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Climate Change Consensus?


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For those without speakers or slow downloads, I have decided to post a text form of Rex Muphy's CBC editorial a few days ago...

"When Jon Stewart, the bantam rooster of conventional wisdom, makes jokes about it, you know Climategate has reached critical mass. Said Stewart: "Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet [he] invented."

Stewart was half-joking, but Climategate is no joke at all. The mass of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University, let loose by a hacker or a whistleblower, pulls back the curtain on a scene of pettiness, turf-protection, manipulation, defiance of Freedom of Information, lost or destroyed data, and attempts to blacklist critics and skeptics of the global warming cause.

The CRU is not the only climate science advisory body, but it is one of the most influential, and feeds directly into the UN Panel on Climate Change.

Let's hear no more talk of "the science is settled", when it turns out some of the principal scientists behave as if they own the very question of global warming - when they seek to bar opposing research from "peer-reviewed journals”, to embargo journals they can't control, when they urge each other to delete damaging emails before Freedom of Information takes hold, when they talk of "hiding the decline”, when they actually speak of destroying the primary data, and when, now, we do learn that the primary data has been lost or destroyed.

They've "lost" the raw data on which all the models, all the computer generated forecasts; the graphs and projections, are based. You wouldn't accept that at a Grade 9 science fair.

CRU is not the universe of climate research, but it is the star. These emails demonstrate one thing beyond all else: that climate science and global warming advocacy have become so entwined, so meshed into a mutant creature, that separating alarmism from investigation, ideology from science, agenda from empirical study, is well nigh impossible. Climategate is evidence that the science has gone to bed with advocacy, and both have had a very good time: - that the neutrality, openness, and absolute disinterest that is the hallmark of all honest scientific endeavour has been abandoned to an atmosphere and a dynamic not superior to the partisan caterwauls of a sub-average Question Period.

Climate science has been shown to be - in part - a sub-branch of climate politics.

It is a situation intolerable even to serious minds who are onside with global warming, such as Clive Crook, who wrote in The Atlantic magazine about this scandal as follows: "The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering”.

Climate science needs its own reset button. And Climategate should be seen, not primarily as a setback, but as an opportunity to cleanse scientific method. To take science away from politics, good causes, and alarmists, and vest climate science in bodies of guaranteed neutrality, openness, real and vigorous debate. And away from the lobbyists, the NGOs, the advocates, the Gores and professional environmentalists of all kind. Too many of the current leadership on global warming are more players than observers, gatekeepers, not investigators, angry partisans of some global reengineering rather than the humble servants of the "facts of the case”.

Read the emails. You'll never think of climate “science” quite the same way again.

For the National, I'm Rex Murphy."

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Ahem, Mr. Cronin. I guess "lurking" is a learned skill...  wink.gif

....sigh... I know, I have trouble keeping my mouth shut... dunno why I keep trying to imagine myself not having the problem.... tongue.gifbiggrin.gif

Yes, I was unfair to Boestar. Sorry for that Bo. I wanted to keep quiet. ...but I have this leeetle problem... dry.gif

wink.gif

Canus... Eugenics?? user posted image How d'ya reckon?

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....sigh... I know, I have trouble keeping my mouth shut... dunno why I keep trying to imagine myself not having the problem.... tongue.gifbiggrin.gif

Yes, I was unfair to Boestar. Sorry for that Bo. I wanted to keep quiet. ...but I have this leeetle problem... dry.gif

wink.gif

Canus... Eugenics?? user posted image How d'ya reckon?

sorry, typing one handed. Isn't it obvious? Well intentioned people trying to make the world a better place... and failing miserably while hurting others in the process... and on and on...

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Whether change exists is not in question - ice is melting at both poles, glaciers are disappearing.

Hubris and denial are psychological phenomenon which rarely connect with our physical reality until we are forced to  believe it - then we'll see it. Indeed, future generations will look back at us.

Once again though, it seems that persons like myself appear to be accused of being in denial of global warming. Not true at all. Only the man-made element. Yet more of the insults continue with none other than Gordon Brown referring to myself(indirectly) as "flat-earth sceptics" and "anti-change Luddites". That is the typical response of many now(fortunately, he will be gone soon).

Perhaps an event of significance you say? Like Hurricane Katrina perhaps(as was suggested being a man-made global warming event), as if events like this never happened previously, over and over.

Then there is the guilt factor play. What will future generations think of us? It seems to be a new tactic as the science falls apart.

Look at the the opening film presented to the Copenhagen conference on the effects of man-made global warming. I strongly suggest you watch this film. All the delegates, all the people at the Copenhagen conference who are being strongarmed through threats, fear-mongering and guilt-association in order to convince them to sign away hundreds of billions of your dollars had to watch this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7UZu12AbZQ

I say much of what is being said sickening by the man-made global warming crowd is disgusting. Fear-mongering at its worst with the lefties hijacking a subject in order to force through their social engineering projects.

