NOTE: This op-ed is apparently too hot for some editors to handle. Late last week it was accepted and posted on politix.topix.com only to be abruptly removed some two hours later. After several hours of attempting to determine why it was removed, I was informed the topix.com editor had permanently taken it down because of a strong negative reaction to it and because of “conflicting views from the scientific community” over factual assertions in the piece.
Fortunately, some media outlets recognize a vigorous scientific debate persists over humanity’s influence on climate and those outlets refuse outside efforts to silence viewpoints that run counter to prevailing climate alarmism. My original piece follows below.- Craig Idso
Guest essay by Dr. Craig D. Idso
The release of a United Nations (UN) climate change report last week energized various politicians and environmental activists, who issued a new round of calls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the most fiery language in this regard came from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who called upon Congress to “wake up and do everything in its power to reduce dangerous carbon pollution,” while Secretary of State John Kerry expressed similar sentiments in a State Department release, claiming that “unless we act dramatically and quickly, science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy.”
Really? Is Earth’s climate so fragile that both it and our way of life are in jeopardy because of rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions?
In a word, no! The human impact on global climate is small; and any warming that may occur as a result of anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions is likely to have little effect on either Earth’s climate or biosphere, according to the recently-released contrasting report Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, which was produced by the independent Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
This alternative assessment reviews literally thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support and often contradict the findings of the UN report. Whether the subject is the effects of warming and rising CO2 on plants, animals, or humans, the UN report invariably highlights the studies and models that paint global warming in the darkest possible hue, ignoring or downplaying those that don’t.
To borrow a telling phrase from their report, the UN sees nothing but “death, injury, and disrupted livelihoods” everywhere it looks—as do Senator Boxer, Secretary Kerry, and others. Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts demonstrates that life on Earth is not suffering from rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels. Citing reams of real-world data, it offers solid scientific evidence that most plants actually flourish when exposed to both higher temperatures and greater CO2 concentrations. In fact, it demonstrates that the planet’s terrestrial biosphere is undergoing a great greening, which is causing deserts to shrink and forests to expand, thereby enlarging and enhancing habitat for wildlife. And much the same story can be told of global warming and atmospheric CO2 enrichment’s impacts on terrestrial animals, aquatic life, and human health.
Why are these research findings and this positive perspective missing from the UN climate reports? Although the UN claims to be unbiased and to have based its assessments on the best available science, such is obviously not the case. And it is most fortunate, therefore, that the NIPCC report provides tangible evidence that the CO2-induced global warming and ocean acidification debate remains unsettled on multiple levels; for there are literally thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support a catastrophic, or even problematic, view of atmospheric CO2 enrichment.
Unfortunately, climate alarmism has become the modus operandi of the UN assessment reports. This fact is sad, indeed, because in compiling these reports, the UN either was purposely blind to views that ran counter to the materials they utilized, or its authors did not invest the amount of time, energy, and resources needed to fully investigate an issue that has profound significance for all life on Earth. And as a result, the UN has seriously exaggerated many dire conclusions, distorted relevant facts, and omitted or ignored key scientific findings. Yet in spite of these failings, various politicians, governments, and institutions continue to rally around the UN climate reports and to utilize their contentions as justification to legislate reductions in CO2 emissions, such as epitomized by the remarks of Senator Boxer and Secretary Kerry.
Citing only studies that promote climate catastrophism as a basis for such regulation, while ignoring studies that suggest just the opposite, is simply wrong. Citizens of every nation deserve much better scientific scrutiny of this issue by their governments; and they should demand greater accountability from their elected officials as they attempt to provide it.
There it is, that’s my op-ed. It’s what some people apparently do not want you to read. While the over 3,000 peer-reviewed scientific references cited in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts are likely more than sufficient to establish scientific fact in a court of law, they are not sufficient to engage the real climate deniers in any debate. The rise in atmospheric CO2 is not having, nor will it have, a dangerous influence on the climate and biosphere. But don’t take my word for it, download and read the report for yourself (available at www.nipccreport.org). Compare it with the UN report. You be the judge!
