"I think our party has got into a mess on the environment. As a practical matter of politics, nobody knows what (Kyoto) is or what it commits us to."
Michael Ignatieff
"Given our rudimentary understanding of the magnitude and causes of low frequency natural variablity, it is virtually impossible to demonstrate a cause-effect relationship with high confidence from studies of a single variable (However if the global warming becomes sufficiently large, we will eventually be able to claim detection simply because there will be no other explanation)"
"...the global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect."
Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer is an economist and Co-Chair of Working Group III of the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was interviewed recently by Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore...
The UN process has failed, they argue, and a global approach concentrating on CO2 cuts will never work.
They urge instead the use of carbon tax revenue to develop technologies that can supply clean energy to everyone.
All this stems from a group of academics who have issued a paper, called the Hartwell Paper with this surprising admission (emphasis added):
The paper says that the outcome of December's UN climate summit, plus the "ClimateGate" affair and inaccuracies within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report, means "the legitimacy of the institutions of climate policy and science are no longer assured".
So, successfully tackling climate change initially means re-framing the issue.
In an article for the BBC's Green Room series, another of the authors, Mike Hulme, writes: "Climate change has been represented as a conventional environmental 'problem' that is capable of being 'solved'.
"It is neither of these. Yet this framing has locked the world into the rigid agenda that brought us to the dead end of Kyoto, with no evidence of any discernable acceleration of decarbonisation whatsoever."
They are advocating a new, non-United Nations approach towards "decarbonisation", which not surprisingly contains a "carbon tax" aimed at developing new "green" energy technologies while concentrating on short term reduction in carbon emissions.
Division in the ranks? Not all alarmists think this is such a good idea.
"The paper's focus away from CO2 is misguided, short-sighted and probably wrong," said Bill Hare from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
The alarmists can regroup and reframe the issue all they want. Their problem is their junk science has been revealed and they no longer enjoy the blind faith following of the public in general.
We have all become skeptics.
And we have no appetite to commit a major portion of our economy to try to solve a problem that no one can prove exists.
Many of us have been disappointed with the Harper government's handling of the climate-change issue, with their stance on limiting carbon emissions and support for Copenhagen. Well, perhaps this is the first chink in the armour.
Canada's ex-foreign minister Maxime Bernier has written a letter to LaPresse in which challenges climate change science. Here's an English version via Norman Spector in the Globe & Mail
“Environmental groups in Copenhagen criticized our government for blocking an agreement … and again when Jim Prentice announced our targets at the end of January ... But with each passing week we see the wisdom of the government’s moderate position … since December, a debate has broken out in the media over the science of warming, a debate that had been stifled due to political correctness … the numerous errors by the IPCC add to alternative theories of warming that have been put forward over the years.
We now recognize that it’s possible to be a “skeptic,” or at least to keep an open mind about nearly all critical aspects of the warming theory. For example, while no one questions whether there has been warming, there is no consensus among scientists as to its degree.
Moreover, we realize that during the period of greatest concern about warming – the last decade – temperatures have stopped increasing! Meanwhile, the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere, said to be the cause of warming according to the official theory, is still increasing. Some very serious scientists believe that we are under-estimating the influence of the sun and other factors that have nothing to do with carbon emissions.
Mojib Latif, a German researcher associated with the IPCC who essentially supports the warming theory, said last fall that temperatures may decline for two decades before warming resumes. No model predicted this. But the same models claim to predict the number of degrees of warming by the end of the century. And that’s only one of the “certainties” about which there is no consensus.
What is certain is that it would be irresponsible to spend billions of dollars and to impose unnecessarily stringent regulations to solve a problem whose gravity we still are not certain about. The alarmism that has characterized this debate is no longer appropriate. Canada is wise to be cautious.”
How did the climate of carelessness at the IPCC develop — and why were warning voices from inside the movement ignored in the rush to get all the alarming but unverified predictions into print?
