Published in the Financial Post today:
OPEN CLIMATE LETTER TO UN SECRETARY GENERAL: Current scientific knowledge does not substantiate Ban Ki-Moon assertions on weather and climate, say 125 scientists.
Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations
First Avenue and East 44th Street, New York, New York, U.S.A.
November 29, 2012
Mr. Secretary-General:
On November 9 this year you told the General Assembly: “Extreme weather due to climate change is the new normal … Our challenge remains, clear and urgent: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthen adaptation to … even larger climate shocks … and to reach a legally binding climate agreement by 2015 … This should be one of the main lessons of Hurricane Sandy.”
On November 13 you said at Yale: “The science is clear; we should waste no more time on that debate.”
The following day, in Al Gore’s “Dirty Weather” Webcast, you spoke of “more severe storms, harsher droughts, greater floods”, concluding: “Two weeks ago, Hurricane Sandy struck the eastern seaboard of the United States. A nation saw the reality of climate change. The recovery will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost of inaction will be even higher. We must reduce our dependence on carbon emissions.”
We the undersigned, qualified in climate-related matters, wish to state that current scientific knowledge does not substantiate your assertions.
Read the full letter and signatories here
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In September 2009, two months before Climategate and three months before the notorious Copenhagen Conference that December, Ban Ki-moon as UN panhandler-in-chief called for an “emergency transfusion” of $10 trillion –repeat, $10-trillion– to kleptocratic transnational agencies, on the premise that absent this amazing sum Planet Earth would be transformed to baking desert by January 2010.
Even the most fulsomely besotted Warmist media stayed clear of BKM thereafter. Though Railroad Bill Pachauri continued to practice “voodoo science” in regard to Himalayan glaciers, and could in no wise be induced to retire from his IPCC perch to soft-core authors’ heaven, observers’ nigh-uncontrollable urge to laugh-out-loud was just too strong.
A veritable who’s who with a name that stood out for me…
David Deming, PhD (Geophysics)
This is the man who Overpeck first approached to do the job that fell to the Mann.
DaveE.
Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 11:55 am
richardscourtney
Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Alas, while I had surmised that it was Simon’s head that was the container he suggested was full of feathers, it appears it they have been displaced as the elephant in the room was producing substantial quantities of dung, and it had to be stored somewhere.
Really Simon? You’re that obtuse? READ THE LIST THEY ALMOST ALL CLIMATE SCIENTISTS!
“Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.”
Simon trying to appeal to some higher authority in science like ‘climatologist’ or ‘climatology’ is like me and a few mates calling ourselves humanologists and forget all about those lower classes of medicos, shrinks, biologists, etc. It’s what these post normal pseudo scientists have done to cover for their lack of scientific rigour and stuffing cherry picked nonsense at times into computer models.
If a geologist says hang on a bit it’s in the rocks in the ground not the rocks in your heads, they immediately retreat back into the high priesthood of climatology. Same deal with a statistician challenging their statistical methods, etc. It’s what Big Climate and their IPCCs, Gores, etc does or haven’t you been keeping up?
But Simon, even if you believe in the hot Gospel of the self appointed high priests of Big Climate, how are they doing with their prescriptions and do they walk the talk mate? That might give you some clues about them even if you haven’t read a few of their internal emails and stuff.
Zeke says:
November 30, 2012 at 11:25 am
@Gail Combs
Here you go Gail.
____________________________
Thanks Zeke. I hope you saw the article over at Jo Nova’s
Did Julia really say that? She’s here to help bankers “get their share”?
It seems more and more the elite are ‘coming out of the closet’ about their plans for the planet.
Simon says: “OK, I am going to mention the elephant in the room here and ask the question… how many of the names on that list are practicing climate scientists?”
=======================================================
Does it require a tailor to say that the emperor has no clothes?
Another thing is that the statement in the latter is actually rather weak. It is like saying that the (naked) emperor has no tie.
Robert A. Taylor says:
November 29, 2012 at 10:03 pm
For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 123 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.
That should be page 23, in the middle column in the blue part. However since page 23 is not numbered, you have to go to page 24 and scroll back up a page.
Lots of retired guys.
Won’t matter until someone who is CURRENTLY EMPLOYED in a position where he has CONTROL OF GRANTS turns against the consensus.
And that is physically impossible. When you’re immersed in the cashflow, you are absolutely incapable of turning against the philosophy that pays you.
The science was settled when the sun and stars circled the earth in crystal spheres. The science was settled when Newtonian physics was accepted. The science was settled when Einstein proposed the theory of relativity …
Science is never settled. If it was settled, it wouldn’t be science, it would be dogma.
There was an Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its principles still apply.
