By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Shock news from the Heartland Institute’s Ninth International Climate Change Conference: among the 600 delegates, the consensus that Man contributes to global warming was not 97%. It was 100%.
During my valedictorian keynote at the conference, I appointed the lovely Diane Bast as my independent adjudicatrix. She read out six successive questions to the audience, one by one. I invited anyone who would answer “No” to that question to raise a hand. According to the adjudicatrix, not a single hand was raised in response to any of the questions.
These were the six questions.
1. Does climate change?
2. Has the atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased since the late 1950s?
3. Is Man likely to have contributed to the measured increase in CO2 concentration since the late 1950s?
4. Other things being equal, is it likely that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause some global warming?
5. Is it likely that there has been some global warming since the late 1950s?
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
At a conference of 600 “climate change deniers”, then, not one delegate denied that climate changes. Likewise, not one denied that we have contributed to global warming since 1950.
One of the many fundamental dishonesties in the climate debate is the false impression created by the Thermageddonites and their hosts of allies in the Main Stream Media (MSM) that climate skeptics would answer “No” to most – if not all – of the six questions.
That fundamental dishonesty was at the core of the Cook et al. “consensus” paper published last year. The authors listed three “levels of endorsement” supporting some sort of climate consensus.
Level 1 reflected the IPCC’s definition of consensus: that most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made. Levels 2 and 3 reflected explicit or implicit acceptance that Man causes some warming. The Heartland delegates’ unanimous opinion fell within Level 2.
Cook et al., having specified these three “levels of endorsement”, and having gone to the trouble of reading and marking 11,944 abstracts, did not publish their assessment of the number of abstracts they had marked as falling into each of the three endorsement levels. Instead, they published a single aggregate total combining all three categories.
Their failure to report the results fully was what raised my suspicions that their article fell short of the standards of integrity that the reasonable man on the Clapham omnibus would have expected of a paper purporting to be scientific.
The text file recording the results of Cook’s survey was carefully released only after several weeks following publication, during which the article claiming 97% consensus had received wall-to-wall international publicity from the MSM. Even Mr Obama’s Twitteratus had cited it with approval as indicating that “global warming is real, man-made and dangerous”.
The algorithm counted the number of abstracts Cook had allocated to each level of endorsement. When the computer displayed the results, I thought there must have been some mistake. The algorithm had found only 64 out of the 11,944 papers, or 0.5%, marked as falling within Level 1, reflecting the IPCC consensus that recent warming was mostly man-made.
I carried out a manual check using the search function in Microsoft Notepad. Sure enough, there were only 64 data entries ending in “,1”.
Next, I read all 64 abstracts and discovered – not greatly to my surprise – that only 41 had explicitly said Man had caused most of the global warming over the past half century or so.
In the peer-reviewed learned journals, therefore, only 41 of 11,944 papers, or 0.3% – and not 97.1% – had endorsed the definition of the consensus proposition to which the IPCC, in its 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, had assigned 95-99% confidence.
Now that we have the results of the Heartland Conference survey, the full extent of the usual suspects’ evasiveness about climate “consensus” can be revealed.
Cook et al. had lumped together the 96.8% who, like all 100% of us at ICCC9, had endorsed the proposition that we cause some warming with the 0.3% who had endorsed the IPCC’s proposition that we caused most of the warming since 1950.
In defiance of the evidence recorded in their own data file, they had then explicitly stated, both in their article and in a subsequent article, that 97.1% had endorsed the IPCC’s proposition.
Amusingly, 96.8% is 97% of 97.1%. In other words, 97% of the abstracts that formed the basis of the “97% consensus” claim in Cook et al. (2013) did not endorse the IPCC’s definition of the consensus, as the article had falsely claimed they did. However, those abstracts did endorse the more scientifically credible Heartland definition.
Among the unspeakable representatives of the MSM who came to the Heartland conference to conduct sneering interviews with climate “deniers” was a smarmy individual from CNN.
He asked me, in that supercilious tone with which we are all too familiar, how it was that I, a mere layman, dared to claim that I knew better than 97% of published climate scientists. I referred him to Legates et al. (2013), the peer-reviewed refutation of the notion that 97% of scientists endorse the IPCC’s assertion that most of the warming since 1950 was man-made.
The CNN reporter said that the result in Legates et al. was merely my “interpretation”. So I pointed to a row of internet booths nearby and said, “If I count these booths and find that there are, say, 12 of them, and if you count them and find there are indeed 12 of them, then our finding is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of fact, that any third party can independently verify.”
