Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
Current attacks on those who question the science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are signs of desperation. You can detect the exasperation in this comment by President Obama.
“So unfortunately, inside of Washington we’ve still got some climate deniers who shout loud, but they’re wasting everybody’s time on a settled debate,” Obama said, doubling down on remarks made during his State of the Union Address this year by adding that, “Climate change is a fact.”
Whoever said it wasn’t a fact? Does the President believe that if humans disappeared climate change would stop? If he does, it is a reasonable, but ludicrous conclusion to draw from the IPCC claim that 95+ percent of climate change since 1950 is due to human production of CO2.
Why is the most powerful person in the world ranting against a few people expressing different views? If they are so wrong why does he bother? He insults people by suggesting they are dupes. John Kerry made even more irrational comments.
“We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.”
These are uneducated, intemperate, dismissals, even for politicians. Why do they feel so threatened by what the deniers are saying? It is a classic example of protesting too much.
There is clearly a counterattack emanating from a siege mentality White House driven by four major conditions.
- It is the avowed primary policy driver for President Obama’s domestic and foreign policies.
- The last chance for a global climate policy occurs December 2015 in Paris (COP21).
- Polls, especially from the UN, show the public does not consider climate change a concern.
- Major countries, such as India, are already announcing ambivalent positions on CO2 reduction and refusal to limit burning coal.
Responses to claims by scientists who challenged IPCC science were always political. IPCC defenders know a scientific response to the scientific challenges were a waste of time because of the general lack of scientific knowledge. They know the IPCC Report of Working Group I The Physical Science Basis is indefensible because the document lays out all the severe limitations of the science. They know the science is wrong because the predictions are always wrong. If they don’t know these things, then their ignorance is willful. Something apparently confirmed by their failure to acknowledge the problems and correct the science. Instead, they ignore the evidence and resort to ad hominem[1] attacks.
Labeling legitimate scientists as “global warming skeptics” exploited the public failure to know that skepticism is the role of science and scientists. Those pushing the IPCC claims did not look at the scientific evidence that skeptics produced to contradict the hypothesis. They knew the public didn’t realize the implications of the fact that CO2 continued to increase, but the temperature didn’t. It was only when cold winters conflicted with claims of global warming that they acted (Figure 2). They could no longer ignore their frozen lying eyes.
Figure 2 (Published in 2008)
Evidence of the impact appeared in a 2004-leaked CRU email from the Minns/Tyndall Centre on the University of East Anglia (UEA) campus that said,
“In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media.”
To which Swedish Chief Climate Negotiator Bo Kjellen replied,
“I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labelling than global warming.”
They didn’t address the science. They changed the label to “climate change” and amplified the personal attacks, as skeptics became deniers, with all the holocaust connotations. The name “climate change denier” is wrong on many levels. Its creation and use prove the creators and users do so to exploit the public lack of understanding. As usual, IPCC proponents ignored or deflected all scientific challenges. The overarching theme of the emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) illustrates a similar response. Ignore the scientific questions and attack the individual. One of the most egregious examples disclosed by the emails was the attack on Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas by John Holdren.
Holdren moved the goalposts again in 2014 and launched a full assault with the 840 pages “National Climate Assessment”. In that publication, he initiated the term “Climate Disruption”. It achieved Holdren’s objective as CBS News explained in, “Report Uses Phrase ‘Climate Disruption’ As Another Way To Say Global Warming.”
Climate change’s assorted harms “are expected to become increasingly disruptive across the nation throughout this century and beyond,” the National Climate Assessment concluded Tuesday. The report emphasizes how warming and its all-too-wild weather are changing daily lives, even using the phrase “climate disruption” as another way of saying global warming.
It is interesting because it is the first label that is not just scientific. A disruption is a break or interruption in normality, so the inference is that an abnormal disruption in climate is due to humans. So far, an ad hominem name is not attached. Maybe it’s because denier still works, but more likely it is built in and unnecessary. The ad hominem attacks prove that the entire IPCC process was and remains political. If it were about science, it couldn’t fulfill George Will’s comment that,
“When a politician says, “the debate is over,” you can be sure of two things: the debate is raging, and he’s losing it.”
