people posting here I skip as their content alters not a whit regardless of the topic in question.”
Apparently you skipped mine too, since I criticized the Democrats as much as the Republicans. I do not want to be branded as associated with either. Their leaders are ALL fanatic, self-serving charlatans imposing their fringe beliefs on everyone else, while claiming they represent the majority.
Today I received an e-mail with a video link from a liberal friend with a note asking me to send it on to all my friends and relatives. I clicked the link, and watched an absurd, bigoted, straw-man riddled commercial called Why I Am Voting Republican or some such featuring actors portraying Republicans as cruel primitives. It doesn’t matter that it’s all nonsense; millions and millions of people believe this because so many Republicans do conform to these stereotypes and the others do not stand up and put an end to it. The Democratic Party never tells the truth about anything, and always tries to pass the blame for its own blunders on its opposition, so that a vast majority of Democrats have no clue that their own leaders are responsible for many of the things they criticize.
Republicans and Democrats who do not want to join the Borg or have a handful of greedy manipulators control the country need to abandon both parties and form something new: an alliance based on common ground, not celebrating differences. Politicians are not public servants: They are vastly over-paid public cattle herders, trying to impose their values, or the values of their paid sponsors, on everyone else.
This November, I plan to vote against every sitting politician up for re-election that I can, regardless of party. These horrible entities have done incalculable damage, and not one of them deserves a second, third, fourth, or fifth chance.
Anton, you may want to look into Libertarians.
[Well, at least we agree on the need to construct more nuclear energy plants.]
Mike says:
October 6, 2010 at 2:28 pm
The amount of water vapor the atmosphere can hold is a function of the temperature.
So water vapor is not a “ghg” in its own right? Which increases atmospheric temp. by slowing Long Wave radiation loss to space, similar to the “ghg” function of CO2? But which is a much more potent radiation-capturing/slowing molecule than is CO2. A molecule which also by virtue of its greater atmospheric concentration, where present, completely cloaks any CO2 Long Wave radiation capturing/slowing, except in the ~15u band area. And whose concentration will increase by virtue of any initial increased atmospheric warming effect in response to an increased Long Wave source, where a water vapor source is available, thus allowing even more of any emitted Long Wave radiation still available to be absorbed/converted/slowed by the then increased water vapor concentration, and so on to a theoretical limit depending upon the amount of Long Wave available. A ghg which does not need CO2 to have an adequate atmospheric warming effect, as demonstrated by ice core data and also demonstrated by the fact that current CO2 concentrations are apparently at an ~630 million yr. low, but nevertheless apparently already at a concentration exerting nearly its maximal ability to capture/slow existing Long Wave radiation escape.
While water vapor’s more potent ghg effect has been effectively countered by water’s own negative feedback mechanisms.
Since you know so little of the science maybe you should not smugly lecture insinuate that the world’s leading climatologists don’t understand the “scientific method.”
Then why don’t the Climate Scientists use it? Why do you think Climate Science is in such trouble and disrepute? And why then is Climate Science most obviously only a massive Propaganda Op.?
There is no basis for assertion that cap and trade or a carbon tax would result in economic disaster.
Tell that to the Chinese and Indians, who already are in a state of economic disaster, and are working to get out of it by the unimpeded production of as much fossil fuel CO2/electrictiy as possible! Tell that to people in the developed countries who know that their current wellbeing/standard of living depends upon a certain level of easily available fossil fuel energy. Tell that to people like Indur Golanky who have presented studies right here at WUWT demonstrating increases in lifespan and decreases in devastation from severe climate events which are directly tied to fossil fuel technology and the resulting overall economic development. Tell it to every nation which is giving up on solar and wind as an effective replacement.
And, Mike, given your own concerns and alleged superior knowledge as to the alleged threat posed by fossil fuel CO2 and its resolution, please inform us as to what you have already done to decrease your own personal fossil fuel “footprint”. Here’s betting that you can’t come anywhere close to what I’ve done over a 40 year period to minimize mine, even though I am operating solely on the basis of principles having to do with common sense efficiency.
