Elevated from a comment Theodore White says: March 8, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Let’s clarify a few things on another of Anthony’s excellent posts, like this one ‘Hey Hansen! Where’s the Beef !?’ –
It’s lengthy, but gives the view of a person who was there on the ground, covering climate science and global warming in the late 1980s – years before the AGW mania took off.
I worked as a journalist in the late 1980s in Colorado, home state of Senator Tim Wirth. I had interviewed him several times on other topics. As part of my general assignment beat, I also covered science, climate and weather, regularly at NOAA, NCAR and other federal science agencies headquarted in Colorado.
I clearly remember the tone of articles on global warming during the 1980s. Most of the concern came out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) on the ozone layer. By the way, this was during the new era of climate scientists working with high-grade graphic computer modelling.
The problem with NCAR’s interpretation on the ozone fluctuations were that some, like Hanson, took an immediate ideological tone to explain the ozone shifts – not once mentioning the Sun or the Interplanetary Magnetic Field effect on Earth’s ozone layers. For some reason, there was a resistance to even mentioning the Sun’s effects on earth by these new climate scientists getting jobs at the science agencies. It was odd I thought.
When news editors assigned stories on the climate back then it was usually spurred by press releases out of places like NCAR, NWS, NOAA, etc., which usually featured a talk, lecture, or findings that were sent to the media. Global warming, in the mid-to-late 1980s was not the AGW ideological era that it is today.
In fact, climate scientists were not in any agreement if the earth was ‘warming’ in the 1980s – though it was true. Many scientists would roll their eyes at the mention of ‘global warming’ but many changed their tune in the 1990s just as major federal dollars were being directed to ‘man-made’ global warming’ – which I continue to remind everyone cannot ever happen on Earth due to the laws of thermodynamics. The Earth can never become a greenhouse according to the laws of physics.
But I digress – in short, when I wrote pieces on the climate, I refused to write on the theory that chlorofluorocarbons were the sole cause of worldwide warming because that had never been proved. Now, though there was evidence that the use of aerosols were clearly evident in the upper atmosphere; the data did not support that this was the cause of the fear-mongering on ozone holes which was all the rage in the climate community of the late 1980s and 1990s.
NCAR had modeled on the theory that aerosols were the cause, but not the Sun, which again, I found odd, since the only major source of radiation that can only affect the opening and closings and sizes of the Earth’s ozones IS the Sun.
There is no other source of radiation that can effectively destroy the earth’s ozone layer. But what was curious (and unbelievable) is that there were obvious determined efforts (in the mid-to-late 1980s) to blame mankind for something it could not do on a planetary level – and that is to change the climate.
Only the Sun can do that.
What I noticed about Sen. Wirth and Hansen back in the late 1980s, is that there was a obvious concerted effort within the emergence of baby boomer management and personnel into climate science on the federal level; that they were pushing ideology as policy. This was a prepatory assault that was planned out.
When Al Gore rose to the vice-presidency by 1993 – Wirth and Hansen were already well out in front of the ‘man-made’ global warming pack – extending the ‘man-made’ ideology to other federal agencies and the university-level climate community – with federal dollars.
Follow the money pushing the ideological AGW lie. If one examines climate science funding from 1986 to 1996 and then from 1996 to the present – you may find some amazing numbers.
Incredible amounts – increasing yearly and wasted on every bigger and more expensive computers to run models. Careerists who cannot forecast seasonal weather were making things up (and began to alter weather data on purpose) while spending lavishly on computers pushing the AGW ideology – all at the public’s great expense.
But the media was not on board. Most journalists are ignorant of climate and weather science. I was fortunate in that I was not, so my editors passed on to me the great amount of work – and I was busy enough as it was a police reporter as it was! Since my beat included covering the climate science community in the heart of it in Colorado, I was well-attuned to how events were shaping up by 1989.
Since the mid-1980s, what I saw were articles like the one Anthony posted from 1986 were becoming more common. What I observed as professional reporter was that the ozone-layer press releases from NOAA and NCAR and other climate centers were beginning to use the same talking points in their different releases to news desks. Sometimes, these went out on the wire which were then placed into newspapers across the country without the resources to assign reporters to cover the climate.
I did not have that problem since this was part of my beat. In interviews with the particular scientists (including Hansen) what I observed was that they were heavy on the ideology, yet not sure if it was strong enough because the global weather data in the late 1980s did not strongly support their case that the world was warming because of man.
Still, by 1989, the AGW science did not make sense to me in light that it would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Which I remind everyone – remains in effect to this very day.
Anyhow, it did not seem to matter to Wirth’s office, Hansen, or the growing careerists at NCAR and NOAA; because whomever was pushing ‘man-made global warming’ on the United States, were also doing it at the international level too.
My view was that it was a conspiracy right from the start to bamboozle the world on the lie of anthropogenic global warming sandbagging much of the mainstream media, the markets and the educational system to not believe their own eyes and ears.
Events have since proven that I was right.
All this – while AGW ideologists reaped untold profits convincing populations that carbon (the very stuff we are made of) is bad and so we all have to pay for carbon to a global mafia.
