When the public learns about huge faults in the skeptic scientist accusation, combined with the faults in the IPCC, the result may send AGW into total collapse.
Guest post submitted by Russell Cook
I’m preaching to the choir here when I say appearances of people hiding AGW’s problems beg for clichés – the emperor has no clothes, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, nothing to see here, move along. But I’m not a scientist, nor do I have a scintilla of expertise to say with any authority that the IPCC is wrong and skeptic scientists are right.
The one thing I can do is offer an ordinary citizen’s informed view of what the barrier is preventing skeptics’ viewpoints from being heard, and how that barrier can turn from the paper-thin success story it is into a cancer that has the potential to wipe out the entire ideology of AGW.
Notice that I said ‘informed view’. I watch the mainstream media, but I also read sites like this one, while a large chunk of the public does not. Therein lies the problem, as evidenced by this example: On October 12, 2007, the PBS NewsHour aired a glowing broadcast about Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize, in which IPCC scientist Michael Oppenheimer offered scary scenarios rivaling those in Gore’s movie. Two days prior, a UK judge ruled there were nine errors in the movie and it could only be shown in UK schools “with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination”. Yet, I defy anybody to locate a solitary mention of this in any NewsHour broadcast.
See the problem? From my extensive digging through the NewsHour’s broadcast archives, Michael Oppenheimer has appeared on the program eight times and three other IPCC scientists have appeared there on six occasions collectively, all speaking at length about AGW with no rebuttal. How many times have skeptic scientists been allowed a similar opportunity there? Zero. Our friend Pat Michaels appeared once briefly in a taped segment to give his thoughts about ClimateGate…. four months after that event was breaking news.
The nothing to see here, move along tactic works fine as long as the bulk of the audience doesn’t know legitimate skeptic scientists exist.
The keyword is ‘legitimate’, and that’s where the barrier comes in. When a large portion of people around the world learn about global warming through Al Gore’s movie and through internet repetitions of its details, or from viral regurgitated details from anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan’s 1997 The Heat is On and 2004 Boiling Point, then the perception is there are no legitimate skeptic scientists.
The Gore / Gelbspan / internet repetitions are one-and-the-same. Skeptic scientists are accused of being in a fossil fuel-funded conspiracy to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact“, and this mimics the old tobacco industry conspiracy. Everybody remembers how well that one turned out.
The key to the whole accusation is the “reposition global warming” sentence – it’s in Gore’s movie, it’s in two of the three global warming nuisance lawsuits, and was spread out as far as the eye could see on the internet beginning largely in 1996. When I first stumbled onto the phrase in late 2009, my google searches yielded seemingly endless amounts of accusers using the phrase, though lately all of my online articles about it have ‘tainted’ the search results rather noticeably.
Here’s the big problem I found: That accusation is based on a 1991 memo no one was allowed to see, using an out-of-context sentence, promoted by a person who was not a Pulitzer winner despite accolades to the contrary, who was credited with finding the memo by Al Gore, but Gore had the memo collection in his own possession four years earlier.
And just days ago, Gore mysteriously contradicts himself again in Rolling Stone about who found the memo. He also slams the mainstream media, who’ve been largely responsible for creating and maintaining the barrier keeping the public unaware about skeptic scientists. But, that’s a rather old ruse to to prompt left-leaning journalists to say to themselves, “I’m not going to be duped into diluting the importance of this issue by giving equal time to skeptic scientists”. None of the current media people are insulted because they say, “I’m not that guy.” It’s been a very clever tactic, of course dependent on reporters intuitively knowing all skeptic scientists must be accepting fossil fuel money. Seventeen+ months of research on this allows me to point out these problems in my latest article, “Pt II: Is Gore’s Accusation of Skeptic Climate Scientists Still a Hoax?”
The thing to consider here is that AGW promoters absolutely, positively do not want to see the kind of debate that occurred at last November’s US House testimony between Richard Lindzen and Ralph Cicerone. Otherwise, it becomes abundantly obvious that Lindzen’s level of expertise is not something that would be paid for and pre-scripted in an Exxon conference room. And most critical of all, no reporter must ask in response to such an accusation, “There is proof that he’s literally paid to make that stuff up, right?”
Their mantra is ‘settled science’ / ‘corrupt skeptics’ / ‘the media dilutes the issue by talking to skeptics’. This only works when there is faith in that whole system, as in the US investment banks circa 2007 and Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme.
