Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A range of proxy records, supported by contemporaneous descriptions of the weather, all agree that the earth went through what is called the “Little Ice Age”. The coldest part seems to have been somewhere around 1700, at which time it was perhaps two or three degrees colder than at present. Akasufo, for example, estimates the warming to have been on the order of half a degree per century. Figure 1 shows the analysis of one of the many proxies, the Greenland ice core data:
Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
Modern thermometer records show similar results. For the most extreme example, the recently released (and still unverified) BEST temperature data shows a warming of nearly 2°C over the last two centuries.
Now, compare and contrast that with the opening salvo of the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action“. That’s the two page document that was the sole and total result of the labors of the 10,000 delegates and camp followers at the recent Durban climate party. I busted out laughing when I read the following:
The Conference of the Parties, … Noting with grave concern the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels,
Now, “pre-industrial” in IPCC jargon means 1750. Which brings up the following question:
Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800, what are our chances of limiting the temperature rise to a degree and a half above the 1750 temperatures, as these folks insist that we should do?
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They obviously feel they can demand anything, reguardless of whether it’s laughable or not since the point of the exercise wasn’t/isn’t any kind of climate control but, instead, people/government control.
Not a problem Willis. Nature will take care of it.
I wonder how long it will be before the very august assortment of envirologues assembling figure out that, since the pre-industrial period, the largest increase in carbonators is us, and that mitigation will, of necessity, have to be focussed primarily on reducing the number of us, all else being derivative…?
“…and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels…”
This begs the question…What is so special about a climate that is 1.5 – 2 C above “pre-industrial” levels? Is it “better” in some way? I mean the ice age was well below this level, and I don’t think people would think it was “better”. In any case, their logic is so twisted and inane, it makes my head hurt…
@ur momisugly Paul Coppin
They already are trying to reduce our numbers by ‘education and vaccination’ (Bill Gates).
This isn’t about climate. If climate fails to be the issue that gains them their need for “distributive justice” they will simply select a different issue. It would be pollution maybe after they get people terrified of some chemical that has so far been harmless. Fenton Communications has been doing that since the Alar scare:
http://junksciencecom.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/fear_profiteers.pdf
“Climate Change” is simply the latest lever they have to use to manage their ultimate goal of regulating the entire planet through unelected bureaucrats. Once climate no longer works for them, they’ll drop it and move on two the next thing. It was DDT there for a while. Then it was nuclear power. Next might be “genetically modified food” even though every single food we eat is “genetically modified”. There was never a “wild” Jersey cow. The was never a wild tomato or potato or sweet corn that looks like what we eat today. Everything is “genetically modified”. It’s just that the old ways took longer.
Math and lefties = oxymoron.
They apparently believe in time machines
Looking serious, like when watching “The Lord of The Rings” or putting your trousers on the right way round, is taken as a sign of intelligence by these fools.
So irony is a much too advanced humanoid skill set for them to recognise. They actually enjoy being in an endless loop of breastbeating. Traced through their recent forebears, we see the flagellators ( of which they are mentally equivalent) back to the knuckledraggers.
“Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950”
Yes, yes, but Greenland is only a small part of the planet so what happens there is not representative of the whole global climate.
No. Wait. I forgot that it was in fact representative of the whole global climate.
Sorry. OK then. Who knew Big Oil started faking data so early?
They want to bring us back to the temperatures of The Little ice age.
Failing crops, widespread hunger, no summer, disease and pestilence.
A lot to look forward to!
Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…
For those who have not followed or been exposed to the considerable debate in these pages and at similar sites the facts are as presented by the MSM which in turn take their “news” from advocate press releases. The majority of those who are involved in the AGW discourse are ignorant. The groupies who follow the UNIPCC band around the world are not interested in the truth or science for that matter. No amount of facts will dissuade them from their beliefs.
The greatest threat to the AGW bandwagon is global recession. When survival is on the line belief takes a back seat. A missionary to Africa once told me that you can not preach to a starving man let alone a mother of a starving child. Many middle class westerners, the majority and the most affected by movements in the economy, are concerned about the future. Higher utility prices, many caused by renewable subsidies, are hurting. Politicians are seeing and reacting to that hurt because if they don’t they will unemployed.
