Update: I’m making this a top “sticky post” for a couple of days, new stories will appear below this one.
UPDATE: 2/27 3PM PST Dr. Moore leaves a comment, see below.
Our friend Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, went before the U.S. Senate yesterday to tell his story as it relates to global warming/climate change. It is well worth your time to read. WUWT readers may recall that since Dr. Moore has decided to speak out against global warming and for Golden Rice, Greenpeace is trying to disappear his status with the organization, much like people were disappeared in Soviet Russia.
Statement of Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight
February 25, 2014
“Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting ecosystems and economies”
Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing.
In 1971, as a PhD student in ecology I joined an activist group in a church basement in Vancouver Canada and sailed on a small boat across the Pacific to protest US Hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We became Greenpeace.
After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective. Climate change was not an issue when I abandoned Greenpeace, but it certainly is now.
There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (My emphasis)
“Extremely likely” is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors.
These judgments are based, almost entirely, on the results of sophisticated computer models designed to predict the future of global climate. As noted by many observers, including Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated, but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods.
Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.
Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5°C. This compares with a low of about 12°C during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22°C during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested. Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization.
Moving closer to the present day, it is instructive to study the record of average global temperature during the past 130 years. The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming “since the mid-20th century”, which is 1950. From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5°C over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year “pause” until 1970. This was followed by an increase of 0.57°C during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time.
The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910- 1940 to “human influence.” They are clear in their belief that human emissions impact only the increase “since the mid-20th century”. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910- 1940?
It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a 2°C rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing. It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age. It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one.
I realize that my comments are contrary to much of the speculation about our climate that is bandied about today. However, I am confident that history will bear me out, both in terms of the futility of relying on computer models to predict the future, and the fact that warmer temperatures are better than colder temperatures for most species.
If we wish to preserve natural biodiversity, wildlife, and human well being, we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, recognizing that cooling would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.
Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on this important subject.
Attached please find the chapter on climate change from my book, “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist”. I would request it be made part of the record.
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For that chapter, please see the PDF of his testimony, here: 22514HearingWitnessTestimonyMoore
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UPDATE: 2/27 3PM PST Dr. Moore adds this comment:
Patrick Moore (@EcoSenseNow)
Submitted on 2014/02/27 at 2:53 pm
Nice to see so many positive and informative comments. It does pain me to see my Wikipedia entry cited. It was largely written by my enemies and it is very difficult to change as the editors don’t like people to write their own biographies. I trust Wiki only for non-political entries, Boron, for example.
For a factual account of the founding of Greenpeace see: http://www.beattystreetpublishing.com/who-are-the-founders-of-greenpeace-2/
I have placed my testimony and the three supporting graphs/tables in Dropbox. They can be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s65ljwrbuetrrny/PadEn_XjT7
OK Climate Warriors, I’t’s time for serious discussion to separate Fact from Opinion, Fact from Inference, and Fact from Prediction. One would hope the average Grade 9 mind could make the distinctions.
If you wish to read my full text on climate it is the last chapter of my book “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout” available on amazon.com as ebook or print here: http://goo.gl/E4M5op
I was so annoyed by Magma’s attempts to denigrate Dr. Moore “By the way, his Ph.D. was on mine waste and tailings disposal in British Columbia” that I looked up his qualifications. According to Wikipedia:
“Moore obtained a Ph.D. in ecology from the Institute of Animal Resource Ecology, University of British Columbia.”
and, amongst others:
“As chair of the Sustainable Forestry Committee of the Forest Alliance he spent ten years developing the Principles of Sustainable Forestry, which were later adopted by much of the industry.”
It seems to me that Dr. Moore has a broad scientific background which certainly qualifies him to opine on changing climate. He is far better qualified than, say, that leading “climate scientist” Gavin Schmidt, whose academic background in mathematics and modelling is not superior to my own. And I would not even pretend to be more than an interested, but ignorant, layman in “climate science”.
It appears that every time a scientist writes a piece querying GAGW some troll or other attempts to rubbish his or her qualifications. Last week I looked up Dr. Tim Ball’s academic background because I saw him described on a website as “a fake” for allowing himself to be described as a climatologist, since his professorship was in geography and his PhD in historical climate change. I cannot imagine better qualifications to discuss past climate and how future climate might play out.
But I suppose that to be accepted as a true Climate Scientist these days one must place one’s hand on The God Delusion and swear an oath of allegiance to uphold the dogma of CAGW for better or worse until parted by death.
The Peace Arch crossing is Blaine, not Bellingham. Bellingham is a fair distance south of that.
