Guest post by John Coleman
There is a story I heard that I keep thinking about. It really underlines the problem I have in trying to counter the bad science behind the global warming scare predictions. So here is the story:
A group of over 200 environmentalists were in an auditorium listening to a symposium about climate change, i.e. global warming or climate disruption. One of the speakers asked, “If I could instantly produce a genie with a magic wand to stand here before you today. And if, that genie could wave his magic wand and voila….carbon dioxide would no longer be a greenhouse gas that produced uncontrollable global warming….How many in this room would be happy, satisfied and pleased?” Two people out of two hundred hesitatingly raised their hands. Of the others, some smirked, some laughed and some yelled out, “No, no. Hell no.”
I cannot testify that this event actually occurred. But, I heard it as though it was a truthful report. In any case it haunts me because it demonstrates what I perceive to be something akin to the actual state of affairs in our efforts to quiet the Algorian scare predictions about the consequences of global warming. There are large segments of the population that believe the global warming pronouncements. They have heard them over and over again from people they trust and respect, in school, on television, in the news and in their communities.
They have become “believers”, not unlike those who believe in a set of religious beliefs. All good Democrats believe in global warming, after all, it is the science of one of their key heroes, former Vice President and Senator Al Gore. And all good environmentalists are aboard the global warming band wagon. And, for all of them, the Agenda is what is important. Their Agenda is to eliminate fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine from our civilization. The carbon dioxide, CO2, thing is simply the means to the end. And if the means is not true; who cares. It is only the Agenda that is important. To all of these people, my effort to debunk the CO2 greenhouse gas science is irrelevant.
When I present my scientific arguments in a speech, their common reaction, “so what” and they ask me, even if you are right, isn’t the change to clean energy still the best move for our society? When I make my argument in response, that I also favor alternate energy, but that it will be thirty to fifty years before it can replace fossil fuels as the primary source of power for our civilization and that alternate energy in its current state of development is not economically viable, they doubt my facts. They have heard the hype and bought the dream without stopping to absorb the reality.
Next, when they realize they have not persuaded me to join their point of view, they challenge me with “And, what if it turns out that you are wrong and Al Gore is right? Your argument could cost us everything as climate change makes the Earth unlivable. So let’s just eliminate the greenhouse gases as insurance.” I argue back that the insurance will financially destroy us, wreck our way of life and that because I am right about the science, the move to alternate energy will not make an iota difference in our climate.
At this point, they dismiss me a stupid, old heretic.
My only option is to keep trying. That is why I make the new videos like the one posted on February 22nd. But, I am frustrated and not optimistic about penetrating our scientific institutions and organizations that are in the control of their well paid scientists and persuading them to reconsider the role of carbon dioxide and accept climate reality. What are the odds they will “see the light” and abandon their richly rewarding global warming positions? Nil, I fear.
It appears, as of now, victory, if it were to come, would be on a political level, not a scientific one. Just as “the climate according to Al Gore” has become the Democrat Party mantra, “global warming is not real” has become the rally call of the Republican Party. As a Journalist (I am a member of the television news team at KUSI-TV) I try hard to avoid taking political positions. For instance, I pass on invitations to speak at political events even when handsome stipends are offered.
So I keep focused on the bad science behind global warming. If my team (There are over 31,000 scientists on my team) can make headway in correcting the science, then I will be happy to let the politics, environmentalism and alternate energy movement fight the policy battles without me.
John Coleman
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Watch John’s video that accompanies this essay here at his web site
From comments, here is the link to the story about the group of 200 environmentalists that showed such a poor show of hands:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/analysis/transcripts/25_01_10.txt
The founding fathers of the movement is the US was once a bipartisan and centered on conservation. Teddy Roosevelt, Walace Stegner and Joeseph Wood Krutch were founding fathers. Stegner and Krutch were the intellectual backbone in the 1950’s.
Unfortunately the movement was hijacked by extreme leftists who recognized its potential as a tool to achieve their political goals such as ‘environmental justice’ and now the ‘decarbonization’ of society’.
Johnny Gunn says:
February 26, 2011 at 9:41 am
I am a Democrat.
Are human population levels part of the problem – in places like Haiti and Chad? Yep.
Dr. Lurtz says:
February 26, 2011 at 9:53 am
The real question is “Is technology good?” If you live in a warm climate, like in the Amazon and/or Mid-Africa, you don’t need it!! If you are willing to heard goats, and live in tents in Saudi Arabia/Iraq/Iran, you can survive. Of course, you can’t thrive.
