(This IBD Editorial was sent to me by the authors)
By WILLIE SOON, ROBERT CARTER AND DAVID LEGATES
This is a response to “Why Can’t We Innovate Our Way To A Carbon-Free Energy Future?“, a “Perspective” by Bjorn Lomborg that ran in this space a week ago.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Cool It,” is right about the need to focus on critical health and economic priorities. But he is wrong about human carbon dioxide emissions causing what is now being called “global climate disruption.”
By demonizing the gas of life, in league with Al Gore and Bill Gates, Lomborg commits several serious scientific errors. As independent scientists, with broad training in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and geography, we know CO2 is not a pollutant, and the notion of “carbon-free” or “zero-carbon” energy is inherently harmful and anti-scientific.
If nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, helium or any other nontoxic gas is pumped into a chamber containing air and a growing plant, the response is barely measurable. By contrast, if more CO2 is added, the plant and its root system benefit enormously, displaying enhanced growth and more efficient use of available water and nutrients.
Far from having detrimental effects, carbon dioxide has decidedly beneficial impacts on plants, aquatic and terrestrial alike, and a new study connects enhanced plant productivity to greater bird species diversity in China. How, therefore, can anyone conclude that human carbon dioxide is a pollutant that must be eradicated?
These facts erect a formidable barrier for “zero-carbon” advocates. By insisting that no human CO2 should be emitted, they are promoting continued suboptimal growth of food plant species in the face of impending global food shortages — and poorer functioning and less diversity in the global ecosystem.
Zero-carbon activists respond to these facts by asserting that human CO2 emissions cause “dangerous global warming.” They are wrong about this, too.
If rising atmospheric CO2 levels drive global temperatures upward, as they insist, why is Earth not suffering from the dangerous “fever” that Al Gore predicted? Instead, after mild warming at the end of the twentieth century, global temperatures have leveled off for the past decade, amid steadily rising carbon dioxide levels.
Lomborg’s claim that we need to “cure” so-called “unchecked climate change” is thus fallacious and contradicted by reality. Reducing human CO2 emissions will likely have no measurable cooling effect on planetary temperatures.
His insistence that we prioritize expenditures is spot-on when applied to genuine environmental and societal problems. However, it is irrelevant when the problems are mythical — or devised to advance ideological agendas. Moreover, even if human impacts on the global climate can actually be measured at some future date, humans currently lack the scientific and engineering understanding and capability to deliberately “manage” Earth’s constantly changing climate for the better.
Most certain of all, atmospheric carbon dioxide is not the “climate control knob” that anti-hydrocarbon alarmists assert, and it is irresponsible for Lomborg to claim his socio-political agenda will provide a low-cost solution for the global warming “problem.”
The scientific reality is that even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been unable to demonstrate a cause-and-effect scientific connection between rising human CO2 emissions and dangerous warming.. To support global limits on CO2 emissions, in the absence of real-world data showing clear cause and effect, is scientific and policy incompetence on the highest order.
Imagine a drug company seeking FDA approval for a new drug, based on an analysis that says simply: “Our supercomputers say the drug is safe and effective. We have no clinical data to support this, but can think of no reason actual results would contradict what our computers predict. Moreover, failure to license the drug will be disastrous for patients suffering from the targeted disease.” Failing to demand actual dose-and-response studies, before licensing the drug, would be gross negligence on FDA’s part.
Between 2007 and 2009, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped approximately 10%, to their lowest level since 1995, largely because of reduced energy consumption during the recession. Similar CO2 emission reductions occurred in Britain, Germany, France and Japan.
Have their climates gotten better or less dangerous? Are they now a better place, for having a lower intensity carbon energy diet? Have global temperatures been statistically unchanged since 1995 because, or in spite of, Chinese and Indian carbon dioxide emissions increasing far more than the aforementioned countries reduced theirs?
These are practical, not rhetorical questions. As far as we can see, the only direct effect of decreasing CO2 levels via expensive renewable energy programs has been to cost more American and European jobs than would otherwise have been the case during the global economic recession.
The central issue is not whether rising CO2 levels will cause a warmer planet. The fundamental concern is whether globally warmer temperatures are factually worse (or better) for human societies — and more (or less) damaging to the environment — than colder temperatures (like those experienced during the ice ages and Little Ice Age).
