Former UN Official says climate report will shock nations into action
John Gardner writes in with an entry from the “worse than we thought” department:
The IPCC seems to be pre-empting the growing skeptical science by preparing to issue an ‘its even worse than we thought’ report in 2013, according to a report in the Australian newspaper.
“The Brisbane Times’, which quotes Ivo De Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen talks. He is quoted “That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,”
Mr De Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia.
“I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.”
Here’s a prime reason why I don’t take these scare mongers seriously. As a child in the early 1970’s I remember one evening my parents were burning brush in the back yard. They were using some old magazines to get the fire going. I picked one up and it had a cover scene showing a brownish haze in a city where a family was putting groceries in their car. Each person was wearing a big gas mask. Even the dog had a gas mask. The title was something like how this is is going to be the world in a few years. It was an aweful picture and I was terrified. I can still see that image to this day.
And it was total BS. Just scare mongering. Maybe it was things like that magazine that inspired me to become a scientist and check out stuff for myself, and to be a critical thinker. Anyone who buys the party line and just reiterates the rhetoric without critically thinking for themselves and checking on the facts is a fool. I’ve been critically thinking of the climate change hypothesis since the early 80’s and I can’t find even the smallest amount of compelling evidence. that makes me stop and think “there actually might be something here”. What the IPCC is going is nothing more than than what that magazine I threw on the burn pile 3 decades ago was aiming to do. And that’s where the IPCC report belongs…on a burn pile contributing it’s CO2 to our climate…because you know, I like it warmer than colder.
cba says:
November 8, 2012 at 4:48 am
“sounds like it really is far worse than we thought when it comes to the ipcc plans. actually, it sounds like the ipcc is only a part of that plan and it would amaze aldous huxley and the other great dystopian writers.”
Aldous Huxley’s brother was Julian Huxley; both were socialists. So they knew everything about central planning and had the desire to do just that. Julian Huxley was the first director of UNESCO and the founder of the WWF.
George Orwell was a socialist. 1984 was his satirical version of the Soviet Union. He was all for centralized control, only disagreed slightly about how the Soviets were doing it. He worked at the BBC. Room 101 in the novel was inspired by a conference room in the building of the BBC where he worked.
(Now some nitpickers might tell me that it is possible to be a socialist yet refuse centralized control; in which case I would say, read your Marx again and how he defines socialism.)
Howskepticalment says:
November 7, 2012 at 6:25 pm
“Demonstrating that a state of climate has happened before tells us nothing except that the state of climate has happened before. It certainly does nothing to illuminate decision-making about the risks of doing something versus the risks of doing nothing today.”
A GCM is a deterministic state machine. When it reaches a state it has reached before, it must proceed to follow the same path again.
NOW! You will of course say, but this doesn’t take into account that Chinas emissions are rising. Granted. But that is something that is fed into the state machine as an external input and it is an unwarranted assumption, hence the name scenario.
So I would say, warmists, do something logical for a day. Go to China and demonstrate in Beijing for a stop to CO2 emissions. Or go to Washington DC and demand import tariffs on Chinese goods. Or elect a president that would impose such tariffs. Uh, you had the chance and you didn’t do that? Why not?
Because CO2 is not really what you’re interested in. You’re only interested in control.
Howskepticalment;
Definitions matter. I used mine and I was clear about it. You jumped to a false conclusion about it and embarrassed yourself. Your response is to make up an hypothetical and to colour it with personal abuse.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well yes you did. You created a definition so narrow that is makes all information about the past useless, which is ridiculous. So I ridiculed it. I ridiculed it because it is a blatant attempt to dismiss valid information about climate on the basis of a contrived definition that is of no meaning in the real world of actual data and actual scientific analysis. That you continue to maintain that the data from the past can in this way be invalidated and dismissed out of hand is a highly misleading statement. If you continue to maintain this position, I can only assume that you do so out of outright ignorance, or deliberate attempt to deceive. If you are simply ignorant, then I apologize, and instead recommend that you get some education in the scientific method. If you are deliberately attempting to deceive, then the personal abuse is well deserved.
Anyone who can be scared out of their wits usually didn’t start out with many to begin with.
DirkH says:
November 8, 2012 at 6:04 am
“George Orwell was a socialist”
Orwell like pretty much everyone of that time was a socialist. However after growing older and watching hitler and stalin and others turned away from socialism.
