This press release was provided by Sandia National Labs:
In an effort to shed light on the wide spectrum of thought regarding the causes and extent of changes in Earth’s climate, Sandia National Laboratories has invited experts from a wide variety of perspectives to present their views in the Climate Change and National Security Speaker Series.
Predictions by climate models are flawed, says invited speaker at Sandia
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, a global warming skeptic, told about 70 Sandia researchers in June that too much is being made of climate change by researchers seeking government funding. He said their data and their methods did not support their claims.
“Despite concerns over the last decades with the greenhouse process, they oversimplify the effect,” he said. “Simply cranking up CO2 [carbon dioxide] (as the culprit) is not the answer” to what causes climate change.
Lindzen, the ninth speaker in Sandia’s Climate Change and National Security Speaker Series, is Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology in MIT’s department of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and is the lead author of Chapter 7 (“Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks”) of the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Third Assessment Report. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.
For 30 years, climate scientists have been “locked into a simple-minded identification of climate with greenhouse-gas level. … That climate should be the function of a single parameter (like CO2) has always seemed implausible. Yet an obsessive focus on such an obvious oversimplification has likely set back progress by decades,” Lindzen said.
For major climates of the past, other factors were more important than carbon dioxide. Orbital variations have been shown to quantitatively account for the cycles of glaciations of the past 700,000 years, he said, and the elimination of the arctic inversion, when the polar caps were ice-free, “is likely to have been more important than CO2 for the warm episode during the Eocene 50 million years ago.”
There is little evidence that changes in climate are producing extreme weather events, he said. “Even the IPCC says there is little if any evidence of this. In fact, there are important physical reasons for doubting such anticipations.”
Lindzen’s views run counter to those of almost all major professional societies. For example, the American Physical Society statement of Nov. 18, 2007, read, “The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.” But he doesn’t feel they are necessarily right. “Why did the American Physical Society take a position?” he asked his audience. “Why did they find it compelling? They never answered.”
Speaking methodically with flashes of humor — “I always feel that when the conversation turns to weather, people are bored.” — he said a basic problem with current computer climate models that show disastrous increases in temperature is that relatively small increases in atmospheric gases lead to large changes in temperatures in the models.
But, he said, “predictions based on high (climate) sensitivity ran well ahead of observations.”
Real-world observations do not support IPCC models, he said: “We’ve already seen almost the equivalent of a doubling of CO2 (in radiative forcing) and that has produced very little warming.”
He disparaged proving the worth of models by applying their criteria to the prediction of past climatic events, saying, “The models are no more valuable than answering a test when you have the questions in advance.”
Modelers, he said, merely have used aerosols as a kind of fudge factor to make their models come out right. (Aerosols are tiny particles that reflect sunlight. They are put in the air by industrial or volcanic processes and are considered a possible cause of temperature change at Earth’s surface.)
Then there is the practical question of what can be done about temperature increases even if they are occurring, he said. “China, India, Korea are not going to go along with IPCC recommendations, so … the only countries punished will be those who go along with the recommendations.”
He discounted mainstream opinion that climate change could hurt national security, saying that “historically there is little evidence of natural disasters leading to war, but economic conditions have proven much more serious. Almost all proposed mitigation policies lead to reduced energy availability and higher energy costs. All studies of human benefit and national security perspectives show that increased energy is important.”
He showed a graph that demonstrated that more energy consumption leads to higher literacy rate, lower infant mortality and a lower number of children per woman.
Given that proposed policies are unlikely to significantly influence climate and that lower energy availability could be considered a significant threat to national security, to continue with a mitigation policy that reduces available energy “would, at the least, appear to be irresponsible,” he argued.
Responding to audience questions about rising temperatures, he said a 0.8 of a degree C change in temperature in 150 years is a small change. Questioned about five-, seven-, and 17-year averages that seem to show that Earth’s surface temperature is rising, he said temperatures are always fluctuating by tenths of a degree.
As for the future, “Uncertainty plays a huge role in this issue,” Lindzen said. “It’s not that we expect disaster, it’s that the uncertainty is said to offer the possibility of disaster: implausible, but high consequence. Somewhere it has to be like the possible asteroid impact: Live with it.”
