CHRISTOPHER MONCKTON of BRENCHLEY
DELEGATES at the 18th annual UN climate gabfest at the dismal, echoing Doha conference center – one of the least exotic locations chosen for these rebarbatively repetitive exercises in pointlessness – have an Oops! problem.
No, not the sand-flies. Not the questionable food. Not the near-record low attendance. The Oops! problem is this. For the past 16 of the 18-year series of annual hot-air sessions about hot air, the world’s hot air has not gotten hotter. There has been no global warming. At all. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Bupkis.
The equations of classical physics do not require the arrow of time to flow only forward. However, observation indicates this is what always happens. So tomorrow’s predicted warming that has not happened today cannot have caused yesterday’s superstorms, now, can it?
That means They can’t even get away with claiming that tropical storm Sandy and other recent extreme-weather happenings were All Our Fault. After more than a decade and a half without any global warming at all, one does not need to be a climate scientist to know that global warming cannot have been to blame.
Or, rather, one needs not to be a climate scientist. The wearisomely elaborate choreography of these yearly galah sessions has followed its usual course this time, with a spate of suspiciously-timed reports in the once-mainstream media solemnly recording that “Scientists Say” their predictions of doom are worse than ever. But the reports are no longer front-page news. The people have tuned out.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPeCaC), the grim, supranational bureaucracy that makes up turgid, multi-thousand-page climate assessments every five years, has not even been invited to Doha. Oversight or calculated insult? It’s your call.
IPeCaC is about to churn out yet another futile tome. And how will its upcoming Fifth Assessment Report deal with the absence of global warming since a year after the Second Assessment report? Simple. The global-warming profiteers’ bible won’t mention it.
There will be absolutely nothing about the embarrassing 16-year global-warming stasis in the thousands of pages of the new report. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Bupkis.
Instead, the report will hilariously suggest that up to 1.4 Cº of the 0.6 Cº global warming observed in the past 60 years was manmade.
No, that is not a typesetting error. The new official meme will be that if it had not been for all those naughty emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases the world would have gotten up to 0.8 Cº cooler since the 1950s. Yeah, right.
If you will believe that, as the Duke of Wellington used to say, you will believe anything.
The smarter minds at the conference (all two of us) are beginning to ask what it was that the much-trumpeted “consensus” got wrong. The answer is that two-thirds of the warming predicted by the models is uneducated guesswork. The computer models assume that any warming causes further warming, by various “temperature feedbacks”.
Trouble is, not one of the supposed feedbacks can be established reliably either by measurement or by theory. A growing body of scientists think feedbacks may even be net-negative, countervailing against the tiny direct warming from greenhouse gases rather than arbitrarily multiplying it by three to spin up a scare out of not a lot.
IPeCaC’s official prediction in its First Assessment Report in 1990 was that the world would warm at a rate equivalent to 0.3 Cº/decade, or more than 0.6 Cº by now.
But the real-world, measured outturn was 0.14 Cº/decade, and just 0.3 Cº in the quarter of a century since 1990: less than half of what the “consensus” had over-predicted.
In 2008, the world’s “consensus” climate modelers wrote a paper saying ten years without global warming was to be expected (though their billion-dollar brains had somehow failed to predict it). They added that 15 years or more without global warming would establish a discrepancy between real-world observation and their X-boxes’ predictions. You will find their paper in NOAA’s State of the Climate Report for 2008.
By the modelers’ own criterion, then, HAL has failed its most basic test – trying to predict how much global warming will happen.
Yet Ms. Christina Figurehead, chief executive of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, says “centralization” of global governing power (in her hands, natch) is the solution. Solution to what?
And what solution? Even if the world were to warm by 2.2 Cº this century (for IPeCaC will implicitly cut its central estimate from 2.8 Cº in the previous Assessment Report six years ago), it would be at least ten times cheaper and more cost-effective to adapt to warming’s consequences the day after tomorrow than to try to prevent it today.
It is the do-nothing option that is scientifically sound and economically right. And nothing is precisely what 17 previous annual climate yatteramas have done. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Bupkis.
This year’s 18th yadayadathon will be no different. Perhaps it will be the last. In future, Ms. Figurehead, practice what you preach, cut out the carbon footprint from all those travel miles, go virtual, and hold your climate chatternooga chit-chats on FaceTwit.
