When I suggested in a previous post that ‘Humans are responsible for Global Warming’ I wasn’t expecting the degree of debate the issue of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) would generate on my site.
The main debate involves ‘canbanjo’ an architect who stumbled upon my site while searching for information about the Part L requirements for small extensions, and John O’Sullivan, an experienced climate sceptic who believes global warming is history’s biggest scam.
John’s profile on his blogger webpage states that he is a:
British crime writer and legal advocate, John O’Sullivan was born in 1961 in Berkshire, England, the son of immigrant Irish parents. An avid scholar, John taught and lectured for twenty years at various schools and colleges in the east of England. He litigated, with his second wife, a former New York correction officer, in one of America’s longest and most extraordinary sexual harassment cases. He has gleaned a wealth of knowledge and experience in filing court petitions, motions, mandamus and appeals in the New York State Division of Human Rights, mandamus petitions in the New York State Supreme Court, as well as US federal court. John has also prepared analysis and arguments used in UK criminal court that concerned police officer malfeasance. He has written two ‘Cupboard 55′ novels including ‘Summit Shock’ based on his wife’s epic story. Among the author’s other published credits are; ‘The Jimston Journal’, ‘Invisible Ink,’ ‘The Secret Attic,’ ‘Big Ugly Review and’ ‘The Zip Book.’ John is a prolific writer with over 100 publishing credits relating to his analysis of the ‘Climategate’ data fraud scandal involving criminal conduct by an elite clique of climate scientists.
I find it very difficult to take John’s comments seriously, and if you read some of the nonsense on the ClimateGate.com website of which he is a contributor it is very worrying. John contributes to many blogs on climate change – he must have ‘Google Alerts’ (or similar) set for terms like ‘global warming’ which allows him to easily identify relevant content where he can copy and paste from a library of tosh (whilst building links and traffic to the ClimateGate.com website at the same time).
Basically, John believes he’s in a battle against the ‘religion of settled science’. According the the ClimateGate website:
The goal of Climategate.com is to provide a daily dose of information regarding the world’s greatest scam, climategate, and other information and news to help you in your battle against the Religion of Settled Science to dispute their views on Anthropogenic Global Warming, and in addition, to battle the one-world socialist agenda, which is the movement’s leaders’ real goal.
So, Climategate.com publishes material that they hope others will spread across the internet, creating as much confusion as possible so that the normal man or woman in the street is unsure about the real science. I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories, and to suggest that 97.5% of the world’s climate scientists are conspiring to create a one-world socialist government seems so far fetched it sounds laughable.
An example of the desperate measures the ClimateGate.com team undertakes is when they supported Nick Griffin from the BNP stating he ‘tells it like it is’. They later decided to pull the article when even their normally supportive followers pointed out they’d gone a bit too far this time.
John O’ Sullivan states that he is pleased that the BNP have chosen to support the idea that AGW is a hoax. You can see his comment here.
Here’s Mr Griffin in full flow:
Well, I don’t think it was John O’ Sullivan’s intention, but the more I’ve looked at what he and his colleagues have to say, the less respect I have for their arguments.
Tags: agw, anthropogenic global warming, bnp, Climate Change, climate change hoax, climate change sceptics, climate change skeptics, climate gate, climategate.com, global warming, john o'sullivan, nick griffin
I guess Nick Griffin does not get your vote either!
Mike – sorry I should have pointed that out. No, I can’t be doing with racist thugs.
I am looking into a few issues on the scientific side to get my head around the issue.
1. CO2 absorbtion and IR radiation into space
Why would more CO2 in the atmosphere lead to less longwave IR radiation to space at CO2 wavelengths when the IR is absorbed and re radiated to all directions?
2 water vapour
with increased temperature the atmosphere will hold more H2o, this will absorb more shortwave IR and reflect it back to space, co2 also absorbs some of this shortwave IR and reflects it as longwave IR, the albido of the earth is supposedly reducing due to ice melting, but have you ever been in a airplane above the clouds? surely the albido up there is as great as the ice sheets ?
Maybe I know enough to ask daft questions but not understand the answers , but I am still studying the links in the other thread to make some sense of it all .
Very shabby, Matthew, and defamatory, too. I suggest you not only check your facts properly but understand what libel means. You’ll end up in court if you carry on like this!
The climategate.com website is American owned and run – I have no editorial content. FYI, I pointed out to the site owner that the BNP were racists and urged the removal of any reference that may be misconstrued. If you had bothered to do more than scratch the surface of the site you’d have found the following page:
http://www.climategate.com/uk-parliment-nick-griffin
the page states:
(article closed)
by Editor on January 9, 2010
13 comments
Note: Not being in the UK, we did not know the racist nature of Nick Griffin, and that he not an elected member of Parliament. Now we know. We abhor racism. Our apologies. Even if he said the right things about climate change, we don’t want to give him space here. Video removed.
Thanks to all who let us know.
The facts prove I am very much anti-BNP. As usual, you clearly have not bothered to properly check the facts. You then go repeat more of the same lies as canbanjo by claiming that I said ‘97.5%’ of climate scientists are in a conspiracy. In fact I challenged canbanjo to prove that 97.5% support AGW – they don’t – it’s an absurd made up number that canbanjo totally failed to back up. You simply took his word for it and that proves how gullible you are. You don’t look for evidence; you look for affirmation of your own prejudices.
Climategate.com has a readership in the tens of thousands including many dozens of eminent scientists including Piers Corbyn. It is in fact ranked the no.1 climategate website according to the major search engines.
http://www.climategate.com/climategate-top-search-engine-rank-google
Tens of millions of people have searched for the term ‘climategate’ according to Google because of the suspicion that a conspiracy to suppress this greatest hoax of all time has been perpetrated by the mainstream media. Indeed, only now are the press starting to catch up with the blogosphere on all the big stories such as glaciergate, oceangate, australiagate, czechgate, etc. etc.
Unlike you and canbanjo, I can prove tens of thousands of honorable scientists this weekend came out to oppose this climate scam. I now challenge you to check my facts.
36,000 physicists of the Institute of Physics announced their utter condemnation of the criminal and unethical practise of climate scientists at CRU.The Institute agrees with climate sceptics that the leaked emails prove:
“prima facie evidence of determined and co-ordinated refusals to comply with honourable scientific traditions and freedom of information law.”
http://www.climategate.com/the-institute-of-physics-condemns-junk-climate-science
Where’s your ’97.5%’ lie now? Either back up your BS with facts or stick to fitting windows.
Well sue me then, John. Honestly, go for it.
Yes I did check through the Climategate.com for the background on Nick Griffin and in fact you will see I linked to the article you suggest I didn’t look at. I’m fully aware that the article was pulled, but the very fact it was added in the first place speaks volumes about the site.