In short, the careerist climate AGW scientists and their political insiders conspired to convince the world that humans had to pay dearly for exhaling the carbon gases that the natural world and our trees inhales to flourish.
Carbon is natural to Earth. It is driven by the Sun’s activity. Carbon lags far, far behind temperature (also driven by the Sun) and carbon is not – and never has been – a threat to the Earth.
Why?
Because the laws of thermodynamics and physics that govern our system says so.
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Maurice Darth Strong is one of the people behind this push of “man-caused” C02 Climate Doomsday, he even says so himself in the video interviews of him: http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/12/18/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-only-one-earth-under-the-new-world-order-based-upon-false-science-brought-to-you-by-maurice-darth-strong.
During the first half of the 1980s I was a hard core deep green. I was a member of a small NGO that espoused books like “The Monkey Wrench Gang” and the “Ecotopia” series, whilst working on sustainable living projects (and boondoggles). While I was not a member of “Earth First” I networked with members. I was a true believer in runaway global warming and “the coming Human induced great extinction.” I believe Ronald Reagan was a rising Caesar, and that LA was the new Rome. My view of the future was similar to one of the “Seven Tomorrows” of Lovings et al, wherein we were in a gangster run fouled blackened fallen Earth. It is no surprise that some who stayed in that subculture (unlike ones like me who matured beyond it) have ended up with their grubby mitts on at least some of the levers of power. I point at this juncture to the warnings Paul R. Johnson gave in his key book “Intellectuals.”
“I’m convinced that prophets of Doom have got to be taken seriously. In other words doomsday is a possibility.” – Darth Maurice Strong, BBC Interview, 1972.
“I found that people were turned on that our Earth was in danger, and that our own life depends on the Earth and having a hospitable environment, and so how to translate that into a political kind of energy that would move the governments to do the right things in Stockholm [and by extension Copenhagen], to take the right decisions.” – Darth Maurice Strong.
Ooops: “Lovings” should have read “Lovins.”
Did Maurice Strong and Al Gore get their idea from Mr. Fontenelle (11/2/1657 – 9/1/1757) or is this a case of prescience by a gifted writer?
”Were a few influential men to teach the most wrongheaded idea such as there was no heat from the sun, the common man would without thinking accept such knowledge as an article of faith.”
Does the Magaret Thatcher story about coal strike busting play weave into this narrative in any way?
If the Warmists could, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and astrophysics would be banned as if it were alchemy. Because they both put an end to the idiocy of war mists.
At some point in this social engineering experiment, sales and marketing expertise entered the fray. Whoever thought of using (abusing) the precautionary priciple to bring governments and the MSM on board was a master salesman. This principle made the selling of AGW so so easy because the science could be ignored. It just didn’t matter that there might be emerging evidence which contradicted the narrative, the PP overrode any objections. As a marketing strategy it is brilliant. The fact that it is fallacious is irrelevent. You all have house insurance and car insurance don’t you. Of course you do because it is necessary. It was never pointed out that the premium was the equivalent of half the value of your home every year. Nobody queried the premise.
I don’t buy the assertion that the CAGW hypothesis violates the Second Law. Sure, a cooler object cannot cause a warmer one to gain heat. But it can slow down the cooling of the warmer object. Together with another heat source (say, the Sun) the combination could (in theory) cause the hotter object to be at equilibrium at a higher temperature than it otherwise would be.
HOWEVER, I agree that after decades of research, the case for AGW has failed monumentally. There is no hotspot in the troposphere. There is no correlation between recent CO2 increases and (lack of) temperature rise. Not that correlation equals causation anyway. There is abundant evidence that current temperature fits in with ancient cycles. Further, the behaviour and practices of pro-AGW scientists, with all their biases and preconceptions fed into their precious computer models designed to give them the answer they desire, hardly fills one with confidence in their work. I could go on – weather stations in urban heat islands, satellites giving different results, treemometers and hidden declines, the blind insistence in a positive/runaway H2O feedback from a trace gas, the insistence that Gaia is a fragile “biosphere” and after billions of years of survival is now being killed by mad bad Capitalist Man – only the religious socialists believe in that crap now.
Good article. However it is undermined by statements like this…”man-made’ global warming’ – which I continue to remind everyone cannot ever happen on Earth due to the laws of thermodynamics. ”
I would remind everyone “man-made” global warming is a PROVEN FACT. It does not help skeptics when someone denies this.
We see this in UHI in all urban areas. We know that sulphur emissions (mainly from coal burning) can cause smog and clouds that change climate locally. We also know that CO2 is an infra-red absorber – so “in theory” it must have some effect.
Skeptics, in order to be taken seriously, MUST accept these FACTS. What skeptics disagree with is the EXTENT of these effects (local or regional and on a overall global level very small or immeasureable). Skeptics disagree with the “CATASTROPHIC” in man-made global warming.
…Carbon is natural to Earth. It is driven by the Sun’s activity. Carbon lags far, far behind temperature (also driven by the Sun) and carbon is not – and never has been – a threat to the Earth.
By “Carbon” you mean carbon dioxide?