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You think after all this time, they’d learn something and hold this convention in the middle of the summer when the alarmism is at its absolute peak. God help them, they can’t even get that right.
Patricia Ravasio (@patravasio) says:
December 2, 2012 at 12:19 am
“The whole issue of fossil fuel induced climate change can be compared to Lewis Carroll’s famous evaluation of Christianity: It’s either a fanciful storydesigned to get us all to behave better, or it is the single most important fact of human existance. So come on, oil guys, what’s the harm in moving ahead and doing things a better way?”
Would you still bring this comparison to our attention if the analogy was about Scientology and not Christianity? If not, why not? I think your answer may be the same one that many commenters here would use to not destroy the world’s economies.
Patricia Ravasio (@patravasio) says:
December 2, 2012 at 12:19 am
Ok, – I’ll respond to that statement (and your others):
Firstly, being a climate skpetic does not automatically mean we all go out and pollute the environment with glee – far, far from it. On the contrary, most skeptics are usually extremely ‘green’.
With respect, I think you should spend some time – (like most of us here have had to) – to establish the believable facts for yourself.
FWIW, Don’t try and preach environmentalism here – it will simply show your ignorance of the actual subject of conservation and environmental protection. You need to get off the coat tails of the big NGO’s like Greenpeace and WWF and they are simply self supporting procrastinating bodies and advocacy groups……….try looking into their accounts, for a start!
Everyone is welcome here – but you will find no sympathy for being ‘stupid’. You may believe what ever you wish, have strong views on whatever you wish, etc – but you will be considered a troll if you cannot make a reasoned argument! Your first post demonstrates this admirably as you make no argument (defense) at all – I think you have got off quite lightly!
Stupid is as stupid acts. Now, you can go off and get all indignant and huffy, that’s entirely your choice – or you can seek the scientific truth, as far as possible. Anyone who really cares (and especially those of us who are real scientists) will want to establish facts for themselves and argue from a position of knowledge NOT from a position of spoonfed automatically regugitated IPCC based or ‘consensus’ garbage!
I trust you can take this comment with the respect with which it is written. If not, then I would simply suggest you have wasted your time (and ours) with your effort.
regards
Kev
Thank you all so much for your thoughtful replies. You have inspired me, and I will be investigating your points of view more fully in the days to come. I must sign off for now, but I did put up a new post that I hope clarifies my comparison to Lewis Carrol’s quote about Christianity’s worse case scenario. It’s not about religion at all, but about calculating risks of doing nothing, versus the potential upside of facing what may indeed (and no one really knows) be the most serious issue our species will ever face. I would also welcome your comments on my blog, especially if any of you are versed in Buckminster Fuller, especially in his views on the importance of harvesting and banking “natural energy incomes.” Thanks again for your time this evening.
I’m sorry, Pat, but after clicking on your link, I stopped reading as soon as I got to the phrase “overwhelming consensus”.
Oh and I noticed also that you didn’t provide one single solitary viable alternative energy source to the ones that you have relied on all your life. Be sure not to omit them in your next post, please 🙂
Lord Monkton.. love your wordsmithing.
I wish I had but a fraction of your ability ! 🙂
Patricia,
I do happen to think a combination of fracking, deep water drilling, coal, and nuclear power (as determined by market prices not distorted by government grants, taxation, etc.) are ideal ways to answer our energy needs. And, no, I have nothing to do with the energy industry except as a consumer.
And, unless you think Spain’s economy should be the ideal we shoot for (they have invested billions and billions in so-called “green energy”), I’d hazard a wild guess that pursuing “green energy” is economic suicide, which we don’t need on top of the struggles we have to compete with China, Korea, and other more capitalist countries.
So, yes, there is a LOT OF HARM in pursuing green energy “solutions” (that provide few jobs in the US, as per Solyndra — unless you are referring to the jobs our investing in green energy has created in China; don’t forget about that…).
Frankly, Patricia, you sound naive beyond words of both climate science and economics. I care deeply about our environment and our economy. Having lived and work in China, and having worked in 35 other (mostly developing) economies around the world, I can tell you our air and water and soils are cleaner BY A MILE than almost all other countries. And, I like it that way. I worry about our wild fish populations because of uncontrolled international fishing.