Dr. Craig D. Idso is the lead editor and scientist for the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
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Bart says:
Well, there’s Thomas Huxley, crica 1870:
“The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
Ugly, not inconvenient. But, the same gist.
Nice. Did you recall that one? I am looking for a tool to find specific modern references.
The earliest usage of “the science is settled”, “deniers”, some others, along with the Will item I mentioned. Google is teasing me, but I am just not finding things.
There must be another service/ search that specializes in this?
Thanks again for the great quote.
[Note: “pyromancer76” is “beckleybud” and “H Grouse”. He is the same sockpuppet. Banned multiple times. ~mod.]
Hey RMB. Ever boiled a pot of water on the stove?
Of course you can boil a pot of water on the stove. The heat goes into the water through the bottom of the pot where there is no surface tension. The trick is to get heat through the surface of the pot as the warmists claim happens when co2 is heated. You can get energy into water through its surface by radiation but physical heat will be blocked by the surface tension.rgds
Paul Woland:
You wouldn’t denigrate them for their source(s) of funding, if it came from honest TAXPAYERS, more or less by confiscation? That would make them and their “Bias” more representative of “The Truth”? Methinks you to be quite gullible.
20 April: West Hartford News: Jim Shelton: Yale climate change summit focuses on energy future
The world’s energy future will be marked by massive urbanization, transformed utilities and a race to adapt to a changing climate.
Those are just a few of the revelations from an international climate change summit convened Thursday at Yale University. Dubbed “EnergyFuture 2030,” the day-long conference cast a critical eye at everything from government regulation to the impact of dwindling water resources on the power grid…
Pachauri and another speaker at the conference, Karen Seto of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, helped write sections of a new IPCC report on climate change that has made headlines worldwide.
Those reports point to major urbanization in the next two decades, led by Africa and Asia. Globally, it’s the equivalent of adding 20,000 football fields of urban space every day through 2030.
***“I’m increasingly of the opinion that the developing countries have to take the lead,” Pachauri said. “Why should we follow a resources-intensive path to development? It would be utterly foolish to replicate what’s happened in the rest of the world.”…
Karen Hussey, of Australian National University, spoke of the role water will play in the future of energy…
The warming of the oceans also will have an impact on the power supply.
*** “It’s difficult to use water as a coolant when it’s already warm,” Hussey said…
Panelists lauded the emergence of new suppliers from the ranks of renewable energy companies. That will inevitably lead to changes in energy storage and distribution, government regulation and a transformation in the role of public utilities.
“Change is coming and you really have to get your arms around it,” Esty said.
http://www.westhartfordnews.com/articles/2014/04/20/news/doc5351430e6a5be833111461.txt
Or, RMB. How could rain drops freeze in cold air? Could they lose heat but not gain it from the air? I wouldn’t know and am not being snarcy, but your assertion is counter intuitive to me.
Does Mosher ever rebut the rebuttals against him? I never see it happen. He merely drops his load, and then is never heard from again in these threads.
At 3:09 PM on 20 April, Bruckner8 had observed:
[snip . . nah, that’s just getting messy . . mod]
[“Messy”?? Moderators need to follow their written guidelines. “Messy” is a personal judgement that comes across as censorship. ~Snr mod.]
Mr. Jones:
The language that you use in your comment (e.g. “confiscation”) makes me feel like you only want to express your opinion against taxes, which is fair enough. Surely we want to test what the powerful are saying, regardless of whether they are in government, universities or companies? Perhaps we can both agree that it would be gullible not to be suspicious of a situation that is as follows: Conservative groups that have a political interest and companies that are looking to make a profit fund research (in this case, the NIPCC). The results of the research come out favourable to those funding the work. I think that sounds like bad science!
Bruckner8 says:
April 20, 2014 at 3:09 pm
He does sometimes.