Bravo to the signers, and may there be many more. They have shown great courage, or gumption, with no real upside, other than personal honor, with their reputations as scientists on the line. Those riding the CAGW gravy train, on the other hand…..
Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 11:55 am
richardscourtney
Sorry I mean actual climate scientists… not scientists.
==========================================================================
I think Simon has a point.
To be considered a genuine “climate scientist” one must be able to produce Hot Air.
The signers do not produce Hot Air so they are not qualified to speak no matter what their qualifications.
The only people qualified to disagree with one of Simon’s “climate scientist” are those that continue to agree with them.
Gail Combs says: “If you want that PhD, if you want Tenure, you do not rock the CAGW boat.”
So that explains the fuddy-duddy index of the signees: 21 emeritus and 9 others retired? Could.
Of the remainder, 11 Canadians and one from the Heartland Inst.
It’s an unlikely group that you would expect to meet at a science convention, thats for sure.
Your comments on Tenure are probably right, because you haf to get a grant and betting against AGW isnt going to get you one. The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW, and that also does not help in grant-land.
But, grad students, you underestimate. They dont need to be funded, they just need to be upstarts. Of course they do haf to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and unfortunately, AGW seems to not end up in the “disprove” category these days. But you never know, there is always next year!
trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
“The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW”
Really? You cannot even use spell check and you expect to carry credibility on a statement like that?
trafamadore says:
“…it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW…”
That is another example of how completely anti-science many academics are these days. trafamadore does not understand that scientific skeptics have nothing to prove. The onus is entirely on those promoting their evidence-free AGW conjecture. They are the ones who have the onus of providing scientifically sound, empirical, testable evidence showing that AGW exists — and of providing specific measurements of its effect. But as we know, there are no such measurements. An since AGW cannot be measured, it is only a conjecture.
Despite trafamadore’s attempt to turn the scientific method on its head, skeptics are not obligated to “disprove” a conjecture. There is no requirement for “preliminary results against AGW”, as trafamadore claims. That amounts to requiring that skeptics must prove a negative — a common fallacy prevalent among the climate alarmist crowd.
AGW is a conjecture. However, when there is no empirical, testable evidence, or any measurements showing a human signal in the climate record, AGW stops at the conjecture stage. AGW is neither a Hypothesis nor a Theory, since it is incapable of making any accurate or repeatable predictions.
There is a correlation between CO2 and temperature. But it is not the correlation that trafamadore wants. The only empirical measurements show that ∆CO2 follows ∆T. There are no measurements showing that ∆T causes ∆CO2. The fact that there has been no global warming for a decade and a half — as specifically predicted due to the rise in CO2 — casts serious doubt on the AGW conjecture.
AGW may exist. But if it does exist, it is so small an effect that it can and must be disregarded. Too much money has already been wasted chasing that elusive, unproven, speculative will o’ the wisp.
D Böehm: “Despite trafamadore’s attempt to turn the scientific method on its head, skeptics are not obligated to “disprove” a conjecture. There is no requirement for “preliminary results against AGW”, as trafamadore claims. That amounts to requiring that skeptics must prove a negative — a common fallacy prevalent among the climate alarmist crowd.”
Hmmm? Do you not know how the science business works? By disproving hypothesis, that’s our business model. Like Edison with his 2000 light bulbs that didnt work. (Only mathematicians really prove things.) When we actually say we “prove” something, usually what we should be saying is that we have disproved all of the other hypothesis we can think of.
So, in AGW terms, the solar hypothesis of sun variability has been disproved, etc, etc, until the only one left… the CO2 thing you love… has not been disproved. So it sits there until someone thinks of a way to disprove it.
Pretty simple actually. And not so mysterious, I bet bet when you are looking for your cat in the house, you use the scientific method, disproving the living room hypothesis, the kitchen hypothesis, etc, etc, until you find him curled up on your pillow in the bedroom. (Dont forget the various controls, finding control cats in each room, that it’s your cat you found, and that your glasses are okay.)
If you want to stick to a strict definition then let’s do so. Let’s try Dr. James Hansen or Dr. Michael Mann. You see, if Warmists claim physicists, astronomers, geologists, mathematicians and meteorologists capable of pronouncing on the climate then why not us?
I won’t even go into the theologian and failed politician Al Gore. 😉
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/jhansen.html
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/about/cv.php
trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
The other trouble is that it’s hard to get scientifically sound evidence for preliminary results against AGW
No trouble at all!