Senator James Inhofe's speech on climategate to the US Senate:
Mr. President, I rise today to highlight several recent media reports uncovering serious errors and possible fraud by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC.
I can already hear the question: just what is the IPCC? Many in this body may not be familiar with it. But I hope the Senate becomes more acquainted with it very soon, if only because of its sheer importance to the debate we're having on global warming and cap-and-trade legislation.
For now, you need to know just 3 things about the IPCC: (1) the Obama Administration calls it "the gold standard" of climate change science; (2) some say its reports on climate change represent the so-called "consensus" of scientific opinion about global warming; and (3) the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2007 for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change..."
Put simply, what this means is that, in elite circles, the IPCC is a big deal. So when ABC News, the Economist, Time Magazine, and the Times of London-among many others-report that the IPCC's research contains embarrassing flaws, and that the IPCC chairman and scientists knew of the flaws, but published them anyway-well, you have the makings of a major scientific scandal.
The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.
The move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear. oup headed by its own Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.
While western nations, including Canada, continue to march to the UN's warmist drum, India is taking a new and significantly different course.
Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalized the IPC [sic] chairman even further.
He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.
Maybe they will take a less biased look at the science. They can only do better than the UN's IPCC.
I might be on vacation but I couldn't ignore this morning's post by Kate at small dead animals.
A catastrophic heat wave appears to be closing in on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. How hot is it getting in the scientific kitchen where they've been cooking the books and spicing up the stew pots? So hot, apparently, that Andrew Weaver, probably Canada's leading climate scientist, is calling for replacement of IPCC leadership and institutional reform.
If Andrew Weaver is heading for the exits, it's a pretty sure sign that the United Nations agency is under monumental stress. Mr. Weaver, after all, has been a major IPCC science insider for years. He is Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis at the University of Victoria, mastermind of one of the most sophisticated climate modelling systems on the planet, and lead author on two recent landmark IPCC reports.
For him to say, as he told Canwest News yesterday, that there has been some "dangerous crossing" of the line between climate advocacy and science at the IPCC is stunning in itself.
With all the evidence of trickery, deceit and outright fraud now exposed via "climategate", reputable scientists are left with little choice than to distance themselves from the IPCC and its cronies. I have a feeling that this is just the first wave.
Update: More from the Windsor Star:
A senior Canadian climate scientist says the United Nations' panel on global warming has become tainted by political advocacy, that its chairman should resign, and that its approach to science should be overhauled.
I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" – the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission: the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a "poor application" of IPCC procedures.
What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim – now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC – has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.
Emphasis added. Those who dismiss scientific articles from global warming "deniers" always like to cite that these articles have no weight because they are not peer-reviewed. Through Climategate we learned of the efforts of "warmist" scientist to thwart the peer review process for articles they found critical. How do they now explain the revelation that the IPCC itself is full of non-peer reviewed papers of little merit?
Update #2: now there's Amazongate via Prisonplanet:
Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr Richard North – and it’s a cracker. It seems that, not content with having lied to us about shrinking glaciers, increasing hurricanes, and rising sea levels, the IPCC’s latest assessment report also told us a complete load of porkies about the danger posed by climate change to the Amazon rainforest.
PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Thursday, January 14, 2010 Source: KUSI-TV
Climate researchers have discovered that NASA researchers improperly manipulated data in order to claim 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” KUSI-TV meteorologist, Weather Channel founder, and iconic weatherman John Coleman will present these findings in a one-hour special airing on KUSI-TV on Jan.14 at 9 p.m. A related report will be made available on the Internet at 6 p.m. EST on January 14th at www.kusi.com.
In a new report, computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo discovered extensive manipulation of the temperature data by the U.S. Government’s two primary climate centers: the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Ashville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City. Smith and D’Aleo accuse these centers of manipulating temperature data to give the appearance of warmer temperatures than actually occurred by trimming the number and location of weather observation stations. The report is available online at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
The report reveals that there were no actual temperatures left in the computer database when NASA/NCDC proclaimed 2005 as “THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD.” The NCDC deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it changed to a system of global grid points, each of which is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more adjacent weather observation stations. So the NCDC grid map contains only averaged, not real temperatures, giving rise to significant doubt that the result is a valid representation of Earth temperatures.
