Projects that forecast dire effects from the current warming receive Government funds, but no funds for answers about the causes of previous warming cycles that occurred before the Industrial Revolution 1760 – 1840.
By Ronald Stein
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Irvine, California
While the chart below suggests substantial warming since the 1600’s, humans cannot be blamed for any significant amount of warming until after about 1950, which is when atmospheric CO2 concentrations began to increase markedly.
So, how is it that the warming from about 1700 to 1950 was natural, but the warming before 1700 is not?
Discovery of the “whys” for previous warming cycles, like what occurred during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods are unlikely to qualify for government funded research, so the easier route to funding is to enhance the seriousness of the need to prevent the ‘current’ warming cycle and its potential threat to humanity, the same humanity that endured previous warming cycles.
Almost all climate-change research is funded by government. That means you the taxpayer. Government has been on the global warming bandwagon from the beginning. If young climate researchers today want to build their careers, their chances of getting government funding for their proposals is directly proportional to how seriously they portray the threat of global warming. If their research project themes are skeptical of human-caused climate change, their chance of getting funded are great reduced.
In his 1961 Farewell Address to the nation, President Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of the trend toward Government-sponsored science. When politicians have the ultimate say over who gets money for what reason, you can suspect that political motivations and desired policy outcomes will inevitably result in biased research. Additionally, Eisenhower pointed out that scientists eager to keep the funds flowing might take control of public policy to benefit their own careers.
Unfortunately, very little of research funding goes toward understanding natural causes of climate change, like what occurred in the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, and the warming from about 1700 to 1950 all of which occurred before the Industrial Revolution. Interestingly, that warming was natural during those periods, but warming since 1950 is not?
Why don’t more papers tackle the thorny issue of determining how much warming is natural versus anthropogenic? In contrast to the CO2-based theory natural climate change is largely not understood, unpredictable, and so researchers do not look there for causes of warming which may be the driving force for government funds to research solution for the doomsday forecasting.
Global Warming is the ultimate cash cow for climate researchers. The bigger the perceived problem, the more money agencies like NASA, NOAA, DOE, EPA, and NSF can get.
The modern-day blaming of weather events on human-caused climate change in the news reports, at a minimum, intellectually lazy, and is probably mor aptly described as journalistic malpractice and fearmongering. Admittedly, some in the science community have enabled this feeding frenzy.
The Press will not report on DATA or FACTS that counter the emotions as they are deemed as deniers of that emotion driving the public.
The news media are only interested in covering predictions of doom, which further amplifies the emotional bias. How could thinking people NOT be skeptical when it comes to the outlandish claims, we receive from the news media? Why then, does it seem to so many like our weather is getting worse? It is partly because alarmism pervades the news on an almost daily basis.
Poverty kills and forcing people to use more expensive energy will worsen poverty. Poverty, not global warming, remains biggest challenge.
Yes, fossil fuels are probably a finite source. But as they become scarcer, their price will rise, and other sources of energy will become economically competitive. Innovation will lead to new energy technologies. Because everything humans due requires energy, energy demand WILL lead to an energy supply.
Interestingly, regarding energy literacy on renewables and fossil fuels, it is not that we are stupid, we are too emotional. One of the principles of branding is that people do not buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. We make most of our decisions based on feelings and emotions, NOT data and facts.
The WHY in this equation is simple, as it equates to getting off fossil fuels to reduce emissions at any cost. Emotions takes it from there, and any data or facts to the contrary are categorized as deniers to the emotional decisions in play. Elected and appointed officials, and special interest groups, feed off the WHY for government funding, to reduce emissions at any cost, for votes and money.
Nothing seems to have changed since Former President Eisenhower pointed out 60 years ago that scientists eager to keep the government funds flowing might take control of public policy to benefit their own careers.
Ronald Stein, P.E.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure
http://www.energyliteracy.net/
Climate scammers have erased all prior warm and cold periods. Every period and civilization prior to the onset of the Industrial Revolution began, the Earth’s climate was a Garden of Eden of tranquility. Our sins of CO2 emissions have cast humanity out of Eden. We must repent and send unprecedented amounts of wealth to the UN for our redemption and to return climate to Garden of Eden period.
Ye verily.
So it is.
So it shall be done.
I recommend the book The Doomsday Myth, which chronicles failure of predictions of resource shortages even when backed by government force.
An example is rubber:
Conservation, creativity (innovation), enterprise put the lie to ‘sustainability’. Even the infamous Malthus was realizing that in his old age, though his writings are a bit variable, seemingly not wanting to ‘walk back’ too quickly.