If you are in the group who call challengers, climate change deniers, it implies that you deny that climate changes. The distinction between human-caused change and natural change is irrelevant at this point because the public knows virtually nothing about natural change. If they did, they would not be so easily misled. I wonder how many understood what Dr. Philip Lloyd said in his assessment of temperature records?
Holocene century-on-century changes have a standard deviation close to 1 deg C, so if there is a signal due to carbon dioxide, it still has not emerged from the background noise.
You are also in the group that believes “the science is settled” and “the debate is over”, which allows you to ignore the evidence and pursue personal attacks. People in this group, including the mainstream media, have a political agenda,.
In the countdown to Paris and the end of the Obama administration we see; increasing personal attacks on scientists doing their job properly; false claims about extreme weather; continued denial that current climate change is within the range of natural variability; and continued denial or avoidance of contradictory evidence. We are experiencing the supposed, but unnecessary, emancipation from fossil fuels. Irving F Stone (1907-1989), a true investigative journalist, described what is happening.
Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a lie.
[1] Ad hominem; (of an argument or reaction) arising from or appealing to the emotions and not reason or logic. 2. relating to or associated with a particular person:
“if humans disappeared climate change would stop?”————-Probably not, but AGW would start to slow down.
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
No, it does not.
The answer to that old psychology question is ‘No, it doesn’t’.
Yes, the existence of sound waves is not dependent upon someone hearing them.
Absolutely makes a sound and the waves will travel. Stupid philosophers:)
But are they worth spending resources on noise abatement?
It depends on what you mean by “no one.”
In virtually any forest you can imagine, there would be – at the very least – insects, and they too can hear.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/features/listen-crickets-have-had-ears-their-legs-more-50-million-years-0#sthash.cc4ouOoU.dpuf
No, your ears make the sound, not the falling tree.
Just ask anyone who lives in a world of silence because their ears don’t make any sound; even if they are in the forest when a tree falls.
“””””…..
Bruce Cobb
May 24, 2015 at 2:04 pm
Yes, the existence of sound waves is not dependent upon someone hearing them.
Glenn999
May 24, 2015 at 2:08 pm
Absolutely makes a sound and the waves will travel. Stupid philosophers:)……”””””
The existence of longitudinal compression waves (in gases) is not in dispute; they are real, and they exist everywhere there are gases.
They can be detected over an extremely wide range of frequencies or wavelengths, wit suitable instrumentation.
Over a narrow restricted range of frequencies, they can be detected by motions of the bony mechanisms of the human ear.
In most normally equipped persons, those motions are registered in their brain as a “sound”.
Outside of that ear brain system, there is no sound, although there may be longitudinal compression waves.
They even use a different set of units to describe the psychophysical phenomena of accoustic wave energy in the ear that is different from, Joules, Watts etc. used for physical forms of energy or power.
No wonder, so many people cannot distinguish between cause and effect.
Accoustic waves are a physical cause. In the human ear, they produce the effect we call sound.
We don’t know what lobsters or jelly fish call the effect of acoustic waves, if there is any in their world.
Any more than the mosquito trapped in a spiders web ?
As someone who has suffered severe ear infections and issues over the years, we hearing impared are usually more concerned with the pain of infection and subsequent loss of hearing than trees falling. But then I am more concerned with busy roads and not being able to hear an approaching vehicle. But as George Smith says, we, literally make it up in our brains.
There is no forest where nobody is around to hear a falling tree. Not in Russia, anyway.
If a tree falls in the forest : sound.
If a tree falls on the Moon: silence.
The animals hear it.
it disturbs the smooth pond.
I’m sound in my decision.
Even on the moon, there are seismic waves, which is sound. Those waves move molecules.
IRRC, it’s Hindu philosophy that eqates perception with reality, whre anything not percieved is not real…..r something similar.
Was it’s name Treebeard? Did he fall because he was trying to clap with one hand…er…branch?
There is no evidence of AGW. The net effect of human activities on climate has not been and cannot yet be measured, if ever. It might well be to cool the planet. No one knows. But in any case, it’s negligible.
“AGW would start to slow down.”