Wipe out the faith in this mantra and what happens?
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According to the IPCC, significant manmade CO2 emissions began in 1950. This is generally agreed by everyone.
Sad for whom? I rejoice. The nation is temporarily out of danger from rampant pinheadedness. And Europe’s slow but inexorable economic suicide will serve as an object lesson for US, China (who really doesn’t need one), and the emerging economies. Overall, things are working out rather well.
I do feel for the Aussies, though. There is a large-ish rational minority there that really doesn’t deserve the calamity being visited upon them by their own microcephalics.
@ur momisugly R. Gates:
“Not likely. Too much solid science supports the notion that the huge increase in CO2 since the 1700′s is affecting earth’s climate. More likely that skeptics to this will slowly find something else to rally against as the evidence to changes in earth’s natural systems continue to mount.”
As others have spoken about the plain silliness of this (there being any ‘evidence’ that ‘continues to mount’ I will address the first line.
“Too much solid science supports the notion…” Right, it’s a ‘notion’. Sure as heck ain’t science. Notion is exactly the right word. CAGW is a ‘notion’, certainly not something with ‘mounting evidence’. The ‘mounting evidence’ favours natural, cyclic variations as the explanation of regional and global temperature rises and falls, cycles upon cycles, almost entirely driven by solar factors. I lean towards the position that 100% are driven by the sun because there is so far no proof of an extra-solar system source of energy that could influence such cycles.
It is your oft-cited phrase, “huge increase in CO2” that is so strange (you forgot to mention your 40% figure – maybe we are supposed to think it is more this week). Surely you, as an internet-using sentient being, are aware that the CO2 level in the atmosphere used to be 7000 ppm? That is fluctuates from about 200 to over 7000? That is has fluctuated by hundreds of ppm with no contribution by mankind during the past few hundred thousands years?
How is it that you show up here month after month to repeat to a patently skeptical audience the obvious fact that the CO2 level changes? What we don’t know is what the effect on the climate is, because almost the whole green industry is wedded to the idea of making billions of $ from promoting partial, inconclusive, opinion-filled, uncorroborated, even faked (!) and hyperbolic studies with one, foregone conclusion: “We are guilty! We were born guilty and die even guiltier!” The public consciousness is awash in a sea of climate-manure in which your ‘40% CO2 increase’ is one floating chunk.
Guilt: How very European, in its mental space. That is an Old World cultural position that some love, like hair shirts and fingernail biting. It pops up in other cultures, make no mistake: “If only we had thrown two virgins into the volcano instead of one, the bananas would have grown better this year. It’s all our fault for not believing strongly enough. Either that, or it’s the CO2 from the rice fields.”
What will your explanation for a decrease in CO2 in the coming year be: that the burning of virgins is working? And if the oceans should cool? Will it be the result of building windmills instead of rural water pipes and sanitation systems in poor countries?
I think you should look at the basic science of CO2 because it appears to cause ocean cooling, hurricane energy reduction, and frequency, an increase in snowfall, lowering of global land temperatures, increasing ice cover in Antarctica, the quieting of the sun, mini-ice ages, polar cooling on Mars, and the tendency of blithering idiots to lie through their teeth and be rewarded for it. Surely these are all, in some way, ‘our fault’, aren’t they? Well, believing any of it would be.
Roger Knights says @ur momisugly June 26, 2011 at 11:45 pm “According to the IPCC, significant manmade CO2 emissions began in 1950. This is generally agreed by everyone.”
So now you agree w/ the IPCC?
In any case – let’s see the actual citation since so many claims here (especially without citations) are dubious….
Here is what the IPCC actually says;
A wide range of direct and indirect measurements confirm
that the atmospheric mixing ratio of CO2 has increased globally
by about 100 ppm (36%) over the last 250 years, from a range
of 275 to 285 ppm in the pre-industrial era (AD 1000–1750) to
379 ppm in 2005 (see FAQ 2.1, Figure 1). During this period,
the absolute growth rate of CO2 in the atmosphere increased
substantially: the fi rst 50 ppm increase above the pre-industrial
value was reached in the 1970s after more than 200 years,
whereas the second 50 ppm was achieved in about 30 years. In
the 10 years from 1995 to 2005 atmospheric CO2 increased by
about 19 ppm; the highest average growth rate recorded for any
decade since direct atmospheric CO2 measurements began in
the 1950s. The average rate of increase in CO2 determined by
these direct instrumental measurements over the period 1960 to
2005 is 1.4 ppm yr-1.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf
First, my apologies for a glitch when I first submitted this, the hyperlinks you now see in my guest post are fully functional thanks to Anthony’s help. Also, not being near the internet since Saturday prevented me from catching this earlier, which prolonged the problem. My fault, I’m sorry.