So to stay alive, we developed technology and weapons to keep the lazy from stealing our warmth and food.
Impossible to answer both.
Stay with your internal problems.
R. Gates,
Behind AIG’s Fall, Risk Models Failed to Pass Real-World Test
R. Gates,
Bill would use computer models to select road projects … However, a second computer model failed
Failed again .. and to think, Sim-Earth can do this pretty well….
R. Gates,
Computer Models of Evolution. by Brig Klyce
… silicon self-reproducing spaghetti of programs failed …
R. Gates,
Limitations of computer models
R. Gates,
Hurricane Felix Forecasts Mostly Failed, Experts Say
R. Gates,
I could go on for weeks and weeks, but I think I will stop here as the picture is pretty clear. I have a little bit of experience in this field (about 30 years now), and I can tell you first hand, stick to your xBox-360, it’s not a bad little modeler itself.
R. Gates,
I will finish my little “modeler spamming” on one final note. Anticipating that you may have an argument back stating something like “well, but they put more time and money in to GCM’s than things like financial models” … to that I would say, you better go look that up, as much money that has been spent on GCM’s, it is nothing by comparison to financial models. Industries (financial and other) have been spending billions and billions on financial models for decades, much more than even GCM’s. And, the disturbing thing about it is, just how well has that all worked out so far? For Bernie Madoff pretty well, for you and I, not so much. But then again, Bernie is now in jail, so maybe not so much for him either. All in all, its the same game though, Al Gore is just another Bernie Madoff, using exactly the same vehicles to get there.
Squidly says:
February 26, 2011 at 12:06 pm
“R. Gates,
Limitations of computer models”
Very interesting. My hunch: When everybody plays the likely scenarios, it forces the market into previously unlikely behaviors. I see funny things going on in the markets for several months now – sudden drops, followed by near-immediate healing… with no news. Luckily -or rather through learning-, my model is too stoical to be irritated…
Good post sir and thankyou for your ongoing effort. I believe that the scientific method and uncommonsense will prevale, the religion of climatology cannot be argued with any more than true believers of any type can be convinced with logic. But the zealots have become their own enemies and will destroy themselves, the strategic mistake of cloaking their religion as settled science is apparent to most rational people and the rising tone of hysteria and righteous whining from the high priests is finally gaining the attention of trusting folk.The fallout of the CRU emails is far more insidious than most people suspect, in attempting to defend the indefensible science authorities are destroying themselves and the whitewash inquiries to date have been priceless. As every follower who says the team was exonerated is forced to read the incredibly inept inquiry reports and must ask themselves, why was this inquiry done so badly?Why avoid the question so blatantly?What are the inquiry members trying so hard to avoid? And when the penny drops the whitewashs only add to the disillusionment. As Aussie Dan(Fijidan?) said some time ago, millions of dollars spent, endless govt support , over 25yrs of searching and still no evidence of man made global warming . Its over and I suggest no mercy in the clean up.
These hysterical nitwits and those who have attempted to profiteer from this delusion are not smarter than the rest of us, nor can they be trusted with power and if in the near future we experience power outages because of the stupid policies that have been imposed by these hysterics , we should let them personally generate the required power, as a deprogramming from their cult. Running teams of true believers on huge hamster wheels driving generators would do wonders for reintroducing logic to these beliefs.And its enviromentally friendly power on demand, social justice is served and they won’t have the leisure to insist on running other peoples live for them. For the team climatologists we could hang a pre approved grant just ahead of them as they trample each other to attempt to seize it, for peak load requirements of course.No sarc intended here I was not party to issuing an ultimatum to society, give up your freedom, your lifestyle, your money to save the tooth fairy . The heavihanded power grab was part and parcel of the cult and now the useful idiots want to negotiate as their attack fizzles out and the taxpayers anger begins. As many have said before me , good luck with that.
“This is one of the annoyances of this blog, where posters make unqualified sweeping statements about particular political positions. I do know plenty of self-described Democrats who can’t abide Al Gore and believe AGW to be wildly overstated or just false. I know plenty of Republicans who can’t abide Sarah Palin and who buy into at least some AGW claims.”
I’m not particularly bothered that posters make ignorant generalizations. By definition, they know not what they do. I’m one of those self-described Dems you speak of who detests Al Gore and his moronic claims about AGW, become climate change, become climate disruption.