Well, that’s a profound statement with little meaning, since it has not yet been unequivocally demonstrated how much temperature rise is anthropogenic. Judith Curry had this right in her congressional testimony. The degree to which trends in global temperatures can be attributed to humans, and how much of that is from land use changes and how much from fossil fuel burning, is not known. If earlier prognostications were at all accurate, an accelerated rise in global temperatures could not have stalled due to natural variations, but it has. If natural variations can overcome anthropogenic influence, we could see AGW snuffed by anthropo-degenerative cooling (ADC).
“But AGW would start to slow down”. Didn’t realise you could go any slower than stopped, but there we are!
I prefer the term Gruber Change
COP21? Continuation of Pause (in 21st Century)?
Nice.
I’ll steal that and I won’t be giving a reference.
Please forgive my future plagiarism.
Flattery, compliment, yadda yadda.
the they changed the name argument a few years back always gets knockedback and looks a bit silly (global warming – to ‘climate change)
look at how long ago the IPCC was formed..
look what is stands for Intergovernmental Panel on CLIMATE CHANGE
Barry, the terms “global warming and climate change” have different meanings. Do one of them “google searches” to learn. Easy stuff.
Climate Change is measured or observed weather over a past 30 years period. 90 % of the factors driving weather and climate is scientifically either not or badly known. And Since climate is a chaotic system it’s simply on that ground alone not possible to forecast future climate and weather. So the IPCC “projections” about future climate are all solely and only an oxymoron based on UNFCCC, politics and ideology.
Why are melting glaciers in western Antarctica?
Numerous volcanoes exist in Marie Byrd Land, a highland region of West Antarctica. High heat flow through the crust in this region may influence the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet1, 2, 3, 4. Volcanic activity progressed from north to south in the Executive Committee mountain range between the Miocene and Holocene epochs, but there has been no evidence for recent magmatic activity5, 6, 7. Here we use a recently deployed seismic network to show that in 2010 and 2011, two swarms of seismic activity occurred at 25–40 km depth beneath subglacial topographic and magnetic highs, located 55 km south of the youngest subaerial volcano in the Executive Committee Range. We interpret the swarm events as deep long-period earthquakes based on their unusual frequency content. Such earthquakes occur beneath active volcanoes, are caused by deep magmatic activity and, in some cases, precede eruptions8, 9, 10, 11. We also use radar profiles to identify a prominent ash layer in the ice overlying the seismic swarm. Located at 1,400 m depth, the ash layer is about 8,000 years old and was probably sourced from the nearby Mount Waesche volcano. Together, these observations provide strong evidence for ongoing magmatic activity and demonstrate that volcanism continues to migrate southwards along the Executive Committee Range. Eruptions at this site are unlikely to penetrate the 1.2 to 2-km-thick overlying ice, but would generate large volumes of melt water that could significantly affect ice stream flow.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n12/full/ngeo1992.html?WT.ec_id=NGEO-201312
When the Climate Liars use the phrase “climate change”, what they really mean is manmade climate change. Control the language and you control the debate. It’s all part of the strategy.
Were back to the conspiracy theory again huh? How about some science from the deniers. Come on, there must be something out there..
There is a difference between “climate change” and “manmade climate change”.
The Grand Canyon’s epic… but it’s won no architecture prizes.
We(‘)re(sic) back to the conspiracy theory again huh? How about some science from the deniers. Come on, there must be something out there..
Yawn. Here we go again,……
It’s a conspiracy fact. See Climategate emails and “we need to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”.
OK, Mr B.S., this ought to be easy enough to understand
The CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) hypothesis, stated by IPCC, is this: Man-caused emissions of CO2, CH4, etc. to the atmosphere retard the radiation of absorbed solar/thermal energy back to space, and thereby increase the temperature of the global atmosphere
Observation 1: Human emissions of CO2 in the last 20 years are approximately 50% of the TOTAL human emissions since the beginning of records
Observation 2: Satellite data show that the global average temperature (over both oceans and land) HAS NOT CHANGED over the same time interval
As simply stated by Dr. Richard Feynman, “If the observations contradict the hypothesis, the HYPOTHESIS IS WRONG”
Observations 1 and 2 show clearly that CO2 has no measurable effect on global temperatures
No conspiracy here, just facts.