Just follow the money. The whole concept of global warming is the desire of the left to impose central planning, and spread “social justice.” (Which means that there will be impoverishment for all, as that is what the leftist utopia always results in.) The Global Warming danger hoax has long been thoroughly discounted. But the leftists continue to push the issue as they believe they can full enough of the people enough of the time to implement their tyranny.
+1 for “Mannic oppressive.” Well done Mr. Watts!
It appears that Mr. Mosher is missing one goat. This is a positive development.
Blackadderthe4th says on April 20, 2014 at 1:15 pm:
Co2 I find you guilty as charged!
How can small amounts of co2, influence global warming?”
= = = = = = = = = = =
And then he goes on to liken CO2 to what he thinks is a very highly effective poison being added to your body. His claim is that:
– – – – – –
“if you were to give that person…10 grams of morphine they would be dead”
= = = = = = = = =
So then blackadderthe4th, are you saying that a person who’s body already contains 280 parts of his/her bodyweight in this highly toxic substance is not dead yet. Or is it that he/she will be deader still if another 10 parts are added?
If you do not consider yourself to be stupid, then do not act like you are. (for your own sake.) Somebody talking, what could very well be rubbish, on a radio is not always proof of good reliable research.
pyromancer76:
The thing is, the organisation behind the NIPCC is involved in many other things outside of funding science as well. The Heartland institute also runs advertisements against climate change, and also has lobbied for the tobacco industry. How does that make you feel about the reports on climate science that they are funding?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute#Smoking
20 April: SBS: Eric Holthaus: How the US military is preparing for climate change war
Climate change could start the next world war, and he U.S. military is preparing for conflict, retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley says in an interview with Slate.com
But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars.
That finding was highlighted in this week’s premiere of Showtime’s new star-studded climate change docu-drama Years of Living Dangerously…
In a recent interview with the blog Responding to Climate Change, retired Army Brig. Gen. Chris King laid out the military’s thinking on climate change:
‘This is like getting embroiled in a war that lasts 100 years. That’s the scariest thing for us,’ he told RTCC. ‘There is no exit strategy that is available for many of the problems. You can see in military history, when they don’t have fixed durations, that’s when you’re most likely to not win.’…
In a similar vein, last month, retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley co-wrote an op-ed for Fox News:
‘The parallels between the political decisions regarding climate change we have made and the decisions that led Europe to World War One are striking – and sobering.’…
Holthaus: In short, climate change could be the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the 21st century…
Earlier this year, while at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Atlanta, I had a chance to sit down with Titley, who is also a meteorologist and now serves on the faculty at Penn State University. He’s also probably one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever spoken with. Check out his TEDxPentagon talk, in which he discusses how he went from ‘a pretty hard-core skeptic about climate change’ to labeling it ‘one of the pre-eminent challenges of our century.’
Titley: ‘I like to think of climate action as a three-legged stool. There’s business saying, “This is a risk factor.” Coca-Cola needs to preserve its water rights, Boeing has their supply change management, Exxon has all but priced carbon in. They have influence in the Republican Party. There’s a growing divestment movement.
***’The big question is, does it get into the California retirement fund, the New York retirement fund, those $100 billion funds that will move markets?’…
Titley: ‘A lot of people who doubt climate change got co-opted by a libertarian agenda that tried to convince the public the science was uncertain—you know, the Merchants of Doubt. Where are the free-market, conservative ideas? The science is settled’…
Titley: ‘We need to start prioritizing people, not polar bears. We’re probably less adaptable than them, anyway.’…
***’I never try to politicize the issue.’…
Titley: ‘People working on climate change should prepare for catastrophic success. I mean, look at how quickly the gay rights conversation changed in this country. Ten years ago, it was at best a fringe thing. Nowadays, it’s much, much more accepted. Is that possible with climate change? I don’t know, but 10 years ago, if you brought up the possibility we’d have gay marriages in dozens of states in 2014, a friend might have said “Are you on drugs?” When we get focused, we can do amazing things. Unfortunately, it’s usually at the last minute, usually under duress.’
