Flashback, Michael Mann said this on October 5th, 2010:
Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding.
…
Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change.
Next time you get challenged on how much money is involved and whose side gets it, point out Mann is delusional by showing them this from 2009, Climate Money, a study by Joanne Nova revealing that the federal Government has a near-monopoly on climate science funding.
The starting point was in June 1988 – James Hansen’s address to Congress, where he was so sure of his science, he and Senator Tim Wirth turned off the air conditioning to make the room hotter.
Then show them this from the Daily Caller:
The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on “climate change activities.”
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe presented the new CRS report on the Senate Floor Thursday to make the point that the Obama administration has been focused on “green” defense projects to the detriment of the military.
The report revealed that from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 the federal government spent $68.4 billion to combat climate change. The Department of Defense also spent $4 billion of its budget, the report adds, on climate change and energy efficiency activities in that same time period.
Inhofe, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that the expenditures are foolish at a time when the military is facing “devastating cuts.”
Video May 17, 2012 by JimInhofePressOffice
Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and a Senior Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, took to the Senate floor today to put the spotlight on the far-left global warming agenda that is being imposed on the Department of Defense by President Obama, which comes at the same time the Obama administration is forcing devastating cuts to the military budget.
Senator Inhofe announced that he will be introducing a number of amendments during next week’s markup of the Defense Authorization bill in the Senate Armed Services Committee that will stop President Obama’s expensive green agenda from taking effect in the military.
As part of that effort, Senator Inhofe is also releasing a document put together by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) which reveals that the federal government has spent $68.4 billion on global warming activities since 2008 — and that’s just a conservative estimate. Instead of focusing on funding our critical defense needs such as modernizing our military’s fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles, the Obama administration’s priority is to force agencies to spend billions on its war on affordable energy; this is further depleting an already stretched military budget and putting our troops at risk.
The real shame is most of that money was wasted on duplicate studies…
With that many different agencies funding studies….the different agencies not knowing what eoch of them is funding….I’m sure most of the money went for duplicate studies
But then that’s the game….saturate the science so you can claim consensus
@- Otter says:
“izen, if that half of a degree is not irrelevant, then what about the ten degrees (C) difference which occurred during the Holocene Climate Optimum? Why did it not precipitate the catatastrophic consequences we keep being told about, for 2 degrees of change?”
But that is rather the point. The massive rise in temperature from the previous glacial period into the Holocene climate optimum was catastrophic for the human social system of tribal hunter-gathers with nomadic pasturalism which had been ticking over stably for several tens of thousands of years through a couple of ice ages.
By the way, if you think the paleoclimate record indicates a ten degree C rise at the Holocene melt then you would need to adjust climate sensitivity upward accordingly and allow for a ~3degC rise from the energy imbalance produced by rising CO2.
It was replaced with intensive agriculture and cities with tens of thousands of inhabitants with all the civic governance and specialization that generates. The emergence and evolution of agriculture based societies and the subsequent development of industrial – technological civilization has happened during a uncharacteristically stable period of inter-glacial warming.
Its a question of timescales.
True over millions of years the climate may change far more. But the present complexity, and value of human civilization is rooted in its agricultural infrastructure. That in turn is built around an assumption of stability. It is all that has been known for the total history of agriculture. On those occasions when the climate did become unstable, or change it could destroy a society. (Chaco canyon, Mayan, Viking!)
I rather like living in an advanced technological society. I believe ( I have no proof) that it would be a good thing for more people to share my advantages both now and in the future. Doing that with finite resources and risks to the stable climate which underpins the agricultural foundation of the social complexity providing those benefits is difficult. One obvious problem that all reputable scientific advisory bodies have indicated poses a threat to the progress we have made since the Holocene maximum is the large geochemical change we have made to the atmosphere and the implications that has for the climate.
That change is happening is undeniable.
But it is uncertain how much more change will happen, and how robust or adaptable our agricultural infrastructure will have to become.
Thirty years ago many people made predictions about what the present would be like based on the knowledge they had at the time. Here’s one example. –
Summary. The global temperature rose by 0.20C between the middle 1960’s and
1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is
consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of
atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar
luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend
of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming
should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the
century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980’s. Potential effects on
climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North
America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West
Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the
fabled Northwest Passage.
Science as a body of shared knowledge has become almost unanimous in recognising this prediction as accurate. It is based on textbook physics on energy transfer that has been unchanged for at least two generations of undergraduate students in the physical sciences.