Bjorn Lomborg, Al Gore and Bill Gates need to consider the likelihood that, driven by changes in solar activity and ocean circulation, Earth will cool significantly over coming decades. Damaging the global economy with ineffectual carbon dioxide controls, in a futile quest to “stop global warming,” looks stupid now.
Viewed later, with hindsight, it will be judged outrageously irresponsible.
• Soon studies sun-climate connections at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
• Carter is an emeritus fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs and chief science advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition.
• Legates is a hydroclimatologist at the University of Delaware and serves as the state climatologist of Delaware.
This editorial appeared at Investors Business Daily – here
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LET’S STICK WITH A FAMILIAR EARTH!
Folks make comments of this sort: . . . for a planet that is over 4.5 billion years old, 5, 25, nor 50 years are not significant lengths of time for evaluating natural variability.
While I don’t disagree, in the context of Earth’s current warming/cooling trend I find this sort of reference to the full age of Earth to be irrelevant.
That’s because the continents have only achieved their current shape and positions relatively recently when compared to deep-time. [For a discussion of deep time see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time's_Arrow,_Time's_Cycle
or search using the term.]
The CAGW issues (CO2, polar extremes, arctic ice, ENSO, and so on) apply to our familiar Earth. In the sense of “deep time” our Earth today is only about 5 million years old, or less, or about 0.11 % of the total. While more distant past issues are interesting, I think they won’t teach us much about any current climatic changes. Read some of the following for background.
View this popular set of maps: http://geology.com/pangea.htm
Without getting into the argument of how it came to be, consider the Isthmus of Panama; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isthmus_of_Panama
Before that land came to be there was a “Central American Seaway” between the now-Atlantic and the now-Pacific Oceans. See this site for an explanation, maps, and a discussion of why this is important:
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2508
Convergence of the of the Pacific, North American, and Caribbean tectonic plates was sufficiently well along by about 5 million years ago and the closure was likely in place about 3 million years ago.
The title of the last linked-to paper is:
How the Isthmus of Panama Put Ice in the Arctic:
Drifting continents open and close gateways between oceans and shift Earth’s climate
Here is a quote: “ The gradual shoaling of the Central American Seaway began to restrict the exchange of water between the Pacific and Atlantic, and their salinities diverged. . . . As a result of the Seaway closure, the Gulf Stream intensified. It transported more warm, salty water masses to high northern latitudes, where Arctic winds cooled them until they became dense enough to sink to the ocean floor. ”
This is an informative report with nice graphics.
Going back further introduces an even stranger Earth. During the late-Cretaceous Period a shallow sea carved North America into parts that changed shape as the area of the sea grew and regressed.
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interior_Seaway
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous
The fossils of Iowa, near the center of those shallow seas, offer some insight as to how different Earth was in those ancient times:
http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/Browse/fossils/fossils.htm
Maybe the current climate debate ought to be restricted to Earth of the fairly recent past, perhaps just the last 3 million years. Having 30 years or 3,000 years of records and historical accounts are still small fractions of the time for which our planet looked somewhat as it does today.
Oops! My copy & paste missed this :
John Whitman, Chips, others —
I posted my previous comment awhile ago on Tips & Notes but your comments and a few of the others this week indicate it should get wider coverage:
Ref: my comment at 1:22 pm
Nuke says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:06 pm
If I bought insurance against being trampled by a herd of elephants while watering my lawn, would that be good risk management?
That depends on where you live. For myself, I just wear a purple hat obtained at a garage sale for a quarter. It has never failed.
It may be that living in Washington State east of the Cascade Crest has something to do with it.
CO2 is no control knob! that is hyperbolic BS, in my humble opinion.
If one wants to use a controlling analogy, at best CO2 would be one of many ‘control knobs’ – all of which will and do (even with our current limted knowledge) undertake multiple effects. perhaps the climate could be considered a little like the Enigma machine – the climate will spew out various responses depending on a the selection of cogs (and there are a LOT of cogs!) ?
Referring to CO2 as a control knob is extremely simplistic and misrepresenting, especially when mentioned is isolation!
re the mention of ‘decades’ before CO2 effects are felt – perhaps Mr Mosher would like to elaborate on this theory as clearly we have been pumping CO2 out for at least several decades at significant rate – where is the warming? what is the natural background warming? etc,etc.