PDF document @NOAA.gov. For anyone else who wants it, the exact quote from pg 23 is:
”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
Data sets with a o slope for at least 15 years:
1. HadCrut3: since April 1997 or 15 years, 7 months (goes to October)
2. Sea surface temperatures: since March 1997 or 15 years, 8 months (goes to October)
3. RSS: since January 1997 or 15 years, 10 months (goes to October)
See the graph below to show it all.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1997.0/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.25/plot/rss/from:1997.0/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997.1
Simon says:
November 30, 2012 at 10:53 am
———————–
Further to my last comment if Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Michael Mann qualify as climate scientists then according to the list of signatories 70% qualify as climate scientists. Unless of course you with to disqualify Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Michael Mann. 😉
This group of 125 scientists is 60% larger than the infamous 78 (?) whose survey result gave us the “97% of climate scientists agree….” meme.
Some delectable corollaries here…..
e.g.
“Almost two thirds of climate scientists agree that climate warming fears are overstated and not yet fully understood”
“The great majority of climate scientists agree that climate warming fears are overstated and not yet fully understood”
trafamadore says:
“Do you not know how the science business works? By disproving hypothesis, that’s our business model.”
OK, my hypothesis is that there are invisible faeries living in my garden. Go ahead, disprove that.
See, your problem is that there is no more real world, testable evidence for AGW than there is for garden faeries.
[Actually, the faerie example is only a conjecture — just like AGW.]
Because AGW is a conjecture, there is nothing to disprove. Find a way to make AGW a testable, measurable hypothesis, and we will falsify it if possible.
It is amazing how misunderstood the scientific method is among many academics. For trafamadore’s benefit I will propose a testable, falsifiable hypothesis:
At current and projected levels CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere
To falsify my hypothesis, trafamadore only needs to show global damage or harm conclusively due to the rise in ACO2. Any such ‘global harm’ must be directly attributable to human CO2 emissions, and using the scientific method, prove that the rise in anthropogenic CO2 has specifically caused verifiable global harm. Replicable scientific evidence [raw data] is necessary; keep in mind that models are not evidence. Otherwise, no harm = “harmless”. [Upon request I will provide solid scientific evidence proving that more CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere.]
There is an example of an actual hypothesis, as opposed to a conjecture. Falsify it, if you can. You will be the first to do so, and on the short list for a [now worthless] Nobel Peace Prize.
With any luck trafamadore will now understand the difference between a conjecture [an opinion] and a testable hypothesis.
trafamadore says:
December 1, 2012 at 12:20 pm
So, in AGW terms, the solar hypothesis of sun variability has been disproved
I would suggest that you view the hour long video:
More WUWT.TV: Interview and presentation with Dr. Sebastian Lüning
He wrote “Die Kalte Sonne” (The cold sun) with Dr. Franz Vahrenholt
Then you may wish to comment on that thread and set Dr. Sebastian Lüning straight.
trafamadore says: “So, in AGW terms, the solar hypothesis of sun variability has been disproved, etc, etc, until the only one left… the CO2 thing you love… has not been disproved. So it sits there until someone thinks of a way to disprove it.
Pretty simple actually. And not so mysterious, I bet bet when you are looking for your cat in the house, you use the scientific method, disproving the living room hypothesis, the kitchen hypothesis, etc, etc, until you find him curled up on your pillow in the bedroom.”
======================================================
I have just looked for an elephant in my house using your scientific method. I searched all the rooms except the kitchen. No elephant found, hence it must be in the kitchen.
Wait, I have an idea, how you can easily get 1,000,000 dollar cash. Search for 1,000,000 dollar cash in every room in you house except the kitchen. Didn’t find anything? Congratulations, the cash is in the kitchen!
Back to “the CO2 thing you love”. The hypothesis about “greenhouse gases” allegedly warming the surface by their back radiation was indeed disproved 103 years ago by a simple experiment. It is so easy, you do not even need to make your hands dirty by using “greenhouse gases”(http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html). The experiment demonstrates that back radiation either does not work at all or it’s effect is negligible.
Wtf is “trafamadore”? I am familiar with Tralfamadore. Cannot spell, cannot get a reference correct, why is anyone even bothering with this clown?
D Böehm says: “OK, my hypothesis is that there are invisible faeries living in my garden. Go ahead, disprove that.”
Okay, you’re doing okay. Next, remember, H’s are answers to Q’s. So your question is, I think, “What lives in my qarden?” So you must have a whole family of H’s to test then (you know, for rabbits, moles, etc), and some of them will be testable. The faery one, not, unless you have a faery meter, and control faeries to test it with. (I am fairly sure faery meters will be developed when we get a god meter)
AGW? I would argue that we are in the sad process of asking the Q, “What happens if we double the amt of CO2 in the air?”, for better or worse, later in the century.
We should hit 400 ppm CO2 soon, maybe next summer.