The following report is from Benny Peiser’s blog The Global Warming Policy Foundation:
It is a year since the so-called Climategate e-mails were leaked. Since then, we have had freezing winters in Europe and the US, and revelations of gross misrepresentations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The lasting impression is of massive corruption of science.
Leaked from the Climate Research Unit in England, the e-mails showed the scientists behind the climate scare plotting to: hide, delete and manipulate data; to denigrate scientists presenting different views; to force journals to publish only papers promoting climate alarm; to subvert “peer review” into “pal review”; and make the reports of the IPCC nothing but alarmist propaganda. The corruption spread through governments, universities, scientific societies and journals. You have to look back to the Lysenko episode in the Soviet Union in the 1940s (when a crank persuaded the Soviet establishment that agriculture did not follow Darwinian evolution) to find such perversion of science.
The worst nonsense after the scandal was this: “Well, some climate scientists committed a few minor transgressions but the basic science is sound.” In fact, the basic science is nonexistent.
There is no evidence that mankind is changing the climate in a dangerous way. The slight warming of the past 150 years is no different from previous natural warming periods, such as the worldwide medieval warm period from about 900 to 1200AD… [Read the rest here]
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Steve Keohane says:
December 3, 2010 at 10:36 am
Mike says: December 3, 2010 at 9:32 am
What would that chart look like with the temperature range between the minimum and maximum verified record ever recorded? I think it would range between -90’C and 60’C and be nothing more than a ripple.
I would agree with
Kenny wrote: “Over the p ast half- billion years (the span of multicelled life), CO² levels have averaged more than 2000ppm (parts per million) but with wild fluctuations, from more than 6000ppm to less than 500ppm. This has had no noticeable effect on global temperatures, which have remained remarkably constant for long periods, pointing to a stable global climate system, without which higher life might not be possible. ”
@ur momisugly Phil’s Dad says:
December 3, 2010 at 10:23 am
Yes! You got it right. If you feel the evidence is not sufficient to warrant mitigation efforts, then I respectfully disagree. People like Kenny who say there is no evidence for dangerous AGW are not being honest.
There are honest people on both sides of the issue, and there are dishonest people on both sides. This is true for almost any major issue. It is not ethical or wise to support people you happen to agree with but who are dishonest.
Smokey
is right , of course.
It is up to the person who claims that CO2 causes warming to prove it.
Nevertheless, there is convincing evidence to prove that green house gasses do not cause warming.
For example
Take a careful look at some actual temperature data from the past. It shows the average year temp. since 1946
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8705/navacerrada.gif
This is in Spain, which I think is pretty much average as avarage goes for a place to stay on earth! The station has been very accurate in its recordings and only one day’s recordings are missing. Note that the minimum temps. since 1980 have stayed constant. If green house gasses were to blame for the warming (trapping of heat), you would think it should have been minimum temps that would show the increase (of modern warming). But that line is completely straight…..So it cannot be greenhouse gasses that caused modern warming. It must be something else…..
Wind Rider,
Thanks for the link to Atlantic Magazine’s article about fraudulent medical practices. There is much, I suspect, phony science going on. I am a practicing engineer and have great respect for the scientific approach to problems but have noted that many so-called scientists and researchers are really just a kind of politician – particularly academically-oriented practitioners of science. Climategate was my wake-up call and now I use Climate Science as a kind of litmus test – if a publication or individual is a hysterical warmista I immediately know they are running (or are being run by…) some sort of political rent-seeking scam.
@woodNfish
“Mike is either a rube or a troll, or maybe he is both. You will do your best by ignoring him.”
Yes! The true way of skepticism is to uncritically accept the author’s conclusion that human C02 emissions “will have only one major effect: better crops and forests, and more biodiversity”.
This article is a good summary of arguments anyone even slightly interested in science should run a mile from.
Mike,
“it [low clouds causing cooling] is a reasonable hypothesis, but Kenny gives no evidence that verifies it. New research points in the oppose direction.”
This ‘new’ research you cited, turns out to be another climate model run. Watts up with that?
I don’t think Lysenko’s baloney had anything to do with evolution; he just spurned genetics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
“This article is a good summary of arguments anyone even slightly interested in science should run a mile from.”