Orwell is much like Mr Watts in starting out believing something and then seeing the reality and changing views. Sadly due to college “education” this is a common event. Being a socialists has been all the rage for 100s of years for people coming out of college. Some people grow out of this… most do not.
‘scare the wits out of everyone’ – yes in Mr. De Boer’s world maybe
Yvo de Boer aka The crying Dutchman:
Floods of tears as climate change ‘hard man’ breaks down at summit
“He wasn’t just wiping his eyes, he was in floods of tears,” said one observer.
“Three colleagues – one of them a woman – formed a protective group around him and escorted him out of the hall. It was all very dramatic.”
Mr de Boer’s breakdown came after nearly a fortnight of squabbling over proposals to cut carbon emissions.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-502563/Floods-tears-climate-change-hard-man-breaks-summit.html#ixzz0fuEYYpMQ
Gondo says: November 7, 2012 at 11:12 am
The Arctic changes are scary. Greenland has lost 3000km3 of ice since 1995 (the ice-sheet was in balance before that) and the continuing collapse in sea ice volume is bewildering. It’s scary that there are still wingnut morans who think that the Arctic is not warming up!
—————————————————————-
Hi, Gondo. Did you mention that Antarctic ice is at its greatest ever extent, and that the southern continent is cooling?
No?
We would not be cherry-picking, would we?
Howskepticalment says:
November 7, 2012 at 6:25 pm
“The skids are greeced.”
Was that a clever pun or a lack of education?
“Contrary to the cries of the economic alarmists Australia’s carbon tax does not appear to have destroyed these good figures.”
Is that why Juliars running around in ever decreasing circles screaming about the rise in electricity prices that she wanted increased to reduce our use of power?
Do anyone else read AR5 as arse ?
So scared that we may all die laughing.
DirkH:
Your post at November 8, 2012 at 6:04 am displays so much ignorance and misunderstanding that a book would be needed to correct it all.
However, you explicitly state the basis of your error so it is sufficient to point out that mistake and the rest of your post collapses. You say
It is not “nitpicking” to point out that you are plain wrong, especially when you admit you are wrong but assert your error is “nitpicking”.
Socialism predates Marx and he gave his description of it: he did not define it. We socialists don’t need to read Marx more than any other economist and most socialists are not Marxists.
Richard
Methinks it will scare only the witless.
temp:
At November 8, 2012 at 8:06 am you say
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) wrote under the pen-name of George Orwell. He was a socialist who – in common with all socialists – opposed H1tler (a fascist) and Stalin (a communist). Indeed, he went to Spain and joined the socialist partisans against the fascists in the Spanish civil war. During his visits to Yorkshire he attended communist and fascist meetings to research his books notably ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. This research resulted in his being put under observation by the Special Branch.
He remained a staunch socialist throughout his life. His novels ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’ were attacks on totalitarianism, and ‘Animal Farm’ was a parody of communist Russia. One of his earlier books (i.e. Burmese Days) could not be published in the UK for fear of libel but was published in the US.
A good account of his life is on wiki at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Life
We now need a new Orwell to write a satirical novel about the IPCC and AGW.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
November 8, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Not completely clear on what your arguing about but socialism always equals central planning. Central planning is basically another name for socialism.
temp:
At November 8, 2012 at 2:13 pm you say to me
Obviously you are clueless about socialism which does NOT equal “central planning”.
I am “arguing” that it is plain wrong to assert AGW and/or the IPCC is supported by – or supports – any one political philosophy. It is wrong in fact because there are people who support ‘IPCC science’ and people who oppose ‘IPCC science’ who can be found among adherents of all political philosophies. And, very importantly, it is wrong tactically because it insists that only those who adhere to certain political philosophies can ally in opposition to ‘IPCC science’ and its objectives.
Divide To Destroy is best used against opponents and not allies.
Richard
temp;
Central planning is basically another name for socialism.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
On science, richardscourtney and I frequently agree, on CAGW in particular. On politics, we’re pretty much polar opposites. On this matter however, I’m 100% with Richard. Socialism and central planning are hardly the same thing. I think the matter becomes confused because we have glaring examples of things like Communism which devolved nearly instantly into totalitarianism from socialist beginnings. Central planning is a totalitarian thing, not a socialist thing, and Communism as we knew it through the cold war was totalitarian in every respect, socialist in none.