Whatever reason that 99% of scientific research attributes as the CAUSE of global warming and climate change, 99% agree temperatures, sea level, rainfall and weather extremes are all going to increase. I understand that some dismiss that as the result of group-think, fraud or political collusion. But given the necessicty of adapting to the present climate changes, the conspicuous abscence of any coherent hypothesis justifying a return to the climate of the past and the other problems of finite fossil fuels, reducing reliance on CO2 emitting energy production appears rational.
At least.
@- Smokey says:
“Warming isn’t the problem. Cooling is.”
ANY change that exceeds the adaptability of our agricultural infrastructure is a problem.
Sea level rise will impact coastal trade and farming too.
Cooling would certainly be a problem. But it seems to be conspicuous by its absence. Do you know of any credible source with a cogent argument that cooling is likely, or even possible ?
Joel Shore,
That 2009 CRS report is so three years ago.
That’s as stale as watching an old episode of MASH.
@- Latitude says:
“The real shame is most of that money was wasted on duplicate studies…
….I’m sure most of the money went for duplicate studies”
I think it is highly unlikely that any studies where exact duplicates.
Almost always there are differences in the raw data, the processing or the interpretation between different studies even if they are studying the same thing. And that is usually considered beneficial in the rest of science….
After all, if the Mann hockey stick had not been ‘duplicated’ but with many different sources of data and methodologies such as this recent example –
http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/news/news/2012-05-17_1000years_graph.html
It would not have the credibility it has from the validation of similar results from different data and methodologies!
-grin-
izen says:
May 19, 2012 at 11:45 am
Summary. The global temperature rose by 0.20C between the middle 1960′s and
1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is
consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of
atmospheric carbon dioxide.
========================
izen, do you think man is responsible for all of the increase in CO2?
Mickey Mouse Science!! LOL!
(ooops. wrong thread.)
[Not necessarily.☺ ~dbs, mod.]
Izen, the globe has been warming since the Little Ice Age. It is not shocking to find recent years the warmest.
ALL of my tallest years havew been since I was eighteen!
izen says:
May 19, 2012 at 12:01 pm
After all, if the Mann hockey stick had not been ‘duplicated’ but with many different sources of data and methodologies such as this recent example –
http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/news/news/2012-05-17_1000years_graph.html
================================================
…….are we looking at the same example
The one at that link shows no warming………..just a cycle
Izen says:
“Do you know of any credible source with a cogent argument that cooling is likely, or even possible ?” You can not be that stupid… can you?
Apparently you do not think the Northern and Southern Hemisphere ice core evidence is a “credible source”. Those ice cores show regular stadial events interspersed with Holocene-like warming events that last ±10 millennia. The current Holocene is getting long in the tooth, yet from your comment you seem to believe that any global cooling is probably not “even possible”.
Next, the link you provided above deconstruct’s Michael Mann’s falsified assertion, which erased the MWP and the LIA. Thanx for refuting your own argument and Mann’s with that link.
Next, you state: “The massive rise in temperature from the previous glacial period into the Holocene climate optimum was catastrophic for the human social system of tribal hunter-gathers with nomadic pasturalism which had been ticking over stably for several tens of thousands of years through a couple of ice ages.”
Thanx again for your personal opinion — which is plainly contradicted by the fact that human civilization prospered during the warmest periods and turned barbaric during cold periods. And you finish up with this preposterous Argumentum ad Ignorantium WAG:
“By the way, if you think the paleoclimate record indicates a ten degree C rise at the Holocene melt then you would need to adjust climate sensitivity upward accordingly and allow for a ~3degC rise from the energy imbalance produced by rising CO2.”
Since you cannot fathom any other explanation, you are presuming it is CO2 that controls global temperatures [when in fact CO2 is largely the result of warming oceans]. So if temperatures rise by tens of degrees Centigrade, your knee-jerk response is: “It’s CO2!! We have to invent a higher sensitivity!”
But that is a baseless conjecture. There is no evidence supporting your Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy. What you are doing is acknowledging that global temperatures rose and fell by 10’s of degrees — and then you arbitrarily assign the blame to CO2, even though geological evidence shows conclusively that rises and declines in CO2 follow rises and declines in temperature.
izen is probably a little too young to remember the forecasts of the climate community in the sixties and seventies. This site might help him
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/09/the-global-cooling-scare-revisited/
But to understand the ruling elites, worldwide and not just in the US, I would recommend Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales and the Emperor’s New Clothes.
http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html
izen says:
May 19, 2012 at 8:58 am
Personally I keep an eye …..ocean heat content and SSts as they represent over 80% of the energy that will shape the climate.