To a sympathetic questioner who said, “You are like a voice crying in the wilderness. It must be hard to get published,” Lindzen said, adding that billions of dollars go into funding climate studies. “The reward for solving problems is that your funding gets cut. It’s not a good incentive structure.”
Asked whether the prudent approach to possible climate change would be to prepare a gradated series of responses, much as insurance companies do when they insure cars or houses, Lindzen did not shift from his position that no actions are needed until more data is gathered.
When another Sandia employee pointed out the large number of models by researchers around the globe that suggest increases in world temperature, Lindzen said he doubted the models were independently derived but rather might produce common results because of their common origins.
The Climate Security lecture series is funded by Sandia’s Energy, Climate and Infrastructure Security division. Rob Leland is director of Sandia’s Climate Security Program.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
h/t to Marc Marano
“Responding to audience questions about rising temperatures, he said a 0.8 of a degree C change in temperature in 150 years is a small change.”
Especially since the actual temperature rise may only be half of that or less, due to data homogenization errors, and other warm bias factors.
For those arguing “equivalent forcings”, if you are going to look at all of the forcings (a good idea!), then you should do so: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-5.html and http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/ list them. Total forcings since 1750, including methane, ozone, halocarbons, CO2, albedo, aerosols, solar change, etc, add up to a total of 1.6 W/m^2, [0.6 to 2.4]. A doubling of CO2 would provide a forcing of 3.7 W/m^2. That’s a grand total of 43% the forcing of a CO2 doubling, meaning Lindzen’s statement is, again, nonsense.
And no, you cannot just ignore aerosols – Lindzen always seems to claim that since there is uncertainty in aerosol forcing (best estimate -1.3 W/m^2, full range of -0.4 to -2.7) he can assume it is _zero_. Nonsense again – the best estimate in the presence of uncertainty is -1.3, and zero isn’t even in the 2-sigma uncertainty range. Lindzen’s claim of zero aerosol forcing is at best wishful thinking.
Again – we’re nowhere near a 3.7 W/m^2 forcing change since pre-industrial levels, which is the expected forcing from a doubling of CO2. And Lindzens claim is unsupportable. http://tinyurl.com/bu2w5a7
I love Lindzen. Cuts right through all the post modern crap. A few more years and he will be able to say ‘told you so’ without question.
And KR’s comment is so typical of those who promote this alarmist nonsense…what a doofus.
Anyway….off topic story coming up.
I was chuckling to myself the other night watching an episode of Coast (a nice documentary series from the BBC of all people, shown in the UK – it travels around the coast doing little snippits of history/geography etc relevant to the coastline they are visiting).
Anyway….the other night they were at Harlech Castle, built by Edward the something to keep the revolting Welsh under check (I’m allowed…family is half Welsh…).
Thing is….the Beebs historian was explaining how very diff the castle was when it was built (circa 12-1300 AD I think?) as it was built on the sea front, with a docking area etc…that was one of its strengths, it was protected on one side by the sea.
Now of course its at least half a mile inland, the sea having fallen away in the years since. In fact a map was shown circa 16th Century showing the sea right by the castle. Ok…I don’t know to what extent land lifting/tilting of the UK has played in that, but as Anthony says, I could hear Joe Romms head exploding…
Tony B might like to follow up on this?
Dr. Lindzen, very well said! MIT, Meteorology,not bad credentials, to say the least. Hopefully some of the lesser minds will listen to you. But don’t hold your breath.
From the tone of the reported questions, and the specific mention of “a sympathetic questioner,” it appears the audience at Sandia was mostly disbelieving of Lindzen’s message.
Sandia has four main Missions, one of which is Energy, Climate, & Infrastructure Security. Among the four subdivisions of E, C & IS is Climate Security. The Climate Security program is described as, “The Climate Security program works to understand and prepare the nation for the national security implications of climate change.”
So, Lindzen’s message undermines a Mission program at Sandia Labs. Most of the scientists and engineers in a Climate Security program would necessarily start with the assumption that so-called climate change is a national security issue. Otherwise, why work in the program? If climate were not a security threat, then the work would be pointless.
So, one can see why Lindzen’s message would not be welcome at Sandia. It contradicts their foundational views, and his views in the longer term threaten to defund their program.