Can’t you see that???
And then you state that you are anti-BNP. But you did specifically state on the website “I’m pleased to read the party leader has stated that AGW is a ’scam.’” when referring to Nick Griffin.
Suggest I go back to fitting windows, and you go back to writing crime fiction. And let’s leave the debate on climate change for the scientists to sort out!
Gore and The UN IPCC should be forced to give back their Nobel Peace Prize. The flaws in Gore’s film and the errors in the 2007 UN IPCC Report that have been discovered since the award was given should disqualify both parties. Irena Sendler who risked her life daily during World War II to save the lives of over 2,500 Jewish children is much more deserving. Please sign the petition to demand that Gore and the UN IPCC have their award taken away. http://www.stripgore.com
Climategate Forecast…
“What is the current scientific consensus on the conclusions reached by Drs. Mann, Bradley and Hughes? [Referring to the hockey stick propagated in UN IPCC 2001 by Michael Mann and debunked by McIntyre and McKitrick in 2003.]
Ans: Based on the literature we have reviewed, there is no overarching consensus on MBH98/99. As analyzed in our social network, there is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility.”
AD HOC COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE ‘HOCKEY STICK’ GLOBAL CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTION, also known as The Wegman report was authored by Edward J. Wegman, George Mason University, David W. Scott, Rice University, and Yasmin H. Said, The Johns Hopkins University with the contributions of John T. Rigsby, III, Naval Surface Warfare Center, and Denise M. Reeves, MITRE Corporation.
Matthew, you confirm to me and anyone else who comprehends English, that you cannot comprehend plain English. How on earth is being grateful that someone doesn’t support AGW also be twisted to mean I support racism? Perhaps, you’re right – it is time for you to leave writing to the professionals – it would be less embarrassing for you.
The fact you try to spin an ad hominem lie into a debate about global warming shows how incapable you are of engaging in a civil debate.
You attack me personally suggesting that I am not qualified to comment on legal issues despite the fact I have successfully litigated against government corruption at every level in New York and federal courts for over ten years and am internationally respected as a professional legal correspondent on Climategate. You know this to be true – try Googling ‘John O’Sullivan climate’ and you will find over 315,000 hits as proof.
I’m even listed in that warmist website, ‘Carbon Capture Report’ that cites my legal commentaries. Thus I am entirely qualified to comment on any legal issue by the people you claim to support!
http://www.carboncapturereport.org/cgi-bin/biodb?PROJID=3&mode=viewpersonname&name=john_o’sullivan
You are an utter hypocrite on this issue of professional qualifications because you refer to Potholer, a retired science correspondent, with a degree in geology. Why aren’t you being consistent in your reasoning and thereby asserting he ought to stick to geology? You’re a joke, Matthew.
Finally, I put to you yesterday that the 36,000 scientists of the Institute of Physics are this week attacking the climate change scam in Parliament – as usual you totally ignore my ‘inconvenient truths.’ I’m still waiting for your proof that ’97.5% of climate scientists’ believe in AGW – if you fail to back that statement up then it’s a lie- thus when you continue to repeat it that makes you a liar.
You are fast becoming an excellent advert for supporting my side of the debate. You are no more than a global warming propagandist pretending to be searching for ‘truth’. BTW I agree with your admission that you’re better equipped to handle windows – you’re just as transparent!
[Comment removed]
Your ruffling feathers now Mathew, I bet he will dis you now.
[Comment removed]
John (socialist plot to take over the world paranoia) O’Sullivan,
I like the way in an earlier post you said science is not ‘a show of hands’, then you proceed to try to justify yourself by showing how many hits your favourite website has had/ how many google hits your name comes up with – brilliant stuff!
And then some serious numbers you try to pass off:
the Institute of Physics has over 36,000 ‘members’ but to suggest they all believe in your hoax theory is crackpot. Here is just 1 Institute of Physics paper I found in about 2 minutes: http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Publications/file_4147.pdf. Just read the first page at least…
Steady on guys. No need for that.
John’s trying to put together a very serious argument here, although I do take your point.
Kevin,
They are not daft questions, a good quick video summary is here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610
Or a written summary (with peer reviewed sources referenced)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm
More explanation of water vapour here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm
Its worth noting that the skeptical science website is very good to find answers to most sceptic propaganda in a well presented understandable way – and always references the peer reviewed papers, so you can delve as deep as you wish into the science.
John, whilst some replies above are not very refined, you do seem to spend a lot of your time insulting others whilst bigging yourself up, talking about qualifications etc, but the bottom line is you are not a qualified lawyer or scientist, in any field.
However you do believe that the worlds governments and scientists have invented a complex scientific hoax with the motive of creating a one world unelected socialist governement, therefore it does seem reasonable to conclude that you would be more suited to fiction writing than law or science.
John – you twist things around. Where have I suggested you’re a racist? All I’ve pointed out to people is that you are pleased that Nick Griffin’s party supports the climate change hoax theory. It’s in black and white on the website you are a contributor to that site.
Yes, I’ve just typed into Google ‘John O’ Sullivan Climate’ and I got 195,000 pages at my end. Wow – you have been busy spreading the word!!!!
John – I accept that I’m just a normal guy trying to make a decision as to whether global warming is being caused by human’s polluting the atmosphere. It’s only natural that I should be concerned about climate change as someone who has children, and I would hate to think that in thirty years I had been complicit and could indeed have made a difference.
I would like to thank you for the links you’ve added to my website, which I am working through, and I’m also working through the links that canbanjo has added which is an alternative viewpoint.
I’m sorry you have taken things so personally, but all I can say is that the way you write does seem (to me at least) to be a bit over the top. I’m just not one for conspiracy theories. As far as I’m concerned Elvis is dead, Princess Diana died in a car accident and the vast majority of climate scientists are not colluding with Governments to create a one-world socialist government.
I Came across this paper , It may be the New World Order blueprint
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/022510_greeneconomy.pdf
Well thats what the telegraph are saying
Hi Kevin
Thanks. Had a quick skim and it looks interesting. Will read it all and let you know. Cheers.
Matthew
This is video puts things in perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=grec
When faced with uncertainty about our future, the risk of not acting, far outweighs the risk of acting.
Whilst I am no conspiracy theorist and don’t believe for a second that there are Governments world wide colluding to create a NWO using climate change as the sheep dog to round us up and put us in our pens. I do think however that Governments use issues such as climate change much in the same way as the church has used religion to control the masses over the centuries, we all need to treat much of the so called scientific facts we are fed with skepticism and challenge those facts when we doubt them, that is what creates a healthy democracy.