Why is that, why don’t you elaborate on that pronouncement. Just stating something is not going to get you taken seriously if you don’t back up your words.
Smokey says:
It’s entirely possible that Mike meant “credible,” of course, but “creditable” does mean “worthy of belief,” which is appropriate in this context.
Steve Keohane says:
CO2 is not the only climate forcing agent. Combine CO2 with solar forcing and they match up much better. See Figure 2 here.
@Wind Rider says:
December 3, 2010 at 9:00 am
It’s also an issue in other fields, with much more immediacy, such as the field of medicine, as described in this piece from The Atlantic magazine, which details findings that followers of the Climategate mess will find all too hauntingly familiar.
=======
REPLY:
Thanks for this! I’m in the “belly of the beast” in public health, dominated by shrieking banshees of doom & gloom, forever reaching out for more, ever more funding with outstretched, grasping claws. I ain’t real popular over here!
This was key in the Atlantic story:
“Maybe sometimes it’s the questions that are biased, not the answers…”
Absolutely! We are all human & fallible, and tend to color our research with our own personal biases, political orientations etc. (although, with work, it is possible to overcome these and focus on pure science with unblemished results). In PH, the research has one real goal = “more money.”
USA spends more dollars on health research than any other country, with much poorer outcomes. CAGW ain’t no different.
Global Warming could cool down temperatures in winter
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/global-warming-could-cool-down-temperatures-in-winter
WUWT
@Ben Klijn D
“Why is that, why don’t you elaborate on that pronouncement. Just stating something is not going to get you taken seriously if you don’t back up your words.”
Well actually I did highlight one claim. I presume this is not your first article on WUWT or that you’re not hearing about global warming for the first time so you’re likely aware that making a statement to the effect there will definitely not be any negative consequences and will definitely only be positive consequences to raising atmospheric C02 is a bit silly.
So taking another claim
“Its only significant absorption band (15 micron) is saturated, so adding more to the atmosphere has a small and diminishing effect.”
This is the tired old C02 saturation argument. He doesn’t really quantify what “small” means but even AGW sceptical scientists like Dr Roy Spencer accept that the pure radiative effect of a doubling of C02 is on the order of 1 degree. Given that the mainstream claim is for about 3 degree total sensitivity that doesn’t sound like “a small and diminishing effect.” to me.
In terms of a more detailed and specific refutation of the claim I’d start here
regarding the corruption of science persists – what amazes me is that we had several investigations into the Climate Gate issue and none of those showed that there was anything majorly wrong – hmm, is there nothing wrong with manipulating data, emails, people (maybe investigators never looked at the emails!!)?, is it simply protectionism or does corruption spread further than just the “scientists”?
BC Bill says:
December 3, 2010 at 10:46 am
lesson of Lysenkoism:
The most severe lesson of Lysenkoism is not that Lysenko was necessarily 100% wrong, though the effect upon Soviet agriculture was devastating. His tenure in charge of Soviet genetics for Stalin, was 100% TOTALITARIAN!! No other view or theory on anything connected with the field of genetics was allowed, on penalty of job loss, exile, or death. Only the “Party Line” or “Lysenko Line” could be expressed. Today’s scientific TOTALITARIANS have tried all techniques short of the Gulag (though we are now hearing threats of criminal charges for giving (politically) incorrect testimony).
The November 2010 anomaly in now up on http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ at +0.38 degree C. A slight drop on October.
The following report is from Benny Peiser’s blog The Global Warming Policy Foundation:
Since then, we have had freezing winters in Europe and the US, and revelations of gross misrepresentations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Well the name Global Warming Policy Foundation gives the impression that it’s chock a block full of really smart guys who know how to evaluate the scientific literature, and formulate really complex government policy position papers.
Except Benny believes that “there is snow in my backyard so the whole planet must be freezing”.
Does Benny even know that there is a northern and southern hemisphere?
Can Benny read the weather maps that pop up in front of his face every night showing cold air blowing out of the Arctic. Is Benny smart enough to figure out that if there is cold air blowing out of the Arctic there must be warm air blowing into the Arctic.
Maybe Benny is a really smart guy and can figure all this out for himself. So why is Benny peddling wrong stuff to his readers?