Have you done much of anything other than to abet those who want to loot and control everyone else’s energy use, hence most aspects of their very lives? Why are you on the wrong side of reason?
Poptech says . . .
“Anton, you may want to look into Libertarians.”
I have, and they don’t do any for me, either. Their pro-abortion, pro-recreational drug position repels me, and their selfishness does even more so. They should factually call themselves libertines, not libertarians.
But, thanks for the suggestion.
Anton
Regardless of the interview, Williams clearly selected an interviewee with the appropriate bias. Seems to be a recurring pattern at the ABC.
These are popular misconceptions,
On the abortion issue libertarians do not take a side as you will find both positions Libertarians for Life.
They are not pro-recreational drugs, rather decriminalization of their use. There is a big difference. I personally consider drug users to be weak minded idiots but I support their right to give themselves brain damage if they choose. It is effectively impossible to stop people from doing harm to themselves. My only concern is when their behavior effects others.
Selfishness is a personal choice and has nothing to do Libertarians.
I highly suggest watching this video as it corrects your popular misconceptions including your libertine comment,
What is a Libertarian?
BTW where did you hear these common misconceptions?
Right. Let’s read
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html
Let’s see what the US Geological Survey says,
Do we also doubt the USGS? Isn’t there any moderation on what is being said here?
—-Yes it does challenge the paper’s conclusions and directly references it. Harries et al. was published in March 2001. Raschke was published in November 2001.—-
All you’ve shown is that Raschke cited the Harries paper. You’ve shown no evidence of it questioning the Harries conclusion of evidence of increased greenhouse effect at man-made emission wavelengths. The paper merely asks if human attribution has “complete justification” for the all the surface warming. It doesn’t disagree with the consensus, either in 2001 or that latest IPCC in 2007, that human emissions are responsible for over 50% of the warming. Please provide the exact reason for the citation and then we can get somewhere in discussing whether or not he “challenges” the Harries results.
—Really? The paper explicitly named “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” was published in the the Journal of Climate? Please provide the link. Here I will help you.—
And here is the paper from the Journal of Climate. Same data, authors, conclusions, etc, and peer-reviewed. No need to question its whether it was reviewed or make accusations of hypocrisy without proof.
—-For papers claiming to make an empirical case for AGW you would think they would all be published and widely cited. Funny how skeptics papers must be peer-reviewed and widely cited but AGW proponents can have 2 or less citations and be conference papers.—-
I already showed you the initial, important papers on the enhanced greenhouse effect were widely cited. Why are you ignoring that and reposting the same irrelevant argument?
Poptech, I have been to Libertarian Web sites, I have read Libertarian literature, and I have listened to Libertarian spokespersons. If I have misconceptions about Libertarianism, it’s because of Libertarians, including the few I’ve met in person. The obsession with Me, Me, Me and Mine, Mine, Mine that seems to define the entire movement doesn’t do anything for me at all. I’m not interested in returning to covered wagons.
desmong says:
October 7, 2010 at 2:24 am
so your article suggests that the one volcano they measured (Kilauea) produced 30,000 tonnes of CO2 per day. That’s 10,950,000 tonnes per year.
They also say that the total CO2 output from the known volcanoes is 200,000,000 tonnes.
Therefore they are assuming there are 18.26 active volcanoes.
here’s an extract from an interview by the ABC’s Robyn Williams on the Science Show from earlier this year:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2831536.htm
ignore the fact that 100 isn’t 1% of 50,000 but note the 50,000 – that’s a great deal larger than 18 don’t you think? But they are just guessing as no one actually knows, just as no one knows where to differentiate between an out gassing from multiple vents and an actual volcano. Add to that the thermal regions like Yellowstone and Rotorua globally and I suggest you’ll find there’s more natural CO2 around than the USGS would have you believe.
Ian Plimer’s book has page after page in a chapter on volcanoes which is why he waved the book at the two attackdog journalists (who had claimed to have read his book) as all his information was in the book fully referenced.