The news media is never ever interested in covering the results of past predictions. Strange, because when clairvoyancy actually happens , its called “news”.
Why oh why does the graph of NH temperature 2000 yr reconstruction look so different than what is posted on NOAA.
Why oh why does the Ljungqvist plot above have uncertainty band of +/- 0.2 while the 18 lines in the NOAA plot are in a +/- 0.5 degrees.
NOAA in their compilation has effectively obscured the Roman and Medieval warm periods. This is possibly an example of CAGW being the ultimate cash cow and influencing supposed scientific bureaucracies to internal funding motives. It makes it difficult to ferret out good from bad science.
Extremely biased opinion piece written by someone who obviously is unqualified to write about it.
Studying natural climate change, which the writer of this opinion thinks is not funded, is something scientists do all the time. Have a look at the lists at notrickszone blog, scientists who study natural climate change are dishonestly tagged by deniers there as disproving climate change (they don’t..) . While all they do is help us understand past natural climate changes, which in turn help us understand modern climate change too.
If you didn’t live in your echo chamber of misinformation and misinterpretation of what the actual scientists do you would be able to see that this entire article is rubbish.
How many of the people reading this have actually bothered to read actual science and not just pieces by uneducated and unqualified people here in WUWT??
If you are paid to spread misinformation, there is no salvation for you. But any readers who are not and are real skeptics should always check for the sources. Read the texts for yourselves and make up your minds on your own and not getting fed whatever opinion unqualified and extremely biased (potentially with other interests too) people have.
Have no illusions, people writing at WUWT are unqualified indeed… Actual scientists publish in peer-review literature, it is only charlatans or con-artists that try to beg/con you into donating money to them with such rubbish articles… Don’t be so gullible
What I want to know (asking as rhetorical question; knowing full well there will be no answers forthcoming from the current “scientific” establishment) is how did all of these poor creatures like polar bears, walrus, seals and others that really are endangered, survive those past warm periods? If animal X (fill in the blank) is in decline today due to human caused climate change, then how come it didn’t go extinct when the climate was even warmer than today? Why do we still have polar bears, which have survived many ice ages and warm periods in their 250K+ years as a separate species? And finally, why are we still here? If mild warming is so catastrophic, how did pre-industrial and pre-agricultural humanity survive?
Maybe 1,000 year solar cycles could possibly explain the graph?
“ the same humanity that endured previous warming cycles “, endured? I would say we prospered.
Nicely organized article, but with all due respect, the grammatical and spelling errors detract greatly from the credibility of the scientific facts presented. Please be careful! I was going to forward this article to several alarmists, but I know in advance that they will destroy this post for the grammatical errors!
As general question, is south hemisphere, more stable in terms of it’s average temperature?
Or similar question, does a hemisphere lead or follow the other?
Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and there is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. Radiametric calculations of the climate sensitivity of CO2 based came up with a value for the climate sensitivity of CO2 not including feedbacks of 1.2 degrees C. However these calculations neglected to include the fact that a doubling of CO2 will cause a slight decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which will lower the climate sensitivity of CO2 by more than a factor of 20 dropping the climate sensitivity of CO2 to less than .06 degrees C. Then there is the issue of H2O feedback. Molecule per molecule, H2O is a stronger absorber of IR radiation than is CO2 and on average there is 50 times more H2O in the Earth’s atmosphere than is CO2. So H2O must be the primary so called greenhouse gas. The idea is that CO2 warming causes more H2O to enter the Earth’s atmosphere which causes even more warming which causes even more H2O to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and so on. But this logic ignores the fact that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy by the heat of vaporization. The overall cooling effects of H2O are evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate. So instead of enhancing any possible CO2 warming H2O must cause it to diminish and tend toward zero.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands. Such a radiant greenhouse house effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, the Earth’s atmosphere or on any planet in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. The insulating effects of the atmosphere is entirely a convective greenhouse effect which is a function of pressure and the heat capacity of the atmosphere. Any possible radiant effects are corrected by convection. Because the climate sensitivity of CO2 is really zero is why no one has been able to measure it. Fundamentally gases that are good absorbers are also good radiators and in terms of radiation do not trap heat energy. The radiant greenhouse effect is nothing but science fiction so hence the AGW conjecture is nothing but science fiction as well. The only way that adding CO2 to the Earth’s atmosphere could cause warming is if the adding of CO2 caused an increase in surface pressure overcoming the effect of added CO2 lowering the dry lapse rate. To date, no one has provided any evidence that the surface pressure is increasing because of the generation of CO2 so CO2 cannot possible be causing any warming. This is all a matter of science.
Interesting article