Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H.L.Mencken
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) failed to prove human CO2 is causing global warming as evidenced by their incorrect projections. Their hypothesis said global temperature would rise as CO2 levels increased. It hasn’t for 15+ years. It doesn’t matter where the heat went, their hypothesis that human CO2 is driving temperature and climate is disproved. The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.
CO2 was the premeditated IPCC target because it was the exhaust of industrialized developed nations. Maurice Strong said those nations were the problem for the planet and it’s our responsibility to get rid of them? Show their exhaust is causing runaway warming and you achieve the goal. The IPCC failure means CO2 and climate lost their potential as the vehicle for political change. What’s next?
Exploitation of fear about environmental problems kept shifting from ozone depletion, acid rain, desertification, rainforest destruction, global warming, sea level rise, climate change, and climate crisis, among others. In Farad Manjoo’s[1] post-fact society, water, like all previous environmental issues is used to push an ideology or political agenda with experts providing the ‘facts’. A synopsis of his book wonders,
“Why has punditry lately overtaken news? Why do lies seem to linger so long in the cultural subconscious even after they’ve been thoroughly discredited? And why, when more people than ever before are documenting the truth with laptops and digital cameras, does fact-free spin and propaganda seem to work so well?”
Once the problem is falsely established, control is not far behind. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) needs a replacement. It must be a natural global resource, little understood by most so they can easily mislead transcend national boundaries and quickly raise passions and concerns. The target, water, is already in play.
Figure 1
UNEP, the agency that brought you Agenda 21 and the IPCC established The International Decade for Action ‘WATER FOR LIFE’ 2005-2015. On the 20th anniversary of World Water Day UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said, “Water holds the key to sustainable development,” “We must work together to protect and carefully manage this fragile finite resource.” The UN established a base of declining water quality, not of quantity, as shown in Figure 1. The focus is quality because there are no water shortages. There are regions of deficit and surplus, which change over time.
Environment Canada (EC) produced the map information, but their credibility is close to zero because of involvement in the IPCC from the start. (Notice “Insufficient data” is the largest region.) EC Assistant Deputy Minister Gordon McBean chaired the founding meeting of the IPCC in Villach, Austria in 1985. He was also instrumental in creation of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) that provided most of the IPCC 2007 Report on that region. It is a very inadequate Report.
Recently Gregory showed on Watts Up With That how EC’s climate model is the worst of any used by the IPCC. EC display their failures on their web page. Figure 2 shows their 12 month precipitation forecast on the top half and a map of the accuracy of previous forecasts on the bottom. Notice it is ”Not significantly better than chance” for over 90 percent of the map. Publishing these results shows either an incomprehensible level of arrogance or knowledge they won’t be held accountable.
Figure 2
As a climatologist I learned early that droughts are the most devastating climate events. One list of the top 20 world weather disasters of the 20th century illustrates the point. Two extremes dominated, first drought and second flooding. This led to teaching a Water Resources course at university for 20+ years. I served on the Manitoba Water Commission for 17 years resolving water conflicts. I was appointed Chair of the Assiniboine River Management Advisory Board charged with developing a management strategy for an entire drainage basin. The need was triggered by the severe drought of 1988/89 that produced the lowest flow on the river in 90+ years of record. Fortuitously, the river’s highest flow occurred just six years later, providing the basis for planning for natural extremes.
Figure 3
Water is not lost, only taken out of the Water Cycle (Figure 3) in one place and returned elsewhere. Like with the Carbon Cycle, we have virtually no measures of any segment. I discussed the limitations of precipitation data previously. They are worse for river flows, lake volumes or any other water data.
At the 2011 Heartland Institute Sixth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, DC somebody asked about the next major environmental scare. I said, overpopulation would continue as the underlying theme, as it has from Malthus to the Club of Rome (COR) to Agenda 21, but water was the next target.