“They Blinded Me With”Science”. I am an Electronics Technician (avionics). Always, in an analog circuit there is “noise”. Noise in this instance is spurious electronic signals of very low level. Radios and other electronics filter and/or ignore this noise. With CO2 at .038%, 380 ppm, it can “backscatter” IR radiation to its extreme and at that low concentration(.038%) the temperature rise will not be greater than the natural noise in the system. It would have NO effect. This is the “common sense” view that occurred to me 20 years ago when I first considered the AGW scare. I stand by it today.
I challenge anyone to use the “Scientific Method” to prove AGW. But they haven’t. Seems much of the observed actual data won’t fit the models. HMMM.
Where is that pesky “Tropospheric Warm Zone”. Funny, it’s not there. despite the models.
Anton,
I hope you will consider watching this video,
What is a Libertarian? (Video)
I am not sure how many you have talked to but it only takes a conversation with one radical who is poor at communication to misinform someone. I am not sure your your exact concerns with the “me, me, me” statements unless you reject independence, personal responsibility and liberty? There is nothing about Libertarians that rejects charity, they simply reject socialist policies. Charity is widely discussed as the alternative to welfare. So without clarifying exactly what your “selfish” concerns are, I cannot address them. But as I have clearly pointed out, you have already presented multiple misconceptions so it is likely you have the same here.
I question you seriousness on discussing the issue when you mention absurdities like “covered wagons”.
gryposaurus,
1. My link to the full copy of the Raschke paper is broken and there does not appear to be another one online so I am unable to quote from it but it does specifically reject the implications of the Harries paper made by proponents of AGW. There are however other rebuttals to the paper,
A Smoking Pea-Shooter
“From the foregoing, we can safely disregard the media hysteria about this paper’s findings. At face value it proves little that we did not already know. The `increase’ in the greenhouse effect claimed was mostly caused by a real or imagined change in the methane spike at wave 1300, not by CO2.
The instruments themselves are so different as to make some variation between the two data streams inevitable. It should be no surprise therefore that some slight differences are present. The climatic states of the two years in question were very different. 1970 was during a solar maximum with a weak La Niña in progress, while 1997 was a solar minimum year with a powerful El Niño starting. Both these features would cause differences to occur in infra-red profiles from the very part of the world most affected by the sun and El Niño/La Niña – the tropics in the western Pacific.
And even if we accept the `statistical significance’ of the two gases identified as showing the greatest effect, namely methane and the CFCs, neither gas can be considered as problems at the present time. Methane has now stopped increasing, while CFCs are already in decline due to the restrictions of the Montreal Protocol.
The primary gas at the centre of the greenhouse controversy – CO2 – gives only weak indications in this study, well within the range of instrument error between two very different instruments separated by technologies 27 years apart.
This study is in no way a `smoking gun’ as hoped for by the industry. It’s more a smoking pea-shooter.”
2. Like I said the paper cited by bgood2creation, “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” was published by Proceedings of SPIE and was not peer-reviewed. The new paper you are citing is different,
5. Griggs and Harries 2007 “Comparison of Spectrally Resolved Outgoing Longwave Radiation over the Tropical Pacific between 1970 and 2003 Using IRIS, IMG, and AIRS” is only cited 2 times.
Do you reject that the number of citations a paper has as an important factor of it’s relevance?
My proof for hypocrisy was proven by bgood2creation citing two conference papers that were not peer-reviewed and had a low citation count.
@Smokey October 6, 2010 at 9:28
The volcanic contribution of CO2 is well-known and long has been, as is the isotopic evidence that rules out the biosphere and the ocean as significant sources for the CO2 rise as well. Desmong provided a fine link with documentation, but there are many more out there if you are interested. As even WUWT regulars Eschenbach and Ferdinand Engelbeen has recently shown on this blog, you are seriously wasting your time trying to blame the CO2 rise on anything but humans – especially volcanoes.
First of all, assessing AGW is not about “Bob Ward versus Richard Lindzen”, (or e.g. Gore vs. Monckton, for that matter) but about looking at what the scientific documentation says. Bob Ward simply makes the correct point that Lindzen, Carter and Plimer (and lots of others) are peddling obvious nonsense without a shred of evidence to back it up. I just listed three of the most glaring examples.