The number of actual weather observation points used as a starting point for world average temperatures was reduced from about 6,000 in the 1970s to about 1,000 now. “That leaves much of the world unaccounted for,” says D’Aleo.
The NCDC data are regularly used by the National Weather Service to declare a given month or year as setting a record for warmth. Such pronouncements are typically made in support of the global warming alarmism agenda. Researchers who support the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also regularly use the NASA/NCDC data, including researchers associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that is now at the center of the “Climategate” controversy.
This problem is only the tip of the iceberg with NCDC data. “For one thing, it is clear that comparing data from previous years, when the final figure was produced by averaging a large number of temperatures, with those of later years, produced from a small temperature base and the grid method, is like comparing apples and oranges,” says Smith. “When the differences between the warmest year in history and the tenth warmest year is less than three quarters of a degree, it becomes silly to rely on such comparisons,” added D’Aleo who asserts that the data manipulation is “scientific travesty” that was committed by activist scientists to advance the global warming agenda.
Smith and D’Aleo are both interviewed as part of a report on this study on the television special, “Global Warming: The Other Side” seen at 9 PM on January 14th on KUSI-TV, channel 9/51, San Diego, California. That program can now be viewed via computer at the website http://www.kusi.com/. The detailed report is available at http://icecap.us/images/uploads/NOAAroleinclimategate.pdf.
Say it isn't so! The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write in the Telegraph.
No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.
Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has no qualifications in climate science at all.
What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.
These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.
Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachauri occupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director or adviser to many of the bodies which play a leading role in what has become known as the international ‘climate industry’.
Via Peter Foster in the National Post on James Hansen, Maurice Strong, the IPCC and the "mob rule" strategy employed by global warm-mongers.
Like Mr. Gore, Mr. Hansen recommends direct action. In his new book, Storms of My Grandchildren, he writes: "As in other struggles for justice against powerful forces, it may be necessary to take to the streets to draw attention to injustice. Civil resistance may be our best hope. It is crucial for all of us, especially young people, to get involved. This will be the most urgent fight of our lives."
[...]
Mr. Strong himself hasn't been so prominent since the Iraqi oil-for-food fiasco, but he is involved in something called The Global Observatory, GO, an organization designed to act as "a catalyst, bridging the gap between those responsible for making the decisions at [Copenhagen] and the public."
GO was set up by Jose Maria Figueres, a former President of Costa Rica. Exactly what Mr. Figueres has in mind when he talks about "bringing the public into negotiations" is clear from a clip available on YouTube, in which he frankly admits that the key to getting the "right" decisions is using NGOs to assemble mobs to pressure politicians. Mr. Figueres says that he's not willing to leave the future of his children in the hands of the 1,500 negotiators at Copenhagen, so his plan was to set up a "tent" at the meeting in which there would be scientific experts (He mentions Mr. Hansen). If such scientists declared that, say, Costa Rica was "backtracking," then GO would get on the phone to select NGOs, who could have a mob outside the presidential palace in 45 minutes.
Be sure to watch the video at the link above. You'll better understand how the hoards of protesters wound up at the gates in Copenhagen.
Lord Monckton reports on the Copenhagen presentation by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.
Pachauri was just a couple of seats away, so I gave him a letter from me and Senator Fielding of Australia, pointing out that the headline graph in the IPCC’s 2007 report, purporting to show that the rate of warming over the past 150 years had itself accelerated, was fraudulent.
Would he use the bogus graph in his lecture? I had seen him do so when he received an honorary doctorate from the University of New South Wales. I watched and waited.
Sure enough, he used the bogus graph. I decided to wait until he had finished, and ask a question then.