Malthus argued population would outgrow food supply. The COR argued it would outgrow all resources accelerated by industry, hence the demonizing of CO2 to achieve Maurice Strong’s goal. Paul Ehrlich linked food and water in his completely flawed book The Population Bomb. The COR listed water third after pollution and global warming as its target in the 1991 publication The First Global Revolution.
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
In UN’s Agenda 21 it’s a separate category in Chapter 18 – The Water Page.
18.3. The widespread scarcity, gradual destruction and aggravated pollution of freshwater resources in many world regions, along with the progressive encroachment of incompatible activities, demand integrated water resources planning and management.
It’s a false claim, like most assumptions made when environment and science are used for a political agenda. However, if the science doesn’t work there’s the standard fall back of the precautionary principle covered in Agenda 21, Principle 15.
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
They define “lack of full scientific certainty” and it becomes a conflict between genuine uncertainty and what is required to promote the political agenda.
All the terminology familiar to the CO2 issue is now in use for water. The Water Footprint of a product is the volume of freshwater appropriated to produce the product, taking into account the volumes of water consumed and polluted in the different steps of the supply chain. Like the Carbon Footprint it is a totally contrived and meaningless measure, but allows environmental guilt finger pointing.
Peak Oil was created to imply we were running out of the resource – as the COR Limits to Growth predicted. The term Peak Water has been put forward as a concept to help understand growing constraints on the availability, quality, and use of freshwater resources. Neither “Peak” is valid.
World Water Day was established at Rio 1992 but implemented first on 22 March 1993. On Water Day June 2012 in conjunction with Rio +20 they identified the following objectives as they already knew climate change was not unfolding as they predicted.
• Demonstrate to the broad range of stakeholders, particularly decision makers, that some of the major challenges facing humanity today relate to water management; this will be based on findings of the major UN-Water reports.
• Identify major water issues that connect with the themes of the Rio+20 Conference, particularly its link with the notion of green economy.
• Focus on the means of implementation, especially the action areas where UN organizations and agencies can act together through UN-Water.
These are similar global policy directions and takeovers promoted by the IPCC through the Summary for Policymakers (SPM).
In the US recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began the process of control over water similar to the one they followed for CO2. One commentator says this is ongoing.
A full scale attack by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to take control of all water from any source whatsoever is under way. What these agencies are attempting is an end run around water and land rights. These agencies are constructing regulations and fictional jurisdictional control.
Calling it carbon then defining it as a pollutant created deliberate confusion over CO2. The Canadian government listed it as a toxic substance – the terminology changes to suit the legal definitions in place. The EPA defined it as a “harmful substance” and arranged for the US Supreme Court to agree on that term thereby giving them control. The focus with water is quality under existing laws.
According to senior EPA officials, the rule, crafted by both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, will provide greater clarity about which waters are subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction and greater certainty about which activities require CWA permits.
Environmentalism was a necessary new paradigm hijacked by a few for a political agenda. The goal was political control with subjugation of individuals and their rights to a world government through the UN. Elaine Dewar, author of The Cloak of Green explained,
“Strong was using the U.N. as a platform to sell a global environment crisis and the Global Governance Agenda.”
Neil Hrab wrote,
“What’s truly alarming about Maurice Strong is his actual record. Strong’s persistent calls for an international mobilization to combat environmental calamities, even when they are exaggerated (population growth) or scientifically unproven (global warming), have set the world’s environmental agenda.”
Strong appeared to achieve his goal with CO2 through the UN, particularly the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that gave the IPCC effective control of national weather agencies and therefore national policy. Global warming seemed like an easy control agenda until nature took over. Instead of acknowledging their science was wrong the UNEP, IPCC and national environment agencies simply moved the goalposts to climate change and more recently to climate crisis. Now that is failing a move to a new goalpost, water, is underway to pursue the real objective – total control. As always it is cloaked in righteousness (green). Who could oppose a desire for clean air or water?
[1] Manjoo, F., 2008, True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-fact Society.
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Circa 2002, Maurice Strong was reputed to have purchased a home in Ottawa so he could be close to his protégé, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Chretien was about to pass the Kyoto Protocol because, as he said, “h’it felt like da right t’ing to do”.