Second, I completely agree that Lindzen is a brilliant scientist. This is exactly what is troubling me when he quotes Khilyuk & Chilingar´s “total human combustion could only increase temperature by 0,01C”? I will allow myself to assume that you agree that there is no way that Lindzen could seriously think that the AGW hypothesis is about humans directly heating the planet by combustion. Why, then, does he approvingly quotes this utter rubbish as were it a serious scientific dispute? I do not know whether Lindzen has failed to read the argument he relies on in it entirety or whether he is simply dishonest, but in either case it is embarassing for someone who is – or perhaps, once was – a respected scientist.
In any case, no sane person could honestly dispute that Lindzen´s claim is exactly what Ward says: confusion-generating noise. And the fact that a PR guy like Ward (or a mere graduate student as I) does in fact get some very basic facts right which is missed (or deliberately evaded) by Lindzen, Carter and Plimer should give any sane, normally gifted person relying on those people reason to pause. You are (apparently unknowingly) making Bob Ward´s point.
@mkelly says: October 6, 2010 at 11:53 am
Leaving aside the fact that Plimer himself said exactly what I attributed to him in the debate with George Monbiot challenging him on this very quote (as Desmong noted) –
– even if your interpretation had been correct, it would make Plimers argument pointless. Plimer´s wording “one volcanic cough in just a day” certainly suggests that this is an ordinary phenomenon. If his argument merely were that some very rare kind of volcano could in theory add significant amounts of CO2 only in the most unlikely of imagined circumstances not witnessed in the last millenia, then what is the point of bringing it up in a debate about the last 250 years of CO2 increase? Surely not generating noise and confusion, or…….?
Besides, it is not even true that humans have added just one ppm – we have added about 110 ppm of the present 390 ppm. Neither is it true that even the largest of volcanoes could possible add as much in one day, or even a year. See the documentation quoted above in my answer to “Smokey”.
As Ward says, this is simply noise and confusion, and the only reason why anybody would want to hear more of this is if one wants to make it more difficult for people to reach the correct scientifically based conclusions.
@JPeden
Mike already answered part of this: Water vapour is a feedback, and not a forcing. This does not mean that H2O is not a GHG in its own right, but it does mean than it cannot trigger changes in itself, but only amplify changes brought about by forcings.
To make it clearer for you: The residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 1000-10000 times larger than that of H2O, so while CO2 or CH4 stay in the atmosphere for years or even decades, adding more H2O to the atmosphere than could be supported by the actual temperature conditions would simply cause it to rain out again in days or weeks. (This can be calculated by the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, which is secondary school or at least 1-year college basics – instead of harping endlessly about a perceived want of “The scientific method”, why don´t you go try it out yourself?)
First of all, there is quite a lot of evidence that GHGs have indeed caused large temperature rises and other dramatic disruptions in the past – e.g. under the Permian Mass Extinction 250 mya or the a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene–Eocene_Thermal_Maximum”>Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum about 55 mya.
Second, if you intend to repeat the question about why it did not happen e.g. 650 mya under the supposed “Snowball earth” with 10-12.000 ppm CO2 – then why not use your beloved scientific method again and do a couple of simple calculations? Assuming similar ingoing radiation (342 W/m2) and albedos for land and ice of 0,3 and 0,5, respectively, the forcing difference imparted from an Earth entirely covered by ice sheets would be about 342*0,2=68 W/m2. 10.000 ppm is just above 5 doublings relative to the present historic values (about 280 ppm ), and each doubling gives about 3,7 W/m2 (this value is acknowledged even by Lindzen). 5 doublings gives 18,5 W/m2 – far below the forcing imparted by the ice sheets. So you see, simple use of the scientific method does indeed provide quite a few good answers for your questions.
??? According to all literature on the temperature-CO2 lag in the glaciation cycles I have ever read, water vapour did assist CO2 (and the orbital and the ice sheet forcing, not to forget) in deglaciation. See e.g. Lorius et al. (1990). The orbital forcing was the initiator, and it was assisted by the triggered changes in ice sheet cover and atmospheric CO2, CH4 – and, of course, water vapour. See also Caillon et al. (2003).