I’m thinking that it’s much harder for those on the left to be skeptics because we tend to have liberal friends and family. They all think I’m a crank of course, and I’ve given up trying to persuade them. Whoever wrote that it’s like arguing with belligerent children had it exactly right. They simply do not want to hear it..
Ultimately, I think the media carries a great burden of guilt in this area. The negligence is stunning. The New York Times is supposed to be written by intelligent people, and I suppose they are, but you’d think someone with a pen and a byline at one of those papers would take it into his head to check out a few blogs on the other side. If not to, you know, actually do their jobs, then just for kicks.
As I said, just stunning.
Keep up the great work, John Coleman – you are one of the great ones!
Absent billions of dollars in research grants, the potential as an excuse to tax, the incredible political control offered by being able to regulate 85% of mankind’s energy, the financial schemes of everything from ethanol, wind, solar, carbon trading and pension funds being invested in these scams, the AGW hypothesis would have died a natural “scientific” death decades ago. Money and power keep it alive.
I always like to illustrate exactly who believes in AGW and why.
Of course there are always the true believers. Many of these have a very poor grasp of the associated science but they “believe”. Some have a good grasp of the science but refuse to accept anything other than their belief.
Some believe because they subscribe to the religion of environmentalism.
Some are simply environmental activists and members of NGOs. It’s part of their self identity.
Climate scientists earn their living studying the “problem”. If the “problem” goes away to do their grants, their reputations and quite possibly their careers. Belief in AGW is central to the livelihood. Ask 100 trial lawyers if the US should implement tort reform. I’m quite sure 97% would be opposed to the concept.
Many politicians almost salivate at the potential AGW offers for new taxes, expanded control and to be viewed as “doing something to save the planet”.
Some people simply view AGW as something to exploit for financial gain (e.g. wind power, solar, carbon trading, ethanol, etc.). They may not actually be believers but they are certainly proponents (ditto for most politicians).
Some are indeed rabid haters of free market economies or are out and out socialists and AGW fits into their agendas.
Sadly too many believers are children or young adults who have been indoctrinated with the AGW meme their entire lives. They don’t know any better.
Belief in this fashionable pseudo-science is easy. Skepticism is much more difficult. Hopefully more people will awaken to the fact that AGW ceased being a scientific debate a long time ago. It is now a political issue.
Go ahead and speak at those GOP functions John. They need your wisdom too.
In your essay you realistically imagine enviros responding to an argument about the role of CO2 with the trumper: “Your argument could cost us everything as climate change makes the Earth unlivable.”
I think, however, that this assertion gives you a way to get past a few of the barriers these people have in their minds. Remember that most have no science education and cannot follow the CO2 debate on its merits, but you have enough general education to follow them through this topic change (from CO2 effects on air temperature to the effects of air temperature on humans) and then yank the ground out from under them. Just ask them why global warming would be bad – and you’ll find that the image in their heads is consistent with the first use of “greenhouse effect” to model water vapor effects on Venus – and not at all consistent with “the worst” that might happen here.
I have yet to have a single enviro respond intelligently when challenged on this – presumably because you can’t be pro-life and anti-warming at the same time.
Why do otherwise intelligent people spell ‘Voila!’ as ‘Wall-a!’ ?
‘both polar regions will be early indicators of global warming, but the north pole is the more sensitive and will be the first to ring…’ ~ r gates
mr gates: Can you please tell us what happened last time this bell rang, which I believe was about 2000 years ago?
And the time before that?
And the time before that?
And the time before that?
And the time before that…..?
We’re still here.
Domenic says:
Before you decide whether a theory is supported or not by the data, it helps to understand the theory and what it predicts. Your posts indicate that you don’t understand even the basics of the theory. First of all, the atmosphere (the tropospheric part anyway) is a strongly-coupled system and one can’t get very far by assuming that all effects are local. A rise in CO2 causes a small energy imbalance on a global scale but how that imbalance is manifest in terms of where the greatest temperature rise occurs are influenced by a lot of factors, including (in the case of the difference between the arctic and Antarctic) the placement of land and ocean in the two hemispheres…and the short-term (“transient”) response can differ from the long term (“equilibrium”) response.