I challenged him to go away, before he broadcast anything, and count how many of the 11,944 abstracts listed in the Cook et al. data file were marked by the authors themselves as falling within Level 1. If he counted only 64, I said, then his count would accord with mine. And our counts would not be an “interpretation” but a fact, whose truth or falsity might readily and definitively be established by any third party performing exactly the same count as ours.
He said he would check, but with that look in his eye that seemed to speak otherwise.
The results of my survey of the 600 Heartland delegates reveal that the difference between the Thermageddonites and us is far less than they would like the world to think. Like most of them, we fall within Cook’s endorsement levels 2-3. Unlike them, we do not claim to know whether most of the global warming since 1950 was man-made: for that is beyond what the current state of science can tell us.
Above all, unlike them we do not misreport a 0.3% consensus as a 97.1% consensus.
You may like to verify the results recorded in Cook’s data file for yourself. I have asked Anthony to archive the file (it resides here: cook.pdf ).
[UPDATE: David Burton writes: I’ve put the Cook 2013 data into an Excel spreadsheet, which makes it a lot easier to analyze than from that cook.pdf file. There’s a link to it on my site, here: http://sealevel.info/97pct/#cook ]
If the reporter from CNN who interviewed me reads this, I hope he will perform the count himself and then come back to me as he had undertaken to do. But I shall not be holding my breath.
‘Amusingly, 96.8% is 97% of 97.1%.’
It most certainly is not. 0.97*0.971 = 0.94187.
US TV Station says that coming US cold blast is a solar effect:
http://www.abc2news.com/weather/weather-blogs/polar-vortex-to-take-a-vacation-south-next-week
1. yes, definitely
2. yes, defnitely This is Keating’s Mauna Loa data–careful and about as good as it gets in real science, where anything can turn out to be wrong after all.
3. yes, definitely.The graph correlates with technology. Nature could do something like that, but it would be a remarkable coincidence if this were the sun or something.
4. Uncertain. The greenhouse effect can be demonstrated in vitro even by schoolchildren. But ancient graphs and the stability of life on Earth makes it seem that the feedbacks are so strongly negative that no net effect exists
5. UHI–yes. No previous poster in this thread has really pointed out that “the pause” correlates with RSS and satellites. All prior records were urban–and we know that human activities warm urban areas. RSS and satellites measure the surfaces as a whole.These may be flawed measurements, or maybe that is just an excuse for that flat record. So overall–NO.
6. yes, in that the “measured” warming was A) falsified by humans and b )UHI–heat release by humans in urban areas.
davidmhoffer says:
July 11, 2014 at 8:11 pm
———————————–
“That said, I think it fair to say that most skeptics accept that the GHE exists, and it drives me nuts when people in this forum claim “experimental” or other evidence to show that it doesn’t. They should be taken to account in exactly the same manner as those who claim catastrophe is on the horizon, for both are disseminating false information and calling it science.”
David, it may be worth re-reading this –
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Matt L. says:
July 11, 2014 at 7:05 pm
There’s a scene in the movie World War Z in which the hero learns how one group of people managed to defend itself against the zombie infection:
“When nine people agree on something, it’s the tenth man’s responsibility to disagree no matter how improbable the idea.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The correct answer to questions 4 and 6 is “NO”
Now if there is just one “tenth man”, it doesn’t matter if most sceptics got it wrong and believed that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere actually did reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. Because in the end all sceptics are politically saved if alternate views (and their supporting repeatable empirical experiments that so distress you) continued to be aired on sceptic forums.
You have put in a lot of effort, but by now you should be aware that herding sceptics is like trying to herd cats. The remaining sleepers cannot hope to steer all sceptics to the lukewarmer path. And to win, AGW believers need all voices on sceptic forums to be lukewarmer. This cannot be achieved. Therefore sceptics will win.
@Lord Dorchouse
Someone rigged yet another meaningless poll for political purposes. I keep telling you that this British politics won’t work in the US. Nobody knows anything with great certainty regarding CO2, warming, etc. Trying to “accept partial blame” is not going to pacify the nuts on the left. Yet, it will confuse people who aren’t yet climate zombies.
I demand that you confess, at once, sir, to you your mendacious etc. & etc. or I shall file a complaint with the proper authorities. That, after all, is how we Americans talk to each other when you Brits aren’t listening, like now when you, an ex-Thatcherite, aren’t listening to what I’ve told you a few times about the US not liking this kind of BS in general. How are all the lawsuits going? Going well? Haven’t heard much about the people you’re “protecting” with your complaints and lawsuits. Do show us the results sometime.
