The Fable of a Stable Climate

Translation from the Dutch book review “Het Sprookje van een stabiel klimaat” by Hans Labohm. Posted on the climategate.nl blog.

My loyal readers know him as co-author of my blog: the geologist, paleoclimatologist and climate sceptic Gerrit van der Lingen, an antipode of Dutch origin who has been living in New Zealand for many years.

Gerrit van der Lingen has recently published a fascinating book, “The Fable of a Stable Climate, the writings and debates of a climate realist”, which contains a collection of his essays, lectures, discussions and letters to the media about climate and associated subjects.

Most of the public information about the climate comes from scientists who studied the weather and weather processes and who consider temperature data of 150 years already a long period. For van der Lingen this is only one heartbeat in the geological history, which forms the only correct context for judging the present climate developments.

While studying climate change in the past he realised that the present belief in man-made catastrophic global warming (AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming), caused by CO₂ emissions, is not supported by the science. He became involved in the climate debate, in which the protagonists of the AGW, who believe in the dominant role of mankind in the warming of the atmosphere, and the antagonists, who base their opinions on factual data and observations, are diametrically opposed to each other. It seems to be a debate between ideology and pure science.

In his introduction Gerrit van der Lingen describes his adventurous lifecycle as a geologist. After his education at the University of Utrecht, he took part in several scientific expeditions to inhospitable areas.

The first chapter contains an overview of his email bulletins “Global warming and cooling”, which he wrote over several years. These give a clear overview of the climate debate, with all its high and low points. In doing this he draws attention to the role played by important participants, protagonists as well as antagonists, such as (alphabetically) Habibullo Addussamatov, Joe d’Aleo, Will Alexander. Noor van Andel, Timothy Ball, David Bellamy, Bob Carter, Ian Castles, Michael Crighton, John Daly, Freeman Dyson, Bas van Geel, Al Gore, James Hansen, David Henderson, Warwick Hughes, Sir John Houghton, Craig en Keith Idso, Yuri Izrael, Kees de Jager, Phil Jones, Sir David King, Kirill Kondratyev, Salomon Kroonenberg, Richard Lindzen, Bjørn Lomborg, Michael Mann, Steve McIntyre, Ross McKitrick, Pat Michaels, Lord Christopher Monckton, Nils–Axel Mörner, Roger Pielke Jr., Ian Plimer, Stefan Rahmstorf, Arthur Rörsch, Fred Singer, Hans von Storch, Rajendra Pachauri, Harry Priem, Paul Reiter, Sir Nicolas Stern, Dick Thoenes, Bob Tisdale, Kevin Trenberth, Pier Vellinga, Anthony Watts and many others.

As a Dutchman, Gerrit van der Lingen is also well informed of the climate discussion in the Netherlands. He draws attention to this in various parts in his book. As far as I know this is the first time that this happens in an English-language book.

He is all the time surprised how it is possible that intelligent people can be taken in by the AGW hypothesis and, as a consequent, have lost all sense of reality.

I select one salient detail, to which van der Lingen returns a few times, because there are still misunderstandings about it. It pertains to the Russian position in relation to the Kyoto Protocol. The Russians had a few questions on which they never received an answer. In 2004, they decided to organise a climate conference in Moscow, independently of the UN IPCC climate panel, and with the co-operation of a number of climate sceptics. At the end of this conference, Andrei Illarionov, at the time economic advisor of president Putin, presented his impressions.

Yuri Antonovich and I have mentioned the fact that this is the first seminar of its kind that we have managed to arrange and it was accidental. Over almost a year we have repeatedly asked our foreign partners who advocate the Kyoto Protocol and who insist that Russia should ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and we have invited them to meet and discuss these issues, present arguments and counter-arguments and discuss them jointly. But we have not received any reply for a year. These people persistently refused to take part in any discussion.

Nine months ago, at an international climate change conference in Moscow, ten questions concerning the essence of the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying theory were submitted to the IPCC. We were told that the reply would be given within several days. Nine months have passed since

then but there has been no reply, even though we have repeated our inquiries on these and the growing number of other related questions.

Instead of getting replies to our questions, we kept on hearing that replies did not matter. What was important is that whether or not Russia trusts Britain, the European Union and the countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and that have been exerting unprecedented pressure on Russia to ratify it. This is why it was so important for us to arrange a real meeting and a real discussion of real problems with the participation of foreign scientists who have different views in order not to stew in one’s own juice, as Yuri Antonovich put it, but to hear the arguments not only of our Russian scientists but also the arguments and counter-arguments from scientists in other countries.