I thank Anthony again for allowing me to tell about one facet that is otherwise unreported: Al Gore has long said the science is settled, but to avoid having to answer to criticism from skeptic scientists, he has successfully portrayed them as corrupt. Not in some vague manner, but through the singular reliance on a piece of highly questionable ‘evidence’.
The general public has long held faith in Gore’s overall narrative, and the mainstream media’s retelling of it. If the public loses faith in his narrative specifically because he falsely accuses whistleblower skeptic scientists of corruption, and the IPCC’s assessments’ are exposed for being largely unsupportable, then both he and the mainstream media have a very big problem on their hands.
Thus the slow, almost unnoticeable transition from “global warming” to “climate change”.
The agw crowd knew their flimsy religion was losing worshipers at rates that could never be replaced. So what better way to win an argument you are losing, then change the argument.
Now its climate change, climate catastrophe, or climate whatever.
R. Gates,
40% ………industrial revolution…………co2…………rise………..temperature……….blah, blah, blah…….
YAAAAAAAAAAWN! Play another record! The recent trend of global warming has stopped and cooled slightly. ACE hurricane index at over 30 year lows, and so on………………………
Hey Anthony,
Long time, no visit….
I’m far from sanguine that AGW is just environmaniacal piffle, but the apocalyptic scare-noise from the AGW crowd was sure to both undermine the science and alienate the already saturated public. If A Gore is a fool for playing fast & loose with the science, then so is James Inhoffe who in times past published some of the most god-awful agitprop and quack science (nonsense tantamount to the claim that CO2 doesn’t cause a greenhouse effect — AT ALL).
So much research is still needed: The Arctic has been progressively decimated over the past century or two, largely from sootfall, standing as incontrovertible evidence that we are seeing climate change due to carbon, just not due to CO2. The ice loss due to black carbon (not CO2) has almost assuredly had a significant impact (25% of all global warming of the past 150 years) but what does it portend from hereon?
Just b/c Al Gore got Kilimanjaro wrong doesn’t mean that sootfall on the tundra isn’t a problem:
Although the half life of atmospheric methane is a fraction of that of CO2, it’s also a far-stronger greenhouse gas, & a sudden spike of methane levels could have a discernable greenhouse impact.
– Could continued soot-driven boreal thawing unleash accelerated methane outgassing from peatbogs?
– Could increased shipping & oil exploration in the Arctic drive yet more soot onto the boreal terrain?
If we curtail boreal soot deposition will the situation stabilize enough to forestall any potential threat? If it’s critical the Greenland stade holds until civilization can transition toward cleaner energy, can we follow that critical path?
Honest science needs to ask these questions, be given the time and money to answer them, and give the public & policy makers the best information the money can buy. With that we can make a reasonable risk assessment.
So exactly how stupid does someone have to be to think that Al Gore is the smart guy in the room?
Look up Dansgaard–Oeschger events. Then ask yourself why none of the AGW scientists will talk about them.
Jimbo says @ur momisugly June 27, 2011 at 4:50 pm “YAAAAAAAAAAWN! Play another record! The recent trend of global warming has stopped and cooled slightly.”
Except you are wrong – again. Repeating the bad assertion doesn’t make it any less wrong.
“January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. ”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp-analysis-2009.html
Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
GISS temperature data graph
In 2010, global temperatures continued to rise. A new analysis from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies shows that 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record, and was part of the warmest decade on record. (Image credit: NASA/Earth Observatory/Robert Simmon)
+ View larger image or download PDF
The two years differed by less than 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit. The difference is smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years, putting them into a statistical tie. In the new analysis, the next warmest years are 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009, which are statistically tied for third warmest year. The GISS records begin in 1880.
The analysis found 2010 approximately 1.13°F warmer than the average global surface temperature from 1951 to 1980. To measure climate change, scientists look at long-term trends. The temperature trend, including data from 2010, shows the climate has warmed by approximately 0.36°F per decade since the late 1970s.
