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
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.