Guest essay by Steve Goreham
Originally published in Communities Digital News.
In 1997 during the Kyoto Protocol Treaty negotiations in Japan, Dr. Robert Watson, then Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was asked about scientists who challenge United Nations conclusions that global warming was man-made. He answered, “The science is settled…we’re not going to reopen it here.” Thus began one of the greatest propaganda lines in support of the theory of human-caused global warming.
On June 19 this year, the University of Northern Iowa held a debate on climate change titled, “Climate Instability: Interpretations of Scientific Evidence.” Dr. Jerry Schnoor of the University of Iowa presented an effective case for the theory of man-made warming and I presented the case for climate change driven by natural causes. The video contains 30 minutes of presentation by each side and then 30 minutes of questions and rebuttal, presented to a small audience of faculty and students.
Formal debates on the theory of human-caused warming are somewhat rare in our society today. Former Vice President Al Gore stated on the CBS Early Show on May 31, 2006:
…the debate among the scientists is over. There is no more debate. We face a planetary emergency. There is no more scientific debate among serious people who’ve looked at the science…Well, I guess in some quarters, there’s still a debate over whether the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona, or whether the earth is flat instead of round.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson declared to Congress in 2010, “The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming.” Even President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address said, “But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.”
The Los Angeles Times announced last year that they will not print opinions that challenge the concept that humans are the cause of climate change. The BBC has taken a similar position. Many of our universities will not allow an open debate on climate change. Last year, the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University posted an image of two professors holding a match to my book.
In contrast to the “no debate” positions of our political leaders, news media, and many universities, the event at the University of Northern Iowa was a breath of fresh air. Thanks to Dr. Catherine Zeman and the Center for Energy and Environmental Education at UNI for their sponsorship of an open debate on the “settled science” of climate change.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
If the science is settled wayfarer we paying to research it.
Closing statement was well on the money, and the pro-warming statement was open evil. It is a true dichotomy — for the 20,000 people who die ever day now, for the 2 billion people who live in poverty now for the billions who live without adequate water and sanitation now and are not likely to get it because we are diverting a trillion dollars every four years into solving a problem that we aren’t even close to certain exists. Furthermore, by increasing energy costs worldwide, we are literally condemning the number who live in poverty and who perish from preventable causes to increase rapidly.
A few people — even some people who used to believe in global warming — are finally getting this. I grew up in India and can never forget the face of real poverty, not poverty like it is in the US or Europe where being poor means that your cell phone hasn’t got a touchscreen. Our choices in the developed world are “safe” — nobody seriously considers living without carbon, at least not very long. The biggest promoters of CO_2 as the Devil are often themselves huge consumers of energy and fuel as they move themselves all over the world to speak, live in big, energy-expensive houses, and so on. Hypocrisy is rampant, in other words. Who among them would volunteer to live at the energy level of somebody living in Bangladesh for the next thirty years waiting for “Green” energy to finally arrive and liberate him or herself from poverty? Who would condemn their children to drink from fecal-bacteria laden water sources in countries that cannot affort the energy needed to process and distribute inexpensive clean water?
There is clueless, and then there is clueless to a level that is actively dangerous to small children and pets.
rgb
rgb has said what I have been saying for years. The promoters of CAGW and energy starvation do not do without. Al Gore, Pachauri, ALL climate scientists, climate activists etc. I too have seen real poverty up close – begging to buy bread, leprosy, 1 meal a day etc. It boils my blood.
this,along with some of the genuine environmental ills we fail to address is exactly why i get so annoyed at times.
Wow, well said. That should be the mantra going forward.
I grew up in India and can never forget the face of real poverty… Who among them would volunteer to live at the energy level of somebody living in Bangladesh for the next thirty years waiting for “Green” energy to finally arrive and liberate him or herself from poverty? Who would condemn their children to drink from fecal-bacteria laden water sources in countries that cannot affort the energy needed to process and distribute inexpensive clean water?
I’m sorry but I felt like this needed emphasis in case anyone was just skimming the thread.
Thanks Professor Brown.
gah except my formatting failed.
+1
+1000
I grew up in India and can never forget the face of real poverty, not poverty like it is in the US or Europe where being poor means that your cell phone hasn’t got a touchscreen. Our choices in the developed world are “safe” — nobody seriously considers living without carbon, at least not very long. The biggest promoters of CO_2 as the Devil are often themselves huge consumers of energy and fuel as they move themselves all over the world to speak, live in big, energy-expensive houses, and so on. Hypocrisy is rampant, in other words. Who among them would volunteer to live at the energy level of somebody living in Bangladesh for the next thirty years waiting for “Green” energy to finally arrive and liberate him or herself from poverty? Who would condemn their children to drink from fecal-bacteria laden water sources in countries that cannot affort the energy needed to process and distribute inexpensive clean water?
