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
@- Smokey says:
February 26, 2011 at 8:25 pm
“Your “team” has tried repeatedly to get enough signatures on a comparable alarmist petition. You’ve always failed – and not by just a little.”
============
I am not aware of any comparable effort to generate an ‘alarmist’ petition, perhaps you could provide a link ?
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“Re:-“What GOOD science has your team come up with in the last five years?”
-Back atcha.”
================
The GRACE satellite measurements of mass changes of ice fields is particularly elegant.
The work on solar dynamics and deep ocean energy storage is also interesting.
There are many links I could provide….
But to an extent you are right.
Most of it is crossing “t’s” and dotting the “i’s” because the basic science of AGW theory was established about 50 years ago.
And nothing in subsequent decades of study has called it into question.
Correction re Shr Nfr (6.48am) It is the Australian Labor Government introducing a Carbon Tax, not the Liberal Party which is opposing the tax. Australian term ‘liberal’ equates to liberal economics. The Liberal Party tends to be a party in favor of of small business and lower taxes. Leader ,Tony Abbott has stated that he is sceptical of CAGW theory.
_Jim says:
February 26, 2011 at 10:13 pm
about cold fusion comments of Joel Shore: But he will incline to throw Baby and Bath-water out prior to ‘full enlightenment’ on cold fusion (since that suits his argument, for the moment) …
Please, physics is not a football game and science is not about taking sides. Much as I disagree about anthropogenic global warming with Joel, I will defend his statement on cold fusion : It is about 20 years later and so far we have still no convincing evidence that such a scientific phenomenon is being observed and no known mechanism to explain how it could be happening.
.
No working machine has flooded the markets from the cold fusion claims. If such machines existed, the theory would be found for sure. The link you gave speaks of hit and miss results, certainly not drawings for an engine. Does the car engine misses 70% of the time?
The recent announcement by Rossi et al of Low Energy Nuclear fusion is not the same as the Pons et al reaction, and it also waits for proof of the validity of the claims. Nobody is going to dispute a working machine. The proof is in the pudding, and for the moment it is still in the oven and we are waiting.
wayne Job says:
February 27, 2011 at 3:17 am
R Gates, You seem to be under a misapprehension that the world is controlled in it’s climate by internal forcings.
____
Nope, not at all. I’m quite aware of long-term astronomical forcings (i.e. Milankovitch) and shorter term solar cycles, and even the occasional comet or meteor bombardment that can alter the earth’s climate. Even longer term the notion that the position of the solar system in the galaxy with differing rates of galactic cosmic rays could play a role. But all these external forcings do not preclude the large role that changes in the atmospheric composition due to volcanic eruptions could also play. There are many external and internal factors that affect the climate, and if there is a common thread, it is that the seemingly smallest change can actually cause huge shifts in climate. The last 10,000 years of the Holocene have been relatively stable (with the Little Ice Age being mere child’s play compared to what could happen) and allowed for the rise of human civilization. If you look back over the past hundreds of thousands of years and millions of years, the relative stability of the Holocene is remarkable, as an number of external and internal small nudges could send the climate in a dramatically different direction and did so during the more remote past.
Werner Brozek says:
February 26, 2011 at 9:08 pm
“R. Gates says:
February 26, 2011 at 7:55 pm
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.”
It was the other way around! CO2 levels rose long after Milankovitch cycles caused heating.
______
You are correct for certain periods of earth’s history, but not all. During periods of the snowball earth, which lasted millions of years, the earth went through many Milankovitch cycles, none of which were strong enough of a forcing to knock the earth out of the snowball state. As most the of water vapor had been condensed out of the atmosphere, it was up to CO2 to keep some GH activity going, and the most likely scenario is that a period of massive volcanic activity increased CO2 to several thousand ppm–enough to give the climate a nudge to break free of the snowball period.