Canada did indeed sign Kyoto, but then we largely ignored it – except for Premier Doltan McGuinty of Ontario – who only recently realized that Wind Power doesn’t just blow – it sucks!
Anyway, I wrote an article for the Calgary Sun, expressing my concerns about this fellow having an influence on the Chretien government. One thing about the editors at most papers – they almost always change the titles to your articles. They called this one something really down-market, like “Maurice Strong is a stupid poo-poo head!” or something similarly embarrassing. My discarded title was perhaps too subtle for the Sun – I had entitled my article “Strong reservations“. 🙂
Allan MacRae says: November 2, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Alan, McGuinty wasn’t the only Provincial Premier to be … uh … Strong-armed! Thanks to (then Premier) Gordon Campbell here in BC … with more than a little nudge from IPCC-nik, Andrew Weaver (now former faux Nobel Laureate and currently BC Green Party MLA and longtime CBC climate idol), BC residents have been saddled with a carbon tax since 2008 – along with other legislated lunacies, cobbled together in far too much haste by Weaver and others See, for example:
Wastelandia: Andrew Weaver et al‘s big green choru$ and $ymphony … in the key of Gore
H.R. said:
November 2, 2013 at 2:26 pm
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“Depends on where one lives. […]“
All of the residents of Death Valley can have all the water they want. It’s an infrastructure problem, as the Dodgy Geezer points out.
———————————————————–
I was expanding on that point HR. Death Valley residents can have all the water they want IF they can afford it. There are third-world nations that don’t have the money to provide infrastructure. The UN wants to tax the rest of the world and anoint the have-nots with their plundered largess.
And if the UN officials and their friends happen to become morbidly wealthy as a side-effect of this process, well, don’t they deserve it for setting things “right”?
Water supply is an engineering and economic issue.
There is plenty of water, just not necessarily where people want it, when they want it and in the quality they want it.
Down here in Australia, the only water problems faced in any of the capital cities are because of the long term embargo on new dams because of the Greens agenda.
Its stupid and its highly irresponsible.
@ur momisugly Dodgy .
The reason for water restrictions and cut-backs is nearly always because of inadequate planning of water storage infrastructure.
Allan MacRae says: November 2, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Canada did indeed sign Kyoto, but then we largely ignored it – except for Premier Doltan McGuinty of Ontario – who only recently realized that “Wind Power doesn’t just Blow – It Sucks!”
Hilary Ostrov says: November 2, 2013 at 8:18 pm
Alan, McGuinty wasn’t the only Provincial Premier to be … uh … Strong-armed! Thanks to (then Premier) Gordon Campbell here in BC … with more than a little nudge from IPCC-nik, Andrew Weaver (now former faux Nobel Laureate and currently BC Green Party MLA and longtime CBC climate idol), BC residents have been saddled with a carbon tax since 2008 – along with other legislated lunacies, cobbled together in far too much haste by Weaver and others.
********
Agreed Hilary although Doltan was the most foolish. My home province of Albert has a $15/tonne carbon tax on industry, applied several years ago to suggest that we take this carbon-demon really seriously. It is politically-correct nonsense, a sop to placate the Greens around the world who portray our oilsands as a terrible blight on the planet and Alberta as the enviro-bogeyman.
The Greens have probably published more outright lies and deliberate deceptions about the Canadian oilsands than any other subject, except of course their big favorite, “catastrophic humanmade global warming”.
Here are some of the lies and deceptions spread by the Greens about the oilsands:
Greens: “The oilsands will totally drain the Athabasca River of water.”
Actually, the entire oilsands industry consumes only 1% of total annual river flow, and natural seasonal variation of the river is a factor of 10 (1000%). [Interestingly, the river flows of the Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rockies seem to vary with the PDO – warmer is dryer and cooler is wetter.]
Greens: “The oilsands mining projects are horrifically contaminating the Athabasca River.”