KR says:
July 25, 2012 at 8:46 am
*************************************
Talk about bad, repeated, unsupportable arguments…..
The comparison page you linked is laughable and repeats dummy statements such as the ones below for a variety of arguments. Clicking the statements reveals more modeled ‘evidence’ or simple redirection.
“A large amount of warming is delayed, and if we don’t act now we could pass tipping points.”
“Net positive feedback is confirmed by many different lines of evidence.”
“This argument ignores the cooling effect of aerosols and the planet’s thermal inertia.”
This for example:
“The skeptic argument…
Phil Jones says no global warming since 1995
‘Phil Jones said that for the past 15 years there has been no “statistically significant” warming. The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.’ (Daily Mail)
What the science says…
When you read Phil Jones’ actual words, you see he’s saying there is a warming trend but it’s not statistically significant. He’s not talking about whether warming is actually happening. He’s discussing our ability to detect that warming trend in a noisy signal over a short period.”
Let’s even include KR’s comment from the section below that article:
“KR at 10:55 AM on 3 January, 2011
@15PacksADay – So choosing to ask about a 15 year period (when just about everyone in climate science agrees that 25-30 is the minimum to evaluate a significant trend), the largest period in that time frame that did not meet the 95% significance threshold – is that good journalism? Or is that a trick question intended to advance a statistically false viewpoint?
I do wish Jones had answered that question a bit differently – but he answered it correctly given the data. Positive, but not at the 95% significance level.”
What is the point of all this redirection? No one is saying that because it wasn’t “statistically significant” it didn’t happen. No one is playing “gotcha” games and trying to trick you into saying something incriminating. If you say “He answered it honestly, I just wish he had answered it differently”, I have to wonder about your motives and your honest desire to seek truth versus misdirection, obfuscation, and intent to mislead the public.
And as for the second question quoted in the article:
“BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?
Phil Jones: I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.”
More redirection and an unwillingness to even answer the question. If we wanted to know what the IPCC said we would go read the report. We want to know what you think, that’s why we’re asking you. I’m tired of all these loose statements from people unwilling to own their arguments, and discuss what THEY KNOW – not parrot someone or something else.
These “scientists” continually duck open debate, redirect to other sources (usually circular to boost each other’s ‘expert’ status), and reference the same flawed and disproved materials over and over.
In short, they are (as you are, KR) repeating bad, unsupported arguments.
When you are asked a question, answer personally, and honestly. Stop giving cop-out answers, you sound like criminals repeating statements fed to you by your lawyers to look good in the press.
And that is all a prelude to the real issue these questions bring up. If we had warming, and it wasn’t significant, and you still argue that it was mostly caused by humans, there is only one real conclusion to draw. There is something else muting the human caused warming effect – such a thing would have to be MORE POWERFUL than the human caused warming effect to be able to do so. And it happens for many years on end, while CO2 rises at a steady rate.
You are admitting there is something MORE POWERFUL than man-made CO2 emission driven warming. Something that can override it. CO2 is not the primary driver. There is something bigger. Perhaps a confluence of things, it makes no difference. That’s about half of the whole skeptic argument, right there. That there are natural influences on our climate that surpass human influences. And that current conditions are not outside natural variability in recent or historic or prehistoric times.
So it’s time to lay off all the ridiculous carbon obsession, and the enormous wastes of time and money that could be spent, for example, on truly humanitarian efforts (which is how “green” is sold to us – save the world or feel guilty destroying it).
KR on July 25, 2012 at 8:46 am
“We’ve already seen almost the equivalent of a doubling of CO2 (in radiative forcing) and that has produced very little warming.”
What a _curious_ statement. CO2 is at 390 ppm, compared to 280 ppm pre-industrial values, a doubling would be 560 ppm. That hasn’t happened yet (http://tinyurl.com/bu2w5a7), so his claim is (IMO) utter nonsense.
So Lindzen is including CO2, Methane, etc… to get almost an equivalent to doubling of CO2 forcing. The english isn’t that difficult to understand.
mikef2 says:
July 25, 2012 at 10:41 am
I love Lindzen. Cuts right through all the post modern crap.