But to your point about the timing of warming periods and CO2 levels, this common skeptical “proof” that CO2 does not cause warming is erroneous, and when used by skeptics, tells me they are merely parroting standard skeptical talking points and have not done the deeper research into the actual science. In short, just because Milankovitch cycles can cause SOME initial warming, and a subsequent increase in CO2, does not in any way prevent that CO2 from then causing further warming in a positive-feedback manner. Complex interrelated causes with negative and positive feedback loops are the hallmark of the climate system (and most natural systems)…i.e. everything doesn’t have just one cause…
_Jim says:
izen and anna v have already provided good answers to your post but I will just add that I do not require that there be an explanation for the effect in order to believe the effect is occurring. For example, I believe in high-T_C superconductivity despite the lack of a full theoretical understanding because the experimental evidence of its occurrence is overwhelming and, although the materials can be pretty finicky, there is reasonably good reproducibility once scientists have learned how to work with them.
However, when only a few select people seem to be able to get an effect to occur AND it seems to fly in the face of everything that is understood theoretically, then I think one has the duty to be skeptical. If you think that the existence of a company set up to commercialize it somehow constitutes proof of the phenomenon, I suggest you read into Blacklight Power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklight_Power
CO2, at least for the present, is the key to human progress and prosperity. Without the ability to burn hydrocarbon fuels, humanity will be forced to use energy sources that are more expensive. Just as important, it tends to centralize power generation, and thus increases the vulnerability of society to disruptions due to natural disasters, accidents and deliberate disruptions. There is no replacement for hydrocarbon fuels for powering aircraft.
Socialists are of two minds with respect to the level of US crude oil imports. On the one hand they complain that we are “not paying the true cost of oil”, in part because we must deploy our military to protect those foreign sources. But socialists only embrace faces in order to advance a broader lie. The truth is that the US has over 2x the hydrocarbon resources than all of Arab OPEC combined. (see Barna report, OSD Clean Fuels Initiative, link: http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Harrison.pdf). The truth is also that the same socialists that want us to pay the true cost of oil, also work feverishly to prevent us from exploiting our own resources.
Thus, by their words and actions, the goals socialists are hostile to our safety, liberty and prosperity.
R. Gates says:
February 27, 2011 at 5:48 am
just because Milankovitch cycles can cause SOME initial warming, and a subsequent increase in CO2, does not in any way prevent that CO2 from then causing further warming in a positive-feedback manner.
So, in short, C02 could, maybe cause further warming, creating a “positive feedback”.
That is the Warmist/Alarmist non-falsifiable mantra, anyway. I guess, if it helps to bolster your Belief system.
A must watch video http://gorebull.com/cloudmystery Henrik Svensmark shows how cosmic rays cause cloud formation which reflects sunlight, cooling the earth, and that the sun’s magnetic flux modulates the cosmic rays hitting the earth.
1. Joel Shore says:
February 26, 2011 at 8:40 pm
I don’t deal in “maybe”—I deal in the directly ascertainable. The biggest clincher I see is the fact that Rossi and Focardi’s company, Leonardo Corporation, does not seek funding at the moment. ”We are fully funded by our customers,” he [Rossi] says. Did you get that? This isn’t something they’re bandying about trying to promote—they have all the money they need to continue focusing on the technical developments of this process.
Add to that the fact that the consortium, a Greek company called Defkalion Green Technologies (a combined effort between Italy and Greece) does not seem to seek funding as they also have all the money they need to continue commercialization of this process. The first 1 megawatt power plant using solely the Energy Catalyzer will cover the energy needs of the Defkalion factory. Sounds like they’re pretty confident in the technology, doesn’t it?
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3091266.ece
But I shall certainly have the last laugh, Mr. Shore. THE LAST LAUGH you can be sure. I believe it is you who that is being led to mistakenly believe that such a simple solution isn’t possible. And besides, who says flying an airplane, for example, isn’t “simple” once you know how, so looking back on the exact methodology to achieve cold fusion will someday be seen just as simple once it becomes as commonplace as your neighboring E-Cat powered electricity generating plant.