Pachauri then produced the now wearisome list of lies, fibs, fabrications and exaggerations that comprise the entire case for alarm about “global warming”. He delivered it in a tired, unenthusiastic voice, knowing that a growing majority of the world’s peoples – particularly in those countries where comment is free – no longer believe a word the IPCC says.
I would score this one Moncton 18, IPCC 0. Read the whole thing at Watts Up With That?
The IPCC has made much of Professor Michael Mann's "hockey stick" graph. It's been a staple of the warm-mongers. Well, I invite you to take a look at this short video produced by Doc over at the Autopsy.
This kinda puts thing into perspective. And even if Mann's hockey stick graph was was true, I think it shows that we have more to worry about from cooling than we do from warming.
In truth, if you throw CRU out, you’ve eviscerated the findings of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, the most recent and most definite opus from the UN. This is the report, received with universal acclaim in 2007, which scarily stated: “The warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”
The argument over global warming requires evidence that the globe is warming in dangerous ways. This evidence the IPCC presents forcefully in its third chapter on surface and atmospheric warming, which rests overwhelmingly on the official global temperature record of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, called the HADCRUT3 temperature dataset.
And who produced the HADCRUT3 dataset for the World Meteorological Organization? The Hadley Centre of the UK government’s meteorological office (the HAD of HADCRUT3) and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (the CRU).
Although I have not been posting here lately, I have been following the "Climategate" events keenly over the past week. Rather than attempt to recap all the breaking news that has been so well covered by others like Anthony Watts and Kate McMillan, I thought I would just share with you this letter that I just sent off to Stephen Harper, Canada's Prime Minister.
You can send him your own message at pm@pm.gc.ca
November 29, 2009
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada 80 Wellington Street Ottawa K1A 0A2
Dear Mr. Harper;
Like many Canadians, I have been reading with great interest about a recent event, which has become known as "Climategate". This is nothing less than a revelation which will fundamentally change our accepted view of the science of climate change.
I am sure that you are aware of Climategate, because it has been the hottest news story of the past week. It began with the leaking (or alleged hacking) of hundreds of emails between prominent scientists at the Hadley Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, one of the foremost sources for the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and their counterparts. The emails released are damning and indicate that there were conscious efforts amongst a number of the world's leading scientists to manipulate the data, hide their source data - possibly even destroy it - and to discredit their opposition and critics. In one example, the scientists refer to using a "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures which cannot be explained by the global warming theory. In others, they discuss ways to avoid complying with Freedom of Information requests and the deletion of emails.
Also leaked along with the emails was a file named HARRY_READ_ME.TXT which contains the data, the code and the calculations used to produce the results along with comments from the programmers. Experts analyzing this file are quickly concluding that there are enormous gaps in the base data and that it was commonly "manipulated" to give the desired result.
These are not the methods of reputable scientists. These are the methods of scoundrels. There is understandable outrage in the scientific community. Climate science as we know it - as presented to us by the IPCC - turns out to be a complete and total fraud.
I am disgusted that the mainstream media in Canada have done their best to ignore the story of Climategate. But it is not going to go away. Fortunately, Climategate is being covered by other reputable sources easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection of a television that receives Fox News. The Telegraph in the UK has described Climategate as "the worst scientific scandal of our generation". I think they understate it.
I have long been skeptical about the accepted "consensus" of climate change science and the whole theory of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming. I am no scientist, but I have long been reading the opinions of those who are, including Canadians like Steve McIntyre, Dr. Ross McKittrick, Tom Harris and Dr. Timothy Ball, one of Canada's most senior climatologists. Lawrence Solomon at the National Post has published an excellent series called "The Deniers" which should be read by anyone who wants to understand the truth about climate change.
In the United States Senate, Senator James Inhofe has initiated an investigation into Climategate. Penn State University has announced an investigation of Michael Mann, director of their Earth Sciences Centre and author of the discredited "hockey stick" graph. The University of East Anglia is, of course conducting its own investigation. In Australia, a number of MPs have resigned their portfolios in opposition to a proposes Energy (carbon) Trading Scheme.