Being willing and being allowed to have open debate is healthy, what we don’t need is bullies like John O’Sullivan, who is no doubt much more versed in the subject than most if not everyone contributing on this blog, threatening litigation because someone perhaps hasn’t delved into the subject or studied every word or post on a web site, John you can make your point without threats of going to court, you are not dealing with lawyers in a New York court room here, you are dealing with ordinary people trying to get our heads around a subject we don’t really understand too well, trying to make some sense of all the arguments, it is natural to form opinions based on bias, if you are the would be crusader you claim to be then rise above any personal criticism you may receive and put your argument with dignity and integrity and stop threatening and bullying people because they haven’t researched the facts or fiction as thoroughly as you may have.
I just wonder John what your real agenda is, perhaps you would like to tell us.
Andy
“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors , shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the actions that follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
“People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement…Their innermost craving is for a new life – a rebirth – or failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both…” [ Is this Mr. Gore?]
“ It is true that in the early adherents of a mass movement there are also adventurers who join in the hope that that the movement will give a spin to their wheel of fortune and whirl them to fame and power.”
Eric Hoffer, 1951 – “The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
Andy – I too would like to know what John’s real agenda is. I’d also like to know which planet Artesian is from.
Kevin,
Thanks for the link to the UN Environmental Programme policy document. I have forced myself to read it from start to finish, just in case there is any hint of a New World Order that we should be concerned about. Glad to say it is all merely common sense stuff – governments getting together to discuss how to make their development and economies more environmentally sustainable.
It comes across like it is trying to deal with individual countries immediate and varied environmental problems, whilst acknowledging the common goal of avoiding the broader problem of climate change.
It barely mentions cap and trade, ie the current method/ attempt at putting a price on the environmental damage caused by C02 emissions. This to me is the big ticket item – if we don’t solve this everything else is doomed anyway.
James Hansen has written an interesting paper on this topic:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100112_PeopleVersusCap.pdf
I really recommend this.
The global carbon market will grow by a third during 2010 to €121bn, according to a new report released today by analyst firm Point Carbon.
The research predicted that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will remain the world’s largest carbon market, accounting for 64 per cent of all transactions by volume and totalling €95bn ($134bn) in value, up 34 per cent from €69bn ($100bn) during 2009.
Unlike traditional commodities markets, which will eventually involve delivery to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one.
Scam Scam Scam.
But why?
And why won’t the Conservatives wipe out UKIP by promising a referendum on Europe?
Kevin, the only goal is to redue C02 emisions and encourage low carbon industry.
But the carbon market is currently failing – C02 is still increasing.
What do you think of Hansens fee and dividend proposal?
If only as much energy was expended fixing potholes!
I wish.
(obviously in an eco planet friendly method)
Mr Conservatory guy, have a look around your room and find me just one item that is not regulated by the State.
Do you understand what freedom truely means. Or are you happy to continue your life checking whether you are allowed to do something?
If I said to you that I could not give a fat rats arrse about your Global warming, how much violence would you allow the Government to inflict upon me to conform to your interpretation of the world?
There is no left or right wing, there are families on earth that have not had to worry about money for centuries.
It’s all about power -and always has been- stop being so nieve.
Kevin, you seem to be an anarchist!
Is this now the thread for misinformation and diatribes? Andy needs to wake up – Im not a ‘bully’ merely for taking offence at Matthew’s inference that I am a racist.
Matthew stated (above) – that I “supported Nick Griffin” and that the references to BNP were only pulled from Climategate.com after ” their normally supportive followers pointed out they’d gone a bit too far this time.” Pure libellous fiction, unsubstantiated, conclusory false statements knowingly made and injurious to my rreputation. No apologies and no corrections from Matthew thus he remains a peddler of lies – fact.
I have just one agenda: promoting truth and the preservation of democracy. I have been fighting government corruption for over a decade at all levels of the New York State court system as well as in the US federal Second Circuit. Canbanjo, somehow feels that I’m not qualified. Yet he defers to unqualified climate scientists when not one of those he cites has even got a first degree in climatology.
Climatologists are less qualified to pontificate on climate than I am to comment on law. I have succeeded in the courtroom. But they have failed on climate to such an extent that they are fast losing all public credibility and their elite are facing criminal and civil action.
It is because of my successful, hard-won insight that I am qualified to commentate on government fraud issues. Any competent QUALIFIED lawyer could expose me if they so chose if I was spouting junk in all those hundreds of thousands of published pages. But you see, I work closely with both lawyers and scientists because I live or die by my reputation- its all I have. Sadly, some of you begrudge me that right -so sad in a (still) free society.
Debunking frauds, liars and hypocrites is what I do best. Canbanjo fits the bill because he fails abjectly to answer my points. Here’s another one that I know Canbanjo will ignore as usual:
The agenda of climate science became settled when Enron (and BP) sent Al Gore to Japan in order to insert carbon trading into article 16 of the Kyoto Protocol.
http://www.climategate.com/enron-helped-develop-carbon-trading-scheme
If there were truly an impending ‘catastrophe’ because of climate change all that world governments would need do is cool the climate by using proven scientific means e.g. adding aerosols to the atmosphere, etc. But that wouldn’t be a profitable revenue stream, would it? You see, the common warmist argument for the inexplicable cooling from 1940-75 was that anthropogenic aerosol emissions temporarily cooled the climate until we banned them. Well, logic says that the most effective solution to global warming has been found, if we believe climatologists on aerosols, right?
But its not actually about the temperature at all, is it? Governments and big energy suppliers are working hand in hand not seeking to ban co2 emissions, but to tax them so that energy corps get their R&D paid for by taxpayers and politicians get to entrench their power in a ‘climate crisis’. Govts want to profit from carbon emissions in the exact same way they profit from smoking – by taxing it, not banning it. As a non-smoker I think its crazy smoking isn’t banned. But nothing gets banned if it’s a money spinner – ask $100 million carbon credits investor, Al Gore. Then ask yourself – who the hell do you think actually funded CRU? The leaked emails tell us – BP and government.
And still none of you have even read the draft Copenhagen Treaty nor studied the UN’s Agenda 21 where there’s not a word about elections, democracy, individual rights, etc but a new world ‘government’ DOES get mentioned – its one world, un-elected eco-fascism.
It’s all just a bigger, more nefarious take on the EU – more and bigger government, with less and less democracy. For example, does anyone know who their EU President is? Did anyone elect him? No. Van Rompuy was appointed by EU commissars in secret talks. Why?
Canbanjo again refers to his hero, the biggest advocate for destroying modern civilisation, James Hansen. Hansen’s radical, virulently anti-democratic instincts are amply exposed by his support of an eco-fascist book advising on ways to destroy western industrialisation through propaganda, guile and outright sabotage called ‘Time’s Up’ by Keith Farnish.