I’ve carefully read the climate science and with a PhD in science I think I have at least some basis for making an informed judgment. Bottom line, too many climate scientists have gone off the deep-end, for reasons of ideology (they had climate religion before they got their PhDs) and funding (if they didn’t find stuff supporting AGW, they would not be successful academics, possibly losing their jobs). The data are ambiguous about CO2 impact on climate. Plain and simple. And, as Monckton so eloquently, if derisively, points out, doing nothing about CO2 is a far better strategy than wasting precious resources when they could be put to far more important matters — even some having to do with real environmental issues.
If you really do have an open mind and if you read (all) the relevant science, it’s hard not to conclude that AGW has not been conclusively demonstrated. In any case, you’d better bring more to this site than what you have if you want respect from its posters. Most here know a thing or two. Good luck.
I suspect that JB is a warmist nutcase from the central coast NSW. Australia.
He has continually proven, on other forums, that he knows basically nothing about anything !!!
His sole purpose is to TROLL , and he has admitted as such on other forums.
I have learned not one but THREE very useful new words today, thanks to The Right Honorable Christopher Viscount Monckton [:())) me, making a 370-pound curtsy]:
“gabfest“; “yatterama“; and “yadayadathon“.
Truly, the language of Shakespeare is… what’s the word? Undrainable.
Which organisations champion devices that obliterate avain wildlife?
Which organisation champion environment destroying, totally inefficient and economically vandalistic energy sources such as wind energy, often with zero environmental impact studies?
Answer.. It is NOT anyone who is welcome here…. it is the very people who purport to be looking after the environment, and who would deny the world plants their due source of nourishment.
Everything is ‘a’ over ‘t’. The people who really care about the environment are those fighting against the corrupt WWF, Greenpeace etc.. sure thing is, that these two bodies particularly, don’t gve a rat’s a*** …… unless there is money in it !!!
Pat Ravasio: December 1, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Says: “……. All the climate and environmental scientists in the world ….”
Pat, I know it is easier just to listen to things, but rather than just sitting still and accepting what is preached and sold to you, try doing a little reading on the matter:
Each particular area of climate science seems to be depending on the “facts” from the other areas to shore up the known shortcomings in their own particular area of research. Perhaps without realizing the major shortcomings in every other area.
But, as you work through each one you find:
1. TOA radiation measurements are very imprecise: theorized 0.85 w/m2 imbalance, measured 6.5 w/m2, modeled adjustment required.
2. Ocean heat content, where supposedly 93% of the heat (that 0.85 w/m2 imbalance)is going. So we see published a measured rise of 0.09 degrees C over 55 years for the top 2000 meters of the oceans.
3. Sea surface temperatures are probably accurate enough. But the understanding of cyclical heating and cooling behavior such as ENSO Ocean Atmosphere interactions seems to be in the early stages, and there are some issues with apparent recent cooling of the southern oceans.
4. Sea level rises: problems with satellites detailed in http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/GRASP_COSPAR_paper.pdf. Problems with the accounting, groundwater contributions as here: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n6/full/ngeo1476.html. Problems with recent falls in southern sea levels (increased rain, now is in land reservoirs? Or…perhaps a pause in aquifer usage?) And note no MSM published sea level forecasts yet take into account Mitrovica’s work on polar ocean retreat. http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/05/gravity-of-glacial-melt
5. Ice losses, similar satellite problems to above, unresolved as yet. And the apparent contradiction that Antarctic may be gaining ice, or at least not losing it, while the Arctic is undoubtedly losing ice. They quickly flail around a find that a model somewhere predicted that, and push it up front and center.
Then there is the incessant touting of every storm, drought and wildfire as the final absolute proof.
Funny how previously all our scientific measures can always be added up with great certainty to explain sea level rises of various magnitude, and people at times went searching for and found “missing heat” … then along came the groundwater guys and they threw a small spanner in the works…but with the next set of figures it gets changed and it all still “adds up”.
I hope the GRASP project goes ahead, apparently GRACE has its share of difficulties, and I for one will be interested to see if they have finally got it right: http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/GRASP_COSPAR_paper.pdf
As I like to say, they (our CAGW brethren) have put forward an interesting and plausible theory, and we are all now in the early stages of data collection.
