Hi Jennifer,
Have you been to church today? No? Well you have if you believe in the Global Warming summary as purported by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) because the result is based on faith, just like religion, and not science.
Indeed according to Michael Crichton:
"The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears."
Would you take medication that says “most people who take this medication will very likely not die”? The medication wouldn’t be on the shelves in the first place because it wouldn’t have passed the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee requirements. However, assuming it is, I doubt whether most of us would take it. But we are willing to take the IPCC summary “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [man made] greenhouse gas concentrations”
This brings us back to faith with the “Believers” and the “Sceptics” (or “Deniers”). The Believers whole faith lies on the two words “most likely” and, once you believe, the path is defined. Al Gore has given us the physical “Hell and Damnation” scenario with his movie (an Inconvenient Truth) that is up there with Von Danikin and the Chariots of the Gods. We have the Stern Report that sends us to economic purgatory based on the worst case scenario of those two words. Now we have the fundamentalist Believers who say we should ban the export of coal. Take that further and we will be shutting down coal mines, closing power generation plants and outlawing carbon base fuels. This would then leave you in your grass hut, hunting and gathering, as you would be unemployed with no transport, communication or man-processed foods. Just like everyone else on the planet. At least we wouldn’t have Global Warming as defined by the Believers.
Then there are the moderates who believe that replacing your light bulbs with low-wattage bulbs will reverse the trend. Even if all of the 20 million people in Australia performed this task, we would be outweighed by the 231 million (July 2002) people of Indonesia, let alone the 1.2 billion (July 2002) people in China.
The Believers have been told that the IPCC summary is the consensus of 2500 scientists, 450 lead authors and 800 contributors with the result being a consensus of sound science. What has been omitted is that not all of the scientists are in agreement with the summary. Also, scientific research that does not agree with the summary is ignored, or worse still, the opposite view is given (Ross McKitrick – “What the U.N. won’t tell you”). This comes about because the end result is filtered by politicians and bureaucrats. To see the end result of analysis by scientists, look at the Oregon Petition which is a consensus of some 17,000 verified scientists. Going back to our medication, imagine a politician filtering your Doctor’s analysis; are you really going to take that medication now?
The Sceptics, on the other hand, are saying that there is not enough evidence to say that the planet’s climate is behaving outside the bounds of what has happened over the past millions of years, let alone man’s part in influencing climate change. Most of the internet discussion is on the specifics of what is right and wrong with the IPCC summary but the polarisation boils down to those two little words, “very likely”.
So how did this situation get so out of hand that the dying in Africa are put on the back burner while we throw billions at providing a solution to a problem that doesn’t need fixing? There is the premise that “we caused it, we can fix it”. We believe that this situation was bound to happen because of our decadent western lifestyle of forsaking nature. Now nature is getting even and only we can redeem ourselves (by cutting greenhouse emissions) to return to Eden. Consider this; the radiative process (by which we lose heat to space) only accounts for 25% of our heat dissipation (the other 75% is spread between convection and conduction) and the man-made greenhouse gases only account for 2% of all greenhouse gases (Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus – Richard Lindzen). 98% of the greenhouse gases comprise water vapour and but since they aren’t man-made they are ignored in the process. Perhaps there are a few interactions going on that we don’t know about yet? After all, the planet has been looking after itself for millions of years (as well as several ice-ages), so maybe it knows something we don’t know?
Also that media has seen a good story and replayed all the sensational parts to scare the children, Politicians have been inundated with constituents who can’t sleep at night and want them to do something about it, and now we are at the stage where if you want publicity for a product, connect it with Climate Change. Al Gore is at it again with a Climate Concert covering half the globe. If he really believed his own movie, he would do it without electricity or transportation as those two will add tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The question is: where is the science behind all this? Politicians aren’t scientists and the media certainly aren’t. You, the reader, aren’t a scientist. Again it comes down to faith in what we are being told is correct.