All in the face of the scandalous science behind all this. Imagine the outcry if similar happened on cancer research.

Seeing as we are on the subject of mistakes, lies, etc.....the ice in the Antarctic is increasing not decreasing.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/23/2550456.htm

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Imagine this quote from the article below....

"The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics"

Why?.....is there something to seize upon. Gordon Brown who insulted so-called sceptics as Luddites doesn't want climate data available to all.

Does anyone wonder why?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle6945445.ece

Met Office to re-examine 160 years of climate dataBen Webster, Environment

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

The Met Office works closely with the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), which is being investigated after e-mails written by its director, Phil Jones, appeared to show an attempt to manipulate temperature data and block alternative scientific views.

The Met Office’s published data showing a warming trend draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data to the Met Office, which added this to its own analysis of sea temperature data.

Since the stolen e-mails were published, the chief executive of the Met Office has written to national meteorological offices in 188 countries asking their permission to release the raw data that they collected from their weather stations.

The Met Office is confident that its analysis will eventually be shown to be correct. However, it says it wants to create a new and fully open method of analysing temperature data.

The development will add to fears that influential sceptics in other countries, including the US and Australia, are using the controversy to put pressure on leaders to resist making ambitious deals for cutting CO2.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change admitted yesterday that it needed to consider the full implications of the e-mails and whether they cast doubt on any of the evidence for man-

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Guest rattler

We must do all we can, after all, some folks are pitching in by driving Luxury Hybrids....... of course their MPG is still way less that I get in my non luxury, non hybrid Toyota. biggrin.gif$$$ quoted are only valid in the US

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For a complete listing you can goto : http://www.hybridcars.com/luxury-hybrid-cars

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I prefer to engage the topic as I do flight safety work, on the basis of "what not who" and disengage if it becomes a personal matter in which feelings may be trod upon.

Don, an admirable goal but in this case I think it's far beyond reach; the "what" and the "who" are intermingled at a subatomic level. I don't have the time or the education to analyse the data myself and I don't trust any of the information available to me in the media; climate change is happening, or maybe it isn't, human are responsible, or maybe we aren't, cap and trade is a feasible solution, or maybe it isn't.

The stuff that drives me crazy is when I find out that ethanol consumes more energy to produce than it nets (after my government has mandated it's inclusion in gasoline as a way of reducing energy consumption), when I find out that environmental impact of collecting and recycling may be higher than impact of just landfilling or that buying locally may result in higher energy cost than buying from some far-away place, etc, etc, etc.

It's frustrating and more often than not I find myself unable to calculate the relative pros and cons of one choice vs another. What's missing for me is the foundation; reliable, complete information from a non-partisan source. Give me that and I'll be all over doing my part.

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In regard to: What part of this statement is not the same as the "insults" you personally find so troubling in much commentary with which you do not agree? For me, one checks one's ego and sensitivities at the door to public discourse or at least aims for such, puts on a hard hat and leaves polemical statements which dismissively characterize large groups who hold different views than you do as "lefties" who are bent, as some hysterical political party might be, on the feared, catch-all notion, "social engineering". This is precisely the kind of dialogue I was referring to when I said that it is impossible to discuss such issues once they is enframed by the discourse of economics and it's host, politics.

Perhaps you feel you have been accused by others as denying climate change in toto and not just the man-made part, I don't know but it seems a touchy subject. I prefer to engage the topic as I do flight safety work, on the basis of "what not who" and disengage if it becomes a personal matter in which feelings may be trod upon. My apologies if this is so. Cheers.

Bravo Don smile.gif

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I prefer to engage the topic as I do flight safety work, on the basis of "what not who" and disengage if it becomes a personal matter in which feelings may be trod upon.

That is an excellent reminder, Don. I count myself among the folks who need it once in a while. About 5 times a day on average, some postings on this forum should be removed and replaced with the words, "Challenge the message, stop attacking the messenger!"

Jeff

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The stuff that drives me crazy is when I find out that ethanol consumes more energy to produce than it nets (after my government has mandated it's inclusion in gasoline as a way of reducing energy consumption), when I find out that environmental impact of collecting and recycling may be higher than impact of just landfilling or that buying locally may result in higher energy cost than buying from some far-away place, etc, etc, etc.

I've been in this camp for 2 years now. The worst part about the ethanol issue is they knew! They had to know that it was a massive waste, and not just for the processes involved, but the fact we are now turning food into fuel. People have died directly due to the effects of rising corn/rice prices. But, the almighty dollar took precedence, and you can imagine how huge the farm lobby group is in the US who stand to make massive profits selling corn to make ethanol by government subsidy.