******************************************************************************
The pervasive post modernism we see from “scientists” today is sickening. The whole premise of science is undermined by it – from the scientific method, to the idea that results must be repeatable, even the principle of falsification lies outside of it.
“””””……KR says:
July 25, 2012 at 8:46 am
“We’ve already seen almost the equivalent of a doubling of CO2 (in radiative forcing) and that has produced very little warming.”
What a _curious_ statement. CO2 is at 390 ppm, compared to 280 ppm pre-industrial values, a doubling would be 560 ppm. That hasn’t happened yet (http://tinyurl.com/bu2w5a7), so his claim is (IMO) utter nonsense……”””””
Well those who utter nonsense would surely know utter nonsense when they utter it themselves.
Besides CO2 “forcing”, there is CH4 “forcing” and Ozone “forcing” and black carbon “forcing” etc etc etc, and I could easily be convinced that collectively they could yield as much “forcing” as would a CO2 doubling. So I don’t see any discrepancy between what Professor Lindzen said, and any known facts.
I think KR is KO’d.
But not being a believer in either “forcing” (not even mentioned in my very modern handbook of Physics) or of CO2 doubling; (1ppm CO2 –> 2ppm CO2 == 280 ppm CO2 –> 560 ppm CO2 ) I don’t pay much attention to the latest and greatest proxy values for this and that.
I’m still trying to get my arms around Kevin Trenberth’s value for the incident areal density of incoming solar power. How does 1362 Watts per square meter of NASA measured TSI get attenuated to 341 W/m^2.
And don’t give me that “average” BS, or explain to me that 4pi R^2 is exactly four times pi R^2, I happen to have a degree, with two majors in mathematics, so I know geometry. I’m also an accomplished gramophone performer, so I do understand “power”, ( have a degree in RadioPhysics too) and there is no such thing as “average” power nor “RMS” power either. Power is an instantaneous rate of supply/use/transport/whatever of ENERGY, or doing work, if you prefer; for those of us who actually do work.
So I haven’t played my stereo in over a month. Should I sue the manufacturer of my Amp (Yamaha) because the average power has now dropped well below their advertising claims; maybe orders of magnitude lower.
It is well known that the total black body radiation for a temperature of 288 K, which is the claimed mean surface Temperature of the earth, is around 390 W/m^2. Purely by sheer accident, this is also the value that Trenberth et al claim for the radiant emission from the earth surface; which of course is NOT a black body anyway, so the correspondence is quite accidental and nothing can be taken from that, in the way of theories etc. I presume that Kevin, or etal actually measured that 390 W/m^2 from the earth surface.
So 341 W/m^2, which is Trenberth’s value for solar insolation, would not even raise the earth’s Temperature to 288 K, which it allegedly is; only about 278.5K.
So how are you going to get desert surface Temperatures maybe as high as 330 K, with only 341 W/m^2 incoming. For that matter, how are you going to get a surface Temperature of around 183K at Vostok, with 341 W/m^2 beating on the ground all the time.
As I have said sever al times already, if you drop a 20 Kton bomb some place, maybe every 25 years or so; on average, the damage isn’t going to be too bad.
KR-you are now moving the goal posts. Previously you claimed that since we hadn’t seen close to a doubling of CO2, Lindzen’s statement was wrong. You now wish to claim that, since the actual statement does not include aerosol forcing, it is wrong. Your previous criticism of Lindzen is, you must admit, totally wrong, right?
As for looking at the IPCC estimate of total (known) forcings, and being unable to ignore aerosol forcings, what exactly is the basis for the IPCC’s “best estimate”? How do they know what aerosol loading there was in 1750? How do we know what forcing effect pollutants had back then Because we can know about the greenhouse gases, but really, the numbers for aerosols are just whatever is necessary to make the models work. But the most unreasonable assumption of the IPCC is that while those forcings canceled warming in the twentieth century, they will suddenly cease to be important in the next. It’s pretty ridiculous on it’s face.
Thinking about Meteorology Professor Lindzen, of MI, got me thinking; I wonder, presuming he HAS a PhD,whether he has a PhD in “CLIMATE SCIENCE”
We are constantly being badgered with the claims, that 97% of all “climate scientists” believe in catastrophic man made global warming climate change, also that we mere lay folks, without the necessary academic credentials, are incompetent to understand “climate science.”
