Guest post by Steve Goreham
Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate, is a remarkably flexible ideology. Calling it “global warming” for many years, advocates then renamed the crisis “climate change” after the unexpected cooling of global surface temperatures from 2002-2009. Last month, John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, urged everyone to start using the term “global climate disruption.” What’s next — “catastrophic climate calamity”?
Decreasing snowfall was once claimed as an indication of man-made climate change. After years of declining snowfall in England, Dr. David Viner, senior scientist at the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia, predicted that winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event.” Others predicted that snow cover in the United Kingdom would disappear by 2020. But last winter, at the same time that much of the eastern U.S. received record snowfalls, the U.K. was entirely blanketed by snow, as shown in the following NASA satellite photograph — a rare occurrence.
The heavy snow in England was very embarrassing for the U.K. Meteorological Office, which had predicted a mild winter.
So what have the alarmists done? Attend almost any lecture today by an advocate of man-made global warming and you’ll find that “heavy snowfall” is now included on the list of impacts from climate change. Now both heavy snow and lack of snow are evidence of man-made warming.
To anyone who studies geologic history, the 1.3oF rise in global surface temperatures over the last century is unremarkable. Yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations calls this rise “unprecedented” and labels it evidence of man-made climate change. This recent temperature rise is well within the +/-2.5oF range of Earth’s average surface temperature over the last ten thousand years. It’s a remarkably small change, given the titanic forces exerted on our world by the sun, the planets, and Earth’s own terrestrial forces of weather and ocean cycles. Even though the average surface temperature of Earth has stayed in a narrow range, local temperatures vary widely. In Chicago, for example, the average annual range is from about -5oF to +95oF. Such wide local variation means that a “hundred-year weather event” is occurring somewhere on our planet at any given time.
Climatism uses these local weather variations, and increasingly the term “climate volatility,” to raise alarm. A recent example is the August report from the World Bank warning that “climate volatility” is expected to “worsen poverty vulnerability in developing countries.” This year, we’ve had drought in Russia and record floods in Pakistan. Both occurrences were seized upon by climate alarmists as evidence of increasing man-made climate volatility. Record cold temperatures in July in Bolivia, which killed millions of fish in South American rivers, were ignored. Natural local weather events, selectively amplified, provide an endless source of fodder for promoting the coercive governmental policies of Climatism.
Yet, scientific evidence shows that weather would be less extreme in a warmer world. Peer-reviewed studies on droughts, floods, hurricanes and storms show that 20th Century occurrences have been of equal or lesser severity than similar events in past centuries, when Earth’s climate was in the cooler period of the Little Ice Age. The bulk of science shows that today’s climate is not more volatile as alarmists claim.
The latest initiative from the climate change chameleon is to frame global warming as detrimental to the health of U.S. citizens. On September 28, a joint letter from 120 of America’s health organizations was delivered to President Obama, supporting efforts by the Environmental Regulatory Agency to regulate greenhouse gases. The letter claims that man-made global warming is now a U.S. public health issue especially for “older adults.” Yet senior citizens continue to retire to Florida, Texas, and Arizona rather than North Dakota and Minnesota. Don’t they know that warmer temperatures are a serious health risk?
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic.
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How about renaming it “catastrophic climate calamity prognostication”, CCCP for short. I hear that acronym is for sale. LOL
Tourism – Europe – ar4
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch12.html
Let’s call it Marxism-Climatism. On the Chris B: For those who are too young to know, CCCP is the Cyrillic abbreviation for USSR.
Chris B said:
“How about renaming it “catastrophic climate calamity prognostication”, CCCP for short. I hear that acronym is for sale. LOL”..
CCCP!!! Very good one!!!! Excellent!!!
I change it a little, eventough plagiarism is obvious: Catastrophic Climate Calamity PSEUDOSCIENCE!!! CCCP!
I hope someone can show up words for acronyms like USSR or STALIN, it seems some alarmists are fond of those institutions and persons.
It is not good sign for this winter either.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
As differential between Labrador Sea (south west of Greenland, the orange blob) and Novaya Zemlya archipelago (top left corner) grows, more likelihood of a heavy (cold and snow) winter in the NW Europe.