Another one the car industry would love us to ignore is the study that was done that found the Hummer was more environmentally friendly than a Prius, when factoring in life span of the vehicle and maintenance, and the toxic content of the vehicles. Those fancy batteries don't have much of a life span to them, and then what do you do with them?

It's easy to brand the WOXOF types as paranoids, but doing just a little digging and a little researching unravels most of the propaganda we're being fed.

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It's easy to brand the WOXOF types as paranoids, but doing just a little digging and a little researching unravels most of the propaganda we're being fed.

Nobody's accused him of that, to the best of my knowledge. I think actually for the most part, most here including me agree with many of the articles he's brought to the table.

With regards your comments on ethanol, NO KIDDING. The rainforests that have been burned in the Phillipines so as to grow corn are irrecoverable in our time. These rainforests around the world are the greatest consumers of carbon dioxide on the planet. And "they" are cutting them down. "They" being the Al Gore's and David you-know-who's of the world.

Their hypocrisy knows no limit.

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It's easy to brand the WOXOF types as paranoids, but doing just a little digging and a little researching unravels most of the propaganda we're being fed.

You can dig and research and replace one set of propaganda with another set but it doesn't mean you are any closer to the truth.

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But Chinookimus, it's not about "Gore's gang". It's about the science, and whether we're creating a problem for our next generations or not.

Where are you finding facts that answer that question definitively? I don't think it's so easy to solve as you make it sound. If it hasn't been proven that we're contributing to a global warming problem, I don't see any reason to believe that itself is proof that we're not, and that we should carry on as usual... we need to know, don't we? ...and surely we do have all sorts of data that proves we are doing harm to our whole biosphere....

So, many of the sorts of things that we'd need to correct within a 'reduction of our contribution to global warming' framework, ought to be corrected anyway. ....and with those many intere$ts, all hard at work lobbying and propagandizing (and outright lying)... it's going to be a tough thing to do.

As for global warming specifically, I think we need more openness from the scientific community, and more interest from the media and masses in the true scientific answers. For that, if we don't yet have a scientific consensus, we'll have to wait while research is done.... in the mean while, we should be cleaning up our act.

It seems silly to me to be fussing over our recycling and whatever tiny contributions we as individuals can make, ...while we do almost nothing about the major contributers to pollution of our air, water, and earth. I should worry about the fuel I burn in my vehicle, yet at work, on someone's slightest whim, I can likely burn more fuel in an hour than I'd use in a whole year...? Things like that make me consider my potential for making any difference pretty damned small. We need to think big.

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But Chinookimus, it's not about "Gore's gang". It's about the science, and whether we're creating a problem for our next generations or not.

Where are you finding facts that answer that question definitively? I don't think it's so easy to solve as you make it sound. If it hasn't been proven that we're contributing to a global warming problem, I don't see any reason to believe that itself is proof that we're not, and that we should carry on as usual... we need to know, don't we?  ...and surely we do have all sorts of data that proves we are doing harm to our whole biosphere....

So, many of the sorts of things that we'd need to correct within a 'reduction of our contribution to global warming' framework, ought to be corrected anyway. ....and with those many intere$ts, all hard at work lobbying and propagandizing (and outright lying)... it's going to be a tough thing to do.

As for global warming specifically, I think we need more openness from the scientific community, and more interest from the media and masses in the true scientific answers. For that, if we don't yet have a scientific consensus, we'll have to wait while research is done.... in the mean while, we should be cleaning up our act.

It seems silly to me to be fussing over our recycling and whatever tiny contributions we as individuals can make, ...while we do almost nothing about the major contributers to pollution of our air, water, and earth. I should worry about the fuel I burn in my vehicle, yet at work, on someone's slightest whim, I can likely burn more fuel in an hour than I'd use in a whole year...? Things like that make me consider my potential for making any difference pretty damned small. We need to think big.

I'm not really interested in getting into the philosophy of it all, but plain and simple, I see more politics and political activism going on these days than I do good science.

I've said it before and you can search my posts, I believe there are far more pressing and scary things we need to deal with NOW, than CO2 emmisions that MIGHT harm our environment 100 years from now.

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CC -

I'm not really interested in getting into the philosophy of it all, but plain and simple, I see more politics and political activism going on these days than I do good science.

I think you just "got into the philosophy of it all", biggrin.giflaugh.gif

Seriously, Philosophy isn't something that stands in the wings, separate from our daily conversations - it IS our daily conversation! Nor is it necessarily academic although there are a lot of writers who don't know philosophy but who make their livings through being obscure and fancy-sounding.

One aspect of the notion of "deconstructing" is examining in what way our statements are not innocent and perhaps which discourse, (rationality, community, economic, poetic) inform our words and thus our communications. Maybe it's like "parsing on steroids"? biggrin.gif

Anyway, I offer this stuff because its fascinating and perhaps it can help deconstruct the climate change motif so that it returns to intelligibility and permits the dialogue to get off the numerous bandwagons it is now presently on.