Actually, the river cuts right though the oilsands and has been eroding the oilsands riverbanks for millennia. Early explorers reported that on hot days, rivulets of tar ran down the exposed oilsands cliffs down into the river. It is reasonable to expect that this natural contamination has been reduced by the oilsands mining projects.
Greens: “What about the demonic mutant two-jawed fish found near Fort Chipewyan?”
Actually, it was a 100% normal dead fish and everyone knew this within minutes – it was a dead goldeye, and the goldeye has a toothed tongue. The tongue had fallen (or was pulled) through the rotted throat tissue and gave an appearance a second jaw – a total fraud that the global media picked up and spread around the world.
Greens: “What about all those horrific and rare cancers at Fort Chip?”
Actually, the alleged cancers did not happen; they were the invention of an out-of-province doctor who was disciplined for his hoax by the Alberta Medical Association.
Greens: “What about all those poor little dead ducks at Syncrude?”
Syncrude had several hundred ducks die in its tailings pond one year and were fined many millions of dollars for this unfortunate accident. The oilsands is the backbone of the Canadian economy and yes, it did kill some ducks. The nonsensical wind power industry kills zillions of birds and bats each year and is not fined. A ridiculous double-standard, thanks to our imbecilic politicians.
Greens: “Oilsands oil is dirty dirty oil!”.
All crude oil is dirty – you should definitely avoid drinking it or bathing in it.
***********
I chaired the Syncrude Technical Committee decades ago and sat on its Management Committee. Some may suggest that I am biased. Yes, I certainly am, in that I actually know what I am talking about, unlike the greens, who make up new lies daily to suit their latest fundraising scams.
The modern energy industry keeps those of us who live above the tropics from freezing and starving to death.
When imbecilic politicians fool with their countries’ energy systems, they put entire societies at risk. This is particularly true today in Britain and Western Europe, where these fools have compromised their energy systems through the widespread adoption of nonsensical grid-connected wind and solar schemes that produce little or no useful net energy. We predicted this energy debacle in several articles published in 2002. We said:
““The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
Apparently that blunt statement was not clear enough.
Sadly, it will take a catastrophe to enlighten these fools, and I fear we will see it soon, in the form of an increase in excess winter mortality in certain European countries.
I hope I am wrong. However, our predictive track record on this subject is infinitely better than that of the IPCC and the greens – they have yet to get anything right, and we have yet to get anything wrong ( well OK – maybe one thing – I failed to predict the shale gas revolution in North America).
Regards to all, Allan
There’s a good chart on this site http://co2action.org/t/global-warming-v-climate-change-v-apathy/38 showing how people’s concern with environmentalism (couched in the terms ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ peaked around mid-2007 and has declined since. No doubt those that stand to gain from the fear-mongering have realised this and are looking for the next cash-cow to come along. Water seems an obvious choice.
Global Warming Scoundrels and Imbeciles of the Week:
Ontario’s Doltan McGuinty and successors
Germany’s Angel Merkel
Britain’s “Red Ed” Milliband
More on where “Red Ed” got so screwed up here (don’t ralph).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2440691/Marxism-just-did-Ralph-Miliband-influence-Red-Ed.html
Regards, Allan
Excerpts from FriendsOfScience.org:
Blame Solar for Ontario’s Sky-high Power Bills
Solar energy is one of the key pillars of Ontario’s Green Energy and Economy Act, and it is casting a dark cloud over electricity bills. This year, solar projects caused bills to be about $550 million higher than they would otherwise have been. By year end the province will have an estimated 1,100 MW of solar capacity installed, with another 900 MW to be added in 2014. This 900 MW will add another $435 million to power bills.
World is Spending Nearly $1 Billion a Day to Tackle Global Warming
A new report from the Climate Policy Initiative, Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013, says that the climate industry takes in nearly $1 billion a day, with taxpayer money being the “engine room.” Even though the public contribution to climate finance is only 38%, it is essential to attracting private investment because the taxpayer subsidies reduce risk and costs to the investors. Or as Joanne Nova puts it: “Without government policies hoping to change the weather, the industry collapses.”