“If the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long,” said James Hansen, the director of GISS.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20110112/
Now that Co2 has been found to not be the culprit they are trying to blame carbon soot., Will they continue to blame mankind for climate changes caused by the Sun. Only as long as the money supply is continued. It’s all about money.
You ‘climate change skeptics’ are just scratching the surface. You are involved in an ideological skirmish against worldviews and beliefs within which bigotry is excusable, where end justifies the means. Have a close look at what the proponents of Intelligent Design or Creation Science go through if you want to come up against the real world of ideologically driven censorship – that’s where the war is raging. Look at your own attitudes towards these non-mainstream scientific frameworks if you really want to understand what’s going on with radical environmentalism.
This is very similar to arguments of the existance of God. Believers say, there is a God; prove there is not. All we have seen as ‘proof’ of global warming are transformative and normalized statistics. I can use various methodologies to transform or normalize data to make whatever point I so choose. Transforming data is not a scientific proof.
And, more importantly….typically, scientific proof allows for and encourages attempts to disprove a theory. We accept science because we have tried to prove it wrong. This does not take place with global warming. There is no effort or even acceptance of attempts to disprove it by its advocates. This goes against the very tenents of science that have led to our advances in technology and medicine the world over.
Once upon a time, the ‘consensus’ was that the world was flat. How did that turn out? More recently, Newtonian physics were the agreed upon consensus. Imagine if scientists stopped there and didn’t enter the quantum realm. We’d have no microelectronics or atomic energy.
And finally, the most damning element: The solution to this ‘science’ problem is purely political and involves the redistribution of the world’s wealth. Really? So, now we solve science problems with purely political solutions?
Be gone, alarmists. Science will win out.
People who quote statements from the GISS or the IPCC are either shockingly naive or lying. Both institutions have been utterly discredited with respect to AGW. It is like asking a Communist if communism is the the way to go. What do you think he is going to say? No?
Four groups will always push AGW:
1. Those who are making money off it now, or who could hugely profit from it if Carbon trading is instituted.
2. The governments of poor countries, who would get tens of billions of dollars of free money from the rich countries (nearly all of which they would immediately steal for themselves personally).
3. The Greenies, to whom all humans are an evil infection of mother earth, and should therefore be wiped out. This was precisely the plot of “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.
4. The Communists, who want absolute totalitarian control of every aspect of every single person walking this earth, as well as wanting to route vast amounts of other people’s money into their own accounts once they get power.
All this talk of things getting slightly warmer or slightly cooler. Either way, that is not proof or even weak evidence that atmospheric CO2 has anything to do with any of it. I am amazed that most people do not make this simple point on a repeated basis.
These AGW people are relentless………
The earth is currently in an interglacial period named the Holocene eoch, Ooooo, … forgive me the new shtick is Anthropocene, which started 11,000 years ago. During Glacial MAX (15,000 BC) the Ice was 3 to 4 kilometers thick down to the 45th parallel and the sea level was… 394 feet. Lower… Florida was much larger then, as was the US. Yes I know they didn’t exist with those names then. These conditions would have resulted in excessive CO2 release and other gases. ie…Methane…logical conclusion, the earth has been warming for the past 17,000 years.
(The IPCC, Al Gore, and the Mafia should take note, their scam is kaput!.)
Think about it, only 10,000 years ago:
New York was beneath 2,000 feet of Ice. There were no Great lakes, No Finger lakes, No Niagara Falls, No Chesapeake Bay, and so, on and on……Glaciologists project in 10,000 years, there will again be a Glacial period (Ice age).
Some Russian and German Scientists are stating we currently are entering into a mini ice age owing to an extended solar minimum. They are opining we will be fully into this MIA within ten to twenty-five years. Earth’s orbit is not a CONSTANT circle, but a varying ellipse, just as the voyage of our Solar system through the Galaxy.
From the above information, all found on the WEB, one can conclude the earth has been warming for at least 17,000 years but not in a linear incline, there have been cooling fluctuations also. Earth will return to cooling and another glaciation period.. It also appears the earth has been going through Climate change for Billions of years.
And last but by no means least, let us not forget “Glacier Girl” who, when laid to rest on Greenland in 1942, ended up being under a funeral pyre of 260 feet of global warming (compacted snow) prior to being resurrected in 1992. This occurred during the 2nd half of the warmest century according the NYT global reparations team..
OBTW: Would someone tell the Hockey puckers, the Medieval warming period was 400 years not 50 years!