Because warming produces methane and CO2 so is CO2 causing some minor warming or is warming causing CO2 rise. In a nett sense there can be only one! So looking at nett processes since natural emission dominates man-made warming 97:3 ( funny how that 97 keeps coming up) it’s clear that in fact warming causes CO2 rise. Now Leif, in the light of the fact please reconsider your opinion on #4, does temperature related emission of CO2 or temperature rise due to CO2 emission dominate the CO2 rise characteristic? Does anyone really know?
The Japanese CO2 balance seems to indicate that most populated areas are in fact CO2 sinks, so in fact other than some tiny areas marking a few of the biggest cities in the world mankind actually sinks CO2 rather than emits it, whicn makes sense given the amount of agriculture that is done to feed us all. From my reading of the Japanese data pretty much all CO2 emission is natural, look at the northern territory in Australia, with less than a million people across the whole state, yet huge emissions.
It’s clear the answers to questions 3-6 are probably insufficient knowledge to answer, not for the sky dragons reasons but rather doubt about whether mankind is in fact a nett cause, or a nett mitigation. That’s what the data says!
From Bob Weber on July 11, 2014 at 11:42 pm:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/to:2014/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1979/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to:2014/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1979/to:2014/mean:13/normalise
Where in that do you see how higher solar activity WILL drive up SST’s?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1850/to:2014/mean:61/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1850/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1850/to:2014/mean:61/normalise
In the short run, the wiggle-matching shows you have as good or better chance arguing the SST’s lead solar activity.
In the longer run, the solar activity seems to match SST’s, up to about the satellite age circa 1979, at which point they diverge. Note that with the proposed 20% increase to pre-1947 International (SIDC) SSN that wipes out what was the current solar Grand Maximum, the graph will be somewhat different. So let’s just look at 1947 up to 2014:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1947/to:2014/normalise/plot/sidc-ssn/from:1947/to:2014/mean:13/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1947/to:2014/normalise/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1947/to:2014/mean:13/normalise
It becomes even more obvious from around 1970 onward that SST’s clearly lead solar activity. How can it be that short-term higher solar activity WILL drive up SST’s when the SST’s spike first?
If what you say WILL happen clearly does not happen, then why should I believe what you say COULD happen could happen at all?
lsvalgaard says:
July 11, 2014 at 11:14 am
Those findings clash a bit with the often made claims here at WUWT that there is no warming at all, that CO2 cannot cause any warming, etc. Perhaps we should have a poll to see how many here answers NO to all six questions…
These are not questions suitable for making decisions. The word likely is too vague.
So Leif, I wouldn’t be answering yes or no and even if the questions were more direct I still couldn’t answer in the affirmative. Why, because no-one know whether man is making a difference or not. There has been no definitive work done on the subject of man’s influence on the climate.
Likely et al are suppositive not definitive.
Stephen Richards says:
July 12, 2014 at 1:25 am
These are not questions suitable for making decisions. The word likely is too vague.
Indeed, as I said it is a lousy poll, a meaningless PR-Stunt.
I thought the type of science represented in the 64 type 1 results was the most interesting point.
I found a paper by a biologist about jellyfish and there reaction to ocean acidification and another 2 papers by (the same) paediatricians in group 1.
Should one really claim that a scientific concensus is a concensus by naming non-related sciences. I mean, a paediatrician might be a scientist, but his opinion on Global Warming cannot be more relvant than any ordinary person.
Warm water takes longer to release C02 but with more fish,weeds and decaying matter, it is obvious.
The really relevant questions should be:
A) Are we actually able to measure the planets average temperature. (Max and Min should
at least be discussed much more than today). For example; all the measured temp. rise in the arctic takes place in winter and involve anomolies of up to +10 degrees. But -20 degrees instead of -30 degrees, is that really relevant to ice-melt.
B) How much and why was CO2-levels rising in 1860 ? Could humans have been responsible then ?
Strange that none of the 600 answered “NO” to Q 6?
Maybe they thought Lord Monckton was asking rethorically not really expecting anyone to raise their hands?
6. Is it likely that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
–
I will refrase the question as it automatically rearranged it self in my mind:
Do you believe that there is more than 1/2 probabillity that we are able to measure the, if any, (positive) warming ” that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950?