Germany’s Defective Green Energy Game Plan
Despite the country’s green revolution, or Energiewende, with rooftop solar and wind turbines everywhere, in 2013 coal consumption jumped 8%, and people are surprised. Structural flaws in the Energiewende ensure that renewable energy and the coal boom are causally linked. These flaws include the fluctuation/storage problem, requiring coal-fired backup; the brake on investments meaning that only cheap coal can compete on price; the and right to pollute provided by a surplus of cheap emissions allowances. Finally, Germany has created a bureaucracy monster, with 4,000 different subsidy categories for renewable energy, putting a brake on any innovation where no subsidies exist.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/commentary-why-germany-is-waging-its-green-revolution-wrong-a-929693.html
UK Parliamentary Inquiry: IPCC’s AR5
The House of Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Committee has initiated an inquiry into the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, calling for submissions by December 10. Among the terms of reference: how robust is the report’s conclusions; to what extent does it reflect a range of views among climate scientists; can any areas of science be considered settled as a result of AR5; does AR5 address the reliability of the climate models; does it strengthen or weaken the economic case for action to prevent dangerous climate change; to what extent did political interventions influence the conclusions of the AR5 summary.
I just googled “two jawed fish” (in quotes) and got 4550 hits. (See above post for context).
Congrats to the Green BS-ers on the success of their lies.
However, the Greens’ avid audience consists of the gullible, the ignorant and the foolish.
Fortunately for the Greens (and the Canadian Green, Liberal and NDP Parties), 50% of our population is of less-than-average intelligence, and they will always be with us.
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
Please forgive me, for I am young and callow, but isn’t it more accurate to state that, given the evidence, the null hypothesis can’t be rejected?
Somehow I got it in my head that the null hypothesis was never proved, only either rejected or not rejected. However, I’m not a scientist, so I would be grateful if someone more knowledgeable than I could correct me if I have this wrong.
Thank you.
Kate.
Kate Forney says: November 3, 2013 at 9:21 am
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
Please forgive me, for I am young …
…but isn’t it more accurate to state that, given the evidence, the null hypothesis can’t be rejected?
______________
Allan says:
First, there’s nothing wrong with being young, Kate. Young is good. Given my age, I suggest that young is very good. I wish you success and happiness in your life.
My response to you will probably be “improved upon” by others. I will not attempt to be overly precise in my commentary; rather I will seek to provide an overview of the “big picture” climate change debate.
“In statistical inference of observed data of a scientific experiment, the null hypothesis refers to a general or default position: that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena.” (wiki)
First, let’s agree with your implied definition of the null hypo – something like this:
“The observed global warming of the period circa 1975 to 2000 was NOT primarily caused by increasing atmospheric CO2.”
Both sides of the “mainstream climate debate” agree (probably incorrectly – see below) that atmospheric CO2 drives global temperatures and their oft-factious disagreement centres on the magnitude of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) to CO2. The global warming alarmists say ECS is much greater than 1 and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly due to the combustion of fossil fuels, will cause catastrophic global warming. The skeptics say ECS is much lower, probably less than one, and any resulting global warming will be moderate and even beneficial to humanity. I used to subscribe to the skeptics’ position and wrote about it in 2002:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
The absence of any significant global warming for more than 15 years tends to supports the skeptics’ position. The climate models used by the alarmists to support their position are not credible. Their climate models, which typically employ high-ECS values, have greatly over-estimated actual global temperatures of recent decades.
Furthermore, the modelers knowingly fabricated aerosol data to force-hindcast their models to fit the global cooling that occurred circa 1940 to 1975. I suggest that no rational scientist can respect that nonsense.
Nevertheless, these facts do not prove the null hypo – they merely support it. But current reality could change – for example, as many alarmists believe, runaway global warming COULD start again tomorrow (but it won’t).