So well said rgbatduke. Bravo!So well said my friend. Bravo and peace and prosperity to you and those that you love.
Howrah Station.
===========
Down here in Nicaragua I was in a dirt floor plastic shack with a single mother and her six children living in it yesterday. I’ve known them for years and am putting the eldest daughter though college – systems engineering – the cost of that is about $80 US per month.
I brought them ten pounds of rice, beans, and enough basic commodities to last them 2 weeks (the cost was $40 US but I bought them a few things they probably wouldn’t buy for themselves, and I bought it all at a supermarket, not the street market) and they immediately set to work preparing the rice over an open fire just outside.
The firewood came from a nearby rainforest on the slopes an extinct volcano (Mombacho). The forrest is being denuded because of the need for wood as fuel. With the forrest disappearing, flooding from the rains is becoming increasingly severe.
Their only real luxury is a $16 cell phone I bought for the daughter. It doesn’t have a touchscreen, but if it did they’d just sell it.
They are actually at the more well-off end of the poverty scale (at least down here) because of my assistance. I’ve seen far worse.
If all the money put into climate research was invested in improving situations like the above, I think we’d all be better off.
I was also (dumb)struck by the climate modeler’s reliance on Keynesian economic canards of “Green Jobs” and positive economic growth as inevitable outcomes from artificially rising energy prices. If’s a good thing that climate modelers are so economically astute that they can assure us all this central planning of the energy sector will break the long losing streak of massive socialist failures and FINALLY start working. /sarc
My father told me that there was some opposition to bringing electricity to the US. They thought that the electricity in the transmission lines would get into the corn and that we would be eating it in our cornflakes. Back then few payed any attention to those flakes. Good thing too otherwise we would be living like many in India do.
The problem with the ‘settled science’ is that it has NEVER been so UNsettled. Happy 18th birthday no global warming. A rash of papers over the last 2 years winding down climate sensitivity. This is what is unsettling and they know it. The debate was never settled, it should be hotting up (in any other science).
Steve – you gave an outstanding presentation and are to be commended sir!
Yes, a great and effective presentation. hank you for posting it.
I was blown away at all of the Ad Hominem that was eminating from the AGW side. That was just beyond horrible.
I was EXTREMELY proud of the skeptic side being above that and only challenging the assertion rather than attack in kind.
Character assassination and debasing is the last ditch weapon of the weak and ignorant.
Surely two professors are intelligent enough to know that you are not going to be able to burn a book like that. And even if they managed to set it ablaze it would only set off the alarm and sprinklers.
you would think so. . . .
Plus it would add to their carbon foot print.
Extremely well done presentation Steve.
It should be presented to more audiences.
————–
The biggest issue in this debate is that we have run-up against politically-correct societal-pressure run amok. It is more acceptable for the media to promote the global warming hype than it is to question it, especially if the media outlet is focussed on left-leaning audiences.
It is not politically correct to state the obvious that the global warming hype has been hyped way beyond what is actually happening and what is likely to be correct.
The government money is much more likely to be provided to politically-correct causes than to objective rational causes (which are sometimes much harder to defend publically). Funding committees get captured by the politically-correct societal-pressure in which the members themselves end-up all on one side.
It has been called noble cause corruption but I think it extends much farther into the basic human instinct and the nature of the crowd that it is better to be a “good-noble person” than it is to call a kettle black. Then politics kicks in. And then money kicks in and it is a death spiral into politically-correct noble-cause societal-pressure run amok to the extent that it cannot correct itself.
It is a stock market crash or a bank-run or a crowd-stampede that cannot be corrected on its own.
It is basic human psychology that these type of things occur. The question is when does it burn out? Or does it ever burn-out by itself or does everything including modern civilization fall apart instead.
I agree. You can add to this list that people treat the scientists like untouchables. Priests, who can do no wrong, because, as we all know, using scientific-logic-physics is an infallible method of deducing something!
I watched the whole debate, and didn’t see any book burning. Didn’t see it discussed in the debate.
Probably the first time I have seen a debate on global warming where the speakers got to answer an assortment of the same questions. Thanks for posting, and I agree with rgbatduke.
You must have missed the photo at top of page, which has been discussed in these threads before.
The video was well worth watching.
The lack of economic and energy distribution understanding displayed in the good Dr, closing makes the rest of his presentation suspicious. His comment that even “even if the warming is natural we should be more nervous about the CO2” seems completely wrong minded to me. I would have liked a question about how we thrive on intermittent, expensive energy and how it creates wealth to pay all the new job holders he is so proud of.