Just a correction. Dr Moore isn’t a Greenpeace dropout; he is a Greenpeace alumnus. Those who are still there are Greenpeace repeat flunkers. 😉
Solomon Green says:
February 27, 2014 at 6:55 am
I was so annoyed by Magma’s attempts to denigrate Dr. Moore “By the way, his Ph.D. was on mine waste and tailings disposal in British Columbia” that I looked up his qualifications.
Perhaps you could avoid similar annoyances in future by trying to support whatever position it is you are trying to defend on the basis of research from competent scientists who are actually working in a field related to climate. I’m sure there must be one, possibly even two, somewhere, that might be suitable. (Tim Ball? Sorry, but no.)
Solomon Green, you raise a question I have thought about quite a bit: Why do the climate obsessed consistently trash the CV’s/education of the growing list of qualified people who conclude the climate crisis is not credible?
The working answer Ihave developed is that for the climate obsessed it is not actually about CV’s or education- it is about agreement that there is a climate crisis. To not agree with the idea of a climate crisis is be disqualified from holding an opinion. To agree with the climate crisis, no matter the education or experience, is to be an expert.
As was pointed out in the post regarding Ms. Costello at CNN, the edifice of belief the climate obsessed have constructed is fundamentally and deeply flawed.
And, on cue, here is “Magma”, proving my point: the climate obsessed are not able to rationally discuss the issue. They simply dismiss all experts who disagree, and then ask, almost sincerely, “Where are the experts?”
hunter says:
February 27, 2014 at 8:19 am
“And, on cue, here is “Magma”, proving my point: the climate obsessed are not able to rationally discuss the issue. They simply dismiss all experts who disagree, and then ask, almost sincerely, “Where are the experts?””
You do know that line about ‘statistics’ was originally about ‘experts’ don’t you?
Why aren’t we planning for cooling, indeed!
Besides, crops and sea defences don’t care what the global average is, the regional variations are what a government has to deal with—so what if flood, drought, snow, and heat are all “consequences” of climate change? That doesn’t help. What do you plan for?
If we are “already” seeing the effects of climate change, and any and all unusual events are “linked”, and so much warming is already locked into the system, bringing more ice/snow/rain/fooding/drought/heatwave/wind/frogs, then what exactly are you trying to mitigate with carbon reduction?
“Perhaps you could avoid similar annoyances in future by trying to support whatever position it is you are trying to defend on the basis of research from competent scientists who are actually working in a field related to climate. I’m sure there must be one, possibly even two, somewhere, that might be suitable. (Michael Mann? Sorry, but no.)”
FTFY.
To bad all the attention is going to the testimonies of Seth Rogaine and Ben Aflac.
@William Howard Wilson – Love your spelling of Ben’s name. 😉
Magma uses the common, and logically fallacious troll tactic of Argument From Authority.
Magma says:
February 27, 2014 at 3:50 am
“Moore has been milking his long-ended involvement with Greenpeace Canada for over 25 years now.”
Magma, if you want to really join the discussion here, why don’t you bring up some facts to refute some of Dr. Moore’s testimony…such as the fact that you are extremely hot, several million degrees…is that degrees F or C?
What is good about the article is the fact that Patrick Moore discusses the subject without apparent bias. He is objective from the outset; stating his view on the matter with nothing more or less. He refers to our well understood temperature and Co2 record. There is nothing forceful or assertive about his statement. This is a policy that many on both sides of the debate would do well to adopt. Telling a person something and suggesting it are 2 different things. It’s just a shame that most discussion of man made climate change degenerates into mud slinging. Skeptical Science is the worst example of climate change propaganda I have ever read, along with Gareth Renowden’s Hot topic, or Nucitelli’s blog in the Guardian ( a voice for SkS). I note Skeptical Science are even translating their site into foreign languages so that they can spread their message to an even wider audience. I even see regular links to SkS on weather forums like UKWW for example from certain ‘folk’ who are involved with both sites and simply do not tolerate alternative opinion, throwing their toys out of the pram each and every time a person dares to question them or their motives. It’s one huge propaganda machine and heaven help you for not conforming to consensus.
Sooner or later, if it continues not to warm, or not at the rate predicted we will have all committed ourselves to the biggest lie of all time. The problem is, once you commit to something it is very difficult to admit you are wrong. We will see what happens.
Climate science is not a career its a mix of things. Atmospheric physics and meteorology are closer to climate
The pdf doesn’t say anything we haven’t heard before but it does put the various arguments in context.
It’s easy to get tangled up in arguments about this or that and lose sight of the big picture. For that reason I would say that the pdf is worth reading. An effective BS filter relies on having a well rounded and reasonably deep knowledge of the subject area and Dr. Moore clearly has that.
