Don’t worry, this guy is just trying to sell a book conveniently located on the left sidebar of the Guardian. I hear there’s a two for one special with Chariots of the Gods on Amazon.
Get a load of some of this rubbish:
The world we inhabit has an outer rind that is extraordinarily sensitive to change. While the Earth’s crust may seem safe and secure, the geological calamities that happen with alarming regularity confirm that this is not the case. Here in the UK, we only have to go back a couple years to April 2010, when the word on everyone’s lips was Eyjafjallajökull – the ice-covered Icelandic volcano that brought UK and European air traffic to a grinding halt. Less than a year ago, our planet’s ability to shock and awe headed the news once again as the east coast of Japan was bludgeoned by a cataclysmic combination of megaquake and tsunami, resulting – at a quarter of a trillion dollars or so – in the biggest natural-catastrophe bill ever.
…
Could it be then, that if we continue to allow greenhouse gas emissions to rise unchecked and fuel serious warming, our planet’s crust will begin to toss and turn once again?
The signs are that this is already happening. In the detached US state of Alaska, where climate change has propelled temperatures upwards by more than 3C in the last half century, the glaciers are melting at a staggering rate, some losing up to 1km in thickness in the last 100 years. The reduction in weight on the crust beneath is allowing faults contained therein to slide more easily, promoting increased earthquake activity in recent decades. The permafrost that helps hold the state’s mountain peaks together is also thawing rapidly, leading to a rise in the number of giant rock and ice avalanches. In fact, in mountainous areas around the world, landslide activity is on the up; a reaction both to a general ramping-up of global temperatures and to the increasingly frequent summer heatwaves.
Whether or not Alaska proves to be the “canary in the cage” – the geological shenanigans there heralding far worse to come – depends largely upon the degree to which we are successful in reducing the ballooning greenhouse gas burden arising from our civilisation’s increasingly polluting activities, thereby keeping rising global temperatures to a couple of degrees centigrade at most.
Alaska has detached OMG!
Yeah right, that ~0.8°C of atmospheric warming in the past century reached all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and disturbed the fault off Japan. Of course if Mr. McGuire doesn’t do anything but let himself get scared by computer model predictions instead of examining measured reality, I can see how he’d be driven to write a book like this.
This Guardian article is even less credible when you pitch a sensational book in the “news” article at the Guardian right alongside it. I may nominate this guy for idiot of the year, he may beat Peter Gleick for this honor.
Here’s the book:
Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes by Bill McGuire
Buy it from the Guardian bookshop
UPDATE: 9:00AM 2/27 Anonymous whiner “The Power of X” complains in comments that I “didn’t use enough science” in this post. I didn’t realize that when mocking such absurd claims I had to worry about it that much, especially when I tag the story with “GLOC” and “ridiculae”. I figured hey, I just won Best Science Blog for the second year in a row and Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2012 Bloggies, plus the post went up at 3:30AM PST, so I though maybe I’d get a little slack. Oh well, that’s what updates are for. Steve Goddard helpfully points out what the USGS has to say about this nonsense. They write on their website:
Are Earthquakes Really on the Increase?
We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.
A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite. This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.
According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 – 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year.
They make the exact same argument that I do about severe weather, another favorite worry-wail of the CAGW camp:
Oh, the GRACE data isn’t the definitive answer on ice loss=earthquakes
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/22/greenland-ice-not-responding-as-predicted/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/why-im-not-worried-about-greenlands-icecap/
correlation ≠ cause
Prof Betts of the Met Office has just told James Garvey of the Guardian to shut up 🙂
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/27/peter-gleick-heartland-institute-lie?commentpage=last#end-of-comments
Anthropogenic Global Warming-Why its supporters are traitors to the human race.
Science.
The word itself conjures up images of men and women in white coats, blackboards filled with equations and the odd bunsen burner heating a conical flask or two of colored liquids in turn giving off pungent odors.
Certainly thats how I always imagined scientists worked and to a degree those activities are how scientists have traditionally been portrayed.
However, since I was a child, something has happened to the world of science as we all understood it to be.
Hard sciences, such as physics, astronomy, chemistry and biology have never had any issue with being discussed by anyone.
Theres, no great hoo haa evident because scientist “A” disagrees with a theory postulated by scientist “B”.
Indeed, Einsteins theory of relativity is routinely discussed, questioned, tested and discussed yet again, all without any issues at all.