There are just as many analysis of the IPCC summary that show it to be a hypothesis but not a scientific fact (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 2007, Analysis and Summary – Christopher Monckton for one), but this point is not relayed by the media as strongly as the original summary. Where is the investigative journalism that gives us the other side’s point of view? My own research has made me question the information being constantly fed to the public by the media and has led to the following:
Fact: The Climate is changing and will always change.
Fact: The earth has been heating up since the last ice-age. It hasn’t been at steady x degrees per decade but it has been increasing.
Fact: We need to know more about the complexities of climate and our influence (as an inhabitant of earth) on climate, but also appreciate that there are some things we cannot control.
Fact: We, as inhabitants of this planet, should take more time to understand for ourselves at how a point of view is arrived. We seem to take the word of everyone else instead of making up our own mind.
So if you want to find a cause that will make your existence relevant, help the poor, the hungry and the disadvantaged. Do not take the funds that could help alleviate their suffering to placate your own fears as planted by people who are masters of the game. Also, do not expect everyone to change their lifestyle because of your point of view. Wouldn’t that make you a terrorist?
Regards
Roger Burke
Brisbane,
In Australia
PS
The main site for Michael Crichton's speeches is here http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/index.html and the one about "Environmentalism as religion" is here http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/speeches_quote05.html .
There is also a great excerpt from his book 'The State of Fear' about Politicized Science called 'Why Politicized Science is Dangerous' (http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/index.html) that parallels the old theory of eugenics with that of climate change. It was his book (The State of Fear) that initially got me thinking that maybe we have been misled by the global warming hysteria.
Some other links I used:
'A climate of alarm' by Richard Lindzen in 2007 http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/20/2/2/1
'Climate Change? Don't believe it.' by Christopher Monckton in 2006 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml (and a link to download his report)
'Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus' by Richard Lindzen in 1992 http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html
'What the U.N. Won't Tell You' by Ross McKitrick in 2007 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16948233/site/newsweek/
When the spin doctors get their hooks into an issue, the truth becomes distorted. A hot political issue like global warming is bound to polarise opinion.
I've listened to all sides of the debate and have decided that (almost) everyone is guilty of exaggeration and/or obfuscation, and that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Sid - there is a large body of research on the Sun. Solar observation is a considerable part of the science program.
Invoking the sense of "awe" in our big wide world and climate is not science.
Is anybody saying that the Sun is not the major climate forcing - nope. But we do know we're warmer than we should be at this distance from the Sun and that's due to the greenhosue effect.
And we do know what changes that balance - changes in solar, aerosol or greenhouse forcing.
We know a lot about CO2 and its role in that balance. So what's wrong with CO2 science then given you're partial to good science?
Incidentally when the Earth has had changes in climate in geological time 1000s of species go extinct.
Two classic demolitions overnight Sid:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/cosmoclimatology-tired-old-arguments-in-new-clothes/
Cosmic rays have unravelled !
"AGW just offends your morality and ..."
Not so Luke, but rather Reason, and hopefully, intelligence.
It is reason that tempers all belief systems, be they political, religious or whatever. In fact it is those belief systems or organisations or individuals who hold reason as a core value, who can resist the slide into fundamentalism. Be it political, religious or envirionmental.
Therefore, anyone who values and uses reason, and who has even a moderate level of intelligence, should be able to see the global warming industry, and it's obsession with carbon, for what it is. That is, a fundamentalist movement who has abandoned reason, and whose huge and abundantly financed research programme is predicated towards producing selected data to support its pre- determined belief that man-made CO2 is the sole cause of global warming.
Further, with the use of reason, one should be able to agree on the following.
* Our world's climate/weather system is hughly complex, the workings of which, are still largely beyond our present level of understanding.
* Our civilisation does have some impact on the planet and it's climate system. Not all bad.
*There are other huge and powerful forces that affect climate such as the behaviour of the Sun, and solar system, and Cosmic Rays etc which make the efforts of mere man look pretty puny indeed.
* We have had varying levels of climate change with us, some long term and others very short term, since the world began.
* We need to continue funding research into the study of ALL the forces that affect climate, and address the present distortion where almost all funding supports our present obsession with carbon.