And with respect to an oil tanker – I suspect Mr Mosher has never operated a motor craft. As anyone who has will know full well – it is virtually impossible to stop a boat dead in the water on cue, simply using forward and reverse thrust. To much reverse thrust and the boat backs up – too much forward and you crash into the jetty and much fine tweaking and adjustment is required to get it ‘just right’. Now, in the context of the supertanker – and the analogy to the climate – the inertia of forward (or reverse) motion is simply massive – the only trouble is, that with a tanker we have only one source of power (the engine) and few sources of extrenal influence (maybe a bit of wind or tide) – in the climate stakes there are many many other much larger and largely unknown influences. Any of these influences could and most likely would ‘overcome’ any influence from our single ‘control’ factor (CO2)! In the sense of the ‘supertanker’ our CO2 reduction and control would be like strapping an electric outboard on the back!
Whether we like it or not – Nature (and the earths biosphere/ecosphere/atmosphere and any other flipping sphere) is far far bigger and more intimately integrated than we could ever hope to understand with current knowledge!
An excellent way to release more trapped CO2 into the atmosphere! Bravo!
Steven Mosher says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:54 pm
“C02 is a control knob”.
Regarding knob;
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/05/strong-negative-feedback-from-the-latest-ceres-radiation-budget-measurements-over-the-global-oceans/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/06/millennial-climate-cycles-driven-by-random-cloud-variations/#comment-134
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/27/spencer-on-pinatubo-and-climate-sensitivity/#more-21149
@Mosher
A cloud can reduce surface insolation by hundreds of watts in the column it covers. A doubling of CO2 can increase surface insolation by ten watts in the column it covers. A fractional change in average cloud cover of just 2% more or 2% less has the same effect as doubling or halving CO2. Simple experimental physics tells us that when you turn up the heat over a body of water that evaporation will increase. Evaporation carries heat away from the surface and deposits it high in the air away from where we live and breathe and in the process forms a cloud which reflects about 90% of the source of the heat straight back out into outer space. The water cycle is thus a self-governing heat engine which maintains a set operating temperature. Adding more CO2 when the water cycle is active does nothing as it just revs up the water cycle heat engine.
In case of freezing cold shutting down the heat engine CO2 becomes critical in not letting the average surface temperature of the planet plunge to hundreds of degrees below zero as all the ice and snow reflects 90% of the sun’s energy.
Evidently 280ppm CO2 isn’t enough to stop the earth from periodically entering an ice age and the Holocene interglacial is overdue for an ending. A reasonable person might wish to avoid the coming ice age for the sake of his descendents. Since we know from the indisputable evidence of the geologic column that life on earth blossoms green from pole to pole with ten times the atmospheric CO2 we have today we know at least two things: there is no such thing as a runaway greenhouse effect from CO2 (no positive feedback) and that a warmer world with high CO2 concentration is a greener world. We also know from the indisputable evidence of the geologic column that these warm high CO2 epics persisted unabated for tens and hundreds of millions of years with periodic catastrophic events (asteroid impacts, super volcanoes, and factors unknown) shutting down the water cycle and plunging the earth into an ice age.
We’re in an ice age now that has persisted for several million years. The Holocene interglacial is like any of many other temporary respites from glaciers two miles thick covering everything north of Georgia. We also know that the Holocene is statistically old.
What this means Steve is the climate is perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a freezing icy abyss with a wind at its back forcing it closer and closer to going over the edge.
The level of ignorance and/or stupidity it takes to advocate actions that will bring the end of the Holocene closer than it already is almost unfathomable in its depth.
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.” ~Harlan Elison (confirmed by Steven Mosher)
Hm… this might offer some insight into the increasingly harsh tone of the debate of late.
Perhaps the need for a totalitarian system of enforcement see by some as a necessary evil, the ‘breaking of a few eggs’ in order to serve up the we-saved-the-earth-from-man-made-catastrophe omelet? That would quiet dissent, wouldn’t it?
/paranoia_off 😀
GM doesn’t seem to know anything about Risk Management or Insurance.
Insurance companies charge a premium on a statistically known risk. e.g. 1 in 200 homes are destroyed and maybe 1 in 50 partly damaged then a premium is calcualted. Car insurance is far more expensive then home insurance since car accidents and theft is far more common.