” Last year, the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University posted an image of two professors holding a match to my book.”
Apparently they think Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 are instruction manuals.
And Atlas Shrugged as well.
Steve Goreham, excellent presentation! It was clear and to the point, no soft mushy subjective stuff, just hard data and facts. The other presenter defending CAGW, I must say, came across as not the sharpest tool in the shed. Soft, emotional pleas and scare stories like “these fossil fuels have been in the ground for millions of years and now we are letting them out! Ooh, scary, scary!” (paraphrasing) His difficulty in answering the question on feedbacks, as to why when CO2 was much higher millions of years ago the earth climate didn’t become like Venus. His answer about how the continental land masses where in different positions back then, that’s why, but now they have moved to different positions so now we will definitely end up like Venus, that answer was lame beyond belief to come from a senior level scientist! How anyone in their right mind could find credibility in his presentation is beyond me. And the comment about the grant money is so true, why cannot more people understand that simple logic – grant money is proportional to scare factor, if the scare fades so will the money. Literally thousands of climate researchers would be facing the end of their prestigious research positions, perhaps reduced to flipping burgers for a living. Obviously there is going to be bias present.
I really, really wish, that a video would be created showing a debate similar to this, but shorter and professionally narrated and edited, well done enough to go viral on youtube. I would attempt the production of such a video myself were I financially able. Perhaps that is something that could be crowd funded.
If you did make that video, Average Joe, then when your grandson asks you. What did you do during the great climate war? You won’t have to say, well I shoveled sh*t in Louisiana.
Gen Patton
How to take somebody serious when he is starting with “climate change is caused by humans”? It must thereforehave been static before humans, right? Can’t somebody put a video together with such simple stupid statements to let it sink into people’s minds and ridicule the speakers?
Doesn’t science start with clean language?
Lots of empty seats. Despite saying there is scientific evidence to back up his statements Mr. Schnoor didn’t offer anything but the “model” defense. He falsely all but called Mr. Goreham a liar several times on statements that are fact check able. The denial of the Medieval Warm Period and the bit about the recent local weather/floods ‘proving’ man has corrupted the earth’s climate was bush league and gives incite to his desperation. Mr. Goreham was well spoken, informative, and properly composed. Suitable for all levels of scientific understanding.
In the lady’s right hand is a match. In the left hand is a book of paper matches. In my younger days these were imprinted with pithy sayings, colorful images, and ads for any number of interesting (and sometimes useful) items. People collected books of matches. Then they seemed to disappear.
Look here:
http://titanicitems.com/matchbooks.htm
and also do an image search.
I wonder where in the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University do they keep the paper matches?
I could be biased but I think Steve put a more convincing case and I think he managed by having far more practice in talking to an adverse audience. Dr. Schnoor on the other hand appears to have always had a compliant audience, one used to the creed and therefore he repeated the creed. Steve introduced history in order to illustrate the lack of “unusual” climate occurrences while Schnoor kept clinging to models, finally admitting that he too was a modeller. I also noticed that the audience was quite receptive to Steve’s argument although several apparent believers were bemused that an alternative was not only possible but, based on historical records, probable. I also note that the peer review was oft quoted as the pre-eminent standard and historical records/writings could not be relied on viz a viz the LIA and MWP.
Schnoor is a good IPCC man and should receive that latest grant. Steve did a great job.
Dr. Schnoor says the little ice age was, “we think,” caused by the low solar activity of the Maunder minimum.
But when Steve Goreham questions the logic of Schnoor’s claim that models don’t track modern temperature trends without the CO2 parameter, precisely because they are predicated on CO2 as the primary driver, Dr. Schnoor replies that all other parameters, when tweaked, fail to make a difference.
What about the solar parameter that “we think” caused the Little Ice Age? Is that not part of the model?
This is actually a good point, and another thing that Goreham missed in his commentary (although it is difficult to hit everything). He should talk to Lief about the “low solar activity” of the Maunder minimum relative to the 20th century solar activity. Currently the argument is that while there were comparatively few sunspots, the magnetic activity of the sun as detected through radioactive proxies was nearly unchanged.
We presume that we know all that there is to be known about both the variability of the Sun and its impact on our climate, but I doubt that we do. The difficulty is that the climate is chaotic, but the sun is comparatively regular. One is basically multiplying a periodic sequence and a random number generator sequence together, and the result is pretty much a random sequence. That doesn’t mean that there is no causal connection, only that we cannot disentangle it from the other factors in a multivariate scheme of causality we already cannot compute. A Maunder type minimum might have a larger impact when the Earth is in certain states compared to others. It could have opposite effects in some states compared to others.