We did get such an opportunity and over the past two days we heard more than 20 reports, we held detailed discussions, and now we can say that a considerable number of the questions we formulated and raised have been somewhat clarified, just as some other questions have.

I would sum up my conclusions in six points. The first one concerns the nature and the contents of the Kyoto Protocol. This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, international adventure of all times and nations. Frankly speaking, it’s hard to recall something like this of the same scale and of the same consequences, just as the lack of any grounds for action in field.

Basically, none of the assertions made in the Kyoto Protocol and the “scientific” theory on which the Kyoto Protocol is based been borne out by actual data. We are not seeing any high frequency of emergency situations or events. There has been no increase in the number of floods. Just as there has been no increase in the number of droughts. We can see that the speed of the wind in the hails in some areas is decreasing contrary to the statements made by the people who support the Kyoto Protocol. We are not witnessing a higher incidence of contagious diseases, and if there is a rise, it has nothing to do with climate change.

Andrei Allarionov continued by describing in detail the misbehaviour of the British delegation under the leadership of Sir David King, then the most important advisor of the British government, who did his utmost to sabotage the meeting, among others by requiring that climate sceptics not be allowed to present their presentations, and by stalking out of the meeting.

Illarionov compared the AGW with an ideology.

The next point brings us directly to the Kyoto Protocol, or more specifically, to the ideological and philosophical basis on which it is built. That ideological base can be juxtaposed and compared … with man-hating totalitarian ideology with which we had the bad fortune to deal during the 20th century, such as National Socialism, Marxism, Eugenics, Lysenkoism and so on. All methods of distorting information existing in the world have been committed to prove the alleged validity of these theories. Misinformation, falsification, fabrication, mythology, propaganda. Because what is offered cannot be qualified in any other way than myth, nonsense and absurdity.

And that from the mouth of a Russian!

The Moscow climate conference leaves no doubt that the Russian Academy of Sciences cannot be considered as supporters of the AGW dogma – a thesis that is part of the standard repertoire of the disinformation by climate alarmists.

In the course of the book all important themes of the climate debate are discussed in short, clear analyses, and all allegations of the climate alarmists are tested against measurements and observations …. and refuted! After all, the warming hysteria is not based on science, but only on non-validated computer models. As is often said: Rubbish in – gospel out.

The book is full of anecdotes, showing that the author and his allies have provoked the ire of the supporters of the human greenhouse gas hypothesis. These days, if someone admits that he does not believe in God, it will, in general, be accepted without fuss. However, if one declares not to believe in AGW, it is seen by many as blasphemy, and the “culprit” is subjected to a tidal wave of ad hominems, insults and accusations.

At the end of the book, Gerrit van der Lingen sighs that:

When future historians will be studying the present global mass hysteria about alleged catastrophic man-made global warming (MMGW), they will most likely shake their heads in total disbelief. They may well compare it with other such historic irrational hysterias, like the tulipomania in Holland in the 17th century. …

The belief that human emissions of carbon dioxide cause, or will cause catastrophic global warming is a … totalitarian belief. It does not allow ‘critical discussion’. Those scientists who try are vilified. Over the years I collected the following abuses: ‘climate change deniers’, ‘cashamplified flat-earth pseudo scientists’, ‘the carbon cartel’, ‘villains’, ‘cranks’, ‘refuseniks lobby’, ‘polluters’, ‘a powerful and devious enemy’, ‘profligates’. The list is endless. …

By saying that the science of climate change is ‘settled’ and not open to further discussion, clearly shows that the belief in man-made global warming is not based on proper science, but is a neoMarxist, intolerant ideology. It is anti-science, anti-capitalist, anti-democracy, anti-growth, antihumanity, anti-progress.

All in all, “The Fable of a Stable Climate” shows a wide and solid knowledge of the subject. Moreover, Gerrit van der Lingen has the talent to very clearly explain the complicated problems, which make his writings very accessible for a broad public. In other words: his book reads like a riveting novel.

The book has 418 pages and many illustrations and graphs, as well as extensive reference lists. The book, both paperback and Kindle, can be ordered here: http://www.book2look.com/book/9780473353490.

It is also on Amazon, here

In my opinion, this book is mandatory reading for climatophiles of all denominations.