Lloyd Martin Hendaye says:
February 26, 2014 at 2:27 pm
By no means is Planet Earth “locked into a Pleistocene Ice Age”: Over approximately the last 12,250 – 14,400 years, our current Holocene Interglacial Epoch has been a wholly normal remission in an unremitting 2.6-million year period, wherein Ice Ages lasting on average 102,000 years have occurred regularly as clockwork due to geophysical (plate tectonic) factors interfering with global East-West atmospheric/oceanic circulation patterns.
…
Climatologists ignorant of astro-geophysics may preach pro or con, but absent long-term scientific context and perspective they may as well be casting necromantic runes.
Your geology appears to be read from an English literature view point. You seem to be arguing over wording that was presented to congress, where one would be hard put find a politician with adequate education to follow a more detailed and comprehensive explanation. That is, Dr. Moore very politely talked down to the level he believed a congressman could follow. The argument he made was that there is no significant difference between the current interstadial, commonly referred as the Holocene, and the preceding 2-million years of glacial epochs and interstadials that are referred to by professionals as the Pleistocene, and by the public as “the Ice Age,” since the entire period is often conflated in the public mind into a single long span of glacial ice covering good ski areas. Also, the length of the intervals between glacial epochs increased in the middle and later Pleistocene from a period of about 40 thousand years to the rough 100 thousand year span you mention.
Dr. Moore also mentioned, without much elaboration, the pattern of very long-term warm versus cold “climate” patterns that have characterized the planet over the last 600-million years or so. These shifts are referred to as “Ice House” and “Green House” (or “Hot House” which is less confusing) states or modes. These periods have run very roughly 50-million years in average span and there have only been five such paired (warm/cold) shifts over the Phanerozoic. (BTW, that leaves us with another potential problem since we are now likely – in geological terms – closing in on the end of the latest “Ice House” mode.) The earth only has ice at the poles during the “Ice House” states – and there is geological evidence that during the Jurassic-Cretaceous period the Ice House period lacked polar ice but did have mountain glaciers that reached the ocean (see Frakes et al. 1992, Shaviv and Veizer 2003) for lengthier discussions. Shaviv and Veizer use the terms “:Ice House” and “Green House” for the two states. It is in this very long term view that plate tectonics may actually be an important driver of climatic patterns. The last major tectonic event that had any important effect on global weather patterns was the closing of the Isthmus of Panama during the Tertiary Pliocene epoch. The Quaternary, which follows, consists ONLY of the Pleistocene and Holocene.
I suggest care in casting those “necromantic runes.”
Pippin kool says:
February 26, 2014 at 4:10 pm
“The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.”
My old postdoc mentor would just write in large red letters “LOGIC” next to a statement like this, usually with a large red “x” through it all. No more.
LOGIC. Read the quote again and discuss what you did not understand in it, and why the quote, while toned down for congressional capacities of comprehension, is in fact a logical argument.
Duster says:
February 27, 2014 at 11:57 am
Pippin kool says:
February 26, 2014 at 4:10 pm
“The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.”
My old postdoc mentor would just write in large red letters “LOGIC” next to a statement like this, usually with a large red “x” through it all. No more.
LOGIC. Read the quote again and discuss what you did not understand in it, and why the quote, while toned down for congressional capacities of comprehension, is in fact a logical argument.””
Dr. Moore’s statement is totally logical: “both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.”
Having 10 or 20 times as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere long ago during both a ‘greenhouse’ era and a ‘icehouse’ era shows that with the greenhouse eras heat and extremely high carbon dioxide this shows that Earth got warm without humans and as Dr. Moore’s chart from the pdf book chapter above shows for a more recent time, the warming preceded the carbon dioxide not visaversa as Al Gore said and got a Nobel Prize for!
For the ice age era 450 m.y.a., the fact that carbon dioxide was 10 times higher (4000 ppm) than today did not stop an ice age from taking hold.
So why are we worried about 400 ppm of co2 now when 4000 ppm 450 million years ago did not stop an ice age??? This is evidence that co2 levels will not stop Earth from cooling, that there is something else that is driving these cycles – perhaps the Earth’s orbital variation in combination with the sun’s output as Dr. Sallie Baliunas says – “Ice core samples were taken going back thousands of years and what was discovered is that the sun is indeed a thermal dynamic system that beats like your heart and there is a 300 year cycle between maximum and minimum. Do not confuse short-term trends or local observations for a few decades and assume we have altered the entire planet.” http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/02/13/global-warming-why-it-is-nonsense/
philincalifornia says:
February 26, 2014 at 9:28 pm
Mac the Knife says:
February 26, 2014 at 8:44 pm
More today, from the AGW Ranch:
Science academies explain global warming reality
Associated Press
By SETH BORENSTEIN 4 hours ago
http://news.yahoo.com/science-academies-explain-global-warming-reality-001622461.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — Man-made global warming is worsening and will disrupt both the natural world and human society, warns a joint report of two of the world’s leading scientific organizations.