Just go read ‘Time’s Up’–see Farnish’s claim:
“The only way to prevent global ecological collapse and thus ensure the survival of humanity is to rid the world of Industrial Civilization….. for instance, removing grazing domesticated animals, razing cities to the ground.”
So what’s this trash got to do with Hansen? Well, Hansen wholly endorses the book here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Up-Uncivilized-Solution-Global/dp/190032248X
Jolly James says:
“Keith Farnish has it right: time has practically run out, and the ’system’ is the problem.”
The book shows know all you need to know about climate crooks like James Hansen. Like the UN’s Agenda 21, Farnish and Hansen and their clique of climate fraudsters want to cut the world’s population by 80-90% – read it! All the while, David ‘big oil’ Rockefeller et al. funds the 350.org climate activism and a myriad of other NGO’s -all ‘useful idiots’ working for his Bilderbergers, Club of Rome and Trilateral commission co-conspirators.
These are the people who actually pull the strings at the UN. Chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri is also ‘big oil’ as he sits on the board of India’s energy conglomerate, Tata. Also, FYI the former Prime Minister of Belgium, Herman Van Rompuy, was picked to be EU President just days after he attended a Bilderberg Group secret dinner meeting.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6622886/Herman-Van-Rompuy-Europes-first-president-to-push-for-Euro-tax.html
So don’t say I didn’t warn you that self-serving big businessmen and politicians along with eco-facist zealots were conspiring to carve up the tax cake and take ALL your democratic freedoms from you.
John – I thought me, you and Canbanjo were going to bring this debate to an end….
In case anyone wants to make up their own mind about the intentions of the UN’s agenda 21, here is the link:
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentID=52
Sorry Matthew, a question for John if I may.
John has claimed that the greenhouse effect does not exist as proved in a theoretical paper by Gerlich: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
No serious scientist has formally given this paper the time of day, because the greenhouse effect is well understood and is backed up but real world empirical measurements.
John was not happy with this response.
So I thought of a question for John:
The hottest planet in the solar system is Venus, not Mars. Venus is hotter than Mars because it has an atmosphere comprised of greenhouse gases, mainly C02.
So John, could you please explain why Venus is hotter than Mars, if it is not the greenhouse effect.
Thanks
Canbanjo
i meant mercury, not mars
I read a paper on that somewhere in the links you gave previuosly. and a lot of the work comparing the atmospheric conditions are speculation as the prevailing conditions are so different to ours , if I can remember where I saw it I shall link it
Matthew, I do recall you stating I was to have the last word. But it seems canbanjo wants to persist in making himself look the utter fool by proving to us he doesn’t even know his planets!
the comparison is between mercury and venus. mercury is closer to the sun, but venus is hotter, because it has an atmosphere and greenhouse effect. thats my query to john.
i might have confused things by writing mars instead of mercury, because mars ‘warming’ is one of the standard sceptic flawed arguments: http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-on-mars.htm
John, I don’t mind admitting when I make a mistake! I am genuinely interested in your answer to the greenhouse query.
Re Hansen’s “radical, virulently anti-democratic instincts”, I make no comment, but Hansen has responded to various political accusations here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2006/Inclinations_20060313.pdf
Canbanjo, I thought Matthew kindly requested you desist in this debate? But as you persist, I’ll respond. To keep citing Hansen as your reference is very interesting. James Hansen was an unknown computer modeller when he first made a name for himself testifying to a congressional committee in 1988 about the ‘perils’ of global warming. He warned that Manhattan would be under water within 20 years if carbon dioxide emissions were not drastically curtailed. One of many doomsaying failed predictions by NASA’s nutjob.
Fifteen years later, in the Scientific American in March, 2004, Hansen came to write that “Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate forcing scenarios consistent with what is realistic”.
He lets others do most of the bogus scaremongering now. But all the while the global cooling trend that began early in 2007 continues. I took a look at America’s official global reading for March, 2009 as issued by Hansen’s Goddard Space Institute. It shows the month was the coldest of this young century and colder than March of 1990. The satellite records show an even stronger recent cooling trend.
Equally interesting, Goddard says March 2009 was just 0.03 degrees warmer than March of 1981, a year when the El Nino/La Nina index was approximately the same as today’s. Does that mean the planet’s net warming is only three hundredths of a degree C over the last 30 years? My thanks to Czech physicist Lubos Motl for spotting that relationship.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Goddard Institute, James Hansen, recently sent a letter to President Obama saying that Obama has “only four years left to save the earth” from “runaway warming.” Oh, boy, old scare tactics from Jimmy die hard!
He also told the London Observer in February 2009 that “The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.” Hansen maintains that recent warming has pushed the planet close to a “tipping point” for runaway warming. What recent warming? Three hundredths of a degree C over 30 years, with temperatures still declining, doesn’t seem worth ruining the world’s economies.
Hansen doesn’t want the media to tell you that sunspots and cosmic rays have a 79 percent correlation with the Earth’s temperature record since 1860 but the CO2 correlation is a paltry 22 percent. Is it any wonder skeptics have been saying ‘its’ the sun, stupid’?
Climatologists don’t dispute that humans currently produce about 2% of CO2 in the atmosphere while the total CO2 accounts for only 15% of greenhouse gas effects. Thus, including natural variability for the 99% of greenhouse gases, government-funded grant chasers are preaching that our 1% greenhouse gas emissions is going to cause ‘catastrophic’ climate change? Please! Hansen has a lot to answer for.
As I have said before, if there were truly an impending ‘catastrophe’ because of climate change, all that world governments need do is cool the climate by using proven scientific means e.g. adding aerosols to the atmosphere, etc. But that wouldn’t be a profitable revenue stream, would it? You see the common warmist argument for the inexplicable cooling that affected the globe from 1940-75 was that anthropogenic aerosol emissions temporarily cooled the climate until we banned them. Well, logic says that the most effective solution to global warming has been found, if we believe climatologists on aerosols, right?
Sources:
March global temperatures: Goddard Institute for Space Studies web site, Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt , 4/15/ 2009.
Net warming of 0.03 degree C over 30 years: Lubos Motl, The Reference Frame, http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/04/giss-march-2009-coolest-march-in-this.html
James Hansen quotes:
”NASA’s Hansen Warns Barack Obama on Climate Change,” The Guardian, Jan. 1, 2009.
John
James Hansen’s CV: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/HansenCV_200912.pdf
As you can see Hansen was director of NASA GISS by 1981 -you say unknown in 1988? Wrong.
Cherry picking the Month of March shows the weakness of your position, because you know that when you include the other 11 months you don’t like the answer. Since the mid 1970s, global temperatures have been warming at around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. See figures 2 and 3 here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100127_TemperatureFinal.pdf
Its not the sun – in the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions.