So Dr Laura has a PhD, and she doesn’t know anything at all about “climate science” or even Physics for that matter. So I once thought about getting a PhD in Ice Cream Making, but I’m not sure that would qualify me to talk about climate science; well maybe with an asterisked restriction to the climate science of Greenland glaciology.
So apparently to be a credible expert on “climate science”, you need to have a PhD in “climate science”.
So now among the very famous and well known “climate science “experts” “, which ones, actually have a PhD in “climate Science”, rather than some other non climate science discipline ??
What are the best schools offering well respected PhDs in “climate science” ?
Lindzen’s appearance at SandiaLabs was arguably a counter-balance to the May 10 appearance of NCAR’s Warren M. Washington. The description of his visit is seen in an article of Sandia Labs’ newsletter – available as a PDF download at the newsletter homepage. See pg 4 here: http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/ln06-01-12/labnews06-01-12.pdf
The speaker was described in the following manner in the first paragraph: ” Global warming is unequivocal in its advance and will lead to more record-setting temperatures, said plain-spoken Warren M. Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research”.
A little more disturbing a bit farther into the story was this: ” With a nod to climate-change skeptics, he specifically cited noted University of California, Berkeley professor Richard Muller as once skeptical of the general scientific belief that we’ve warmed the planet by almost a degree C from 1880 to 2010 in land temperature average. …… In several instances, Washington challenged climate-change skepticism without personifying those who might hold those opinions. … ”
Worst of all, anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan’s old talking point talking points crept into Mr Washington’s remarks: “We’re faced by a lot of people whose business interests are affected by climate change mitigation. [Washington] found the situation similar to the way, 20 years ago, people said that smoking does not cause cancer, even though the scientific evidence shows otherwise”.
Congrats goes to Sandia Labs’ Rob Leland, the organizer of the talks, for placing balance in the series with at least the presence of Dr Lindzen.
“Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, a global warming skeptic,”
###
This is to tell everyone that he can be safely dismissed and that they do not need to read any more.
This is NOT an accident. Everything must be molded in order to support the noble cause while appearing to be neutral; candy coated cyanide!
When is the last time you saw a press release that identified any member of the team by anything but “Climate Scientist”, as apposed to something like “global warming alarmist”.
KR is right, we’re less than 80% of the way to a CO2-equivalent doubling if you only consider GHGs, and under 50% of the way if you include all forcings. On top of that, Lindzen ignores the thermal inertia of the climate system – even if we had the doubled CO2-equivalent forcing, it would take decades to realize all of the associated global warming. Every climate scientist knows this, even Lindzen.
[SNIP: Dana, you do realize that Dr. Mann has been filing law suits left and right for language exactly like this, right? Publish this on your own site. -REP]
KR July 25, 2012 at 8:46 am
“We’ve already seen almost the equivalent of a doubling of CO2 (in radiative forcing) and that has produced very little warming.”
What a _curious_ statement. CO2 is at 390 ppm, compared to 280 ppm pre-industrial values, a doubling would be 560 ppm. That hasn’t happened yet
Quite right KR! This assertion requires clarification. What is most disappointing is that a lot of ‘sceptics’ here decide that this this is something to do with the logarithmic effect of CO2 – something they read somewhere maybe – It isn’t!!!! Unfortunately, these misinformed sceptics think that implying that KR is some sort of idiot will convince people that it is.
Now, make no mistake, Richard Lindzen is my hero, but I find that every time I enter this blog I end up attacking sceptics, because some of their comments here are so …… (words fail)
The question KR raises deserves a cogent answer. If you don’t know what it is – please shut up!
KR says:
July 25, 2012 at 8:46 am
“We’ve already seen almost the equivalent of a doubling of CO2 (in radiative forcing) and that has produced very little warming.”
What a _curious_ statement. CO2 is at 390 ppm, compared to 280 ppm pre-industrial values, a doubling would be 560 ppm. That hasn’t happened yet (http://tinyurl.com/bu2w5a7), so his claim is (IMO) utter nonsense.