–
Given that at least some of those 600 people believe in a negative feedback from CO2, precipitation, clouds, and maybe more complex mechanisms – one would expect a percentage of sceptics answering NO. What if all we accomplish by adding CO2 to the climate is making the climate wetter, not warmer? Someone must believe that, I almost do. Maybe a tiny fraction warmer, but so small a fraction it is unmeasureable, that belief would also constitute a NO.
–
No, I am not a climate scientist.
Denying deniers?
The real question that is being denied is the political established UNFCCC with its claim of CAGW, as basis for radical changes nationally and globally.
The interesting question is: With anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases since the war. Do you believe we have CAGW today?
For those sceptics who believe that human CO2 emissions have caused some amount of global warming, please tell me what the evidence for this is. All the evidence I’m aware of (e.g. ice cores show zero warming effect of CO2 and that temperatures rise before the CO2 rises) suggests that CO2 has no effect on the climate. Certainly, CO2 has a warming effect in the laboratory, but that doesn’t mean it has any effect in the climate system. In this century CO2 has increased by around 10 per cent. And the amount of warming? Zero, or even a slight cooling.
So, for anyone who believes that CO2 has warmed the climate, please show me the data and the proof. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Chris
Much has been bandied about in the article by Lord Monckton, and in these comments below his article, about this or that amount of CO2, and whether this is significant or not. However, do we really know how much CO2 is actually in the atmosphere, and by how much this varies now and how much has it done in the past, or how much is sequestered by wet, or on the other hand dry deposition, for instance,? Without such accurate measurement, we are in no position to even start to attempt to predict what the levels will be in the future.
I say, that we do not know the answers to these questions which I have posed.
So then if we do not know how much wet or dry deposition there is or has been,
then how can we know how much CO2 has been sequestered in the past
and at what rates, and by what method? Then how can we reasonably expect
to be able to know what these levels will be in the future, and therefore what
proportion of this process was, is, and in the future might be attributed to
the activities of Mankind, as opposed to natural processes?
This dilemma was explained, in the paper …
JOURNAL OF CLIMATE AND APPLIED METEOROLOGY – VOLUME 25
” Evaluation of the Accuracy with Which Dry Deposition Can
Be Measured with Current Micrometeorological Techniques* ”
J. A. BUSINGER
National Center for Atmospheric Research,** Boulder, C0 80307
(Manuscript received 19 October 1985, in final form 24 December 1985)
—–
The Abstract reveals the salient questions which are posed, and which
impact upon past measurements of CO2, current techniques and for
predictions of future trends, and their possible consequences, as are
discussed in Lord Monckton’s article.
—–
ABSTRACT
By reviewing the physics of the processes leading to dry deposition in the
atmospheric surface layer, a number of corrections and possible errors in the
determination of the dry deposition fluxes are identified. ……
Although of recent vintage, the importance of dry
deposition is well established by now. Especially in the
neighborhood of sources of pollution, dry deposition
is often more important than wet deposition, even in
areas with substantial precipitation such as the north-
eastern United States and much of Westem Europe.
Therefore, there is a great need to measure dry depo-
sition and to know how accurately it can be done. This
has been recognized by the Environmental Protection
Agency …….
…… It may be useful at this point to indicate what
specific areas have been omitted. These include
1) an analysis of the chemical and optical techniques
with which the trace constituents have been measured;
2) chemical and photochemical reactions during the
process of turbulent transport in the surface layer;
3) although quite important, the processes that de-
termine the surface resistance, other than molecular
diffusion,
4) the biological reactions to certain species of dry
deposition within the canopy;
5) effects of resuspension.
Although the issue of inhomogeneous terrain and
its effect on dry deposition clearly falls under the pur-
view of this study, it has not been included because the
existing literature does not provide clear guidelines on
how to do this. It is a very important problem that
needs a great deal of careful research.
The technique of surface sampling has not been dis-
cussed in this paper because the physics is not clear
and it is not considered a micrometeorological tech-
nique.
———
* This paper has been reviewed in accordance with U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency policy and approved for
publication.
** The National Center for Atmospheric Research
is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
© 1986 American Meteorological Society
=======
To get a full copy of this important paper now
(PDF IMAGE FILE 2MB) – Click My Name Above
– Wun Hung Lo
@ur momisugly Bjorn from Sweden
Yes the Q6.