The recent CERN experiments with neutrinos apparently flying faster than light briefly raised a few eyebrows, yet the issues that created the observations were discussed and resolved without any finger pointing or threatening behaviors.
And thats as it should be.
Other scientists couldnt re create the observations at CERN and so their assertions were tested and found to be the result of an error.
Fine, precisely as we should expect these things to be resolved, with good, diligent science.
In stark contrast we have the so called “science” of Global Warming/Climate Change and all its spin offs such as Climate Chaos and Climate Justice.
The language being used is emotive immediately from the outset.
Instead of the “science” conducted being rigorous, diligent and thorough, we find a sloppy application of procedures and knowledge based on unproven and often untested “facts” such as including comments from a visitor to a glacier who “thinks” this or that in actual scientific papers.
As the Climategate emails have proven, climate “scientists” who propose anthopogenic global warming are politically driven by a “cause” rather than a desire to seek the truth however supportive or otherwise the data may prove.
As has been proven, the data can often be rewritten by the followers of their cause to fit the theory they propose which goes directly against the scientific method.
They install their own “people” onto internet forums and the media with people barely smart enough to function but dumb enough to take orders without questioning whether the facts are straight, stacking the numbers against anyone with a counter view, wikipedia being a prime example where thousands of submissions were systematically altered or blocked by just a few individuals.
I suggest that theories and actions so founded, not only cheat the followers of the proposed theory, they also cheat the rest of humanity and they cheat the earth itself that they so vehemently but disingenuously defend.
Some of the cheating we have seen defies logic, honesty and morality, being mirrored in the kinds of despicable behaviors displayed by our politicians and at times to those of the genocidal tyrants we often see throughout history.
The kinds of actions displayed by followers of “the cause” as its been known at such establishments as UEA, the shouting down of anyone who wont follow the unproven theory, the labeling of whole sectors of society as evil deniers- a disgusting perversion of a term meant to lower in the eyes of anyone not familiar with the subject matter those its aimed at to the level of the nazis and holocaust deniers, the continual threatening of other scientists who dont agree, who arent a part of the not so grand consensus, itself a sad joke due to the cheating applied to swell the numbers is simply not science.
The latin maxim Nullas in Verba means- On no ones word.
Thats the essence of science, you dont take anyone elses word for it.
But the followers of the cause dont view it like that, they have belief, faith if you will of the certainty of their theory, just like a god and the simple fact is theyll do anything as has been seen to protect it and nurture it.
The science of studying climate has been reduced to a religious ideal where anyone questioning the orthodoxy is a heretic, a denier and a threat to the implementation of it, to be despised, and spat upon, the be “strangled in our beds by our children” or to be sent to camps for “re education”.
Thats the reality of the “The Cause”, its no longer about science its about “what I say because I say so”.
But enough of that, the fact is simply this, science dosn’t require such actions on its behalf, it will stand or fall on the truth it is based upon, nature needs no activists to tweak its models, or have its trend lines altered or smoothed or fudged with.
Finally an accusation often levelled at “the deniers” is that theyre “anti science”, a hypocritical statement but it mimics the pattern followers of the cause often utilize.
Its because they say so, but once again nature, the earth and its inestimable mechanisms dont concur.
Being sceptical is what science is all about not believing because some other guys tells you its so.
And thats the crux- the followers have dispensed with the basis of science: To be skeptical!
Thats why the followers of AGW are traitors to science, theyre traitors to humankind and above all, theyre traitors to the planet but science, like the truth will always triumph whilst good men continue to seek it.
BTW, if any of you have not yet made it to Wikipedia’s page for: Eyjafjallajökull yet and clicked on the *.wav file of how that word is pronounced, please do so.
That language seems like it came from an Elven/Klingon collaboration
I like his reasoning:
1+1=”a metaphor”
That should have been:
2+2=”a metaphor”
[Hmmmn. 2+2, then Ah metafour? 8<) Robt]
I don’t normally read the Guardian, don’t know anything about the author, but there is a remote possibility here of a ‘Gleick’ type, but this time more subtle disinformation.
Gullible and naïve absorb scary stories. Guardian’s journalists and some of their limited readership are self-opinionated bunch and do consider the rest of populace as gullible, naïve and …..
Planting stories of this type I would consider as an attempt of fake propaganda which can be easily confused with the sceptics’ view that it is the volcanoes and other natural events that are causing climate change. Gambling on the effect of the ‘two sides of the same coin’.