Sorry, but not on Planet Earth. See e.g. Soden et al. (2005), Dessler et al. 2008 or Trenberth et al. (2010) – all show an empirically clear and unequivocally positive feedback (the latter paper specifically demonstrating where Lindzen has gone wrong).
Mr. Peden, I doubt that any of this will make you admit any error, let alone change any of your beliefs, but you are obviously unaware of many of the most basic facts and concepts on the topic of climate change. If it is the cap-and-trade and other economic issues that bother you, then why don´t you stick to criticising those? There is zero serious content in your objections to the scientific documentation, and I frankly think that you do your own case more harm than good by repeating basic misunderstandings as you do here and on your page.
Christoffer Bugge Harder says:
“As even WUWT regulars Eschenbach and Ferdinand Engelbeen has [sic] recently shown on this blog, you are seriously wasting your time trying to blame the CO2 rise on anything but humans – especially volcanoes.”
Is your reading comprehension really that bad?? Or, are you deliberately using a red herring argument? As Willis says: quote my exact words. And leave your assumptions for the head-nodders at the RealClimate echo chamber.
But here at the internet’s “Best Science” site, you’ll get push-back if you don’t have solid evidence to support your CO2=CAGW conjecture. So produce testable, empirical, replicable evidence verifying that CO2 is the main driver of the climate. If you can.
Re-read my post of October 6, 2010 at 9:28 am one more time. I stand by everything I wrote, and I note that it was you who gave a pretty precise number for a very big unknown [if you believe the number of undersea volcanoes is known with any accuracy, then by all means, please provide that number].
You also misrepresented what I wrote re: Willis and Ferdinand. As I have posted repeatedly here, I agree with them. You might also pay attention to the central question in the entire debate: will an increase in CO2 cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe?
You see, it doesn’t matter if CO2 is rising – which is mostly an effect, not a cause, of the planet’s emergence from the LIA more than anything, since rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature. The only thing that matters is whether a rise in CO2 will cause a catastrophic “tipping point” to occur. Because if the planet warms 1°C or less from here, the net effect will on balance be beneficial to the biosphere. But so far, the planet is falsifying the computer models.
Finally, keep in mind that scientific skeptics — the only honest kind of scientists — have nothing to prove. The onus is entirely on the purveyors of the debunked CO2=CAGW conjecture to provide any convincing, testable, empirical evidence showing that a minor trace gas is the primary driver of the climate.
So far, climate alarmists have failed to provide convincing evidence, due to one major obstacle: the scientific method — which the alarmist crowd avoids like Dracula avoids the dawn.
But if you do manage to find some evidence of that elusive tipping point, you will be the first to do so, and you will be well on your way to sharing the Nobel prize with Al Gore and Barry Obama. Good luck, I wish you the best in that regard.
Poptech:
—–1. My link to the full copy of the Raschke paper is broken and there does not appear to be another one online so I am unable to quote from it but it does specifically reject the implications of the Harries paper made by proponents of AGW.—–
So you can’t really tell anyone what the citation says? How does it “specifically reject the implications”? The implications are that there is extra energy on the planet at human emission wavelengths. Raschke doesn’t deny that from what you’ve posted. In fact, there is a sample page that states he only wants further investigation into whether the increased greenhouse effect can be attributed to all the warming, and wants to know what portion. It also questions the models ability to do this at the time (2001). Otherwise, I don’t see where Raschke “rejects” the paper’s “implications”. Being skeptical and wanting to get a better measurement of attribution is not the same as rejecting. That’s just good science.
—-There are however other rebuttals to the paper,
A Smoking Pea-Shooter—-
This is a blog post of a guy eyeballing a chart and not making sound conclusions based on it. He says, “As we can see, the differences are only slight, though detectable (thus making them `statistically significant’ – a far cry from being climatically significant).” He clearly didn’t understand what “slight” is, or what significance is important. He seems mainly concerned about media spin. Not only that, this blog post does not include all the follow up on this subject. I think John Daly passed in 2004 and didn’t see any of that data himself. This isn’t something that people, who want to know what’s going on, would care about.