I insist on this clarification to defend the reputation of my seventh grade History teacher’s reputation Mrs. Weil
Thanks,
George Semper fi
The End of AGW is NOT Near.
Obama just announced a major Private Public Partnership (“PPP”). This approach is just one facet of a very large worldwide blueprint to save Earth from humans.
Journalists should all study and seriously “break” the biggest story of all time. This is no exaggeration.
What I am talking about is the master plan known in the rest of the world as United Nations Agenda 21, dedicated to “sustainable consumption and development.” PPP’s are mentioned throughout the 40 Chapter document.
I have tried to get several local and national news folks to focus on Agenda 21 for some time now. Glenn Beck finally did 18 minutes on it on June 15 followed by Fox Business reporter, Eric Bolling, doing a segment with guests a week later. Most reporters are told to suppress it, no doubt.
Since 1976, the Earthers have been planning world government through centrist land management. It is communist, fascist, socialism all rolled into one approach to world governance, without sovereignty, private rights or religion and it is well under way.
The very real cornerstone of the world government plan is United Nations Agenda 21, signed by George H. W. Bush in 1992 at the UN’s Earth Summit in Rio along with 178 other countries. Is has been actively supported by every President and Congress since. Bush actually described it to us from the oval office on January 16, 1991, saying we “would follow the principles set down in the UN charter”, that it was a “Big Deal” and that it “will succeed.” He called it the “New World Order.” He didn’t tell us that he was about to sign us up for Agenda 21 a few months later. Clinton, shortly after twisting democrats arms to pass Bush’s GATT and NAFTA legislation, appointed Al Gore to be director of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. George W. Bush signed, among a host of other “green” Orders, Executive Order (EO) 13423, “Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” which furthered Agenda 21. Obama, his cabinet and advisory czars are all on board with it as well.
Anthropogenic impact on the planet, now termed “Climate Change”, is the foundation of Agenda 21. Earth worship (Gaia) is all but the official religion of the UN today. Seriously. Just do a search on Maurice Strong, director of the Rio Earth Summit, his Earth Charter initiative, with his pal, Mikhail Gorbachev of Green Cross International. It’s all an effort to establish Earth Mother as the center of a post-Christian belief system. These folks are dead serious and very well connected.
If you study the history of Agenda 21 and the comments of its supporters, it is all about “Sustainable Consumption and Production” to save the planet, which can only occur through surrender of sovereignty and freedoms in exchange for collectivist communism, social justice, redistribution of wealth, relinquishment of private property rights, population reduction and micro management of every phase of human existence.
The perpetrators of Agenda 21 describe private property as follows:
“Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore it contributes to social injustice.” United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I), held in Vancouver, May 31 – June 11, 1976.
“Private land use decisions are often driven by strong economic incentives that result in several ecological and aesthetic consequences…The key to overcoming it is through public policy…” Report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, page 112.
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.” Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Earth Summit, 1992.
The UN-subgroup, ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), currently collects dues from local governments to assist them in implementing Agenda 21 through Hegelian dialectic and rule by “consensus”. But they also receive millions in federal taxpayer dollar grants. So the taxpayers are paying double to effectively end America. Some communities have already rebelled against and forced their local governments to abandon ICLEI and Agenda 21 plans, ordinances and the like. However over 550 U.S cities and counties are dues paying members.
On June 9, 2011, President Obama signed another Executive Order for a Rural Council, yet another nail in the American coffin. Agenda 21 marches on.
If you want to connect the dots, study Agenda 21. It is well laid out at the UN website. The MSM won’t tell us about it because it is the end of America and it won’t sell well if it was exposed. It is certainly real and is being actively implemented worldwide. If you care to know, just read it.
The real ominous part of Agenda 21 can be found in it’s companion document, The Biodiversity Convention Treaty, which calls for population control. The U.S. came within an hour of ratifying it but it is being implemented by fiat anyway.
I have read some of the scientific papers submitted to the various UN committees that came up with the Treaty. The scientists have concluded that we have polluted the Earth to such an extent, that we are past the point of no return. The only conceivable way to save the Earth, and thus the human species, is to severely cull the species. They say that at the current rate of population growth and resource consumption, 7 billion people cannot be sustained. The solution is to concurrently severely reduce energy, food, water, etc., consumption, halt CO2 emissions, and drastically reduce the population by two-thirds. Slashing Medicare by 1/2 trillion dollars when 77 million Baby Boomers are about to sign up for it is a step in the genocide direction consistent with Agenda 21.