(This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and Slate.)
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/04/20/how-us-military-preparing-climate-change-war
above is an edited, condensed version of the following.
***what SBS Australia doesn’t want the public to know!
18 April: Slate: Eric Holthaus: “Climate Change War” Is Not a Metaphor
The U.S. military is preparing for conflict, retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley says in an interview.
***Slate:Despite all the data and debates, the public still isn’t taking that great of an interest in climate change. According to Gallup, the fraction of Americans worrying about climate “a great deal” is still roughly one-third, about the same level as in 1989. Do you think that could ever change?
Titley: A lot of people who doubt climate change got co-opted by a libertarian agenda that tried to convince the public the science was uncertain—you know, the Merchants of Doubt…
Most people out there are just trying to keep their job and provide for their family. If climate change is now a once-in-a-mortgage problem, and if food prices start to spike, people will pay attention. Factoring in sea-level rise, storms like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy could become not once-in-100-year events, but once-in-a-mortgage events. I lost my house in Waveland, Miss., during Katrina. I’ve experienced what that’s like…
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/04/david_titley_climate_change_war_an_interview_with_the_retired_rear_admiral.html
Gee, Paul.
Are you claiming that “science” can be bought? Are you implying that running advertisements “against climate change” implies somehow that climate change can actually be changed by an advertisement on the radio and on TV?
If so, how much “climate change” can be bought for 1.3 trillion dollars in new tax revenue stolen from the world’s poor and innocents AFTER 30 years worth of a political advertising? Screaming and yelling actually – but let’s stick with “advertising” whose result is now killing people and destroying economies. ‘
50 years from now Michael Mann and James Hansen will either be regarded as ahead of their time brilliant leaders of science who fought so bravely against the hoard of denying heathens … or … complete buffoons who duped so many with their faulty science and set the world’s great economies on a wild goose chase while so many were forced to remain in poverty. I’m leaning heavily toward the latter.
Today’s (Obama’s) military is subject to prizes and promotions and money WHEN THEY PROMOTE the Obama administrations propaganda – most specifically the Obama’s administration’s policies and climate change and on homosexual relations. When today’s military does say anything against the Obama administrations policies – remember, the America they sworn to protect and defend? … Well, those military members are promptly and immediately fired. The programs and bureaucracies that don’t toe the Obama administration’s lines and lies about climate change? They get defunded. The admirals and generals who promote climate change? They get promoted and re-hired – as the examples you cite.
Thus, does it means ANYTHING when a “military” so-called expert claims anything with respect to “climate change”? Does it mean ANYTHING when the USAF spends more on “ecological fuel” than any other bureaucracy on the face of this planet?
No. And you are a propagandizing fool to further that propaganda.
Thanks, Dr. Idso. Very good article.
I have an article on the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) reports in my climate pages.
“what some people apparently do not want you to read” must come out.
Steven Mosher says:
April 20, 2014 at 8:48 am
“How did those clowns deduce from no evidence that there would be little effect”
———————————
‘Deduce’? Try ‘induce’ as in induction from observations (rapidly rising co2 + no [certainly no ‘catastrophic’] warming) to a probable conclusion: little or no connection between co2 emissions and temperature.
RACookPE1978:
Incidentally, the Pentagon thought that climate change was a serious threat even under bush. Do you think that was political manipulation as well? Then how do you explain it considering the fact that Bush never accepted the reality of climate change?
http://www.rense.com/general70/pepen.htm
RMB says:
April 20, 2014 at 8:30 am
Leonard Weinstein says:
April 20, 2014 at 8:43 am
Richard C. Savage says:
April 20, 2014 at 8:47 am
george e. smith says:
April 20, 2014 at 10:29 am
davidmhoffer says:
April 20, 2014 at 10:43 am
Greg says:
April 20, 2014 at 10:53 am
jorgekafkazar says:
April 20, 2014 at 1:49 pm
Ok, I see some confusion on the effect of LWIR on liquid water. I have run a number of experiments dealing with this. The answer is that incident LWIR can neither heat no slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
RMB is however incorrect to claim it is the effect of surface tension. What occurs is that LWIR cannot penetrate more than a few microns into the skin evaporation layer. The energy so absorbed is simply rejected via evaporation faster than it can conductively effect the liquid below.