You were once quoted as saying, "Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth producing countries". I believe that quote was essentially correct then and still today. Clearly the goal is redistribution of wealth on a world scale. The UN, the IPCC and these now discredited scientists have attempted to perpetrate the greatest fraud in history on the world. If successful, it could cost the world trillions of dollars. These are dollars that will be taken out of our economy. For no good reason. More importantly, these are dollars that could be otherwise spent fighting real pollution or returned to us to make all of our lives better.
But the UN and the IPCC are desperately trying to push forward with their scheme and develop a new global agreement on climate change to succeed Kyoto. Any such agreement would certainly be punishingly costly for Canada. Now that the science underlying the IPCC reports has been exposed as "junk science" at best and a fraud at worst, I urge you to keep Canada out of any foolishness such as a "Kyoto II" treaty or any form of "cap and tax" legislation. Thank you.
Mark W. Hendrickson writes about the myth of climate change consensus at Townhall.com
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded in the media as the ultimate authority on climate change.
[...]
Clearly, the IPCC does not speak as one voice when leading scientists on its panel contradict its official position. The solution to this apparent riddle lies in the structure of the IPCC itself. What the media report are the policymakers’ summaries, not the far lengthier reports prepared by scientists. The policymakers’ summaries are produced by a committee of 51 government appointees, many of whom are not scientists.
The policymakers’ summaries are presented as the “consensus” of 2,500 scientists who have contributed input to the IPCC’s scientific reports. “Consensus” does NOT mean that all of the scientists endorse the policymakers’ summaries. In fact, some of the 2,500 scientists have resigned in protest against those summaries. Other contributing scientists, such as the individuals quoted above, publicly contradict the assertions of the policymakers’ summaries.
The sponsors of the IPCC, the United Nations, and liberal American politicians all share the goal of reducing Americans’ wealth by capping our consumption of energy with a binding international climate change treaty. They are willing to resort to scientific fraud to further their goal.
"At a recent meeting of climate alarmists in Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the event's co-chairs -- Katherine Richardson -- stated that "the worst-case IPCC projections, or even worse, are being realized." According to the report of the meeting published in Science, she said that "emissions are soaring, projections of sea level rise are higher than expected, and climate impacts around the world are appearing with increasing frequency." These are powerful headline-grabbing contentions. But are they correct?
Even though I consider myself a dedicated environmentalist I cannot accept the claims of anthropogenic - human caused - global warming. My research involves deducing climate back in what we call ‘Deep Time’ - geological eras of millions and billions of years ago - so I think I have enough background to understand the evidence. I know that the factors controlling climate work as an extremely complex, integrated system that cannot be resolved by debate and exchange of opinion.
Therefore the suspicions of any scientist should be aroused by glib assertions like “the science is settled” or “there is a consensus,” because this is not how scientists and engineers operate. Al Gore’s movie and books are so appallingly riddled with mistakes and outlandish exaggerations that they would be laughable if they weren’t taken so seriously by so many. Legislators have even passed laws declaring CO2 to be a pollutant, seemingly unaware of photosynthesis, respiration and biodegradation. Should I feel guilty that my beer gave off CO2 during fermentation and when I opened it? I need something to cry into when I hear of the measures planned to reduce “carbon emissions”, because of the threat these pose to our already economically fragile society.
Here are the facts, as I understand them: solar heat varies cyclically at different frequencies, from the decades to the hundreds of thousands of years. Atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature are linked, but rather than the former driving the latter, it is the other way around and there is a nearly thousand-year lag in the response. The oceans are the great sink for CO2.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration is not uniform around the globe and regional variations are tied to sea-surface temperature because CO2 dissolves in colder sea water while it degasses from warmer sea water. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, yes, but it absorbs only a very small portion of the infrared spectrum and its capacity to do so declines exponentially with concentration. It’s a fact of physics that the CO2 molecule radiates almost none of the heat it can absorb. Moreover, it is such a trace gas that this effect is negligible, and even less so at the low pressures and cold temperatures high in the atmosphere.