And SJT, I do admire John Christy, he has always used reason in his research, as I understand it he regards human activities as only one small issue in the causes of climate change. I believe that at the time that Chris Landsea resigned from the IPCC, citing politicisation of that organisation, and many others followed, Christy was also tempted to follow, but chose to stay, believing that he could better influence the extreme views better from within.
Sid
that report from the NRC had none other than the esteemed John Christy sitting on the panel and contributing to the report.
So Sid - let's do it by the numbers. Your list of scientists at the bottom - an intelligent bunch perhaps, well qualified perhaps. How many practising publishing climatologists, climate modellers, atmospheric physicists. I'll give you Landsea on the margin (and before you punch out your monitor - I am not saying he is unintelligent or doesn't know anything).
Give me a list of sceptic experts right on the relevant science area and who are up-to-date and publishing. As far as cosmic rays go I think the ship is sinking by the day. No clouds on Mars and more satellite data in need of calibration by the looks !!
Let's give it to you for the sake of argument (and I don't concede on Mann in the broad assessment as (a) the correct stats analysis gave the same answer (b) the graph always had error bounds for all to see and (c) the IPCC have restated the "unusual" aspect of the warming with more vigour in the SPM. They know climateaudit will be up them for the rent - so they're either arrogant or confident).
So given for the sake of argument we don't have good enough cause you say to discuss the last 1000 years of climate we'll have to say we really don't know. And have a few tales of Vikings and vineyards.
So that leaves us with the 20th and 21st century warming which has been rapid in the last 30 years. What reasons would you advance to its cause (a) don't know (b) solar (c) cosmic rays or what??
Next tell us what's actually wrong with the radiative physics models. Why Sid are they incorrect?
And why Sid when you measure the greenhouse flux with radiometers in the Swiss Alps do you measure very close to the greenhouse flux in watts that you'd expect.
Let's face it Sid - AGW just offends your morality and world view. You instinctively hated it the first moment you heard about it.
What's happened in the past 24 hrs on this thread?
Well, Luke has come galloping over the ridge, like the US Cavalry, to the aid of the hapless Julian, while SJT delves deeply into the AGW Industry's War chest to come up with something in defence of the Hockey Stick. SJT quotes the long and detailed report from the NRC, Washington. It needs to be said that the NRC's ideology is pro AGW, and has huge funding support from that Industry. Its research cannot therefore be regarded as hard independent science. This assessment is bourne out by perusing the list of scientists and experts on their panels to conduct this research. Not one eminent and qualified scientist, of which their are hundreds, if not thousands who are skeptical of 'global warming'. Not one; a closed shop! So with this 'me too' team they set about thei research at their master's bidding, to prove up the 'Hockey Stick'. Like all such work, it is qualified. (gotta have an escape hatch.)They state that they are highly confident of their results over the past 4 cents., they have limited confidence only, prior to 1,600., and have very little confidence in the results prior to 900. They then admit that not all proxy records support unprecented temp. rises in the late 20C.
They then discard these qualifications and conclude that they support the Mann/IPCC findings that temp. rises in the late 20C. were 'unprecented' in the past millennium, and that this was caused by AGW.
Why? Because it is absolutely essential to the IPCC's promotion of the AGW ideology, that they get rid of the MWP. They set out through Mann to do it, they have worked through the NRC to support it, and in the SPM of the 4AR they have more variations of the Hockey Stick, re invented , then Harry Potter could poke a broom stick at!
Anna, I believe that Crichton, tongue in cheek, was just implying that the 'death gene' had come down from Neanderthals, through Cro-Magnons to us, or more specifically to Envirionmentalists! Sorry for my slip up above.