He may be onto something. Up until a hundred years ago, volcanic eruptions were never severe enough to interfere with commercial aviation. And it has only been since the 1950s that volcanic ash has affected jet engines. (sarc)
“or even Vesuvius in 79 (man was right there too)”
No doubt Vesuvius was set off by Roman deforestation of southern Italy and the CO2 output of their brick kilns.
Response to AC1 (and others):
Einstein is reputed to have said:
“The only difference between genius and stupidity is that there is a limit to genius.”
Wish I had said it … … …
Mark H.
Good grief. The next thing they’ll tell us is they can use tree rings as a paleo-thermometer.
“In the detached US state of Alaska, where climate change has propelled temperatures upwards by more than 3C in the last half century, the glaciers are melting at a staggering rate, some losing up to 1km in thickness in the last 100 years. ”
Is there any truth in the claim that some glaviers have lost 1 km in THICKNESS over the past 100 years?
MetOffice vs Guardian
Quote:
Mr Garvey
I am a climate scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre and also a lead author with the IPCC (NB. the opinions I express here are my own though – I am just telling you that for context).
I would ask you to refrain from bringing my profession into disrepute by advocating that we act unethically. We already have enough people accusing us, completely incorrectly, of being frauds, green / left-wing activists or government puppets. A rabble-rousing journalist such as yourself telling us that we should “fight dirty” does not help our reputation at all. “Fighting dirty” will never be justified no matter what tactics have been used to discredit us in the past.
Inflammatory remarks such as yours will only serve to further aggravate the so-called “climate wars”. People’s reputations are already being damaged, and we know that some climate scientists get highly distasteful and upsetting mail through no fault of their own. If people like you continue to stir things up further, it is only a matter of time before somebody actually gets hurt, or worse.
Please keep your advice to yourself, we can do without it thank you very much.
Richard Betts (Prof)
Listen, he might be on to something. . . .
Fortunately, damage by volcanoes can be prevented and controlled rather easily. . . . .
All you have to do is toss a few nubile virgins into the erupting crater and all will be fine.
Hey — it worked for the Hawaiians, didn’t it??? And there’s just as much scientific evidence for what the Hawaiians did as what the esteemed volcano expert is postulating!
/sarcasm. . . . . . .
Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid. Heinrich Heine German critic & poet (1797 – 1856)
Of course the scientists know nothing.
“When every radio station [and blog] is blaring that a man without knowledge or education is better than one who has studied, it takes courage to ask: better for whom?” – Bertolt Brecht
Mike,
You do understand that your quote applies directly to the alarmist crowd, don’t you?
Guardian comments turned off. I wonder why?
Annabelle says:
“Is there any truth in the claim that some glaviers have lost 1 km in THICKNESS over the past 100 years?”
Some glaciers have lost 1 km in thickness in the last 15,000 years. That is probably close enough for some people.
Alaska has been detached for some time. Furthermore, the Hawaiian Islands are south of Florida, see here:
http://www.insidesocal.com/bargain/United-States-Map.jpg
Some years ago on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno they had two young folks on. A question about (I think) how long it would take to drive to Alaska brought the response (from the male) that you couldn’t drive there because Alaska is an island. Having some experience with HS students and maps, I knew what the fellow’s problem was. It surprised Jay and so I sent a letter with a couple of maps – one taken from the official site of the USPS. Government approved. It’s detached.
I will probably get a science article today about this…God help us all.
It’s a fine line for me to tell them to pick a weekly article about science but not tell them they may NOT choose something that touts AGW. No matter what I teach them, they come out of it all thinking that AGW is right because it’s all they read about.
Oy.
That bloke ‘guardian’ may have a point, here is what man made turbulence on the sun looks like:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/img2.htm
(sarc off)
“Here there be monsters”.
There always were. But not the ones you expected.
“Alaska has been detached for some time. Furthermore, the Hawaiian Islands are south of Florida, see here:”
Wow, the USA is made of many (mostly rectangular) islands with channels between them!
John F. Hultquist says:
February 27, 2012 at 8:14 am
And it shows deep canyons between the states! No wonder some of ’em don’t get along!
Bill McGuire is professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. I wonder how much the government grant to the Uni is to run the dept.
Also the Guardian are ripping off it’s readers, they charge £15.19 for a copy, Amazon £11.04