There is actually a perfectly lovely example of this that is absolutely trivial to, um “understand”. If you take an ordinary damped oscillator and make it suitably nonlinear — a rigid rod pivoted around one end in some sort of damping fluid, for example — and then drive it with a periodic driving force, you get something quite curious. For some — even most — values of the amplitude and frequency of the driving force, one just gets more or less ordinary oscillation at or near the frequency of the driving force. But then, when you drive it quite strongly (and still in the right frequency ranges) a strange thing happens. The oscillator goes mad. It oscillates first to the left, then to the right, then it does a triple loop around the pivot in one direction, oscillates periodically for two cycles, and pops back to the left to go past the pivot but not all the way around before reversing again. The motion is completely non-periodic and there is basically no correlation between its motion and the amplitude, frequency, or phase of the driving force.
Yet in this simple example, there is absolutely no doubt that the driving force is the primary cause of the observed motion.
This is something many people don’t realize about properly chaotic systems. They are the ultimate refutation of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc (correlation is not causality) fallacy. They are often systems where often there is no correlation at all between two phenomena in situations where we know with absolute certainty that the one is the proximate cause of the other.
Sadly, this makes it very difficult indeed to untangle causality in systems that are so complex where we do not know what is important. The state of the sun in the 20th century was probably not a “Grand Maximum” — I accept the evidence for that as it is pretty clear and several lines of evidence all lead to the same conclusion. But nevertheless, the sun was in its comparatively active state in much of the 20th century relative to the entire observed range of variability over the last 200+ years, and was likely much more active than it was in the Maunder minimum even if that minimum was not “completely inactive” from the point of view of solar magnetism.
In a chaotic climate system we cannot count on there being a simple one to one linear correspondence between solar state and climate. But that doesn’t mean that the sun isn’t very important indeed, or that even small variations in the solar constant or solar magnetism can have big effects on the climate, only that we may not be able to predict even the sign of those big effects. They could be different depending on a thousand things we cannot measure associated with the state of the Earth itself and its prior history, just as the local effect of the perfectly periodic and known driving force on the nonlinear chaotic oscillator depends on precisely where the oscillator is in its unpredictable trajectory and is quite different at other times and other places.
rgb
“Even President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address said, ‘But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact.’”
All the more reason to reopen the debate.
POTUS is ignorant of his own area of expertise.
He screws up the US Constitution every time he touches it.
A couple of observations:
When oh when are organisers of debates going to get the audio/visual hardware sorted out so that we can have a smooth running presentation and see the audience and hear their questions?
I have seen more people attending the midwinter midnight service in Haroldswick Methodist Church on the Shetland Islands than was present at this debate. Does this mean that the debate is all over or that people have lost interest in global warming and have other priorities to worry about?
I thought that the art of debate was to tear down your opponent’s case. I would have liked to see Steve Goreham doing more of his rather than presenting his own set piece although this did argue against Dr Schoor’s points to some extent.
Dr Schoor lost a lot of credibility when he said that Steve’s statistics on the Mediaeval Warm period were plain wrong. When later pulled up on this he changed his mind and said that even if they are right we should still be alarmed – Why? What other data is he not really sure about?
Also Dr Schoor had too many “we thinks” in his argument backing up his “facts”.
More debates like this please and a very good effort for putting it on. But let’s have better promotion, more media representation and a bigger audience.
I think the fat lady would look much better in a burqa
What a crock! So, I guess we also have to put creationism on an equal tier as evolution, all to pacify those who cannot accept the science when they simply don’t like what it says.
People deny the science of global warming simply because they hate what it will mean if the world finally acts in a responsible way to avoid the catastrophe that scientists tell us we will face otherwise. Naomi Klein nails it in her new book, This Changes Everything. Right wingers realize that everything they love will necessarily need to change, and so, they simply deny the existence and causes of global warming.
So, do YOU accept personal responsibility for those 24,000 innocents YOU killed last year in the UK because of YOUR demands for increased energy costs, lowered reliability, and higher food-heating-lighting costs caused by YOUR exaggerated fears of so-called catastrophic (future) global warming?
YOU are forcing innocents to die worldwide NOW – today, this year, next year and the next 100 years. But global warming? IF it happens, and for the past 18 years there has been NO change in global average temperatures despite a measurable 10%+ change in CO2 levels, then – specifically, what is the harm in an increase in temperature of 3 degrees C?
Come on – YOU are killing people NOW to supposedly prevent a future catastrophe. How many real people living now do YOU want dead just so you can claim you saving some future peoples somewhere to maybe move if sea level increases 20 centimeters?