I can assure you that there are a large and growing number of scientists and experts who are highly qualified, who don't support the man-made global warming theory. Too many to mention here, so just a few, that you can check out on your favourite search engine. Prof. Garth Paltridge; Dr Chris Landsea; Prof. Bob Carter; Dr Nir Shaviv; Warick Hughes; Prof. Phillip Stott; Dr Hendrik Svensmark; Prof. Ian Clark; Nigel Calder; Prof Paul Reiter.
i must admit i broadly agree with Roger Burke. there are people out there who view climate change with an almost religious fervour and can offer similarly little in the way of evidence to support their beliefs.
it is *extremely* stupid to treat science like a religion. it will only result in bad science, which is potentially dangerous for us all.
i would like to clarify that i subscribe to the theory of anthropogenic forced climate change. i am also skeptical of it at the same time, but this is simply the position required in order to meaningfully understand science.
it is unhelpful when people subscribe to the theory without a good working understanding of it though, then you end up with people like an old housemate who thought that eating organic would lessen her carbon footprint. er, no. however, simply because these light-weights cannot articulate a reasoned argument and back it up with facts, it does not mean that facts do not exist. simply that they subscribe to them for the wrong reasons. often these reasons are almost religious in nature, such as knowing that you're a better person because you buy recycled toilet paper, or that going to the rallies gives you a sense of belonging and purpose once the reserve of religion.
religion requires faith, science requires evidence. best not to confuse the two because in doing so you damage both.
on the topic of 'belief' though, a small further comment: i very, very badly want to 'believe' that climate change is not real and that we have nothing to do with it. i don't want to 'believe' any of the predictions of climate change theory, big or little, they're largely terrifying.
why on earth would anyone in their right minds want to 'believe' in climate change?
i didn't (still don't, but i'm losing hope) want to 'believe' it, so i went out and did a lot of reading. the evidence unfortunately supports the theory that climate change is being forced by us and our greenhouse gas emissions. most of the refutations of the theory come from people with very little scientific training, hence for purely logical reasons i'm skeptical about the theories they propose (i also wouldn't ask a doctor for legal advice, for example). added to that is the fact that most of the arguments against the theory of climate change involve absurd pseudo-scientific statements that could be pulled apart by any literate high school student. they are often also guilty of turning their position into an almost religious one, making all sorts of remarkable moral assertions about how the 'other side' is supposedly 'evil'.
this sort of thing does not help anyone, and it certainly does not help the planet.
PS - sid, i certainly hope Michael Chricton wasn't referring to us as Cro-Magnon, they died out 10,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon man refers to a hominid culture which no longer exists.
It's interesting to read the NRC report that M&M were invited to contribute to. In effect, they were told thanks for coming, but we believe the science confirms AGW is real.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/NRCreport.pdf
Read page 70 of the report (84 of the pdf), for example, for other proxy estimates based on glaciers.
The conclusion they reach
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth
in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This
conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes the additional
large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and documentation of the spatial coherence of
recent warming described above (Cook et al. 2004, Moberg et al. 2005, Rutherford et al. 2005,
D’Arrigo et al. 2006, Osborn and Briffa 2006, Wahl and Ammann in press), and also the
pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators described in previous chapters (e.g.,
Thompson et al. in press).
Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer
supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer
during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the
preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original
conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the
warmest year, in at least a millennium” because the uncertainties inherent in temperature
reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods,
and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short
timescales. However, the methods in use are evolving and are expected to improve."
That is, Mann was right in stating the trend is warming compared to previous times, but he could not have made that statement to the specification of a year or decade. Mann made the start in this area of research, got it right to a large extent, but methods of research needed to improve, which is what happened. To a large extent, Mann was right.
This is the inquiry that M&M gave their AGW shattering evidence to. Even John Christy was on that panel.
So M&M is just a storm in a teacup, the global hatchet job on Mann was not warranted at all. Science marches on, and improves and revises it's findings.
There'd be a great many people who would compare you Sid, to a lemming: walking headlong to a cliff, but completely unaware of it. Your fictitious 'species death gene' seems to go better with your shirt than mine.
Hockey Stick - are you guys STILL clinging to that argument? its been reinforced a good few times since the Mineral McScientists at climate audit gave it the once over, but yet still bang that worn old drum...
Julian I think Sid is past a logical discussion by about 20 years. Pity for Sid that the SPM summarising the 4AR has reconfirmed the Hockey Stick in spades. Oh dear - more tantrums to come I guess.