I see that others have responded to other parts of your post, but I would like to comment on the above. First of all, with regards to sea surface temperatures, that was one of the seven I mentioned and it happened to be one of the longer ones with a slope of 0. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend
Its slope for the last 15 years and 3 months is:
“#Selected data from 1997
#Least squares trend line; slope = -0.000155319 per year”
And if you look at the last data point, 0.242, and where the flat line is, 0.33, I am confident that when the April and May numbers are in, that the time will be extended to 15 years and 5 months with a slope of 0. But we will have to wait and see to be sure.
Now as for ocean heat content, I assume you saw the recent WUWT post at:
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/trenberths-missing-heat-still-missing-new-paper-shows-a-flat-ocean-temperature-trend-0-09c-over-the-past-55-years
So if the temperature went up 0.09 C over 55 years, it would take over 1200 years to go up 2 C at that rate. Where is the “significant problem” with that?
American Crossroads: “Great II”
http://youtu.be/-vDYkE3eD4M
@- Solomon Green says:
“izen is probably a little too young to remember the forecasts of the climate community in the sixties and seventies. This site might help him”
On the contrary I lapped it all up as a scifi devouring geek!
But there were claims from BOTH directions at the time, in fact the mainstream scientific opinion then was predicting warming.
However I always liked the iconoclasts and remember reading Fred Hoyles book ‘Ice’ on the dangers of a new ice age.
While I would claim some precociousness in my reading as a child, I was certainly NOT capable of reading this which was published just about 4 months after my birth! –
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/weekinreview/warm1956.pdf
@-Werner Brozek says:
“First of all, with regards to sea surface temperatures, that was one of the seven I mentioned and it happened to be one of the longer ones with a slope of 0.”
Only if you are selective with the start date.
try using the year of your birth… ?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1956/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1956/trend
It may be arbitrarily subjective, but it provides a good indication of what has happened in ones own lifetime.
@-“Now as for ocean heat content, I assume you saw the recent WUWT post at:
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/16/trenberths-missing-heat-still-missing-new-paper-shows-a-flat-ocean-temperature-trend-0-09c-over-the-past-55-years
So if the temperature went up 0.09 C over 55 years, it would take over 1200 years to go up 2 C at that rate. Where is the “significant problem” with that?”
I think you have mistaken the claims made in that case.
The rough magnitude of the increase in the ocean heat content is not really in doubt, even if the ability and accuracy of our measurement methods is uncertain.
Sea level rise puts hard constraints on the changes in heat content. There is only so much land-ice that can melt to cause a rise, and only so much evaporation and extra land flooding to offset the rise from thermal expansion.
You can reduce the amount of energy the oceans have gained by attributing more of the sea level rise to ice melt and reduced precipitation on land, or slower water cycle. But observational data on both global ice melt and precipitation limit the ratio ascribable to those causes.
That just leaves ‘Waters from the Deep…’ ?!
izen says:
May 19, 2012 at 1:51 pm
try using the year of your birth… ?
I agree things have gone up since my birth, but they also have gone up way before my birth at rates that are identical to today’s rate. So where is the proof our CO2 has anything to do with it? And if the warming was the same 70 years ago as now, then the sea level rise should have been the same as well. Compare the two slopes in the following 30 year time periods that are 70 years apart.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1912.33/to:1942.33/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1982.25/to:2013/trend
The most recent 30 year trend with the most CO2 is 0.0153446 per year.
The 30 year trend from 70 years earlier is higher at 0.0156268 per year.
So where is our influence? Things go in cycles, either with us or without us.
izen said (May 19, 2012 at 8:58 am)
“…However cold 2012 may be, and wherever in the rankings it may end up (ENSO will have a big influence), it will STILL be warmer than all my teenage years, all the years of my twenties, all the decade when I was in my thirties and all of my forties…
Do you think there is ANY prospect I will see a winter as cold as the years of my youth again?..”
In your limited life-span, you’ve seen warmer years as you’ve gotten older.
Look at GISS. If you had made that statement in the 80’s, you would have compared it to temps in the 40’s. Your question would have rightly been “Do you think there is ANY prospect I will see a summer as warm as the years of my youth again?”.