From early on, the first climate coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models have predicted that the Arctic would respond more rapidly than the Antarctic. The references for that are S. Manabe et al., “Transient responses of coupled ocean-atmosphere model to gradual changes of atmospheric CO2. Part I: Annual mean response,” J. Climate 4, 785-818 (1991) and Murphy and Mitchell, “Transient response of the Hadley Centre coupled ocean-atmosphere model to increasing carbon dioxide. Part II: Spatial and temporal structure of response,” J. Climate 8, 57-80 (1995).
Erik says:
February 26, 2011 at 4:59 am
“TOWNSEND: […] I said imagine I am the
carbon fairy and I wave a magic wand. We can get rid
of all the carbon in the atmosphere, take it down to
two hundred fifty parts per million […]”
———————————————————–
(direct link to textfile)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/analysis/transcripts/25_01_10.txt
Townsend may not be a carbon fairy, but with advanced molecular nanotechnology we’ll have something like that. As carbon is becoming the default construction material for just about anything (as it is in the biosphere for the last several billion years) and it is readily available from air, the atmosphere would be depleted pretty fast. It is a scary scenario not because of global cooling but global plant starvation. Therefore it should be replenished as fast as it is used up on a global scale. The precautionary principle even dictates it’s a good idea to preload the atmosphere with CO₂ while we have time, just to create a buffer for an emerging technology. So, fortunately we are doing just the right thing now.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39632727@N08/4742544163
Sorry about the last post — I didn’t realize we are no longer able to place images from flickr. Here’s a link to the correct version:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4119/4742544163_3aa3325e7e_m.jpg
Domenic,
The climate null hypothesis remains unfalsified, so Joel is just whistlin’ Dixie.
to Joel Shore
That is absolute rubbish.
You are using ‘models’ to dictate what to look at instead of looking at what is really out there.
The fact of the matter is that in the one location in the whole world where it can be measured most pristinely, with the least amount of ‘weather is not climate’ noise the AGW theory falls flat on its face.
If you wish to debate radiational physics and the greenhouse effect, I would be happy to do so.
I also suspect that Keeling knew this in the later part of his life as he watched, much to his chagrin, that the temperature data from the Antarctic was not following his theory, but he was in too deep by that time to admit a major mistake.
Why would he have known? It would not have escaped his notice that at the Antarctic pole he could run his NDIR equipment to measure CO2 with no air sample prep whatsoever. Hint: at all the other locations in the world, an air sample has to be frozen and dried to remove all moisture to get an accurate CO2 measurement. In the Antarctic, it does not. It’s a direct measurement of CO2 and any effects the changes have on temperature in the atmosphere.
Everything else is mainly noise.
Domenic says:
February 26, 2011 at 11:48 am
To R. Gates
Thanks for your response. I am a thermal radiation expert. 20+ years in the field solving thermal radiation and heat processing problems in industry, medicine and science.
You seem to be focusing on sea ice. I do not because there is too much ‘noise’ in the data signals. I recommended looking inland at the actual south pole data, not the coastal data, sea ice, etc.
You wrote in a more recent post: “……Without a large influx of CO2 (such as occurred to end the last snowball earth period), the earth would remain a snowball planet.”
Well, the actual conditions you describe for a ‘snowball planet’ exist right at the South Pole. It is the driest desert on earth. There is virtually no humidity in the entire atmosphere above the South Pole. It is too cold.
And yet, CO2 is rising there, tracking Mauna Loa data. But it is causing NO TEMPERATURE INCREASE. In fact, it could very well be causing the decrease in temperature there.
Your assumption (or belief) that CO2 ‘kick starts’ the warming is not being demonstrated at all there. And that is the real world data. Not speculation.
_____
It is nice that you confirmed the nature of what a snowball earth was like…very cold and very dry, with very low atmospheric CO2 content. One must remember that earth was in this snowball state for millions of years (over many Milankovitch cycles) and over many solar cycles long and short. Just about any kind of external forcing that could shake the earth out of the snowball state was experienced, but nothing external could do it. It wasn’t until the massive volcanic eruptions hit (and/or other influences such as a slow down in the hydrological cycle that reduced rock weathering), pouring massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, that the earth was shaken free from the snowball state.
Going back now, to the current situation over the South Pole. As you correctly stated, a very dry and very cold region, yet, why isn’t the CO2 causing melt, if it could melt the earth out of the snowball world? One has to remember that the amount of CO2 necessary to begin the process of melting was many thousands of times the level we see today.