Viv Evans says: October 22, 2010 at 4:29 am
“Unprecedented madness ensues when politicians and ‘climate’ scientists get into bed with each other.”
I would update that as “Unprecedented madness ensues when politicians and climate scientists and the media get into bed with each other. ”
I would also add that this is just as true of the “climatists” as it is of the “denialists”.
* For every Al Gore, there is a Jim Imhofe
* For every MSNBC, there is a FOX
* For every Mann, there is a McIntyre
* For every Skeptical Science, there is a WUWT
For the most part, scientists are unassuming people who love to hide away in their labs and offices, and to try to understand the universe. They didn’t get into science for the fame or the money (since there are easier ways for bright people to achieve either of those).
But unfortunately some scientists do crave the spotlight. And reporters need big stories. And politicians need campaign themes. And blogs need readers and advertisers. And entrepreneurs need the next big money-making scheme.
The confluence of these forces produces Viv Evans’ “ensuing madness”. The science has been hijacked by other powerful forces, each with their own agenda. And to the detriment of climate science, some scientist went along with that madness. And now that the genii is out of the bottle, I fear it will never go back.
On there own, I have no doubt that most scientist studying the climate would be (at least very close to) impartial — letting the numbers speak for themselves. But when faced with the forces of international media, international politics, and international corporations, scientists are out of their league. (Heck, anyone would be out of their league trying to face those combined forces!)
Perhaps what is needed is LESS attention, and let the scientists do their job. (Yes, skeptical review from people like Watt and McIntyre is invaluable, but that sort of skeptical review should be – and usually is – part of the scientific process.)
This blog, with all of its moonbat posters and commenters, is always good for a chuckle and this posting is no exception. It would take all morning to address all of the logical fallacies, so I’ll just talk about a favorite one I see here often – the canard that the term “Climate Change” was adopted a few years ago.
Y’all do understand, don’t you, that the IPCC, is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, since it was establilshed in 1988, that means that the term “Climate Change” has been a preferred term for 22 years? So Steve Goreham’s assertion that it was adopted in 2009 is comical and without any basis in reality.
And speaking of reality, the reality is that the global climate is warming, mankind is responsible for much of the warming, and the consequences will be serious. The readers of this blog have the choice of accepting reality and joining the work on finding and implementing solutions to AGW . . . or of keeping their minds tightly closed and staying in the fringe in this cyber circle jerk. The choice is yours.
Alan Carlin has documented how our present administration is preaching climatism. http://www.carlineconomics.com/archives/947.
Dear old “Moonbat” (aka George Monbiot) was on the “Countryfile” TV programme in the UK last week.
The discussion was about the new coal-fired power stations that are to be built with a view to using “Carbon Capture” systems.
Mr M was against this, as he foresaw that the capture bit wouldn’t get built due to the practicalities, so leaving the coal burning to cause “Future Climate Disruption”.
Yep, another bogeyman to add to the list!
Every self-important powerful entity of any color or creed must drum up catastrophe or else go begging for a reason for its existence. Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air for a candidate to run on the idea that if they get elected, he or she will sit and do nothing, cept maybe file the garbage cans with catastrophe related government? They would enact no new law. No new tax. No new program. And would spend a whole lot of time getting rid of the ones still in place. In other words, whatever catastrophe that was drummed up as the reason for the new law, new tax, and new program is simply put in the round file along with its appendages. Then, after the office they ran for is no longer needed, the file cabinets empty, the lights turned off, and the doors locked, they would go back to their regular job.
I can just see the banner: “Elect me and I will work myself out of the position, close the doors, and then go back home.” Would that this could happen because I am getting so sick and tired of catastrophic anything.
Over 40 years ago I was taught in college that when a theory explains everything and anything, it actually proves nothing. It seems that climatism is moving in that direction very rapidly.