Even if there were actually claims from both sides in the 70s (which does not seem to be supported by scientific literature or the popular press of the time, but I’m open to correction), does it not worry you that those most vocal on the “it’s getting colder!” side included John Holdren, the President’s current science Czar, his mentor Paul Ehrlich, a current science “advisor”, and Erhlichs mentor, the late Steven Schneider, a hero to the current climate change crowd?
izen, your response to my question suggests you would prefer to go back to the ice ages. I’d rather it got a bit warmer.
I’m not heartbroken about the loss of some military funding… The real reason our soldiers are suffering is because we constantly got our nose shoved in other countries business. I lean more toward Ron Paul on this issue here.
As for izen:
We have seen several alarmist tactics being overplayed time and time again. Like the Polar Bears, the Penguins and Zwally stating that the ice in the arctic could possibly be gone by this summer. For people that are supposed to be the smartest in the world, the alarmist don’t even realize that they shoot themselves in the foot when they over blow these things. You think that the more you push the panic button it will force people to get riled up. And it might work with some people for a while… It does. But people start to tune you out or turn against you and I think your people have done more to hurt your position than you have in helping it.
I like animals. I don’t want to see any die. And I’m a liberal to a degree, but not at anywhere the same level as the environmentalist/liberal progressive type of people that seem to have taken over science. Guys like Hansen and Mann… ESP Hansen who seems more like an activist than anything these days.
Proud to be an Oklahoman… where common sense still reigns.
Please help voting Obama and his ilk out of politics. It is very clear they are systematically destroying our great country, across the board, and to the detriment of all who actually like this country.
Werner Brozek says:
“I agree things have gone up since my birth, but they also have gone up way before my birth at rates that are identical to today’s rate. So where is the proof our CO2 has anything to do with it? And if the warming was the same 70 years ago as now, then the sea level rise should have been the same as well. Compare the two slopes in the following 30 year time periods that are 70 years apart.
-[link]-”
That takes some rather careful selection of dates…
But I would agree that there have been two distinct periods of warming.
from the deep low in the 1900s until the 40s.
Then from the mid 70s till the present.
Here’s another link to woodfortrees with your warming-pause-warming plotted against solar activity and CO2. – (tinyurl-ed because they get ridiculously long with several data-sets and stages of processing.)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/c6prwrl
It shows that changes in solar activity and CO2 combined provide a calculable change in the energy balance that matches the temperature trends.
All that remains is to find another cooling factor of calculable magnitude that increased significantly around the 1950s to offset the increased solar output and initial rise in CO2. And then decreased, or at least stopped increasing in its cooling effect in the mid 70s, to cause the pause.
Can you think of any candidates ?
http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf
(hint page 10, the graph?)
It looks like these expenditures definitely outclass the apparent misguided Nixon-Ford-Carter era spending on the doomed liquid metal cooled, fast (plutonium) breeder reactor project . . .
Ref: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/11/if-obama-is-going-to-kill-coal-he-has-to-hide-the-body/#comment-985305
@- Otter says:
“izen, your response to my question suggests you would prefer to go back to the ice ages. I’d rather it got a bit warmer.”
No, my response suggest that I favor a climate that minimizes any (further) changes to growing regions or growing dates and has reduced variation/extremes. Because our present agricultural systems are optimized for present conditions.
The indications are that both options, stability and a bit warmer are not the most probable outcomes. Given the known influences on the climate since the 1900s, and the likely continued introduction of CO2 into the atmosphere as the rest of the sequestered fossil fuel carbon is used to maintain and expand the food and wealth modern societies wish to attain.
@- Werner Brozek says:
“And if the warming was the same 70 years ago as now, then the sea level rise should have been the same as well. ”
Interesting point.
But if the causes were different it does not follow that the rate of sea level rise would be the same. In fact it goes to the matter of attribution. A change in solar energy would have caused thermal expansion of the oceans but less land based ice melt at the poles because its dominant effect is in the tropics.
CO2 warming on the other hand has the ‘fingerprint’ of more warming at higher latitudes where the glaciers and ice-caps are. So sea level rise would be greater because the thermal expansion is accompanied by more ice-melt rise.
The historical data is not definitive, but does indicate a small rate of rise in the beginning of the 1900s after several thousand years of minimal variation. Followed by a much faster trend when temperatures started to rise again in the 70s.
Izen, an old Chinese proverb for you: 三十年河東,三十年河西
Thirty years on the east bank, thirty years on the west bank.
You’re only forty. Give it another couple of decades and check your perspective again.