Its not cosmic rays – there has been no correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures over the last 30 years of global warming.
Interesting you think our greenhouse gas emissions are negligible compared to the natural greenhouse gas quantities (despite empirical measurements proving you are wrong), when you previously claimed the greenhouse effect has been disproved! So which is it??
And that takes us back to the question forgot to answer – why is Venus hotter than Mercury, if the greenhouse effect has been disproved?
Oh and re geo engineering, it is most likely to be a real last resort (in terms of offsetting temperature rises due to C02), because of the costs, huge unknowns, and the fact it is not addressing the underlying problem, eg:
the geo-engineering option recently talked about is the addition of SO2 to the stratosphere where it oxidises to SO4 (sulphate) aerosols which, since they are reflective, reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ground. The zeroth order demonstration of this possibility is shown by the response of the climate to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 which caused a maximum 0.5ºC cooling a year or so later. Under business-as-usual scenarios, the radiative forcing we can expect from increasing CO2 by the end of the century are on the order of 4 to 8 W/m2 – requiring the equivalent to one to two Pinatubo’s every year if this kind of geo-engineering was the only response. And of course, you couldn’t stop until CO2 levels came back down (hundreds, if not thousands of years later) without hugely disruptive and rapid temperature rises. “What could possibly go wrong?”.
The answer is plenty. The basic issues over and above the costs of delivering the SO2 to the stratosphere are that a) once started you can’t stop without much more serious consequences so you are setting up a multi-centennial commitment to continually increasing spending (of course, if you want to stop because of huge disruption that geo-engineering might be causing, then you are pretty much toast), b) there would be a huge need for increased monitoring from the ground and space, c) who would be responsible for any unanticipated or anticipated side effects and how much would that cost?, and d) who decides when, where and how much this is used. For point ‘d’, consider how difficult it is now to come up with an international agreement on reducing emissions and then ponder the additional issues involved if India or China are concerned that geo-engineering will cause a persistent failure of the monsoon? None of these issues are trivial or cheap to deal with.
Canbanjo, round and round you go clutching at straws, getting routinely debunked and you’re still not seeing the wood for the trees!
THE VENUS MEME
The best argument is correlation. For a start, there is no correlation between the instrinsic characteristics of the planets. Correlation is what you need to prove a theory and you don’t get that by comparing the Earth, Venus and Mercury. You’re naively comparing apples and oranges with that old warmist meme, canbanjo.
Ask any astronomer and they’ll tell you the warmest point on Mercury is warmer than the warmest point on Venus. Mercury’s day is almost the same length as its year, meaning it rotates on its axis as it goes around the sun – so one side is almost always facing the sun, and the other facing away from the sun. So, on average this ‘cold side’ makes the mean temperature on Mercury less than on Venus.
But also, the role of CO2 on Venus is a red herring because the best you can claim from Venus is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Venus’s atmosphere is practically 100% CO2. The Earth’s is practically 0% at a mere 380ppm.
Here’s where a sense of perspective is needed. For most of the past 600 million years, Earth’s atmospheric CO2 concentration was above 1000 ppm – a level we couldn’t reach today if we burnt the planet’s entire reserves of fossil fuel. Then look at the Cambrian and Jurassic eras, according to the IPCC, CO2 concentration then was 15-20 times today’s – so why didn’t the Earth burn up before now if your theory is true? We’ve had ice ages repeatedly come and go since then. So much for your correlation between temperatures and CO2.
GASES DO NOT TRAP HEAT!
I suggest you go read up on Dr Hans Schreuder- he calls it right; no gas, not even carbon dioxide, is able to trap heat — in fact, because they swirl around, gases only cool whatever they’re in contact with. You have to make a gas stand still, like tiny air pockets in clothing do, in order to keep something warm.
Infrared (IR) – sensitive gases release infrared energy; they do not trap infrared energy. Think about a thermos. Despite the infrared photons repeatedly bouncing between the silvered walls, unable to escape and being re-absorbed by the contents, the flask doesn’t get any hotter than before. Thus re-emitted and re-absorbed energy does not cause warming.
You’ll find that the Earth releases to space the same amount of thermal energy as it gets from the sun. How do we know that? By the ERBE satellite data. Just read the paper by Prof Lindzen and Dr. Choi (2009), demonstrating that the radiation escaping from the Earth to space, as measured by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) Satellite, is not being trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere to cause warming as the alarmist models predicted.
Yet, still in discredited climate change circles goes the absurd claim that the bouncing around of infra red energy within the atmosphere due to a few extra molecules of carbon dioxide from human emissions is the alleged cause of increased atmospheric temperatures – all pure junk science.
Ask Dr Gerlich and Dr Tscheuschner- I cited their peer-reviewed physics paper debunking AGW and you still fail to provide a single reference to any subsequent peer-reviewed paper that disproves their analysis.
THE TEMPERATURE RECORD
Earth’s climate is proven to a be a non-linear chaotic system as per Lorenz (1963). The warming blip of 1975-98 that you and all doomsayers get hot about is proven to have no human signal as compared with earlier warming blips of 1860-80 and 1910-40. In fact during the 40 years of 1695-1735 the surface temperature in Central England (CET) rose by 2.2 C° (4 F°), whereas during the 100 years 1906-2006 global temperature rose by just 0.6 C° (1.1 F°).
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/10/01/british-record/
The CET proves the average UK summer temperature in the 18th century was 15.46 deg C while that for the 20th century was 15.35 deg C – thus getting cooler! Also, along with the CET the only other 200+ year old temp record is the European Central Temp. Record (Klementinum-Prague) that also proves a slow, steady warming trend of 0.25degrees C per century for the past 200 hundred years.
So, arbitrarily picking a very short warming trend from the mid 70’s is totally bogus and proves nothing.
THE SUN
I never cited the sun’s temperature – can’t you read? Take a look here for the facts:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/
HANSEN
Unknown outside of NASA until 1988- you’re point has no merit.
Oh yes that is one issue that really concerns me
We (as a race) are nearly not as clever as we think we are
My previous comment was aimed at canbanjo
but
John Osullivan said …[Mercury’s day is almost the same length as its year, meaning it rotates on its axis as it goes around the sun – so one side is almost always facing the sun, and the other facing away from the sun. So, on average this ‘cold side’ makes the mean temperature on Mercury less than on Venus]
I think you will find a definition of a day is a full rotation of the planet, kind of meaning that all of the planet actually sees the sun at some point, therefore this sentence is a little confusing (if not bollox)
John if you could prove any of that you are likely to receive several nobel prizes. Good luck!