Patricia Ravasio (@patravasio) says:
December 2, 2012 at 12:19 am
This is beyond the pale. You really must read more. There are plenty of peer revieved documents on the web (not just here ) that will help you understand our concerns.
Ignore the likes of Felden above and concentrate on the hypothosis of global warming. Look at past records, newspaper reports, etc (steven goddard’s site reprints lots of articles from the early 20th century. THEN, open your mind and come back for a sensible, snide free discussion.
Don’t get waylaid by strawman like 0.3°C/decade, it is irrelevent in the scheme of things.
Pointman says:
December 2, 2012 at 1:05 am
What’s your problem with Dagenham ( incidently pronounce dajen-ham). I spent all my youth near there and my parents worked for Fords. ;))
Upon reading the entirety of this thread, I have gained much insight as to why the supporters of CAGW theory dare not speak here! All that sciency, facty stuff slapping them in the face must be a loathsome experience for them.
Patricia Ravisio
You say: “What could possibly be the harm in pursuing newer, cleaner forms of energy?” Nothing at all. Do all the research you like but don’t impose any form of energy supply that is expensive, needs subsidy and doesn’t work when it is needed.
Take wind in the UK. A Scottish professor, James Blyth, built the first wind powered electricity generator in 1887. In the 125 years since then nobody has found a way to cause the wind to blow reliably. As small islands, the UK has very limited capacity for hydro-electric schemes to pump-store surplus electricity when the wind blows. Even destroying our landscape by damming and flooding the Lake District and the Highlands would not help much.
If, in the UK, we had already replaced, as the government wishes, fossil and nuclear power that works with wind that does not, and which is not nearly as “clean” as you appear to think, we would be poorer and be killing people through fuel poverty and grid failure.
At midday on 6 February this year, which was a cold, still day over the whole of the UK, wind turbines connected to the national electricity grid were providing just 45Mw of power (out of approximately 6,000 Mw claimed capacity) which was 0.1% of grid demand or enough power to boil just 15,000 3Kw electric kettles.
If, as the result of being forced to invest in subsidised wind (to the benefit of all those rent-seeking, rich landowners) we end up with grid blackouts caused by investment in expensive, unreliable wind-power, not only will poor people suffer through fuel poverty but people such as the old and sick will be vulnerable to power loss. Since much of our society now depends on electricity to operate (computer controls, cash machines, the internet etc.), grid failure due to lack of wind could also disrupt our society.
Kind regards
Mike Post
It is impossible for CO2 to be the driver to extreme temperatures as CO2’s ability to create heat diminishes as you stack it up. By the time 300-360ppm is achieved a further 60ppm for instance will only produce less than one tenth of one degree. Based on this we have already taken 75% of any of the heat we will ever get from CO2. This appears to be well known but kept from the public as are a number of other things. When challenged about the lack of warming in 2006 CRU said “our previous climate models did not attempt to predict internally generated natural variations”….in other words we have made no allwances for clouds, rain, volcanic ash, cosmic rays, tilt of the earth and the Iris effect for the next 100 years.
If that is not bad enough Jones signed off the IPCC report on the Urban Heat Isle Effect that clearly had not been done correctly and one of the oversights led to a reduction of 1.5C after Steve McIntyre sorted out an incrrect data screen with NASA.
And of course we have Michael Mann doing his tree ring data to try and prove the MWP never existed. Going against the historical fact that in England we had vineyards in Yorkshire (large parts to be covered in snow later today) and Greenland was covered in grass.
Th incredible faith the AGW crowd have in the thousands of scientists is misplaced. For there are only around 25 scientists who are AGW fanatics..Jones, Briffa, Santer, Trenberth, Mann et al who do their figs and tell the rest of the scientific community what they want them to think.
They have been caught out hiding declines and playing around with tree ring proxies and all manner of other things.
I could go on but the bottom line is this.
The theory is that excessive CO2 will cause CAGW….yet, over the last 15 years the temps have steadied and fallen back in line with the solar physicists predictions whilst CO2 has increased.
Therefore the theory is tested and fails the test,
Game over…litigation will follow as and when.