I changed my position in 2008 when I demonstrated that in the modern data record, the only clear signal in the data is that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. Also, CO2 lags temperature by ~800 years in the ice core record over much longer cycles.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
So CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales. While some may suggest that this observation does not prove the null hypo, the contrary alarmists’ argument now suggests that the future causes the past. This logical inconsistency is problematic for the alarmists, and will continue to be so.
I further suggest that within a decade, conventional climate wisdom will shift to the view that CO2 drives temperature, and CO2 does not drive temperature. This observation does not preclude the possibility that human activities, whether the combustion of fossil fuels and/or deforestation and other factors, are also driving the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 (but we cannot rule out the possibility that the increase in CO2 could also be primarily natural).
Finally, please examine the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
Regards, Allan
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.“
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 10:11 pm
H.R. said:
November 2, 2013 at 2:26 pm
@Mark and two Cats says:
November 2, 2013 at 1:21 pm
“I was expanding on that point HR. Death Valley residents can have all the water they want IF they can afford it. […]”
Sorry. It wasn’t clear to me in your original comment. The rest of your clarification is quite good, too. Sticky fingers and a salary. Nice work if you have no moral compunctions and can get it.
Allan MacRae says: November 3, 2013 at 11:37 am
Clarification:
The global warming alarmists say ECS is much greater than 1 DEGREE C and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly due to the combustion of fossil fuels, will cause catastrophic global warming. The skeptics say ECS is much lower, probably less than 1C, and any resulting global warming will be moderate and even beneficial to humanity. I used to subscribe to the skeptics’ position and wrote about it in 2002:
I’ve seen the ex-nuts grousing on about water here in BC. For some reason they made it on TV news protesting Nestle’s “abuse” of our water for bottled water products. And our Environment Minister Mary Polak fell for it:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/new-rules-forcing-nestle-other-bottlers-to-pay-for-b-c-water-1.1503536
oops meant meant eco-nuts, stupid auto-correct…
Thank you Allan. I appreciate your effort!
It has seemed to me, with the meager understanding I have of climate science, that the entire CAGW argument rests on a collection of climate models, each of which as accepted as being incorrect, yet, somehow, the average of their outputs is accepted as accurate. I have invested many sleepless nights in trying to understand just how that could be so, but have so far failed to discern the logic. I thought it might be because of my poor grasp of the scientific method, hence my question on exactly what one was doing when performing an experiment.
You said that the facts tend to support the null hypothesis — presumably that’s simply by failing to support the alternate hypothesis?
What I’m still a little worried about is whether I understand correctly that, in general, failing to reject the null hypothesis is NOT the same as ACCEPTING the null hypothesis,
Kate Forney says: November 3, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Kate: It has seemed to me, with the meager understanding I have of climate science, that the entire CAGW argument rests on a collection of climate models, each of which as accepted as being incorrect, yet, somehow, the average of their outputs is accepted as accurate. I have invested many sleepless nights in trying to understand just how that could be so, but have so far failed to discern the logic.
Allan: Please Kate – no more sleepless nights – there is NO logic in the IPCC’s practice of averaging bad climate models – when they average many small piles of crap they just get one big pile of crap – please forgive me for using overly technical jargon – the term crap is used herein as it is formally defined in the Engineering Manual :-}
Kate: You said that the facts tend to support the null hypothesis — presumably that’s simply by failing to support the alternate hypothesis?
Allan: I believe the answer to your question is yes ( I need some sleep too). The balance of probabilities suggests that the opposite of the null hypo (“The observed global warming of the period circa 1975 to 2000 WAS primarily caused by increasing atmospheric CO2.”) is false.
Kate: What I’m still a little worried about is whether I understand correctly that, in general, failing to reject the null hypothesis is NOT the same as ACCEPTING the null hypothesis.
Allan: Again, I think yes, but I’ve been awake since about 2am my time, so please take my comments with more than the usual ton of salt.
Let’s both get some rest. It will all be clearer in the morning.