What is the risk with “supposed” climate change? Unknown since there are no fixed statistics. We have to take someones word that there will be a disaster. Maybe warming is good for the planet and we should be helping it along. GM lives in a world devoid of reality and we all know where people devoid of reality end up.
re: Anthony Watts says: October 30, 2010 at 11:44 am
Hi Anthony,
For whatever its worth, I appreciate you giving GM (or anyone) clear reasonable options to get out of the troll bin as you have here, and that one of those options includes not having to provide their real name. All sorts of reasons for some to not want their name on blog posts – some of which are quite reasonable, some because they are just trolls. Anyhow, please don’t get me wrong – I have a high volume site (not climate related) and totally understand the necessity for setting some limits – but also abhor the sort of censorship that occurs at sites like realclimate. I’d just hate to see anyone have ammunition to make that sort of claim against WUWT.
As a result, I REALLY appreciate that it seems whenever you folks do find it necessary to snip a post or ‘troll bin’ someone, its virtually always after they’ve had public warning including the ‘why’, and the posts leading up to the situation along with the moderator comments are left intact in the thread. Your “get out of jail free” card here with options to be reinstated is the icing on the cake.
Thank you so much to all of your moderators, anyone who might be behind the scenes helping out, and, of course, to YOU Anthony! You, your efforts, and your open professionalism towards all is very much appreciated!!!
Steven Mosher says:
October 30, 2010 at 12:54 pm
. . . response is decades in the future.
Science fiction authors often write stories that cover long time frames. See, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series
Humor is best dealt with in the present.
Write a story about, say when New York City’s biggest problem was the infrastructure, feeding of, congestion, and waste products of the horses used in the city. Perhaps a totalitarian mayor decrees that all the horses have to be replaced by donkeys for one year, then by goats for one year, and the trained cats that catch rats and mice in their spare time. After two years of cats even they have to be replaced by an as yet unknown vehicle that doesn’t produce fertilizer.
Funny stuff.
John F. Hultquist says:
October 30, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Ref: my comment at 1:22 pm
———————–
John F. Hultquist,
I can understand your view that with the arrangements of the earth land masses and the oceans can have significant effects on the heat transport processes of the Total Earth System. Thus ancient earth probably has different behavior in that regard compared to modern “familiar” earth.
However, the CO2 effect on the atmospheric temp, as it is stated by the ‘settled/consensus science’ does not depend on those processes. So, comparing ancient earth and familiar earth regarding atmospheric CO2 levels is pertinent. Did the earth and life catastrophically end by CO2 in the ancient earth?
If the CO2 effect on the atmospheric temp does vary with changes in the Total Earth System heat transport processes due to physical layout of land mass and oceans . . . . then we have a new topic, n’est pas?
John
Seems to me Lomborg is being fairly consistent in his approach. He has always said he accepts that AGW exists but argued in his earlier books that there were other problems that merited attention and resources first. But this was always grounded in the belief that attending to these problems would be a more effective way of dealing with climate change in the long run.
The latest book continues in the same vein ie, finding a better response to global warming and better economic approaches.
Over the years Lomborg has been denigrated by AGWers/environmentalists for his approach. It is a shame that Soon et al can’t seem to see beyond the recent headlines about ‘Smart Solutions’
The excellent response from Willie Soon, Robert Carter and David Legates correctly and in a timely manner addresses a matter that Bjørn Lomborg decided some years ago to duck – the uniquely scientific question of whether or not man-made CO2 emissions cause significant global warming.
However they do not address the main point of his article and nor do the blog responses here. So let me try.
Lomborg makes the beguilingly straightforward suggestion that instead of introducing draconian legislation to cut carbon emissions, thereby crippling world economies, governments around the world should simply invest all their financial muscle in making green energy cheaper than fossil fuels – so that it becomes the preferred market option without any need for disruptive coercion. He uses the analogy that no government attempted to ban typewriters in order to encourage the development of efficient personal computers. As an example of what could be done, he suggests that we should be investing in increasing the efficiency of solar cells tenfold (yes, really!) – the factor of improvement required to make them competitive with fossil fuels.
There are some very straightforward answers to Lomborg’s suggestion:
First of all, government investment did not result in the development of the personal computer, thus rendering typewriters obsolete. On the contrary, the personal computer came about because of several innovative technology developments, including in particular the integrated circuit chip, and was driven almost entirely by a combination of market demand and private investment (think Intel, think Microsoft).