Desert Yote writes:
Well, if you had clicked on the link in this post, you would have discovered that this whole post is from an article by Andrew Kenny. But don’t let that minor fact stand in the way of your “theory”.
Similar patterns of behaviour can be found in the vaccination debate.
SandyinDerby says:
Alas, scientists actually studying paleoclimate would not agree with you http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5697/821.summary :
But, I guess we can ignore them since they publish in scientifically-corrupt journals like Science whereas Andrew Kenny writes his pieces on the website of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, clearly a much more scientifically-credible body: http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_Warming_Policy_Foundation 😉 It’s good we have all these right-wing policy organizations to identify for us which science is good and which is corrupt, aye?
I have always been puzzled by the word climate. I understand the word weather as in -5 and snowing at the present time where I am located. But the near surface temperature of the planet today is close to 1 half a degree colder than it was a year ago according to UHA satellite measurements. Now these satellites take 1000,s of measurements a day. Does that mean they are recording weather or climate? If it is just weather at what point does it become climate. Who decides? Based on what premise?
Wind Rider says:
Loved your post from Atlantic Magazine, especially part of the conclusion that basically said that a lot of scientists careers and science research is dressed up to appear more right than it really is ,and when they get away with this, they will just keep doing it. Sure seems to fit the AGW crowd.
Lazy Teenager had best look in the mirror. After saying, “Does Benny even know that there is a northern and southern hemisphere?” the lazy kid then mentions the Arctic three (3) times in the very next paragraph.
But then s/he’s a teen, and therefore knows everything.☺
There does happen to be an Antarctic – a fact that escapes the notice of the CAGW contingent, which is fixated on Arctic ice.
Joel Shore commented here a while back:
Actually, the problems lie with the lying models. Because the models don’t support the data, the data must be wrong according to true believers.
This is exactly what James Hansen does. He adjusts the past data to fit his models. And based on this, the CAGW crowd believes climate catastrophe is upon us. But the data has been so manipulated, twisted and massaged that it is foolish to believe it.
“Since then, we have had freezing winters in Europe and the US, ”
And a freezing winter in South America! Don’t forget that the planet has two hemispheres.
Adpack – you have hit the nail right on the head. The point is not that scientists might be wrong. They inevitably will be. At any one time, a good of scientific understanding will turn out subsequently to be wrong, but a politically open society (of both scientists and more broadly) will foster the scepticism integral to the advance of science.
The circling of the wagons, the dispatching of the white cells to fight infectious ideas, the denigration of critics as ‘inexpert’ or ‘deniers’, and the subversion of process (lack of posting and deletion of data, subversion of peer review processes, threatening of editors, etc) are all anathema to science and liberal society (in the correct, British sense of that word). Many who stress the importance of political liberalism also subscribe to scientific liberalism (Popper advocated both), and take exception to the autocratic tendencies Paul Feyerabend described. Scientists might use all these tricks, but quality science demands that we demand Popperian standards.
But let’s ignore all that and commit the genetic fallacy. Let’s play ‘Six Degrees of Exxon Mobil’ and dismiss any such inconvenient questions as part of the conspiracy of those evil right wing deniers in the pay of Big Oil.
Perfect example is Joel Shore (above): ‘the climate sensitivity may be even higher than suggested by models.’ (Why is climate ‘science’ so reliant on words like ‘could’ and ‘might’?) Why not look to the commentary paper by Penner et al in Nature GeoScience a couple of months back that suggested that perhaps only 35% of recent warming was due to carbon dioxide and the models projecting future warming seriously overestimate warming? I guess that’s just too inconvenient. Or perhaps Big Oil was involved somewhere.
Science is part of a learning process. It involves the detection and correction of error. The rhetorical arguments employed and fallacies committed by the likes of Joel Shore – like Lysenkoism – are inherently antiscientific. And like the attempts to tell us we must do what The Science tells us, they are inherently antidemocratic.
Reference: Short-lived uncertainty?
Joyce E. Penner, Michael J. Prather, Ivar S. A. Isaksen, Jan S. Fuglestvedt, Zbigniew Klimont, David S. Stevenson
Nature Geoscience 3, 587-588 (1 August 2010) doi:10.1038/ngeo932