Best regards, Allan
The water shortage is a problem that already has a solution. If you have enough money, you can desalinate water at the nearest ocean and pipe it where you please. Once that became true, the only long term water shortage can happen at all is the area of the world insufficiently wealthy to desalinate or which war has blocked the transport of clean desalinated water from the sea, an area of the world that is shrinking and I hope and pray will eventually be eliminated.
Water has an effective price ceiling and the trick simply is to ensure that one can afford it. Once that happens, while you may prefer cheaper sources, there is never a water shortage, merely a disagreeable price.
Very good summary concerning the next (from global warming) “mencken threat”. As is made abundantly clear in various bloggers contributions, water will also be a short lived problem, given the quantities available and the rapid advancing technologies to clean it. What remains in the control church is the ill defined label: sustainability.
Regarding Allan MacRae says at November 3, 2013 at 8:01 pm
Good morning Kate,
It is 330am here – I must have slept in.
I’ve re-read my meanderings of last evening and they appear relatively sane and rational to me.
Mind you, in the acrimonious global warming debate there is very little said that IS sane and rationale.
I suggest that in less than a decade, the current statements of most world leaders on the subject of global warming will be widely viewed with derision – as the lunatic ravings of scoundrels and imbeciles.
If I have made any serious errors in my aforementioned commentary, I expect that my friends here will gladly point them out. However, be cautious, because they will not necessarily be correct.
My primary concern at this time is that Earth is about to enter a period of global cooling that could be severe, and could result in significant loss of life, especially among the elderly of Britain and Europe, since the fearless leaders of those countries have created “the perfect storm” by damaging their energy systems with costly and ineffective grid-connected wind and solar power schemes – “solutions” to a false global warming crisis in a cooling world.
We warned of this debacle in 2002, but to no effect. It has all, regrettably, unfolded as it should not have.
We wrote in 2002:
[PEGG, reprinted at their request by several other professional journals , the Globe and Mail and la Presse in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae]
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
On global warming:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
On green energy:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
[Calgary Herald, September 1, 2002, based on a phone conversation with Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson]
On global cooling:
“If (as I believe) solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
Best regards Kate, be well, strive to be happy, Allan
Yeah the low information people have found a new cause celeb 🙂
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/03/1252277/-No-water-no-life
I have no problem building reservoirs, desalination plants, water processing plants (clean dirty water) you can even tax me for that and have the UN help people around the world (ok Maybe NOT) but the Peace corps and other groups can do it …. BUT we are not and never will run out of H2O ever ever ever.
jp
OOPS!
This belongs here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/01/mann-and-lewandowsky-go-psychotic-on-skeptics/#comment-1466010
Thank you, Allan, for your thoughtful and comprehensive responses. And thank you for your hard work in trying to bring a rational point of view to the climate “debate”. I’m proud to be a fellow Albertan!
Dear Kate,
Thank you for your kind response.
It’s 1:30am here and I have started my work day. As one ages one sleeps less and less – perhaps that is why we don’t live forever. But we do get a lot done. :-}
I just stumbled across a post that was snipped as OT in mid-2012.
It points out why I feel obliged to pursue this subject. As a P. Eng., I believe it is consistent with my professional obligations. As a humanitarian, it falls within my duties to all of you.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/a-response-to-dr-paul-bains-use-of-denier-in-scientific-literature/#comment-1016213
Why have I posted the above two posts? (c/w SNIP SNIP; my apologies Moderator)
Because a trillion dollars of scarce global resources has been squandered on catastrophic humanmade global warming (CAGW) nonsense.
Investing these squandered resources in clean drinking water and sanitation alone would have saved the ~50 million kids who died from drinking contaminated water in the past 25+ years of CAGW hysteria.
Intelligent use of these scarce global resources could have easily saved as many people as were killed in the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.
50 million people died in Hitler’s WW2. Josef Stalin killed another 50 million of his own people in internal purges. Leftist hero Mao gets the prize, killing as many as 80 million Chinese during his Great Leap Backward.
The radical environmental movement has done equally well, rivaling Mao for fatalities caused by the banning of DDT and the misallocation of scarce global resources on the fraud of catastrophic humanmade global warming (CAGW).