What do you say now, Mr. B.S.?
No tropospheric Warm Zone. No warming for 18 years. Cold winters.
The Tropospheric Warm Zone was hypothesized to be a fingerprint of CO2 based warming. When it could not be found, the Modellers should have re-worked their hypothesis. They did not.
The Scientific Method was abandoned. Then and there, it stopped being about science.
My generation has seen the hijacking of many words.
Discrimination was once considered a valuable trait.
The word hero has been severely diluted due to overuse.
Sustainable is being morphed as we speak.
IPCC AR5 doubts it’s own science. Refer to TS.6 Key Uncertainties.
Where did the IPCC’s calculation of 95% certainty that humans were primarily responsible for their calculation of global warming come from?
Was this an actual statistical calculation that can be examined or just an opinion? If it was an opinion how many people “voted” and what were the results of the vote?
Thank you Dr. Tim Ball; a clear description in plain English (as always) with a rather funny and appropriate cartoon !
Anthony
The entire gravy train needs to be derailed and more importantly exposed in an explosive and dramatic way (obviously). I’m sure such a thing will probably be “in your sights” and I suspect also in someone else’s sights. Perhaps you would be good enough to discuss this subject with that particular person in seventeen days’ time. I do hope so and I thank you for all of what you do.
Regards,
Warren
To me, the most interesting thing about the climate debate is how clearly it demonstrates “group think.”
In these terms, it rivals religion, US politics, UFO’s, “moral veganism,” and even the devotion to a single sports team.
The problem is always the desire for a monopoly of some sort – be it power, knowledge, or moral superiority – facilitated by our tiny capacity for objectivity. –And by our submicroscopic appreciation of objectivity’s inherent value.
Excellent post! Thank you.
Talmage
storiform
It’s funny leading physicists and evolutionary biologists will debate religious people who have next to zero scientific knowledge or are grossly misinformed or have no intent in debating honestly but just want to peddle their faith.
But climate scientists will not even appear on the same stage with other scientists. For a laugh look up “Dr. Gavin Schmidt Versus Dr. Roy Spencer”. Gavin actually forced Spencer, a leading scientist on collecting satellite data, off the stage before he would appear. I don’t know there has ever been a more douche-bag move in the history of television. Well maybe except for whites who refused to appear on the same stage as blacks.
Enough said.
Well, the explanation for this highly amusing and telltale behavior of leading IPCC scientists is easy:
They know their own weak position with regard to climate facts and are heavily afraid of loosing a public debate about their “settled truth”. People who are sure about their position don’t behave this way. But the IPCC proponents have done so much economic damage by their hysterical CAGW scare mongering already, that they fear the inevitable and ignoble end of their career-enhancing anti-CO2 hysteria quite mortally…
Schmidt did once appear side by side with Spencer’s colleague Christie and suffered being used to mop the floor as a result. Little wonder that he refuses, supposedly upon high falutin’ grounds, but actually out of abject cowardice, to behave like a real scientist and subject his baseless conjectures to criticism based upon reality.
Although not actually on the same set:
And only in the safe confines of CNN, not at the cruel, relentless, untender mercy of Stossel.
Here is the Intelligence Squared debate between Lindzen, Crichton and Somerville, versus Gavin Schmidt, Stott, and Ekwurzel.
Needless to say, the skeptics gave Schmidt and his pals the usual hard spanking. And here’s another debate, in which Lord Monckton takes no prisoners.
I have several other similar debates saved, in which the alarmist side gets their heads handed to them by skeptical scientists. Skeptics have won every such debate held in a neutral venue, with a fair, agreed to moderator.
As a result, the alarmist side refuses to debate any more. Instead, they tuck tail and run like Gavin Schmidt did when facing Dr. Roy Spencer.
If a scientist believes in his hypothesis, he should not be afraid to explain it and defend it. Skeptical scientists are not afraid. Alarmist scientists are terrified of debating.
I wonder what Ben Sturgis thinks about that? What’s his excuse for his side’s cowardice?