I think that P. Solar asks some very good questions. Has this article really been written by Lord Monckton? The style is different – here it is more one of name-calling than of trying to present a reasoned or balanced argument.
And has our Lord actually succumbed to using the awful American word ‘gotten’?
It seems so. We now have a post from Monckton of Brenchley himself in which he reuses ‘gotten’. You have been too long in the States Sir, time to come home.
The noble lord doth spend too much time in the USA with Americanisms creeping into his prose. ”Gotten hotter”? do you mean ”increased”?
I still see an addiction to the GHE which physics can show to be impossible. Perhaps the noble lord should consult the web site http://www.climateofsophistry.com for an astrophysicists view of atmospheric physics.
You cannot read and you pretend us to visit your sorry .me site?
Here are your weekend assignments:
1. Learn to read, (tip: “at the conference” does not mean “in the world”)
2. Buy a .com domain.
3. Extra points. Read about the scientific method. Focus on these two points.
a) The only valid data is empirical data (write about why computer generated data is not valid for scientific purposes).
b) Scientific theories have to be discarded when a set of empirical data that does not agree with the said theory is found. The task of climate scientists is to find a theory that agrees with ALL empirical data, not to find some data, empirical or computer generated, that fits their preconceived ideas and ignore the empirical data that does not agree with them.
@Stephen Fisher Richards
No problem at all. Dagenham trumps Doha any day. Why, I’ve even got friends from there.
Pointman
Pat Ravasio says:
December 1, 2012 at 8:23 pm
Here’s your reply, Pat:
1) You are the desperate one. I’ve got a few friends that were Warmistas but now, since I’ve pointed out there’s been no global warming for 16 years, they’ve changed their minds.
2) If by “climate scientists” you mean the likes of Trenberth, Mann, and Jones, then they live on a rapidly shrinking world of deception; those rebuking the Warmistas are gaining the upper hand. Science trumps politics (and bad science) any day.
3) Precious few of the posters here are “deniers”–we enthusiastically accept increasing global temperatures as the natural consequence of warming after the LIA. We can’t see an anthropogenic component at all: if you have an article that demonstrates one, please cite it. (To be exceedingly blunt, you are the “denier” here, as your political climate activism is not science at all; indeed, it denies the science.)
4) The only “turf” we’re trying to protect is a more abundant biosphere responding to the additional life-supporting CO2 gas now found in the atmosphere. Plants are lovin’ it! You should learn to identify with the plants.
5) The final point is: you are wrong; I simply have to post these answers to prove it (as per your last statement).
Really, Pat–do you actually believe the tripe they feed you at places like COP17; COP18; future COP19, ad nauseam. The stuff is so bad any thinking person would reject it, which begs an explanation of your situation (ad nauseum comes to mind).
And to show the above is not delivered in a mean spirit, I wish you a good day! May your guiding light always be science and not all that other encumbering baggage.
Pat Ravisio.
I know nothing will really change your mindset, but seeing as how you asked for a link to a ‘s’cientific organisation, I was wondering…would the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia count as a ‘s’cientific organisation? What about Professor Phil Jones…do you think he might qualify as a Climate ‘s’cientist?
“Email 4195
Tim, Chris, I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting till about 2020.
…
I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying where’s the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.”
I love tormenting Warmists and watching their twists and turns and wriggles…so let’s sit back and watch their reaction to this little bit of climategate2.
“up to 1.4 Cº of the 0.6 Cº global warming observed in the past 60 years was manmade.”
Sounds ike one of Wayne Swan’s budgets.
Pat, you asked on your blog what would be the harm if we all went German style.
You must mean getting into coal power and nuke power from the neighbours.
The significance of solar sun spots and flares this year . . . 2012. . . should debunk climate myths once and for all., and proves that the climate “scientists” are ignoring important facts that figure into all the calculations in their so called “models.” Solar luminence this year was extraordinary compared with the recent past and should have jolted us to the reality of our comparative impotence at controlling earth and its systems which are actually beyond our control . . . .approximately 93,000,000 miles beyond, as a measure of significance!
When the Daily Mail originally published the headline graph, the UK Met Office issued a reply that was so full of holes, it looked as if Joe Romm had written it!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/more-met-office-propaganda/