Since many of them are latter-day Malthusians, Club of Rome types, etc., perhaps this was their intention.
Again, my apologies Moderator – but I trust you get my point.
Sorry for being a bit piqued at the unnecessary deaths of 50 million kids – I’m just having a bad day.
***************
Positive Post script – 5 November 2013
We have a wonderful organization founded here in Calgary called CAWST that helps to provide clean drinking water and sanitation to the third world.
I suggest that anyone that want to contribute to humanity might want to look into their activities and support them as you see fit. http://www.cawst.org
***************
No man is an island, alone unto itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is diminished,
even as a promontory were,
even as a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:
every man’s death concerns me, because I am concerned with mankind,
and therefore send not to know for whom the bells tolls;
it tolls for thee.
– John Donne (1624)
From Meditations, XVII
Corrections to Allan’s post above on November 3, 2013 at 11:37 am :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/01/water-is-replacing-climate-as-the-next-un-environmental-resource-scare/#comment-1465185
Kate Forney says: November 3, 2013 at 9:21 am
“The null hypothesis that it isn’t CO2, which they ignore, is proved.”
Please forgive me, for I am young …
…but isn’t it more accurate to state that, given the evidence, the null hypothesis can’t be rejected?
______________
Allan says:
First, there’s nothing wrong with being young, Kate. Young is good. Given my age, I suggest that young is very good. I wish you success and happiness in your life.
My response to you will probably be “improved upon” by others. I will not attempt to be overly precise in my commentary; rather I will seek to provide an overview of the “big picture” climate change debate.
“In statistical inference of observed data of a scientific experiment, the null hypothesis refers to a general or default position: that there is no relationship between two measured phenomena.” (wiki)
First, let’s agree with your implied definition of the null hypo – something like this:
“The observed global warming of the period circa 1975 to 2000 was NOT primarily caused by increasing atmospheric CO2.”
Both sides of the “mainstream climate debate” agree (probably incorrectly – see below) that atmospheric CO2 drives global temperatures and their oft-factious disagreement centres on the magnitude of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) to CO2. The global warming alarmists say ECS is much greater than 1 degree C and the observed increase in atmospheric CO2, allegedly due to the combustion of fossil fuels, will cause catastrophic global warming. The skeptics say ECS is much lower, probably less than 1C, and any resulting global warming will be moderate and even beneficial to humanity. I used to subscribe to the skeptics’ position and wrote about it in 2002:
http://www.apegga.org/Members/Publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
The absence of any significant global warming for more than 15 years tends to supports the skeptics’ position. The climate models used by the alarmists to support their position are not credible. Their climate models, which typically employ high-ECS values, have greatly over-estimated actual global temperatures of recent decades.
Furthermore, the modelers knowingly fabricated aerosol data to force-hindcast their models to fit the global cooling that occurred circa 1940 to 1975. I suggest that no rational scientist can respect that nonsense.
Nevertheless, these facts do not prove the null hypo – they merely support it. But current reality could change – for example, as many alarmists believe, runaway global warming COULD start again tomorrow (but it won’t).
I changed my position in 2008 when I demonstrated that in the modern data record, the only clear signal in the data is that dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature and atmospheric CO2 lags temperature by ~9 months. Also, CO2 lags temperature by ~800 years in the ice core record over much longer cycles.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
So CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales. While some may suggest that this observation does not prove the null hypo, the contrary alarmists’ argument now suggests that the future causes the past. This logical inconsistency is problematic for the alarmists, and will continue to be so.
I further suggest that within a decade, conventional climate wisdom will shift to the view that temperature drives CO2, and CO2 does not drive temperature. This observation does not preclude the possibility that human activities, whether the combustion of fossil fuels and/or deforestation and other factors, are also driving the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 (but we cannot rule out the possibility that the increase in CO2 could also be primarily natural).
Finally, please examine the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see the impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power.
Regards, Allan
“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.“
― Max Ehrmann, Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life