Now read the statement carefully!
timetochooseagain – CO2 forcing since 1750 is ~1.66 W/m^2. Adding up all forcings (CO2, methane, CFC’s, aerosols, solar changes) as in the links in my last post shows a forcing delta of 1.6 W/m^2, almost the same value.
Doubling CO2 would show a forcing change of 3.7 W/m^2. Note the difference from 1.6 or 1.66 W/m^2. Lindzen is still incorrect.
As to historic records of aerosols, the best records come from snowcap/ice core measurements, wherein yearly aerosol particulate deposition can be _directly_ measured. The uncertainties (which while high, do not include _zero_ forcing as per Lindzen) are over the total effect from those aerosols, but we have an excellent idea of just how much aerosol levels have changed over time. As to those effects, recent volcanic activity (such as the Pinatubo eruption) have shown _just_ the effects that were predicted from such an eruption. And modeled. Before the eruption occurred. Which is in itself quite a validation of those models.
I certainly do not expect aerosols to suddenly drop to zero over the next century, and I’ve never heard anybody claim that (it’s a strawman argument). Air quality regulations (such as the 1970’s Clean Air act and similar legislation) will have an effect, particularly if China starts doing something about their aerosols, and any ongoing replacement of fossil fuel sources with renewables will also drop aerosol loading. Hence I do expect their forcing relative to energy consumption to drop over time.
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
it seems there are natural 50 year global warming and global cooling cycles
“That climate should be the function of a single parameter (like CO2) has always seemed implausible. Yet an obsessive focus on such an obvious oversimplification has likely set back progress by decades,” Lindzen said.
=====
And this is why the models will always be wrong and their projections will be meaningless. The focus on CO2 is motivated by politics not science. Science takes a backseat to money, politics and power.
And if these activists really cared about CO2 wouldn’t they be boycotting products from China, India, the US, Canada and all the other countries that are not part of the Kyoto Protocol and are destroying the planet?
A voice of sanity.
How on earth did science become such a political issue ? Maneuvering has already started as fear grows of those eggs arriving on faces. Watch now how model predictions of future temperatures have now subtly started to fall. No longer do we hear of 6 degree warming by 2100 or of catastrophic “tipping points”.
Ahh… Sandia. Brings back fond memories. The organization is pretty top-notch.
I have worked with Sandia both at Albuquerque and Livermore (they were one of my contractors). Based on my discussions with individual Sandia managers and scientist; my guess is Dr. Lidzen’s remarks were likely very well received by the Albuquerque teams and fairly well received by the Livermore teams. Particularly among the teams involved in national security and environmental technologies. Skepticism runs pretty deep there.
I’ve never meet Rob Leland, director of Scandia’s Climate Security Program, so I don’t have a feel for his caliber or that of his team. I will give Rob credit for balancing the discussion by ensuring balanced perspective by inviting Dr Lindzen to speak.
Regards,
Kforestcat
I believe the professor is referring to Hansen’s original worst case scenario. Based on the modeled rise in temp output as a function of CO2, we should be close to the equivalent forcing he references, but we are not. Correct me if I am wrong, but that worst-case model depends on CO2 driven water vapor increase creating most of the greenhouse temperature effect, not actual CO2.
Joachim Seifert says:
July 25, 2012 at 9:58 am
Lindzen’s approach is good…..each month, more research is
coming out and will show an over-inflated CO2-role…… patience,
a bit more time, in short, AGW will be over+out….
___________________________
It may be too late. The Movers and Shakers WANT that carbon tax so we have the usually conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) co-host[ing] a hushed-up meeting with the liberal Climate Crisis Coalition (CCC) to discuss how to enact a carbon tax in a lame duck Congressional session either this fall or in the 113th Congress.
For my view of the KR “utter nonsense”, I would agree that KR is correct that Lindzen appears to be assuming (whether or not he has reason to do so) that the negative forcing from aerosols is much closer to 0 than the mainstream view. I would not agree that this assumption is “utter nonsense” regardless of whether or not it is not mainstream however.
Cheers, 🙂
From KR’s link “A large amount of warming is delayed, and if we don’t act now we could pass tipping points.”
Now I get it! The “missing heat” isn’t missing, it just missed the bus!