There are a number of definitions in the English language for the word “Likely”
and the use of the word “Likely” is again a subjective term, for which there is
no exact quantification. I surmise that the definition which applies here is …
… “Within the realm of credibility”
Therefore I should rephrase the question thus :
” 6. Is it within the realm of credibility that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950? ”
This is much less obscure than the original question put to the audience,
but it is what I believe that the audience understood. The nuances of the
English language are capable of expressing an idea, or a hypothesis in a
very accurate fashion, but only if the writer takes care, especially in the case
of important analytical questions such as were posed by Diane Bast, acting
as his barker in the vox pop survey, during Lord Monckton’s valediction.
The correct answer to questions 3 – 6 is “I don’t know” or “Maybe” but apparently those were not among the choices.
@ur momisugly Chris Wright
” anyone who believes that CO2 has warmed the climate ”
This is a fair point, which has been asked many times,
and the answers always involved some subjective extrapolations
from past data, or reference to computer modelling, and theoretical
mathematical constructs, based on experiments in some laboratory
usually long ago. Monckton, Lindzen and others have often said in their
explanations that CO2 has increased, and that CO2 should cause some
warming, but again Lindzen, Soon, and others have said, that we just
don’t see it in the empirical measurements.
In the paper which I linked to in my Name,
the difficulties in making such measurements
are outlined, and though the paper is almost
30 years old, I do not believe that the problems
outlined have been resolved.
We simply don’t know what the numbers are, because we
have no way of accurately measuring them, even with modern
satellites and so on, because we simply do not understand how
the minutia of the processes which are responsible fluctuate
over the time periods in question, or how to measure them.
In many so called proofs of the theory, many such factors
are simply ignored, estimated, or fudged in computer analysis.
This is NOT Science, as I understand it.
@ur momisugly The Engineer
Yes these are the relevant questions
This is the dilemma that Businger points out in his paper to which I link at my name.
In his case he complains that they simply do not know how much
wet or dry deposition of CO2 has occurred, is occurring, or will occur
in the future, because the processes involved are not fully understood,
and indeed in the paper it is noted that many such processes are simply
then ignored, because there is no method of measuring them.
Franky there is too much fretting about the minutia,
and Monckton’s original suggestions made years ago
to the US Senate, and Governments across the Globe,
still holds true. That is to say that …..
“The correct response to the non-problem of CO2 is to do nothing”
Since then of course Billions of Dollars have been spent in trying to
measure the minutia of the processes in which CO2 is involved,
and all to no avail. Scientific research to further the endeavours
and increase the sum total of the knowledge of Mankind is laudible,
but embarking upon boondoggles and hokum experimentation,
to merely earn wages and further one’s personal agenda is not.
The latter is the reality of what is really going on, I fear.
I’m put in mind of an earlier thread where the issue of geoReactors came up, and Willis posited that one such is possible, but the evidence provided show that it produces approx. 0.1w/m^2 at the surface, compared to the 240w/m^2 which results from the sun—easily swamped.
In the years I’ve been visiting, the real question, the WUWT mean meme, if you will (there have been spikes of this and that, but they were never the primary focus of discussion for a majority of time), has never been “is there” or “is there not” a man-made contribution to atmospheric CO2, or a question of “does” or “does not” an increase of atmospheric CO2 add to the “greenhouse” effect of the atmosphere—-
The real direction that I have observed, here and at other “skeptic” sites worth the time to visit, has been to show, through linking to scientific papers and other verifiable sources of information, that there is no proof that mankind’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 is driving the warming; that the proposed “protocols” to reduce mankind’s CO2 output are more harmful to humanity than any foreseeable warming; that the proposed “protocols” to reduce mankind’s CO2 emissions are futile because they will have no measurable impact on the climate over any timescale you wish, because mankind’s contribution to the amount of atmospheric CO2 is swamped by the natural variability of climate itself.
Some people, notably Donna Laframboise at nofrakkingconsensus.com, focus a lot of reporting on the academic and political fraud committed by institutions, like the IPCC. Some of that takes place here at WUWT as well, but the focus here is primarily on the science, not the policies.