@JohnH says:
October 22, 2010 at 3:50 am
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
—————————————————————————————
They deleted the comment string, I think it got to embarrassing, but here’s a real beauty from my backup:
Calling Charles Onians
alexjc38 wrote:
Sunday, 27 December 2009 at 09:53 pm (UTC)
Hello? Charles Onians in 2000? Don’t ask me to explain but I’m posting this back to you via a time warp from December 2009. Yes, the future! You probably won’t believe me and will think I’m mad or joking, but get this. Britain is suffering its second extremely cold winter in a row – we have enough snow, ice, frost and freezing fog to cobble dogs with (whatever that means.) Far from being “a very rare and exciting event”, snowfall has become a major hazard in this country twice this past year – and we haven’t even got to February 2010 yet. Also (again you will probably think I’m joking) but the CRU has just become a liability to climate science – leaked e-mails and files have revealed a web of deceit and manipulation that threatens to undermine the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming itself. I urge you to pull this article immediately, as it will become a laughing stock in years to come. Charles? Hello? Hello? … Rats, I’m probably too late.
Phillip says:
“… the term “Climate Change” has been a preferred term for 22 years…”
Phillip, you need to get up to speed on this. Michael Mann’s totally debunked Hokey Stick chart [MBH98-99] reached a preposterous conclusion: that the planet’s temperature was steady and unchanging for centuries; no MWP, no LIA, nothing but minimal climate change [the shaft of the hockey stick].
The IPCC endorsed Mann’s ridiculous conclusion by repeatedly publishing his falsified chart. It was the IPCC that spread Mann’s false conclusion that “climate change” did not happen until the industrial revolution.
Scientific skeptics have always known that natural climate variability is the only unchanging reality. But the IPCC and its poster boy Michael Mann deliberately spread the misinformation of an unchanging climate before human emissions caused the climate to start changing.
The alarmist crowd owns the “unchanging climate” lie, and they twist and turn now, trying to project it onto skeptics. But skeptics know the truth of the matter, and you won’t be allowed to re-frame the argument by using psychological projection.
Phillip says:
October 22, 2010 at 6:45 am
“Climate Change” has been a preferred term for 22 years.
Yes Phillip it did start off as “Climate Change” but that wasn’t scary enough so in the MSM and in general usage it became known as “Global Warming” and catastrophic consequences were ‘projected’ by treating a cyclical phenomenon as though it were linear.
However the world stubbornly refused to keep warming so it was back to ‘Climate Change’ before everyone started laughing but as before that wasn’t scary enough hence the switch to ‘Climate Disruption’.
Anyway, you mentioned logical fallacies, like what ?
S.A.G.-Great letter, please go on and on again! I learned a lot.
Yet another rational mind on WUWT. Hmmmm.
More and more rational minds speaks out against Planet Disruption. No, wait, Global Warming.
Where were all these rational minds a year ago? We had concensus, didnt we?
Aha, now I remember. Climategate. The gate that opened up for rational minds.
I think we need to send a “Thank you” to the person that informed us all about this file an a server in Russia.
After the coming winther I think he/she can step forward and take credit. A Nobel Prize will come his/her way 50 years from now. We need a new type of prize.
The Isaac Newton prize.
Many years ago I worked with a Romanian gentleman who had escaped from Eastern Europe about 10 years after WWII and eventually fetched up in New Zealand. He used to lecture me about the evils that politicians wrought and claimed that he had escaped ‘red’ communism, where everybody knew they had no choices, to ‘white’ communism in the West where we had the illusion of choice. I was a young man then, a bit wet behind the ears perhaps, and thought my Romanian colleague was a bit strange. Fifty years later, I understand what he was trying to tell me.
How about Criminal Changing Climate Perceptions?
Our father, who art Al Gore,
Hail to the almost chief.
The weather change
different or the same,
Thy will be done,
without no shame.
Give us this Mann,
with hockey stick,
and rings of trees
forgiven his trick.
For thine is the power,
from wind and solar,
no carbon in site,
and save the bears polar.
and the MSM
Forever and ever.
Pamela Gray, Looks like our annual “Climatic Disruption” is about hit NE Oregon.
Snow by Tuesday according to the NWS-even here in what passes for the “lowlands”
-Grande Ronde Valley.