Just as the AGW scam has become political it will be buried by politics too. The grave has been dug and we just need a few bodies to throw in. The Pollies need to be able to say “we were misled by this lying so and so”. Our job now is to make sure we deliver a few scapegoats, a few sacrificial climate scientists. FOIA has given us the heads up. We have to follow through.
Don’t have the link, but a prominent Swedish (?) scientist observed that the tragedy of climate science was that the field of meteorology was developed during the coldest few decades since the latest retreat of the Ice Sheets. That became the implicit ‘norm’.
All the warming since then has been benign, and unremarkable. More, please!
Ed Caryl says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Not a problem Willis. Nature will take care of it.
I suppose they can starve to death or die of disease after putting their policies in place. That would be a natural consequence. Unfortunately, there is at least one problem with that strategy. How many of us will have to suffer the same fate? It is likely they would be the protected elites, perhaps having access to a modern equivalent of the Beryozka stores of the old Soviet Union.
http://englishrussia.com/2011/09/29/what-the-legendary-beryozka-store-used-to-sell/
Regular people couldn’t shop there.
Without a doubt, nature will teach lessons. Sometimes very harsh ones.
The goal to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is a policy decision and not subject to scientific scrutiny. It does not even need to make sense as long as the warmists are happy with it. No explanation of the origin of the goal will be offerred, and since they aren’t subject to FOIA’s, we will never get one.
It was never about the science or even about the climate.
The Arctic is the canary in the coal mine. What ever happens in the Arctic will happen on the whole planet – except the Medieval Warm period or Little Ice Age on Greenland, which was just a local event.
CROSSPATCH: The(re) was never a wild tomato or potato or sweet corn that looks like what we eat today. Everything is “genetically modified”. It’s just that the old ways took longer.
Nature took care of what you are calling GMO’s in the past right? But Nature did not do it via “roundup ready” crops, and labrats injecting genes from one plant into another— it happened naturally – what is that called ? natural selection? and then those that failed this process died out naturally, not via Monsanto’s interference me thinks.
crosspatch says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:35 pm
“Next might be “genetically modified food” even though every single food we eat is “genetically modified”
Sigh..
Genetically modified food in modern parlance means gene insertion by human intervention.
It is mere sloppy sophistry to confuse that with normal breeding.
How people can still not understand the difference is mind boggling.
Everything is “genetically modified”. … does what you are saying equate to evolution ? naturally evolving versus round-up ready
I’m not sure “distributive justice” has much if anything to do with it. I think most of them are probably just jumping on the latest “we gotta save the world from us humans” cause and don’t really care what it is. And, if it later falls over, they’ll just jump on the next one that pop up without looking back, much less performing any postmortem analysis.
The Durbanites come across as humanoid lemmings.
At least when lemmings succumb to mass insanity, however,
they don’t try to take the whole world with them over the cliff.
It’s all about reducing the population of the planet!
Have a financial collapse to make people poor then freeze them to death because they can’t afford to keep themselves warm! The old and the sick will be the first to go!
Seems my first post disappeared. AGW will be destroyed by global recession. The Western middle classes, the most populous and the most at risk of economic down turns, realise that survival is more urgent than faith in a hypothesis. An African missionary once told me that it was pointless preaching to a starving man let alone the mother of a starving child. Most of us won’t starve in a recession but we will see our dreams diminish and we may lose our houses. Utility price rises add to our burdens and some of those rises are the result of renewable energy mandates. When constituents hurt so do their representatives eventually. The pollies want to back away from AGW but they want to do it without losing face. What they really want is to be able to say “we were misled by those fraudulent climate scientists. We relied on their advice but now we know it was based on bad science.”
AGW became pollitical and will be buried by pollitics too. FOIA gave us the heads up now we need to deliver some sacrificial climate scientists to the pollies.
Didnt Canute try something similar with water?
Howd that go by the way?
Let’s be fair,these guys haven’t a clue about real statistics or climate history. They obviously don’t want a return of the LIA, unless they are really stupid …………. OK, so maybe they do..
Put it down to MMS (Mannian Maths Syndrome): the inability or unwillingness to interpret historical climatic history correctly. A syndrome widely experienced by those of the CAGW Alarmist Cult.