I believe that one BIG reason the polls show that “Climate Change” is always at the bottom of any list of concerns for the man-in-the-street is because the Alarmists have been proven very much to be The Boy Who Cried Wolf: their warnings get more shrill, their predictions more dire, and continue to fail to materialize. I’m pretty sure that it’s not because the skeptic argument is carrying the day, for the simple reason that most people I know, most people I’ve met, have no idea about the science behind any of it, no expertise to judge the relative merits of the various scientific arguments, and are pretty much aware of that lack. And they either won’t or can’t take the time to remedy that lack. So for them, on the one hand there are the Alarmists crying “Repent! The End is near!” and on the other, a calmer group saying, “Well, yes, in billions of years, perhaps…” and providing a lot of math to show the probabilities and statistics—and my own observation is that the typical man-in-the-street doesn’t want to know the technical details: he just wants a nice yes or no. And the Alarmists have simple, non-technical, warm & fuzzy, nicey-nice sounding, feel-good answer: Tim Wirth’s, even-if-it’s-wrong, it’ll-be-the-right-thing-to-do argument. And they dress it up with pictures like the hockeystick and cute polar bears and sciFi movies like the Algore opus, and lay out the breadcrumbs for the marks to follow—like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Whereas the skeptical community presents thousands of papers and says, “Start reading, and you’ll understand why I say, ‘Bullsh!t.'” Accepting the skeptical argument means work. Accepting the Warmist argument means you only have to decide butter or no butter with the popcorn.
But eventually, even the most obtuse among us will notice that the claims of the sky falling haven’t ever come true. Which seems to be happening.
Now, it occurs to me that proving a guy like Cook and his fraudulent claims might be just an interesting distraction, but still just a distraction. Anyone can point out that there was once a consensus that the earth was flat—and look how that turned out. Whether there is or is not a consensus is immaterial, and we know it, so why dwell upon it?
Perhaps because blandishments from the likes of Cook are used by politicians to justify harmful policies. So perhaps the effort described above is not a distraction, is not a waste of time, as some appear to suggest.
That said, I think the focus of WUWT is where it should be (in no particular order):
IMHO.
Because consensus is important: it gets politicians who set policies elected, after all.
The Nielsen Media Research data for 2013 shows a 13% decline in prime time for CNN. In total, the combined viewership of all three major cable news channels, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, dropped 11% to its smallest audience since 2007.
The reporter is possibly too busy on his resume to get back.
OT to begin with, but I’ll get there:
Last night I dropped over to see some friends. One of them had a son with advanced cancer, and months earlier I had introduced him to another friend who is a leading cancer doctor in my city, and they commenced an advisory role in his son’s treatment and at last report it was going well…
When I arrived, the first thing I asked my friend was “How’s your boy doing?”, and he replied “He died.” I was shocked, and expressed my condolences. My friend apologized for not telling me, and all I could say was “Please don’t apologize”. His son was 22 years of age.
Which gets me to my point. Some of the comments on this thread and elsewhere are unnecessarily combative, even among those who reject the warmist mantra. Of course we don’t agree on everything – that is normal – that is science. But it is a waste of life to devote our energies to anger and hostility.
Count your blessings, gentlemen (and ladies). Most of us here are fortunate that the Sun still rises over our families every morning and we live in safe countries that nurture our well-being. We are a blessed generation that has suffered none of the global conflicts or plagues that savaged previous generations – humanity has experienced two World Wars and one deadly global influenza epidemic in just the past 100 years. We live in a blessed time when, thanks to modern medicine, the premature death of our children is an anomaly, not a routine occurrence like it was just a century ago.
So count your blessings, ladies and gentlemen, and strive to extend some kindness and courtesy to one another…
Best wishes, Allan
“Yes the Q6.
There are a number of definitions in the English language for the word “Likely”
and the use of the word “Likely” is again a subjective term, for which there is
no exact quantification. I surmise that the definition which applies here is …
… “Within the realm of credibility”
Therefore I should rephrase the question thus :
” 6. Is it within the realm of credibility that Man’s emissions of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases have contributed to the measured global warming since 1950? ”
Thank you Wun Hung Lo. I was suspicious about the nuances of “likely”, so I opted to put a number on it, 1/2. I derived it from dividing likely in two, more likely and less likely.
That may have been an error on my part.
If “likely” is more close to possible than probable, the question changes values.
BUT still, are there really no climate sceptics out there who belive in a negative CO2 feedback?
Maybe that is why we are not Venus, heat releases CO2, CO2 makes climate wetter and clouds eventually cool the climate. Is it too far fetched? CO2 historically is lagging behind temperature you all know. Not one out of 600 is convinced human conribution to warming is too small to measure?
Maybe I am missing the point and Moncktons Q:s were just rethorically ment, and I took them to litterally. Or maybe the survey was a satirical comment on how easy it is to come up with a consensus figure when your subjects playing along?