Who gave Obama the authority to Save the World anyway?
Self appointed emperor of the universe.
A US president is elected to protect the United States, in our own time.
He is concerned about his “legacy”.
The strange thing is, most people do not latch onto a sinking ship with both fists when they are thinking about their future.
I applaud Dr. Ball and many others for taking a scientific stand against this injustice to humanity.
However, I wish Dr. Ball and the other good guys would realize that most of the opposition doesn’t care a whit about the science of AGW except as a false flag to con the public. Most of them know their science doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and yet the rhetoric doesn’t stop. In order to win, it will take continuing real science and also a means to change the majority of public perception. This means is usually accomplished via the media, but they are captured.
It’s the Chinese Communist Party to the rescue, but not for our sake. They know the truth, but they are letting the scare run because it is working to their advantage.
What have we come to? The end of the Cold War gave us the greatest ever opportunity to make the world a better place, and the leaders of the West have completely blown it by collectively following half a dozen disastrous ideas at once.
What is really bizarre about Obama’s ravings on this subject, and that is what they are, is that he is a lawyer and a former professor of law. What the hell sort of lawyer is raving and vilifying advocates for the defence so to speak?
Can you imagine him raving about defence attorneys as being ‘murder deniers’ and ‘crime deniers’/
We that is effectively wjhat he is doing. He is vilifying people who, not just because they have been engaged to do so life defence attorneys, but who actually believe in their cause and are often working pro bono, are simply articulating an alternative version of events that fits the evidence and fits it somewhat better than the prosecution’s does.
Surely this man is one of Voltaire’s Bastards as John Ralston Saul terms them.
There is no climate change at all. Climate is and has always been chaotic. There have been periods of global warming and there have been periods of global cooling. At present there is global stasis. It has been warmer than now, it has been colder than now. There has been more CO2 and less CO2 in the atmosphere. More sea-ice and less sea-ice, warmer oceans and colder oceans, more rain and less rain, more storms and fewer storms. Which was the best global climate in the last 1M years, which was the worst? Which was the best global climate in the last 1000 years and which was the worst? Which was the best global climate in the last 100 years and which was the worst? Is now the worst global climate, will it be in the next 100 years, 1000 years, 1 M years? Can we really predict this? When have we been best able to mitigate climate related disasters? What gives humanity the power to mitigate climate related disasters? Is it now and into the future with our abundent energy and intelligent use? Would a sensible harbinger of iminent climate catastrophe and catastrophic sealevel rise ever buy an expensive seafront property?
Son,
There is climate change and on some time scales it’s demonstrably cyclical.
The climate of earth has been everything from covered with oceans of molten rock to oceans of water ice and in between.
So Europe over the next 100 years, better or worse climate?
If warmer, better. If colder, worse. But probably not enough change to matter much, if sensible energy policies be adopted.
I expect cooler than now for two or three decades, then about as warm as now for two or three decades, then cooler again, but not by much.
Seems to me I already answered this question from you. But one more time.
Since colder is worse, the climate of Europe will most likely worsen for about 20 years, then get warmer (ie, better) for around 30 years, then cooler again for a similar interval, then warmer, which gets us to over 100 years.
Please don’t ask me this question again, my having replied twice now.
Sorry. My bad. Thought I was commenting on a different blog post.
Too much commenting.
As long as falling AMO in Europe colder. That means about 30 years.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1880
For more information……..http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-prefer-pal-review-over-peer-review-chris-de-freitas-pat-michaels-and-their-pals-1997-2003
Everyone is entitled to a climate of their peers.
Yessirree, plenty of Klimate Koolade there. Great for brainwashed, True Believers of all stripes.
LMAO
Aah, a picture emerges from the murk. Thanks for clearing up the confusion, Mr. Sturgis.
Isn’t that the paid ‘activists’ propaganda blog, founded and funded by a fraudster? A reliable ‘sauce’ for firm believers AGW, indeed!
Sayeth the data: “Fudge not, lest ye be smudged.”