There are (IMO) very few successful implementations of purely socialist governments to point to as examples, but I would suggest considering the kibbutz and mochav farming collectives that are common in Israel as examples of how successful (and clearly not totalitarian central planning) truly socialist governments can be.
richardscourtney says:
November 8, 2012 at 1:57 pm
wiki is hardly a valid source when dealing with a topic such as orwell.
“Obviously you are clueless about socialism which does NOT equal “central planning”.”
I’m afraid it is much the opposite. I’ll get to it later.
“It is wrong in fact because there are people who support ‘IPCC science’ and people who oppose ‘IPCC science’ who can be found among adherents of all political philosophies.”
Really I don’t know any capitalists that believe in global warming… its pretty clear that IPCC whole idea of fixing the problem is socialism.
“Central planning is a totalitarian thing, not a socialist thing, and Communism as we knew it through the cold war was totalitarian in every respect, socialist in none.”
All socialism is by default totalitarian and all totalitarians are default socialists. Its impossible to have one without the other.
“kibbutz farming collectives”
Are perfect displays of central planning and totalitarianism. Which is why they generally started failing once people woke up to the old “vote yourself more benefits” problem among other things.
As to the “mochav farming collectives” They have a much more fascist/Chinese style which does work but is hardly ideal. Since its not heavily socialist is not heavily totalitarian.
The biggest problem with both of these is of course neither are a country or independent city-state. Which means they are at best pseudo-socialism. One could argue that hong-kong is a successful display of communism by this metric.
By definition socialism is where the government owns and controls the means of production… being neither of you seem to fully grasp what that truly means(aka totalitarianism) I ask you what is the most basic “means of production”?
temp;
I’m a capitalist and I know plenty of capitalists who believe firmly in cagw. Richard’s point was that we as skeptics have allies across the political spectrum on the cagw issue. I was trying to reinforce that. I’m certainly not going to argue the merits or definitions of socialism vs capitalism with you.
temp:
At November 8, 2012 at 4:38 pm you again proclaim your ignorance of socialism when you write
Strewth! You invent a “definition” that has no relationship to what you are talking about and then attack your invention. I suggest you investigate the logical fallacy of ‘straw man’.
This thread is about the IPCC and not your delusions – be they real or pretended – about a political philosophy of which you clearly know nothing. I strongly commend that you return to the subject of the thread.
Your continued presentation of your political prejudice could only be trolling to disrupt the thread.
Richard
It’s interesting that the comments about the new report were not about the science, but about the politics. It’s not “The Earth is warming faster than projected.” The emphasis is on “This will scare people into action.”
I am not getting into the political debate here. Already have too much of that on three other sites. 🙂
Stephen:
At November 8, 2012 at 9:05 pm you say
Yes. Thankyou.
It is the validity of the “scare” and the proposed “action” which require consideration. And it is far too easy to forget that.
There is another WUWT thread now active which discusses Carbon Tax. The threat of such a tax is one of the damaging “actions” we need to be addressing.
Richard
Perhaps the people who will be scared are those who read http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091110141842.htm
and fear that observations, not models, demonstrate that, despite known man-made carbon emissions increasing during and since the industrial revolution, the airborne fraction of these emissions has NOT changed since the 1850s nor in the last decade. Could all the consensual climate modellers be on the streets soon?
Ye canna ding facts!
davidmhoffer says:
November 8, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Really? Seem like you are just trying to avoid the topic after stepping into it. I don’t know any capitalists that believe in global warming. I know some centrists/conservatives who like to pretend they are capitalists but are really nothing of the sort that believe in global warming.
richardscourtney says:
November 8, 2012 at 5:12 pm
“You invent a “definition” that has no relationship to what you are talking about and then attack your invention. I suggest you investigate the logical fallacy of ‘straw man’.”
Then do give me your “invented” “definition” of socialism.
“This thread is about the IPCC and not your delusions – be they real or pretended – about a political philosophy of which you clearly know nothing. I strongly commend that you return to the subject of the thread.
Your continued presentation of your political prejudice could only be trolling to disrupt the thread.”
Talk about strawman… you clearly have no idea what your talking about and clearly refuse to debate… I have forgot more about how socialism works then you we ever learn. You can keep refusing to debate but this is of course a classic marxist tactic to avoid reality…
temp:
You write to me
I doubt you ever learned anything about socialism but I am willing to accept your claim that you have forgotten it.
Now clear off and stop disrupting the thread.
Richard