They ‘challenge’ the claims being made by climate ‘science’ has they so often be proved wrong while many working in this area show poor academic practice and worse personal behaviour. None of which encourages others to trust them.
Now normally in science there is the all-important ‘critical review’ where you actual supposed to look for faults in the claims mad. But in special climate ‘science’ we are told either they are impossible to find so should never be looked for or that you can’t have the data as you ‘only want to find something wrong with it ‘.
Its amazing how often the actions the professionals working in this area , such has the dog ate my data , would, if copped , lead to undergraduates handing in essay having this failed. However, there acceptable for published research in climate ‘science’, given the impression they have no standards at all.
No ones is ‘required’ to trust those selling snake oil of any type , its up to the sake oil salesman to do a good job.
What do you disagree with. Saying something is crock, and then making a completely unrelated analogy makes you look biased and uninformed.
Did you watch the debate?
Please make a logical point, otherwise you risk being uninteresting.
I don’t know if your observation is correct or not.
I will note however that if the sword you’re outlining actually does exist, it’d cut both ways. There’d be people jumping on the global warming bandwagon simply because they’d love what it’d mean if everything right wingers love would necessarily change.
Sauce for the goose my friend.
It is hard to accept the “hard science” of global warming when those who disagree are not allowed access to the media, grant funding, peer review of their submitted articles, etc. Sorry – it’s a political machine working at its worst. I grew up understanding that scientists researched whatever they were interested in and were not obstructed from this pursuit. Silly me. In just about every realm, scientists and study results go back and forth on issues (look at diet studies, if you’re not convinced) but somehow this debate is “settled.” Surprisingly, tons of money is involved. Questions arise. Al Gore sold his cable network to an oil company…any questions?
pfgetty what a crock! I am generally left leaning, I buy into evolution, sustainability, etc. Everyone is biased that is human nature, and people’s beliefs largely reflect those biases. Personally, my bias is toward honesty and trust. I believe in the scientific method when practiced without bias. A scientist’s first and foremost responsibility is to work hard to NOT be BIASED. The government’s foremost responsibility when funding research grants is to diligently watch for and snuff out bias.
I deny the “science” of global warming not because I hate what it will mean, but rather because neither it’s scientists nor it’s research sponsors are practicing this foremost responsibility of the scientific method. Frankly it is surreal to me that those empowered as the gatekeepers of this wonderful method seem not cognizant of how their irresponsibility is undermining it. For me I don’t give a rats a$$ whether cagw is real or not, if it is real then by the end of the century it should be hot enough that achieving political consensus to act will not be a problem, no need to start a war over it right now. But I am really angry at how the scientific method is being trampled and mocked by climate “science”. That is my bias. Because I would hate to live in a world without the scientific method. But as a method it has no value in a world of deceit and distrust, and I believe that is a deeper problem than climate.
Oh, and one more thing. Naomi Klein is of similar creed as Karl Marx. A genius-idiot. People would do well to label her as such.
What part of ”No warming, while Co2 levels are rising” are you in denial of?
No! they weren’t burning the book.
As the temperature has not significantly changed in the last 17 years.
They was just warming it a little, maybe 2 degrees or so. ;-}
What I love best about the “the debate is settled” crowd is that Al Gore launched his ‘Truth Drop’ website AFTER the debate was settled. That’s a pretty curious move. An attempt to bias a debate that doesn’t exist. That’s like all the things that are happening because of the global warming that isn’t happening.
The Climate McCarthyism has already begun.
“Chuck Nolan October 3, 2014 at 5:34 am
Billy used to weigh 297 lbs but now he’s at 295 lbs.
So he’s not less fat he’s more skinny.
How’s that?”
Billy is an Elephant, the one in the room.
The phrase “the science is settled” is simply the authoritarian left’s equivalent of saying “Shut up and sit down. The only opinion that matters is mine.”
As many have pointed out here, the science is seldom settled on anything.
Take for example gravitation, starting at Newton. Einstein expanded the basic F=ma to include special and general relativistic effects hundreds of years later, but tried and failed to put together a unified field theory. The work in gravitation is still unfinished, even though one could have been tempted in Newton’s day to conclude that the science of gravitation was settled.
I agree…the extreme left are very condescending. I’m always amazed, particularly living in the Northeast and being in the minority (where my vote doesn’t count), that they don’t seem to have a handle on the idea of “differing opinions.” It’s amazing. I have always loved the email incorrectly attributed to Jeff Foxworthy…
If a Republican doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Democrat doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.
If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a Republican doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Democrats demand that those they don’t like be shut down.
If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church.
A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.
If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.