All of this explains why, when CO2 concentration is thought to have been much higher in Deep Time such as during the Paleozoic, the surface of the globe did not overheat and the polar regions were still cold.Water vapour is what insulates the Earth and CO2 concentration has nothing to do with cloud generation. Why, then, have anthropogenic global warming promoters seized upon CO2 as the culprit?
BEYOND THE SCIENCE
Climate change has now become so highly politicized that one wonders whom or what to trust. It turns out that the legitimate science in the successive UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports was laundered to such a degree by a very small and select group of experts and bureaucrats charged with preparing the “summaries for policymakers” that they are often contradictory - indeed, some of the scientific contributors have since distanced themselves from these reports.
There has grown a whole industry of taxpayer-funded climate modellers whose equations can�t reproduce last week’s weather let alone past climate change at all, but whose crystal balls universally forecast impending disaster (and of course the urgent need for more research money). Why haven’t physicists pointed out the basic mistakes in the science? Read more here.
The Copenhagen Cabal: Doom and gloom pervaded an international meeting of climate alarmists in this famed city. Click on the image below (or larger image here) to watch a CO2 Science produced video presentation of this editorial.
Dr. Tim Ball's latest post On Pravda’s New Ice Age Story starts off by taking aim at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the premise of human induced (anthropogenic) global warming from the emissions of carbon dioxide:
I have said the IPCC focus on CO2 is akin to saying my car is not running well and I am going to determine the cause by ignoring the engine (sun), the transmission (water vapor), and most other mechanical parts and focus on one nut (CO2) on the right rear wheel. Worse, they only look at one thread of the nut, the human portion of CO2. The ease with which they have achieved this degree of focus is frightening, but understandable because it was premeditated.
But that's just the prelude. The main focus of Dr. Ball's post is a recent article in the Russian newspaper Pravda titled Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age which states:
“The Earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science.”
To put this into perspective and avoid confusion with the recent short term period of global cooling, Dr. Ball offers this explanation over a much larger time frame:
This is the fact that the Earth over the last 10,000 years has emerged from one segment of the most recent Ice Age (Pleistocene). We are currently in an interglacial (Holocene) and scientists anticipate it will end as we slide into another Ice Age. A diagram of global temperatures over the last 400,000 years derived from Antarctic ice cores shows the pattern during the Pleistocene. The blue line shows the temperature with current temperatures on the right. Notice there are four previous interglacials, two of them with higher temperatures than today. The intervening periods are the ice ages when massive glaciers formed on the land. Also note how the temperature declines after the interglacial peak; that is the cooling the Pravda article is discussing.
It is generally agreed that changes in the sun/earth relationship are the major mechanism driving long-term climate patterns. These are collectively known as the Milankovitch Effect and include; changes in the Earth’s orbit caused primarily by the gravitational pull of Jupiter with a 100,000-year cycle; changes in the tilt of the Earth of undetermined cause, with a 40,000- year cycle; and a shift in the date of equinox with a 19,000-year cycle. Although Milankovitch’s work was initially accepted it lost favor when his results conflicted with some radiocarbon data. I recall conferences in the 1980s when reference to Milankovitch brought vigorous protest. However, by the 1990s he was back in favor.
Another important point about the Pravda article is the observation that supporters of the human caused global warming (AGW) only consider a short time frame. “ The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past 1,000 years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years--evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology.” It is true that the now discredited “hockey stick” examined climate of the last thousand years, but this was only to try and eliminate the Medieval Warm Period. In fact, the focus is at most the temperature of the last 140 years.
"the Kyoto Protocol is a political solution to a non-existent problem without scientific justification." Dr. Timothy Ball"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" MauriceStrong
"Consensus is the business of politics. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period." Michael Crichton.
"Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations." Stephen Harper.
I am a Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
or free to choose those
who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom
I pledge to uphold
for myself and all mankind.
Canadian Bill of Rights
Watch the Great Global Warming Swindle