I told my wife we are going have a very old-fashioned winter-’50’s style….
the U.K. was entirely blanketed by snow, as shown in the following NASA satellite photograph — a rare occurrence.
It may have been a relatively rare occurrence in recent years but having lived in southern England for 70 years it was not all that rare an occurrence a few years back. I can recall the Christmas snow of 1963? (Boxing Day) which did not disappear from our garden until April 1964; I can recall a 14 inch overnight snowfall (I measured it with a ruler) on our front drive around 1975; our village was cut off by snow drifts for about 4 days. I can even remember the winter of 1947, now that really was a winter! I realise these are not extreme for readers from other parts of UK (let alone more northerly parts of USA and Canada) but it seems to me that the reduced snowfall over the past 30 years or so is the anomaly, not the standard.
Golf Charley says:
October 22, 2010 at 3:34 am
Just heard it on UK Radio 2 news that snow in winter is due to global warming
I take my hat off to these people! How on this Earth can they keep a straight face when they say these things I will never, ever, know! Never before have they claimed this double-standard until the last few years, simply because the Earth’s climate won’t play ball.
Anyway, as I say to all & sundry, you only have to answer two simple questions needing basic knowledge with a little political history, & those are a) What is the ultimate ideological objective of Marxist Socialism? & b) What is the ultimate solution to Anthropogenic Global Warming? There is only one answer to both these questions, “Global Government!” Simples.
How about a new philosophy to explain the application of 21st century “climate theory”. Mmmm, let’s see now…….I got it. Let’s call it “Climarxic Indeterminism”.
This permanently revolutionary philosophy can explain pretty much anything that happens climatically, offering reasons and solutions that can only be addressed by oppressing the economically advantaged, culminating in a historically inevitable classless society of starving, dirt-poor peasants. Let’s start with CAGW climatologists, who have already demonstrated their classlessness.
Sarc/off
Acolytes apply within.
Tom in Florida says:
October 22, 2010 at 5:15 am
I continue to pray to the gods of global warming that Florida will get even warmer in the winter.
Particularly than last winter (esp. January & February!)
Phillip says:
October 22, 2010 at 6:45 am
And speaking of reality, the reality is that the global climate is warming, mankind is responsible for much of the warming, and the consequences will be serious. The readers of this blog have the choice of accepting reality and joining the work on finding and implementing solutions to AGW . . . or of keeping their minds tightly closed and staying in the fringe in this cyber circle jerk. The choice is yours.
Hi Philip, I am an environmentalist who acts locally but thinks globally and am proud of it. I don’t anyone has suggested the climate is not changing, personally I also think it has warmed of late, and will no doubt cool again.. I think the question you are missing is this site is more about whether we as humans are effecting that change, and how our activities affect our environment. Are there no natural variations which can effect such changes? My personal concern is that too many people don’t appear to be to concerned when it is stated that the science is ended, all is decided, and anyone who poses questions against the dogma has a tightly closed mind belonging to a a group of cyber jerks. I don’t believe science is ever ended with all things known about a particular subject. There have always been brave people who will be seen as heretics for questioning the status quo, or asking awkward questions. Do you think that labelling them as having closed minds is somewhat paradoxical? Tell me honestly, do you believe every last word of the climate change predictions and evidence? If not, what bits do you have concerns with, and should you be allowed to express those concerns without being harassed and insulted? Be brave, you can do it.
ps First snows in Wales this week.
Phillip:
It is great that you are bored with the very irregular Real Climate blog and that you amuse yourself with the WUWT. You are obviously a logical man and obviously can conclude from the frequency of posting at the Real Climate, as compared to the WUWT, that actually AGW supporters are the fringe. Also, even if you are a layman, and especially if you are a scientist, it must occur to you how dishonest and corrupt are the Mann’s, Schmidt ’s, Hansen’s et all and how twisted are their supporters. Corrupt and twisted are the minority. So the reality is opposite to what you say. What bothers us, the growing majority, is not what these twisted people say, since we free to express opinions. What bothers us is that we pay their salaries from our taxes. And it’s not ok with us that their unproven CCCP science is used by the politicians to further increase our taxes.