I laugh at your stupidity; I shall forever ridicule you! Sir, kindly do yourself a favor and get up to speed on LENR/CANR. I could list hundreds of references and direct you to dozens of technical/professional symposiums that absolutely refute your statement, but if you aren’t willing to do some basic Google or Bing searches, maybe that’s why you don’t know anything about it and it would be a waste of my time and effort to do it for you.
BTW—do you really want to continue associating with the “we” you refer to as having “still no convincing evidence”? I suppose that is your problem; it certainly isn’t mine.
For the state of global warming Down Under this news article sums up the hilarity if it weren’t so serious-
http://www.theage.com.au/national/greens-fuel-petrol-tax-debate-20110227-1b9om.html
PM Gillard now rules with the slenderest of majorities via a shaky coalition with the Greens and 3 independents. You may recal Gillard’s Labor Party sacked their previous leader Kevin Rudd who was on the nose with the electorate with an election in the offing and she just managed to scrape home. After inheriting a healthy surplus and sound economy from the previous Howard Govt, the L-Plater Rudd Govt had quickly sprayed red ink everywhere with a series of failed policies and the usual lunar green waste and after a major policy backflip on introducing a CO2 cap and trade scheme after Copenhagen (he had previously called the great moral imperative of our time), he was even on the nose with his warmist base.
As an aside here Rudd had run into the vexed practical problem of trying to devise some immediate compenstaion for the impact of C&T, in particular handing out free carbon credits to those sectors immediately affected, most notably the brown coal power stations in the La Trobe valley in Victoria, which produce around a quarter of the nation’s power. They had previously been privatised and the new owners and finaciers (including Australias Big$ banks) had paid too much for them and in the context of the GFC, could not finance any prospective purchase of carbon credits. In fact having to do so would have forced their owners hand to declare insolvency, thereby handing them back to the banks and tearing up any existing supply price contracts. The end result would have seen power prices rocket and consumers immediately associate that with C&T, which they were being snowed was not really a tax. The problem was the Greens sided with the Conservatives in the Senate to vote down the C&T legislation, ostensibly because the Greens couldn’t wear free credits being given to the ‘big bad polluters’.
As the news article describes now, PM Gillard who had promised no carbon tax in the last election campaign is now backflipping and pandering to Greens and their carbon taxing ways, albeit she doesn’t want to slug motorists at the petrol bowser for the obvious, whereas the Greens do. Now read Greens laeder Bob Brown’s comments in that context in particular-
“Our job is to ensure that the average Australian household and car user is not punished by a carbon price,” he told Network Ten.
“The idea here is to make the polluters pay.”
Get the picture? These economic illiterates really believe in an ‘us and them’ world with us warm fuzzy human beings on the one hand and them evil dark satanic millowners on the other. As I said hilarious if it weren’t so serious and these paedophiles feed this to our kids.
@-RockyRoad says:
February 27, 2011 at 9:19 am
“I laugh at your stupidity; I shall forever ridicule you! Sir, kindly do yourself a favor and get up to speed on LENR/CANR. I could list hundreds of references and direct you to dozens of technical/professional symposiums that absolutely refute your statement, but if you aren’t willing to do some basic Google or Bing searches, maybe that’s why you don’t know anything about it and it would be a waste of my time and effort to do it for you. ”
Some of us are up to speed on LENR and have kept an eye on the field ever since the Pons/Fleischman debacle. Partly in the hope that there is something in it; and partly as an example of pathological science.
Its a history of marginal results from controlled experiments and periodic press releases and sometimes demonstrations of prototype test rigs that are claimed to generate more power than is used but all have one notable characteristic.
They are never seen or marketed beyond that first exposure.
They are also undocumented. The methods used are secret for ‘commercial’ reasons is the usual claim, but despite the obvious incentive for industrial espionage and the clear economic advantage of a device that could multiply an energy input there is no example of a working LENR device that can be obtained or manufactured by independent observers.
There would seem to be two possibilities.