You can all build a simple version of the experiment –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
(Hand waving about the fans used in the experiment to eliminate gas conduction is no good as the average wind speed over the oceans is Beaufort scale 4.)
Run the experiment starting with 40C water in both sample containers. You will notice no difference in cooling rate between samples under the strong and weak LWIR sources. Now repeat the experiment but with a square of cling film floated onto the surface of each water sample. The cooling rate of both samples will be slower as evaporation is restricted, but the sample under the strong LWIR source will cool slowest.
You can also run a control using dry sand instead of water. You will find that the sample under the strong LWIR source heats faster.
Downwelling LWIR does not effect the oceans in the manner climastrologists claim. In some circumstances with very cold water or very still air it is possible to get LWIR to effect the temperature of water, but the effect is not great. For the calculations of the climastrologists to be correct, LWIR would have to effect liquid water to the same degree it would effect a blackbody that cannot evaporatively cool. This is provably not the case.
This however is not the greatest mistake of the climastrologists. Their first mistake is far, far greater. They calculated the effect of incoming solar SW on the oceans as if they were a blackbody, whereas they are in fact a transparent “selective coating” over 71% of the planet. Without a radiative atmosphere to cool the oceans they would become a giant evaporation constrained solar storage pond. Ocean temperatures would top 80C. Climastrologists calculated the temperature for the oceans in absence of a radiative atmosphere to be -18C. That’s a 98C error for 71% of the planets surface. That’s game over for AGW.
The question that no AGW believer or Lukewarmer ever wants to answer –
“given 1 bar pressure, is the net effect of our radiative atmosphere over the oceans warming or cooling.”
Climastrologists calculations indicate that the atmosphere is warming the oceans (or slowing their cooling rate for those that want to hide behind semantics). But it is clear that our atmosphere acts to cool the oceans. And without radiative gases our atmosphere couldn’t cool the oceans as it would have no way to cool itself.
I think I need to comment on this. You quote an experiment involving lwir,I take that to be radiated heat. My point is very simple. The ocean will absorb radiation all day every day. If you even suspend a lightbulb over the surface of water the water will absorb heat. What you cannot do is heat a gas in the atmosphere and have that physical heat affect the surface of the water. The surface of water is protected by what is effectively a membrane strong enough to support the weight of a paper clip and when you apply heat from a heat gun or similar, the experience I am having is that the surface completely rejects the heat. One explanation that is offered is that the water is evaporating so quickly that the surface remains cool. The trouble with that proposition is that if that is the case my kitchen should be full of steam which it is not. If you float a metal dish on the surface and apply the heat source to that the water will become warm quite quickly. Isay that is because the floating object kills the surface tension underneath it and you have an upside down pot that heats, no problem. Surface tension has the potential to become very embarrassing for people and they willdo anything to take your mind off it but surface tension is the key to this argument. rgds
blackadderthe4th says:
April 20, 2014 at 1:15 pm
“‘The human impact on global climate is small’ oh, no it isn’t! … Co2 I find you guilty as charged! … How can small amounts of co2, influence global warming? ”
Loose analogies are not much use: what holds for one case does not necessarily hold for another. e.g. if I tip a bottle of red cordial into the sea will it turn the water red? No.
Paul Woland,
Argument from authority just makes you look rather ignorant. You seem to thrive on argument from authority, when you are not relying on condemnation by association (even when you have to fib about the association).
‘Climate change’ has been successfully used to destroy the antiwar movement. Now, liberals are all hot under the collar during blizzards, about the possibility it might warm up some day. This wild goose chase is going to be a nasty destructive force in the left and I am a liberal!