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Seeing as "lefties" has been considered by some to be an insult(and understanably so), I will rephrase that earlier statement of "the lefties hijacking a subject in order to force through their social engineering projects." to "people from a certain political spectrum hijacking a subject in order to force through their social engineering projects".

After all, I wouldn't want to bring myself down to the level only somewhat above the British P.M's insults among the many others of his ilk.

Here is todays daily update. First published in the Ottawa Citizen, it refers to someone that Woxof previously referred to(Dr. Ian Plimer).....

A climate change game-changer

"The first impulse of the global warmers is to brush off the leaked e-mails about fiddling numbers and silencing adversaries. The drumbeat of political and journalistic propaganda for “Copenhagen” took precious little notice of it. But like the frog in a pot, they’re going to get boiled without even noticing until it’s too late.

If the hacking was illegal it must be investigated. But it blew the whistle on a scandal of the first order and forces scientists to take a stand. Whatever their field or view of climate change, they know this wasn’t proper science. It was bullying.

Of course bullies can be right. The global warming thesis could be correct even if some of its defenders manipulated data and behaved thuggishly. But such behaviour strongly suggests they were afraid to make their scientific case honestly and people are going to ask why. When they do they’re going to find trouble a-plenty.

I suggest curious laymen start with Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth: Global Warming the Missing Science. There’s no using the “not peer reviewed” canard here; he’s an award-winning professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and his book is a compilation of well-established facts.

I’ve struggled with how to present Heaven and Earth ever since I read it. I could pile up zingers like “That great ball of heat in the sky drives climate.” But it would misrepresent the tone of the work, a masterful compilation of what we know about climate (and, more troublingly, what we don’t). Thus his chapter “The Sun” not only exhaustively catalogues Sol’s impact on warming and cooling the Earth, but details similar effects on Mars, Jupiter and Triton, which I trust not even Al Gore could blame on humans.

Plimer’s only problem is the proverbial drink from a fire hydrant. Page after page of things like “There is a 25-month fluctuation of sun-spots and, superimposed on the 11-year cycle (Schwabe Cycle) and 22.2 year cycle (Hale Cycle), are other solar cycles (33 year Bruckner Cycle, 87-year Gleissberg Cycle, 210-year DeVries-Suess Cycle and the 1500 ± 500 year Dansgaard-Oeschger Cycle)” gets a little overwhelming. There’s something in-your-face about 2,311 footnotes, and in places I felt he’d put everything he knows on file cards, sorted them into the best possible order then hit “Print.”

In places we get more data than information. But I’d like to hear politicians and journalists who say the science is beyond question or compare skeptics to Holocaust deniers dispute Plimer’s conclusion that “The main cycles that have driven past climate change on Earth are the Schwabe, Hale, Gleissberg and Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles. There are no reasons to suppose anything different for the future.” When they’re done, they can try to refute his meticulous detailing of the Earth’s history or the chemistry and physics of glaciers, water and air.

If they fail, here’s what remains. Climate has always been enormously variable. There is much we do not understand about Earth’s frequent dramatic freezing and sudden warming, but what we do know does not support the alarmists’ clichés. We have an enormous amount of data, and Plimer subjects us to most of it; to cite just one example, massive glaciation 450 million years ago happened with far more atmospheric CO2 than today. By the time he’s done poking holes in the warmers’ balloon, it’s not just empty, it’s shredded.

I do not say this is good news. Climate is not susceptible to study using the mathematical methods that have proved so fruitful in the past 500 years in chemistry, physics, optics and so on. That means we cannot predict events that might prove catastrophic. For instance, the warming at the end of the last Ice Age, which made civilization possible, suddenly and dramatically reversed 13,000 years ago. Earth plunged into the “Younger Dryas” deep freeze in less than 100 years, possibly in a single decade, and stayed there for about 13 centuries. Should such a thing happen now, mass death would be unavoidable. Will it? We just can’t tell. The computer models can’t even run known past data and predict the Younger Dryas. And if they can’t predict the past, they certainly can’t predict the future.

Plimer also shows that warmer periods have favoured civilization and colder ones have brought upheaval, war, death and the fall of Rome. That doesn’t justify wreaking havoc on the environment. But it does remind us that we know of a huge number of temperature fluctuations that cannot be linked to man-made emissions of methane or CO2 and that the mighty climate predictors can’t explain even when they’re not employing some statistical “trick” to hide their existence.

Concern for the environment is a good thing. But there’s no excuse for cooking the books on cooking the planet. And this time they won’t get away with it."

http://www.thejohnrobson.com/2009/12/04/a-...e-game-changer/

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