1)- A somewhat unlikely collusion between fossil fuel business and hardcore environmentalists to suppress any and all development of such technology. Somewhere in the vaults of exxon and/or GreenPeace are plans and models of working devices that could provide abundant cheap energy without CO2 emissions.
2)- None of the devices produce more energy than that supplied and inherent in the chemical reactions of the constituent elements. Any claim they do is the result of wishful self-delusion on the part of the (frequently emeritus) scientists and/or deceit for financial gain.
You only get the last laugh when there is a working device, with established, reproducible energy production over unity which is commercially viable.
While the field is one of dubious partial and unreproducible results, punctuated by unsubstantiated claims of success with vanishing prototypes you should expect the scoffing to continue.
@-wayne Job says:
February 27, 2011 at 3:17 am
“The sun and our fellow travelling planets have a profound effect on our well being, CO2 also has a deep effect but only when we have a lack of it, any thing less than 200ppm and our world will start to die. Anything over 10,000ppm I would start to think we have to plant more trees, one thing for sure, it will not affect the climate.”
The importance of the Sun as the energy source is understandable, but the PLANETS???
Is this something astrological to do with the ‘star sign’ they are in ?!
Why are you so sure that CO2 has no effect on the climate ?
Do you have some means of removing all uncertainty about the effect of the measurable increase in downwelling IR radiation from the increased CO2, or is it some faith in a perfect homeostatic feedback in the terrestrial climate system that will exactly negate the effects of the extra energy ?
I doubt that such dogmatic certainty about the NON-effect of CO2 on climate (Venus?) is compatible with skepticism.
Smokey says: “But I’ll try to help you out here because you’re so far off track. Conflating “Cheney” – a politician – with the scientific method is disingenuous.”
~ ~ ~
Perhaps, but pointing out the contrast between the insanity of his proud 1% suspicion and what right wing think tanks are pumping out ~ that somehow, someway in the instance of AGW Earth Observation scientist need to prove 100% in every aspect of their understanding ~ isn’t.
And since we are talking 1%’s ~ nor is it any better for those thank tanks to grasp at 1% of the science, then conflate it to pretend the rest of the 99% of observational and experimental climate data doesn’t exist.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Smokey says: “First, there is nothing “cavalier” about the concept of the null hypothesis,”
~ ~ ~
That’s true enough, and I deserve to be spanked for that sentence. What I meant to say was the ‘misusing’ of the null hypothesis, etc., etc..
I don’t have the time for more just now, but wanted Smokey to know I have forgotten about your interesting questions and I’ll be back to pick up on them.
that’s ‘Think Tank’ and Smokey ‘I have not forgotten’
sorry, I really shouldn’t post when I’m rushed.
RockyRoad says:
Well, if you really believe this, then you should seriously invest whatever money you got in these ventures as you stand to make an absolute killing. As for me, I will stand on the sidelines and wish you the best of luck!
Hey, I’d love there to be such an easy source of energy to replace fossil fuels. It would make a laughing stock of all the melodramatic, completely unsupported claims made all the time here about how a carbon tax or cap-and-trade will send us back into the Dark Ages! I still think those claims are ridiculous but alas it is not because I think there is some miracle bullet; I just believe that with the proper market incentives, the right mix of alternate energy sources and greater efficiency will allow us to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels…and it will happen with less economic pain if those incentives start to go into place sooner rather than later, so that they can be ramped up more gradually. (How such a view gets associated with “socialism” as theBuckWheat does, is beyond my comprehension, but I guess if your belief in markets is based on blind religiosity rather than actually understanding the economics of how markets work, it can lead you astray.)
Mr. Coleman, please keep the faith in the scientific enterprise. As we have seen over the past year or so, the death of alarmist-inspired policy is well under way given the actions (or non-actions if you will) of politicians at Copenhagen and Cancun. The U.S. electorate still will not play ball with the alarmist lobby and the Europeans are freezing but secure in the knowledge that their Kyoto efforts bore fruit.