Kevin, it takes Mercury 59 Earth days to spin one full rotation, 88 Earth days to complete an orbit of the sun. Thus the planet has a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance, rotating three times for every two revolutions around the Sun. Thus there is a disproportionate energy imbalance of IR radiation on one side of the planet. While the sun’s IR radiative impact on the Earth is evenly distributed.
canbanjo, put up or shut up – disprove what I’ve said using peer-reviewed science or quit your BS.
John O’Sullivan: “Debunking frauds, liars and hypocrites is what I do best”
Really? And yet in a room full of people who have admitted that they haven’t read as much about this topic as you have, as far as I can see you haven’t persuaded a single person. Indeed, the impression I get is that you’ve alienated a neutral or possibly even mildly supportive audience.
Or to put it another way, instead of “debunking frauds, liars and hypocrites”, you’ve discredited yourself to the point where virtually no-one seems to be interested in what you say, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate your comments are.
OK John, the question was why is Venus so hot, if the greenhouse effect cannot exist (as you seem to believe Gerlich has proved!).
Here is a paper explaining the reason Venus is so hot, and I quote the conclusion from the abstract: “the greenhouse effect can account for essentially all of Venus’ high surface temperature.”
Link: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1980/JA085iA13p08223.shtml
You learn something every day.
Mike – I would concur with your sentiment.
I cannot speak for everybody in the room, but as far as I’m concerned John has made me more concerned about climate change, rather than less concerned.
My worry is that with people like John, who seem to have so much time on their hands ‘debunking frauds, liars and hypocrites’, that if catastrophic climate change is a possibility, then as a human race we are unlikely to tackle it.
Obviously, this would be great news for John and others like him, but disastrous for future generations who may suffer.
I’m sure John has seen this video before, but for everyone else it is worth spending a few minutes watching this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ&feature=fvw
It takes a minute or two to get going, but the conclusion pretty much sums up my position on climate change.
I watched the video- no science at all. Just a plea to buy a ‘lottery ticket’ to safeguard ‘our’ future. This guy talks like a car salesman. I prefer to get my information from scientists instead.
Mike: “no-one seems to be interested in what you say, regardless of how accurate or inaccurate your comments are.”
So much for objectivity then. A lot of ad hominems thrown in my direction, a lot of hot air and no science. If you are seriously suggesting that you make important decisions based upon whether you like or dislike the messenger, then that shows a distinct lack of intellect and reason. I feel sorry for you.
canbanjo: “John if you could prove any of that you are likely to receive several nobel prizes. Good luck!”
Its you who needs to prove to skeptics your theory not the other way round. I see you again fail to find a peer-reviewed paper that debunks Gerlich. Sadly, you’re latest offering is the worst yet – 30 years out of date and doesn’t even address the issue of ghg on our own planet.
If you truly believe I’m wrong then keep the insults to yourself and prove me wrong by showing some proof rather than your usual snide jibes. John McClean’s paper ( link below) is only a few months old – it came out before Climategate so doesn’t address any of the issues raised by that but it shows well where people like me are coming from.
I suggest you read it:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/climate_science_corrupted.pdf
As I explained to you, the AGW theory predicted a tropospheric warming because it states that the atmosphere retains heat rather than it being dissipated out into space. But no such atmospheric warming exists as proven by the ERBE satellite data – go check for yourself, its freely available online.
The ghg theory only applies in a ‘closed’ environment such as a laboratory flask where it is not allowed to escape. The Earth’s atmosphere operates as an ‘open’ system whereby, as per the Second Law of Thermodynamics, IR heat is radiated out into space and not trapped by our atmosphere – thus there is no energy imbalance and thus no signal of increasing IR heat energy within the atmosphere.
Canbanjo, just to prove everything you said about the impacts of atmospheric aerosols is garbage, see below what the IPCC itself says on scientific understanding of the forcing agents on climate.
You may find this table in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) under ‘Radiative Forcing agent, Level of Scientific Understanding.’ It is also entitled IPCC TAR WGI SPM (figure 3)
Even their own table proves that they admit they have ‘very low’ understanding of TWO THIRDS of all climate forcing elements examined-yes- you read that right. They’ve got no idea about whatsoever about an astonishing 8 out of 12 forcing elements ! >>>
Greenhouse gases High
Stratospheric ozone Medium
Tropospheric ozone Medium
Aerosols – Sulphate Low
Aerosols – CO2 from fossil fuel Very Low
Aerosols – Biomass burning) Very Low
Aerosols – Mineral dust Very Low
Aerosols – indirect effects Very Low
Aviation-induced contrails Very Low
Aviation-induced cirrus e Very Low
Land use – albedo only Very Low
Solar radiative forcing Very Low
Now you see why people like me get so angry at the lies and hype about carbon dioxide when all they’ve done since the IPCC was formed, was predetermine the ‘bad guy’ and woefully ignored obtaining ANY scientific findings for two thirds of all the other important factors affecting climate.
I’d call that utter bias and guesswork, wouldn’t you?
Dear John,
You seem confused, I made no comment on atmospheric aerosols.
However, re your concern about level of the understanding of aspects of the 2001 report, fyi there has been a more recent IPCC report, published in 2007, and there has even been an update report since then:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-2-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/main.html
To summarise for you, the good news is that the level of understanding of the forcings has increased, unfortunately the bad news is the new research strengthens the case of AGW. So no partying in the streets I’m afraid.
However I’m impressed by your scientific method of adding up the number of headings from a list to make an ‘astonishing’ scientific conclusion.
I still can’t get my head around your other astonishing conclusion, that the greenhouse effect has been debunked. How am I alive, sitting here typing at my computer on the planet earth, if there is no greenhouse effect?
Do we really need to re-write all of our text books and re-evaluate thousands of peer reviewed papers?
To get a scale of your discovery of the falsification of the greenhouse effect, try typing ‘greenhouse effect’ in google scholar – there are over 1 million results, now that is a lot of re-writing and backtracking. You must be a genius John. Have you got a replacement theory to explain how life on earth works without the greenhouse effect?
oh yes and i forgot to mention that the science and public policy institute that John references is an american right wing think tank / special interest group, that does not disclose its funding sources.
John: “I prefer to get my information from scientists instead.”
As opposed to seemingly unqualified lawyers who make at least part of their living through challenging this area, and who have been publicly outed as having both recommended a message put forward by the BNP while trying to pay scientists to support your agenda in public?
John: “If you are seriously suggesting that you make important decisions based upon whether you like or dislike the messenger, then that shows a distinct lack of intellect and reason. I feel sorry for you.”
Not at all. I try to base my decisions on a broad spectrum of information relevant to the topic (that’s the “reason” part), not just that thrown at me by someone matching the profile described in my first point in this comment (that’s the “intellect” part).