See Henry Lamb’s summary: Watson and Heywood, Convention on Biological Diversity at http://www.freedom.org/reports/gba10.htm
Ted Turner and Bill Gates and his Margaret Sanger worshipping father, who runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are huge, (as in billions of dollars) contributors to UN population control/reduction programs and initiatives. George Soros has his hand thoroughly involved as well.
Who will be the lucky livestock to survive the butcher’s cleaver?
Ominous.
The problem with Agenda 21 is that it is both a Republican and Democrat agenda. They’re all behind it. While it is hidden from the American public, the rest of the world is well into it. Do a Google alert on Agenda 21 and you will be flooded with all sorts of reports from government bodies around the world working hard to implement Agenda 21.
Study Agenda 21. Go to http://www.freedomadvocates.org/ for an in depth treatment of it. Connect the dots and…
Good luck, comrades.
I am a scientist, albiet a life scientist….human biology….but when I hear the phrase, “settled science”..or ..”consensus”…or “solid science”; I know there is fraud. Science is never settled..that is why it is science. We have had changes in what our perceptions of the norm are for ….well, forever…even recent. Example; the Ötzi the Iceman..found in the Alps…completely changed history. The tech he had with him was not supposed to be invented until centuries later.
Consenus is NOT the scientific method ….never has been and never will be…this is just nonsense put out by the empty heads in the media.
You can see the wheels are coming off as they panic sell and try to reposition into “bio-diversity”, “sustainability” etc.
AGW will eventually become second tier in the eco-left, the media will then pretend it never existed or was linked to their usual leftist agenda. Think about the past domestic support for the Soviet Union or Communists as “idealists” and how that was repositioned.
Steve’s extensive comment above could be an article in itself.
It was even more informative than the Anthony Watts article to which it was a comment (not that Anthony’s article was bad).
One need not be a student of the environmental sciences or of climate behavior or even of political science to have recognized from the outset that AGW as sold by Al Gore and his merry band was just so much baloney. No scientist worthy of the appellation would ever bring such dogma to any argument nor would they spend any significant effort attempting to discredit their doubters. Real scientists actually try to disprove their own theories thereby slowly, methodically removing, one level at a time, layers of doubt and uncertainty until, finally, the theory can be tentatively noted as established. AGW as a suggested theory moved from that initial manifestation to settled science in about 15 minutes and thereafter anyone questioning its certainty was instantly branded as a denier or tool of the fossil fuel industry. The only education needed to recognize this unmistakable pattern is a working familiarity with political demagoguery. The emperor’s unclothed condition will eventually be recognized even without the participation of a skeptical media.
One has to wonder the legitimacy of any data that is surrounded and protected by teams of lawyers.
If I was a scientist and made such discovery I would not wait to publish my findings, and surely not accuse and name call those that may offer a different point of view.
Climate $cience suffers from the same corruption Washington DC does…for shame.
At first we were told that simple measures would help “the environment” . Use less toilet paper, recycle, drive less with better mileage cars. OK- what harm can it do? But none of these things ever seem to help. Do you ever hear Al Gore say ” Thank goodness we are recycling, it has made all the difference! ” Rather, these restrictions only embolden the practitioners of GW to greater and greater predictions of dire outcomes. We are all doomed. The whole planet, all life on earth and possibly elsewhere shall end. This of course has the inevitable effect upon most people that they throw up their hands and despair of doing anything whatsoever.
The carbon credit trading scheme makes me extremely suspicious. How exactly, other than enriching some few individuals and picking the pockets of the rest of this, does this plan accomplish anything? Few of us are willing to face the bleak future awaiting us if we are forced back to the stone age of energy use, and the science is certainly not there to demand such a suicidal sacrifice.
Michael Oppenheimer worked for Environmental Defense for 20 years and is still an advisor to them. He co-founded the NGO conglomerate, Climate Action Network.
There is a nice photo of Lisa Jackson here, sharing a platform with UNEP’s Achim Steiner in Kenya recently, http://junksciencesidebar.com/2011/06/28/a-picture-worth-a-thousand-words-busily-selling-out-us-sovereignty/
You would also find this illuminating, “The United (Socialist) Nations – Progress on Global Governance via Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Bio-Diversity” http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/un_progress_governance_via_climate_change.html