Outside of climate science all is well in the paradigm-based sciences like Physics and Chemistry. At least they are still practicing science as Galileo conceived.
Izen,
“Why are you so sure that CO2 has no effect on the climate ?”
Read this presentation http://www.kidswincom.net/CO2OLR.pdf, and tell me me where my analysis is bad and that my conclusions are wrong.
Pamela Gray said
“I too am socially liberal (damn the ban against stem cell research, damn the effort to make abortion illegal and uninsurable, damn the Marriage Act and all that), but fiscally conservative. For some, that is difficult to imagine.”
Me too, but I see the two points of view as logically consistent, both being conservative in the sense of wanting to reduce the role of government. How we accept, in utterly sheep-like fashion, the gov. telling us what we can and can’t do as free adults in a free society, is something I’ll never be able to understand. We throw people into prison for ingesting plants that exist in nature. That is so fundamentally wrong I’ve no words to express my outrage.
I used to consider myself a libertarian, but as I’ve grown older I do see that some restrictions on the so-called free markets are necessary. If the recent housing crash and near depression hasn’t taught us that, then we weren’t paying attention. One can certainly argue about the cure after the fact (let ’em sink vs. too big to fail), but I don’t see how can one reasonably maintain that all this couldn’t have been avoided with stricter regulations in place.
I also take issue with those who reject AGW solely because of the expanded role for government it implies. Were it to be demonstrated to be a truly major threat that we could in some way reduce or avoid, then I’d be all for such measures…
So. I guess I’m not ideologically pure. Too bad for me :>)
@-Fred H. Haynie says:
February 27, 2011 at 1:08 pm
“Read this presentation http://www.kidswincom.net/CO2OLR.pdf, and tell me me where my analysis is bad and that my conclusions are wrong.”
I was hoping you would post again, I hadn’t forgotten your posts before and had started to put together a reply…
But this new link makes it easier, and I can respond quickly.
First, and most obviously there is this statement –
“Assuming an analogy with I= E/R, then k=1/R.”
The analogy fails at several levels….-grin-
One is that it doesn’t take into account that the atmosphere is not a single resistance, it is a continuous volume with varying properties at increasing altitude. Unfortunately to form any analogy with the atmosphere you would have to include numerous values of R for separate levels of the atmosphere. Changing CO2 content has most of its effect by altering the gradient of R over altitude rather than changing the total value.
Secondly and rather more fundamentally treating the atmospheric opacity to escaping thermal energy as analogous to an electrical resistance ignores the 1LoT. In electrical resistance the impediment to electrical flow converts electrical energy to thermal energy.
The absorption of IR by atmospheric components converts photon energy to thermal energy, but that thermal energy is then a new value for the emission of photon energy from T^4. Conservation of energy means that a simple parallel with electrical current flow is not appropriate.
The fact that your mathematical model does correlate with observations should not come as any great surprise. All your formula does is take the observations and derive a value that is inevitably going to follow seasonal and decadel temperature variation. That does not mean that you can conclude that temperature is the primary causative factor of temperature….
I would suggest working through the ‘Science of Doom’ website linked at the top of page, in the right-hand column. It really works through these issues rather well, the series on CO2 as a trace gas would be a good place to start, but nearly all of it repays study if you want a grasp of the physics involved in the ‘greenhouse’ effect and the details that matter with water vapor, lapse rates and convection.
“R. Gates says:
February 27, 2011 at 5:48 am
During periods of the snowball earth, which lasted millions of years,
As most the of water vapor had been condensed out of the atmosphere
that CO2 from then causing further warming in a positive-feedback manner.”
I must confess I am not up on “snowball earth” and confused that with ice ages. Sorry about that!
However if water vapor had condensed, it would seem to me that there would be no clouds which could cause a lot of reflection of sun light, so would the sun not burn down hard and rapidly cause water to melt and evaporate? That assumes that the distance to the sun was not much different than now. As for the positive feedback from CO2, most agree there is some effect, but the CAGW people have hugely overblown the impact. And even the IPCC talks about the logarithmic effect of added CO2, or the law of diminishing returns for added CO2. However I may have to study snowball earth to be sure of things.