However, when someone wants to present part of that spectrum to me, their credibility is an important factor as to whether I will trust the information they present. In your case, as a direct result of the way you have presented yourself and your case on this forum, you have zero credibility.
Please don’t feel sorry for me though – I’ll be fine, honestly. Unless … hold on a moment … unless you just added “be patronising” to your armoury of persuasion techniques (like I just did). What was I just saying about your lack of credibility?
Canbanjo,
You seemed to be confused that it is you who is confused. You state that you “made no comment on atmospheric aerosols.” Yet in your post of March 7, 2010 at 10:47 pm you clearly refer to the,
“addition of SO2 to the stratosphere where it oxidises to SO4 (sulphate) aerosols which, since they are reflective, reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ground.”
Perhaps, you’ve just forgotten what it is you’ve been copying and pasting from other sites? It’s easily done when you something is clearly over your head.
Nonetheless, I looked at the your cited IPCC links and, as I expected, the IPCC merely affirms their understanding to be ‘low’ and the word ‘estimate’ is repeated time and time again. Estimating and guesswork, to my mind does not credibly raise the level of understanding one jot. It isn’t science-its political advocacy.
Read it carefully, canbanjo, they admit:
“there remain large uncertainties in both measurements and modelling of processes, leading to a low level of scientific understanding, which is an elevation from the very low rank in the TAR”
As I’ve already proven, the IPCC have rigged the game and blamed co2 despite their understanding of 9/12 of the key variables to be ‘low’ or ‘very low’ –as I say – admitting low levels of understanding is not science. Each time you put up some garbage and I shoot it down and around you go clutching for more straws. But its entertaining.
Mike, again there is not a shred of scientific argument in your post that is nothing more than personal attack on me. That’s fine-it shows you up very nicely. I’ll keep to the science, you keep following the cult of personality and putting your faith in some faked ‘consensus’ put up by some discredited authority.
canbanjo: “the science and public policy institute that John references is an american right wing think tank / special interest group, that does not disclose its funding sources.”
Does that, in itself invalidate the science they cite? I fail to see the rationality in your statement. You are becoming as anti-intellectual as Mike. When you cannot fathom the science you resort to unsubstantiated ad hominem personal slurs. Clearly, as I’ve already proven time and again, you’re just another climate fraud denier with nothing sensible to add to the debate.
canbanjo: “I still can’t get my head around your other astonishing conclusion, that the greenhouse effect has been debunked.”
Why do you so cynically try to misrepresent what I have written? I’ve referred to two seperate facts: first, the greenhouse gas effect does exist in the laboratory in a closed system experiment but not in any the way as a key player in atmospheric climate which operates as an open system – which goes totally over you head because you never respond to the point.
Second, as I’ve explained to you several times, the greenhouse gas theory as applied via anthropogenic climate change has been totally debunked by Gerlich. I’ve challenged you to show any up to date scientific paper that refutes Gerlich’s conclusions by you’ve failed time and again.
Science moves forward by the constant debunking and revision of hypotheses. All theories get debunked in the fullness of time – that time came for AGW with Gerlich’s paper which is affirmed by the latest ERBE satellite data which, you also ignore and thus I must infer, you cannot refute, either.
You seem to be stuck in a time warp, canbanjo. Your AGW theory made some sense from 1975 to 1998 when there appeared to be a correlation between rising temps and rising levels of co2. But science has moved on since then. As Britain’s most senior climate scientist, Phil Jones admitted, there has been no statistically significant rise in temps for 15 years. Yet, co2 levels have risen exponentially. Thus there can be no claim any longer for a correlation between temps and co2 – the theory is busted.
Occam’s Razor tells us that we need look at the most obvious answer – as I put to you- climate scientists admit they have low or very low understanding of the effects of 80% of all the other possible climate forcing agents likely to be affecting climate. The answer lies elsewhere other than with co2. That you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge this fact proves you have no interest in science. You are merely a dogmatist preaching belief in a failed theory.
Mike, you and Matthew as well as canbanjo haven’t declared their personal interests in all this which I’m sure motivates you to cling on to the lies of man made global warming. I get no money for my climate campaigning work-I’m self funding.
I suspect you’re just motivated from self interest rather than trying to ’save the planet’ but you carry on.
This article is very interesting in relation to this thread:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/08/the-unpersuadables/
Canbanjo – yes interesting article.
John – what would it take to persuade you?
John, we were trying to get to the bottom of contradictions arising from your belief that Gerlisch has debunked the greenhouse gas theory. It was in that context that I had not commented on aerosols – you keep ducking and diving from the points in question in classic sceptic (and politician / lawyer) style to try to confuse people until they give up thinking there must be a lot of debate going on about whether AGW is real or not.
You contradict yourself so often – you believe Gerlisch has debunked the greehouse theory, but then you make statements like:
“Climatologists don’t dispute that humans currently produce about 2% of CO2 in the atmosphere while the total CO2 accounts for only 15% of greenhouse gas effects.
So do you believe the greenhouse effect is real or not?
And btw, when climate scientists use the term greenhouse effect, it refers to the effects observable in the earths atmosphere, not a test tube in a lab.
Some of the papers observing the greenhouse effect in action, here on earth:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Publications/Conference_and_Workshop_Proceedings/groups/cps/documents/document/pdf_conf_p50_s9_01_harries_v.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD011800.shtml
and some more:
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/philipona2004-radiation.pdf
http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2006/techprogram/paper_100737.htm
and some more:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008BAMS2634.1
and the greenhouse effect in action on venus too (as you previously ignored):
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1980/JA085iA13p08223.shtml
And after all that science, a bit more light hearted John O’Sullivan mocking-
1) John says James Hansen was an unknown computer modeler in 1998.
2) Canbanjo points out that Hansen had already been director of NASA GISS for 7 years by 1998 and posted Hansen’s CV to prove it.
3) John responds that Hansen was unknown ‘outside NASA’ in 1998.
4) a simple check of Hansen’s CV shows that by 1998 Hansen had been published more than 80 times and had won 12 awards (7 of them from organisations ‘outside NASA’).
Hansen’s CV again:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/HansenCV_200912.pdf
And maybe an analogy to help understand what it means when the IPCC scientists identify the areas where the understanding of the science is low eg the aerosols:
If a patient has an untreatable cancer, the doctor may estimate that there is a 95% chance that that patient will die of that cancer within 3 years. But at the same time there are separate studies being carried out investigating:
a) the effect of a nut and fruit only diet on cancers
b) the effect of obesity on the spread of cancers
c) the effect of a happy family environment on the longevity of cancer patients.
etc etc
Lets say the scientific understanding of all of those areas of research is very low. What does that mean for the core diagnosis? Not a lot.