Secondly, and more profoundly, the experience of the last half century, not only in Soviet Russia but in the Western democracies as well, shows that throwing taxpayers money at previously unsolved problems rarely achieves results. (If you are British or French, think Concorde.)
Thirdly, and most profoundly of all, how has Lomborg the consummate statistician managed to miss all the work done, and capital invested, attempting to improve the efficiency of various forms of ‘sustainable’ energy over the past 20 to 30 years – so far with self-evidently lamentable results? Even wind power, a mature technology that comes nearest to competing with fossil fuels, is still a factor of 2 or 3 more expensive and only survives on massive worldwide government subsidies. (Oh and the wind doesn’t always blow when it’s most needed nor ever will.)
My analysis is that Lomborg’s intellectual approach of avoiding confrontation over the scientific issue of CO2 in order to concentrate (generally very persuasively) on economic arguments is now becoming dangerously counterproductive. It plays straight into the hands of environmental extremists who, in the absence of any agreed way forward (no agreed science, no cost-efficient alternative technologies), can always press for governments to adopt coercive action anyway, citing their vacuous “precautionary principle”.
Surely it’s far better to be intellectually honest as Soon, Carter and Legates have been all these years and, following the fiascos of Climategate and Copenhagen, confront head on this scientific non-problem for once and for all.
re: Stop Global Dumbing Now says: October 30, 2010 at 11:58 am
Hi SGDN,
I’m not familiar with CO2 incubators for growing cell cultures (fascinating!). What CO2 level seems to be optimal or is typically used in them?
To all re the FDA analogy – while I like it, I’m afraid that what ‘true believers’ will counter with is the example of smoking and cancer. We’ve got such a strong correlation even with confounding factors accounted for that its virtually certain at least some large segment of the population will get cancer if they smoke long enough. We don’t have, unfortunately, actual causality although we’re getting there – its just too complex a system. Heck, we don’t really even know exactly how aspirin works, last I knew. We know what it does, we’ve learned a lot in that regard, but the exact mechanism for each and every beneficial or harmful effect it has? Don’t think we’re there yet, although I may be out of date.
For ‘true believers’ to try to pull on smoking, however, would be a poor analogy, because with ‘climate science’ the confounding factors (various natural systems) haven’t even begun to really be accounted for and removed from the equation. Unfortunately, trying to get into those sorts of aspects and details/complexities will likely just get tuned out, because its not nearly so attractive to the general public as the ‘simple’ initial analogy. Unfortunately I suspect that the smoking/cancer link is so well known and ubiquitous that far too many would fall for it, more so than the far better FDA drug analogy.
@Anthony
“Yeah maybe you are right, people like him demonstrate just how seriously messed up the climate defenders are. OK We’ll let him post unfettered again, without the extra troll bin quarantine and examination. Of course he won’t admit to being wrong, or even admit that he called for jailing people. He’ll probably play the victim on some other blog saying “boohoo Watts banned me” when he isn’t banned, just given extra quarantine attention. People like him typically do that. In fact there’s a whole website dedicated to tracking such horrible dastardly deeds like this that I do. Gasp! Shock! Of course it’s run by another “anonymous coward”. Heh.”
That’s exactly right. There was a website dedicated to me as well during the years I was running a very popular intelligent design blog. But I was guilty as charged which doesn’t seem to be the case in your case. If the commentary was dominated by GM and anonymous ignorant CAGW cheerleaders like him you’d have no choice about weilding the bannination stick and you’d be trying to figure out ways to keep the members of the banned from returning with a different ID. Count your blessings. I remain astounded that the troll problem here is so small with so few measures to keep it under control.
re: Nuke says: October 30, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Maybe. If you lived in the bush in certain parts of Africa or India. :0)
iirc, basic risk management (and all insurance) always includes a cost/benefit analysis that factors in the probability of the occurrence. For example, if one has an older car, its very rarely worth purchasing collision insurance – even aside from the monthly cost, the deductible alone can easily be more than the cost of replacing the car, even when its a good looking & running vehicle with a lot of years left in it.