——————————
Jeeez, did you all read the comments on this ?
I read about 30, and it ain’t pretty for the climate parasites. Bye bye Seth. Have a happy retirement.
phil,
I did – put a grin on my face! But my point of the 8:44pm post and the 3:15pm post was to show how persistent the drumbeat of AGW is in the popular media! Tell a lie a thousand times…. or a million (closer to reality), and it becomes increasingly difficult to uproot from the cultural psyche. We are gaining converts…. but we are a long way from driving the wooden stake through this AGW vampire!
Mac
With the Global Precipitation Mission being launched today it is timely to note that precipitation holds the key to the answer to the trillion dollar question which is “Does gravity induce an autonomous temperature gradient in all solids, liquids and gases?”
Josef Loschmidt first postulated that it would in the 19th century. Dr Hans Jelbring worked on it for his PhD and published a paper about a decade back. Now physicists are starting to realise that it is indeed a reality, and this can be shown using the Second Law of Thermodynamics in conjunction with Kinetic Theory.
And no, the article in WUWT did not disprove the Loschmidt effect, because the wire outside the cylinder also develops a temperature gradient and no perpetual circulation of energy occurs.
But, most compelling of all is the empirical evidence which I have presented in a book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” being released late April. Temperature and precipitation records are used to show that regions with higher precipitation do in fact have lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures than drier regions at similar latitudes and altitudes.
This means water vapour cools.
And this is evidence that gravity produces a “dry” gradient (aka lapse rate) at the molecular level (not requiring a hot surface or upward convection) and water vapour then reduces that gradient (as is well known) due to inter-molecular radiation (not well known) and this leads to lower surface temperatures.
The greenhouse is smashed.
Interestingly, one can run a search on “Patrick Moore” on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and not find a whimper about this stunning news.
A respected champion of the environment just urinated in John Kerry’s and Barry’s Cheerios and not a single peep! WOW.
The only on-line MSM site covering this is Fox.
The rest of the MSM? Well, apparently they only print the news that the fascists allow them to print.
The freedom of the press is the first thing to go in an autocracy. We’re almost there…
Awesome! This is actually getting media attention!
Nice to see so many positive and informative comments. It does pain me to see my Wikipedia entry cited. It was largely written by my enemies and it is very difficult to change as the editors don’t like people to write their own biographies. I trust Wiki only for non-political entries, Boron, for example.
For a factual account of the founding of Greenpeace see: http://www.beattystreetpublishing.com/who-are-the-founders-of-greenpeace-2/
I have placed my testimony and the three supporting graphs/tables in Dropbox. They can be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s65ljwrbuetrrny/PadEn_XjT7
OK Climate Warriors, I’t’s time for serious discussion to separate Fact from Opinion, Fact from Inference, and Fact from Prediction. One would hope the average Grade 9 mind could make the distinctions.
If you wish to read my full text on climate it is the last chapter of my book “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout” available on amazon.com as ebook or print here: http://goo.gl/E4M5op
Dr. Moore, you’ve got a lot of nerve.
I like that.
There is one clear-cut reason why the greenhouse conjecture (supposedly linking temperatures with carbon dioxide levels) is wrong, and that is that real world temperature and rainfall data clearly indicate that more water vapor means lower temperatures. IPCC writers have tried to hide this fact by claiming deserts have colder minimums at night, but the evidence is that they don’t. A study was published about a year ago proving this point with statistical significance.
The whole concept of radiative forcing and “calculating” Earth’s surface temperature from radiation is invalid, because the Earth’s surface does not act like a true blackbody. It absorbs solar energy, much of it well below the ocean surface where the warming has no effect on the surface temperature or that of the air just above which we measure for our climate records, because the warmer water takes its extra energy down into the colder depths of the oceans. The ocean surface itself clearly does not warm to the sort of temperatures you feel under your feet on a hot black road surface. It is not a blackbody, or even a grey body because it transmits.
Fundamental to the greenhouse theory is an assumption that, without water vapor, carbon dioxide and other radiating gases, the troposphere would have had equal temperatures at the top and bottom. But this would mean that all molecules would have the same kinetic energy, and then, any that moved upwards after a collision with another, would have to create extra potential energy. As that is impossible, it follows that the greenhouse theory is based on an impossible assumption, and is thus impossible itself.