@-art johnson says:
February 27, 2011 at 2:01 pm
” How we accept, in utterly sheep-like fashion, the gov. telling us what we can and can’t do as free adults in a free society, is something I’ll never be able to understand. ”
Its a consequence of the fact that in some circumstances with a finite resource individual exploitation of that common resource has collective consequences that are only optimized by collective action – enforced by coercion if necessary.
See any discussion of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ for the basic principle. Societies that enforce such collective regulation reach better outcomes with superior utilization of resources so are more successful.
Sometimes it pays to be sheep…..unless some fool is overgrazing the available pasture!
“I also take issue with those who reject AGW solely because of the expanded role for government it implies. Were it to be demonstrated to be a truly major threat that we could in some way reduce or avoid, then I’d be all for such measures…
So. I guess I’m not ideologically pure. Too bad for me :>)”
You have abandoned ideological purity for rationality; the appropriate response to material reality.
In that you are unlike the hardcore environmentalists referenced in the story about the ‘carbon fairy’ who could limit the climate impact of CO2 without regulating industry or individual consumption. They preferred the ideological goal of regulation despite the lack of any scientific need to do so.
I sometimes have the suspicion that there are a proportion of posters here who take the opposite position. Even if the carbon fairy could show without equivocation that rising CO2 would cause major societal disruption without collective control the ideological opposition to global governance that could regulate CO2 emissions would preclude their acceptance of any action.
Personally I see no evidence that there exist global structures of governance capable of such regulation, nor is there any immediate prospect of any arising.
The only examples of global governance with any small claim to success would be the Montreal protocol on CFC’s and the allocation of radio bandwidth.
The Nuclear non-proliferation treaty would be an example of a failed global governance…. Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, Iran.?….
If we can’t get global governance of such an obvious threat to human civilization the chances of getting regulation of the much more subtle threat from CO2 is negligible.
Izen,
I agree that it is a simplified analogy that considers only four resistances in series. In actuality it should be more like a circuit of multiple resistances both in series and parrallel. Even with the over simplification it shows that water in the atmosphere is the primary controlling factor, not CO2.
Another way to analyze the data is to calculate the temperature at the “top of the atmosphere” using the Stephan-Boltzman relationship, then use the skin surface temperature and varying wet to dry lapse rates to estimate the apparent optical thickness of the atmosphere. Do this at the South Pole where water vapor is the least and any effect of CO2 should be measurable as an increase in the optical thickness. CO2 has been increasing at the South Pole for over fifty years. Do the math and see if you can measure a statistically significant increase in the optical thickness.
izen says:
February 27, 2011 at 3:00 pm
“…much more subtle threat from CO2 is negligible….”
Indeed it is subtle. So subtle in fact that it doesn’t exist in the direction that your “collectivist” desires lean. Maybe, however, it is dangerous in the other direction, where it becomes such a miniscule part of the atmosphere that a great quantity of lifes’ various forms cannot survive. Think about the decline – the massive sequestering – of CO2 that the earth has undertaken in the last half billion years. All those millions of cubic miles of limestone and dolomite and calcareous shales, and coal and peat beds and oil and gas deposits.
I think we’re fortunate to be getting some of it back from greedy old Gaia.
Interesting discussion.
As a life long aviator, I would be interested to see a study of temperatures collected from aviation flights by volunteer global carriers such as Federal Express willing to collect temperature data from flight levels above 20k. Sustained flight at cruise altitude offers a perspective not available from ground station to ground station. The data would produce a constant flow of data over a long range of distance and it is precise in altitude. The perspective can be then compared to current types of measurements.
Of course, most of us can simply take our extended life long memory of weather experience to come up with a conclusion to either warmer or cooler. But, how scientific is that compared to data alla eterna politico agendacontinuim maximus.
All in the name of saving the planet from AGW, of course. 😉