Besides which, if one tries to claim that ‘risk management’ means we have to ‘do something’ about the chance of global warming, then one would have to also advocate, just as strongly that we ‘do something’ just as much against the possibility of global cooling – and even the next ice age, which could easily start any minute.
re:
Apologies for going off topic here – but along the lines of things being put into perspective…. I really hope someone can help with a link to a ‘put it in perspective’ article I ran across a little while back. It was a good article that put the supposed ice loss of the Antarctic (maybe Greenland too, not sure) into perspective along the lines of the article Steven’s linked to… Unfortunately I don’t recall the details, but it used some of the descriptions of the annual ice melt that are ‘scary’ (i.e., ‘more than the amount of water over Niagara falls each year, more than half the water in the Mississippi, etc.). Then it put things into perspective by using a number of examples of ways to describe the total ice volume involved and things along those lines. I think it even put the total ice volume into the same terms as the ‘scary huge amounts lost to melting’ versions to make the point.
Anyhow, I thought I’d bookmarked it (maybe on another computer)…. if anyone could provide a link to good articles along these lines, I’d be most grateful.
re:
Becomes even more interesting (horrifying actually) when numbers like that are put into how many people could be treated for malaria for that amount, or starving people given food, etc. Not saying that I’m advocating that Britain ought to be supporting other countries that way, but those sorts of comparisons really seems to get the idea across of just what some of these incomprehensible numbers really mean…
Based on the somewhat diametrical views shown below, maybe we can get a debate going within this post. One with Steve Mosher and Bjorn Lomborg versus Willie Soon, Robert Carter and David Legates.
John
This just in: GAO jumps into the GeoEngineering arena: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-903
Summary
Policymakers have raised questions about geoengineering–large-scale deliberate interventions in the earth’s climate system to diminish climate change or its impacts–and its role in a broader strategy of mitigating and adapting to climate change. Most geoengineering proposals fall into two categories: carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which would remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, and solar radiation management (SRM), which would offset temperature increases by reflecting sunlight back into space. GAO was asked to examine (1) the state of geoengineering science, (2) federal involvement in geoengineering, and (3) the views of experts and federal officials about the extent to which federal laws and international agreements apply to geoengineering, and any governance challenges. GAO examined relevant scientific and policy studies, relevant domestic laws and international agreements, analyzed agency data describing relevant research for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, and interviewed federal officials and selected recognized experts in the field.
GM said :News flash – if you were so concerned about plant growth, you should advocate for humans starting a massive program for decreasing the oxygen content in the atmosphere. Because oxygen happens to be a poison for plants and they would grow so much better without it screwing up 1/3 to a half of their photosynthesis efforts.
Plants, like most living things, need O2 to live. They produce O2 as a by-product of the photosynthetic pathway while there is light falling on their photosynthetic cells. During this time, they take in CO2, make sugars, and release O2. Do not construe that to mean that they do not need O2 or that it is any more poisonous to them than it is to us. Plants take in O2 to fuel respiration and cell function, without O2, they die, just like we do.
——————–
Anthony,
The house you have built here is a fine place. A brew ha ha here or there with individual commenters who have demanding attitudes makes it a normal house. We can all learn much from watching those. Thank you.
I find you are tolerant to a fault. This is a nice human place. Keep on please.
John
re: Steven Mosher says: October 30, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Steven, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that all you’ve said is correct. That the IPCC and AGW advocates are right about temperatures continuing to increase because of CO2.
Hasn’t the Earth already warmed roughly the same amount that it’s predicted to warm within this century? Where is the castostrophy that would have warrented radical upheaval of our society, lifestyle, standards of living? Where is all of the biological damage from that increase?
Taking it a step further – iirc, the temperature increases from about 1700 to 1800, long before man was emitting any significant amount of CO2, was about half of the temp increases we’ve seen so far – and the rate of increase roughly the same as the temp increases for the past century. What accounts for the pre-AGW from 1700 to 1800?
Also, wasn’t the rate of temp increase rate, and approx magnitude from about 1900 to 1940 (also pre-significant-AGW emissions) about the same as the temp increases from about 1970 thru the 1990’s? What accounts for the pre-AGW increase, and if AGW is ‘the control knob’ why are the later temp increase not significantly larger/faster – and, of course, what caused those pre-AGW emission increases?
re: Smokey says: October 30, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Well said!!
Falsifiability is a HUGE issue for me wrt AGW ‘science’ and claims also.
Falsifiability, and how it seems that each time a key tenet of the original AGW hypothesis is falsified, they simply discount it and move the goal posts, with the claims remaining the same.