—-2. Like I said the paper cited by bgood2creation, “Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present” was published by Proceedings of SPIE and was not peer-reviewed. The new paper you are citing is different,—–
The studies are the same. Take a look a the two and tell me why it is so critical they were published in two different places. The methodology, results and conclusions were peer-reviewed and that is what is important. The fact that one was released at a conference and the other was submitted to a journal is nit-picky silliness in order to put the label of hypocrite on AGW proponents. It’s an inaccurate account using this example.
— is only cited 2 times.
Do you reject that the number of citations a paper has as an important factor of it’s relevance?—
I’ve already discussed why; the initial paper and results are a more important citation than a six year extension of the same data. You still ignore this to win this stupid argument in order to make AGW proponents look like hypocrites. Why? Maybe this is more important to you than learning the reality of the science? Do tell.
—-My proof for hypocrisy was proven by bgood2creation citing two conference papers that were not peer-reviewed and had a low citation count.—
This is a poor case then. I wouldn’t bother calling attorney general on this one.
gryposaurus,
Do you reject that the number of citations a paper has as an important factor of it’s relevance? (Yes/No)
fully referenced book? two attack dog journalists?
Plimer’s book is so poor, it should be in the fiction shelf of the bookshop.
Have a look at the reactions of the scientists (not the media).
Plimer is a pro in evading questions, and he showed it in this interview. The ABC journalist did his job well to get Plimer to answer the question he was asked, for such a basic thing as whether really the volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans.
What journalists do you like? Push-over journalists?
@Smokey
This thread is about Plimer´s and Lindzen´s credibility. I raised two very simple points in this regard which you, so far, have failed to address. Why don´t you take a look at them before you attack an army of strawmen? I said nothing about “CAGW” (and nor do I see any point in debating the consequences of the anthropogenic CO2 rise with someone who is still struggling to understand the simplest of facts about the anthropogenic origin of this rise).
1. Plimer claims that one volcanic eruption can add more CO2 to the atmosphere than humans have done in the last 250 years. Even assuming (highly unrealistically) that unknown sub-sea volcanoes add 10 times the known volcanic output to the atmosphere, it would still be a small fraction of our annual emissions – and needless to say, there is zero evidence behind this. He has quite simply pulled his numbers and examples directly from the sleeve to make a nice soundbite. Do you honestly not see that Plimer´s claim is flatly ridiculous?
2. Lindzen (and Carter) promote an attempt to refute AGW which assumes that AGW is about direct heating. Do you seriously think that a brilliant scientist like Lindzen does not understand the mechanisms behind the greenhouse effect?
I would appreciate if you could just answer those two very specific questions. And if you realise that Plimer´s and Lindzen´s+Carter´s points are rubbish, then do you think that this is something that serious, “truth-seeking” scientific reporters ought to make sure that the public hears more about?
P.S.:
I did not expect you to believe me or any scientific evidence from Revelle, Suess, Keeling, le Quere or the countless others who have demonstrated over and over again how the present CO2 rise is almost 100% manmade, not an effect of the end of the LIA and preceded the temperature increase of the late 20th century, but I did have a vain hope that you might believe Eschenbach and/or Engelbeen when they laid out the evidence here on this “best science site”. Well, this hope was dashed. However,
following your advise and quoting Eschenbach´s and Engelbeen´s exact words, here is Eschenbach (from WUWT):
and Engelbeen:
So you see, there is no problem with neither my reading comprehensions nor my quotations. Furthermore, since both Plimer, Carter and Lindzen are either squarely denying the facts (as laid out clearly above by even sceptics like Eschenbach and Engelbeen) or quoting arguments from others that build on such denial – then where exactly do you see a red herring?
gryposaurus,
1. Get me a full copy of the paper and I will get you the citation. Does Harries et al. claim statistical significance? Actually do you even have a full copy of the paper?
2. Accurate citations are important if you cite one paper and mean another, it makes you look incompetent. Correctly cite the paper you are referring to the first time. Regardless the paper(s) results are again based on more computer modeling,
“Spectra were simulated using the MODTRAN version 3 band model”
You have still not answered my question,
Do you reject that the number of citations a paper has as an important factor of it’s relevance? (Yes/No)
So far you have nothing.