When I asked my friend the other day how her yard was affected by the tree coming down, as we are both gardeners and have “microclimates” in our yards, she said, “I don’t know; it’s hard to tell with ‘all this global warming'”……I was so proud of myself for saying nothing. “Silence is the art of communication” 🙂
I like to play stupid and ask people, “why is climate change always a bad thing? Isn’t it ever good, like more rain in dry places or less hurricanes on the eastern seaboard???” I never get a response.
There getting the “more rain in dry places” and plenty of tornadoes right now. So if you want to blame the “good” thing on “climate change” you go right ahead.. I don’t have all the facts yet. I’ll keep you informed.
Ben,
A warmer world should produce fewer tornadoes, not more. In the US, tornadoes result from the temperature differential between warm Gulf air and cooler air coming down from the Northern Plains.
I await with bated breath your proclamation.
Baited bread is buttered on both sides.
==========
He’s got a bad case of the extreme weather meme for which there is no data and no cure. Full body immersion in history is sometimes helpful, but he’s got to survive the ordeal.
============
Sometimes they don’t take the bait.
Baited bread is good for kvetching carp.
What causes nice weather??
Dr. Ball should have a weekly syndicated column in the MSM because he is able to communicate the absurdity of CAGW to lay people in terms they understand.
however, the MSM would never allow it. there’s the rub.
The closing quote is the key element of the post:
“Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery…”
We know that there is little science to AGW. It’s a political issue. Once it loses traction, it will be disposed of… and replaced with a fresh set of nonsense.
Considering the damage of AGW policies to humanity (this far), we should be paying some attention to the “new slavery” to come because come it will.
Thank you, Dr. Ball.
Green fundamentalism as a whole is likely to expire because its two fundamental causes (Western guilt and rapid population growth) are approaching their expiry date because the West is losing economic supremacy and global population growth is slowing down.
The thing that worries me is that the next problem we manufacture might be real. Something to do with artificial intelligence or genetics. People are useless at forseeing the drawbacks of technology.
I’m afraid the lack of foresight is much worse than that.
I hope California is ready for floods. Do you think they have thought that far ahead?
It has been a long time irony that when it comes to denying climate change Mann’s infamous stick is based on denying past climate change for in this work he tired to disappear the MWP and the little ice age.
And yet this work has become an central part of the CAGW dogma which means that despite its many errors it must be defended no matter what. Which tells you much about the nature of this dogma.
[Please do not discuss chemtrails here, per site Policy. — mod.]
Hoo boy. Break out the tinfoil.
I’ve always thought whale oil should be used as jet fuel.( Only from the cutest whales.)
It’s not petroleum and It’s renewable.
Of course. Byproducts of burning kerosene create contrails when atmospheric conditions are favorable. And studies show how the cirrus clouds that result cause surface warming.
http://phys.org/news/2011-03-airplane-contrails-worse-co2-emissions.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060614-contrails.html
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/apr/HQ_04140_clouds_climate.html
Expect a bump in temperature from COP 21.
It doesn’t seem difficult to regulate climate with clouds. Nature does it, all we have to do is simulate nature a little better than we can now.
And I know this Russian lady who does the Malaguena. She’s a knock-out show.
================
“Russian lady who does the Malaguena…”
Does she stimulate nature?
And how. Yes, just how?
======
I didn’t know there was a dance called the Malagueña. There is a style of music by that name and a number of songs.
And there is the briefly (thank God!) popular dance song the Macarena by Los del Rio, the craze for which lasted just long enough for some young Latinas to be saddled with that name. And for attendees at the 1996 Democratic presidential nominating convention to make fools of themselves trying to perform it.
Is anyone tracking the effect of Colorado on downwind weather?
It’s always been cloudy in Colorado.
It’s just that now It’s legal.
The warmists try to associate climate sceptics with the scientists that denied smoking causes lung cancer, which is highly amusing. Those scientists paid by Big Tobacco were pushing an argument without evidence, and with a body of evidence against it. Now who does that remind me of? It reminds me of the scientists paid by Big Government to push a theory with no evidence, but a body of evidence against it.
Good point. Scientists were corrupted by money in support of tobacco. Now scientists are corrupted by government in support of climate.
It is the Scientists that have a history of corruption for money. Why should anyone believe them?