I think that the lag between temperature proxies such as O18 and CO2 in ice cores may well be due to the time it takes for the oceans to warm and to circulate very slightly warmer water to the abyssal plains. Temperatures and pressures at those depths allow for CO2 to exist in a liquid state. Circulation and differences in specific gravity cause the liquid CO2 to float upward and gradually disperse in a soluble gas state in the marine water. Once slightly warmer masses of water reach abyssal depths, the result will be to force dissolved CO2 out of solution and into the atmosphere. The 800 year lag is thus the result of marine circulation patterns and speeds.
Read your comments yesterday and wished you would expand a bit on the laws of thermodynamics and physics you refer to for us non cognoscenti…still do! Maybe the expansion would answer a question I had about Hansen’s 2012 Ted lecture, which I just watched with some fascination. He did not give any recent updates on global temperatures, oddly. But I was particularly interested in his graph on T, CO2, and Sea Level through time (Sea Level rise flattening a bit recently I see). It always seemed to me that rising CO2 following rising temperature in the ice core was a weak point in the AGW argument. Interested to hear that, no, this timing is exactly what Hansen would expect, because due to orbital variations the sun periodically melts the polar ice sheets, the darker earth warms more, and the warming oceans release CO2, which adds another positive feedback (no mention of water vapor). Then he said that just the same thing would be going on today, because the physics don’t change. Well, in that case, what about the physics that cause the warming trend in each of those earlier temperature cycles eventually to stop and the cooling trend kick in? Are those physics still operating? Or is the amount of anthropogenic CO2 supposed to throw the cycles out of whack? Any clarifications from either side of the debate would be appreciated.
Perhaps this “on the ground from the beginning” journalist can provide actual articles that he wrote on the subject back in those heady early days of the climate conspiracy?
That would really make it an article instead of a puffed-up comment.
Mike says:
March 9, 2012 at 11:16 am
Does the Magaret Thatcher story about coal strike busting play weave into this narrative in any way?
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Yes, but that was part of the parallel (international) effort. Thatcher was a political leader who used this issue for expedience.
My view is, there were two parallel distinct efforts to advance the CAGW posit. Clearly, they collaborated, but for many years many of us weren’t even aware of people such as Phil Jones.
The problem with AGW is that PR has taken over and the truth does not matter. Flattening rate of sea level rise can be ignored. A stall in temperature rise can be ignored. Low hurricane ACE intensity can be ignored. Everything that contradicts the alarming forecasts of yesteryear can be ignored. It’s always free beer tomorrow with these folks. The good news is that most of the public no longer cares one way or the other.
“My view was that it was a conspiracy right from the start”
You’re right. 1971 saw Limits To Growth; 1975 the “Endangered Atmosphere” conference.
Mead, Schneider, Holdren and Lovelock.
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/29/1975-endangered-atmosphere-conference-where-the-global-warming-hoax-was-born/
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2010/03/aha.html
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2010/04/global-warming-origin-of-crime.html
This is probably the fundamental issue with me. Because our country already spends more than it takes in, all of this money must be borrowed from our children and their children. They are going to be very angry if they discover that we wasted THEIR earnings on this silliness. What it amounts to is a transfer of wealth from future generations into the pockets of those profiting from this now. People 50 years from now might be looking at Al Gores descendants wanting their money back. Basically these people are stealing from those who are not yet even born.
I was regarding the ozone layer scare as a rehearsal for the big global warming scare. None of the chemistry involved on the CFC is the bad guy theory makes sense to me. NIce to know now that I wasn´t wrong.
CFCs are very stable molecules, so stable we used them as aerosol spray propellants in body deodorants. O3, on the other hand, is so reactive it is used as a sanitizer because it kills all kinds of microorganisms. And yet, people see CFCs as the reactive species.
Incidently, does anyone know when Hansen started wearing that hat–was it before or after Indiana Jones? I mean, even Indy took his off to give a lecture.
“…..there was a obvious concerted effort within the emergence of baby boomer management and personnel into climate science on the federal level; that they were pushing ideology as policy.”
Spot On, Mr. White! The early 80’s were about the time I too really started questioning ‘man made ozone depletion’, the agenda behind ‘Earth Day’, and the increasingly strident declarations from ‘climate scientists’ of various portents of doom, wrought by a grasping and Gaia destroying humanity.
This comment would have been a lot better if the author had left his junior high thermo theories at the door.
pwl says:
March 9, 2012 at 11:12 am
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“Darth” has got to be the most apt label for him that I have encountered. It really says it all.
I’m afraid I can’t take seriously the statements of a man that says that greenhouse warming violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics when serious skeptical scientists like Spencer and Lindzen says it doesn’t. The dirty secret of warmists is that most of warming has already happened, otherwise earth would be mostly frozen. Any future increases in water vapor and CO2, can only effect the parts of the spectrum that aren’t already being absorbed.
I’m not aware of a proposed cap-and-trade program to manage the UHI effect.
In other words, while you are technically correct that humans may affect the climate in many ways, AGW = carbon emission is the meme du jour.
duster
“allows carbon di-oxide to exist in a liquid state” except CO2 doesn’t have a liquid state. Remember dry ice?