It is the same with climate science – there are areas which are very well understood – eg estimated at 95% – that the extra C02 we are emitting is causing warming due to the greenhouse effect, that if we carry on business as usual emissions we will be in big trouble etc etc. The main debate among scientists is about how quickly this may happen under various emissions scenarios. When the positive feedback tipping points might occur.
Some think the IPCC reports are a bit too conservative, some think they are a bit too alarmist – very very very few actually disagree with the core diagnosis – the core problem that humanity now faces.
That is why it is so worrying that 97.5% http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
of climate scientists endorse the core AGW theory, whilst only, say 40% of the general public think it is a problem at all. Its worrying because we are much more likely to mess everything up if there is not public pressure on politicians to act.
I love it when climate alarmists quote some guff from the left-wing windbag, George Monbiot of the UK’s ‘Guardian.’ He’s long given up citing science in his calamitous columns because he is bereft of any scientific rigor.
Skeptics were always up for a scientific debate on climate but we’ve been ostracised by big government who blew the whistle before time and walked off with the ball. While the shrewd big energy corporations had thrown in behind Al Gore since Kyoto when they got him to slip in their slick carbon trading agenda as a clause.
I think the President of the Czech Republic has got the whole charade well figured out:
“Today’s debate about global warming is essentially a debate about freedom. The environmentalists would like to mastermind each and every possible (and impossible) aspect of our lives.”
Vaclav Klaus: Blue Planet in Green Shackles
The foot soldiers of science, unaffected by the poltics that has poisoned those closest to the ears of policy makers do honest work such as can be seen with the ARGO ocean buoys that prove oceans cooling since 2004.
They tell us the Pacific Marine Atlas program proves there was actually a downtrend in Sea Height over the past six years (January 31, 2004 – January 31, 2010). This stunningly proves the lie of those absurd Al Gore and IPCC predictions of sea level rises in the tens of meters. The University of Colorado use both the Jason-1 Calibration and TOPEX Calibrations and their measurements say very similar things to other oceanographers including those peer-reviewed papers by Antonov et al. (2005); Ishii et al. (2005) and Willis et al. (2005) who all report rises equal to seven inches per century. This being totally in line with natural rises for our current Holocene interglacial that has persisted for the last 11,000 years.
That the sea levels are not rising also ties in with the satellite evidence that proves global sea ice and polar ice are fine and dandy as proven by these images and graphs:
Global Sea Ice Area from Cryoshpere Today:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
But we’re getting used to being lied to by these so-called ‘experts.’ We all know full well about the IPCC’s most absurd claim that some Himalayan glaciers would probably disappear by 2035. The UN’s climate propaganda machine has been humiliated into admitting that was one big porkie pie.
We also learned that despite British taxpayers forking out almost £3 million ($5m) for agricultural peer-reviewed research covering Africa but it was all ignored in favor of the fakery of the Moroccan “carbon credits” adviser. So that those blatant lies were fed into the 2007 IPCC Report that predicted by 2020 African crop yields by 50 per cent when, in fact, the report of the Algerian government, on which that claim was fictituously based actually said the opposite so that:
“agricultural production will more than double by 2020″.
And the evidence keeps building that shows that to promote a carbon dioxide agenda propagandists started at the end point of the science—drawing conclusions and picking numbers—they then appear to have worked backwards to justify the results. They decided that there would be 0.6°C global warming at this time, even though the ERBE satellite measurements show slight cooling due to increased precipitation and clouds, which reflect away solar energy.
Some months back I was lucky to have written a hugely successful article in which I drew attention to the work of one unpaid U.S. climate analyst. E.M. Smith, who uncovered the shocking fact that 806 ‘cold’ weather stations were dropped from the total of 6000 worldwide temperature stations in a single year with no explanation from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN).
But the British Government, like its American and Australian counterparts is hell bent on going down the tax hungry green path regardless despite what a growing number of skeptic climate scientists are telling them. Only last year before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified,
“There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.”
Patterson asked the committee,
“On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”
We then learned that climatologists working on behalf of the Research Council of Norway on the CICERO found that there is no evidence of warming in Antarctica’s deep waters. http://fimbul.npolar.no/en/news/current/Nye_data.html
Then we heard that the world’s geologists had stepped up to the plate to shoot down the dodgy doomsaying theory in their own inimitable fashion. Professor Tom V. Segalstad stated:
“The IPCC needs a lesson in geology to avoid making fundamental mistakes,” he says. “Most leading geologists, throughout the world, know that the IPCC’s view of Earth processes are implausible if not impossible.
http://www.nov55.com/ipcc.html
But the politicians have been unrelenting in picking up the mantra given to them by the green eco-fascists. They learned that first you must ‘Create A Crisis, Alert the people, Offer Solution.’
I’m reminded of the 1960 speech given by President Eisenhower in his farewell address. The wise old statesman warned us even then:
“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
He was so right. Today grant dependant environment scientists must concoct ever scarier nightmare scenarios to keep earning their research funds.
We know, for example, top British climatologist, Phil Jones bagged over £3 million before being caught ‘hiding the decline’ while Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann is alleged to have got his paws on over $20 million. These two key fraudsters gave us our guilt trip so that the politicos could tax us hard for causing anthropogenic climate change – the manifest curse of Eisenhower’s group thinkers. But since Climategate the world is more quickly awakening from the nightmare of politically powered pseudo science.
It’s a true Orwellian dystopia that must be crushed now before its tendrils enwrap and suffocate us completely in its tyranny.
canbanjo, again you fail to comprehend English. I stated “Climatologists don’t dispute that humans currently produce about 2% of CO2 in the atmosphere while the total CO2 accounts for only 15% of greenhouse gas effects.”
I am merely reporting on climatologists’ contradictions as they assert an effect by a trace gas that comprises only 15% of the total alleged ghg effect.It is not me citing the green house gas effect it is them – if they insist that greenhouse gases seriously effect climate then why are they not advocating drastically cutting the biggest greenhouse gas – water vapour ( over 60%). It is water vapour and clouds that are the key not carbon dioxide – can’t you see the absurdity? They cant tax clouds!
I’m sticking with Gerlich 100% I thought that was evident from plain reading. You again fail to challenge their peer-reviewed science.
canbanjo: “It was in that context that I had not commented on aerosols”
what??? That’s not even intelligible. You’re tying yourself in nonsensical knots, canbanjo. But you carry on if you want to make yourself look even more ridiculous.
John, confused again, so you do admit the greenhouse effect is real, with water vapour being ‘the biggest greenhouse gas’, but in the next sentence you say again that you believe gerlich has disproved the effect. Which is it!?
Oh and I’ll send you some peer reviewed papers to show that the oceans are warming, the sea ice extents are decreasing, sea levels are rising (correlating with temperature increase as expected) and C02 is at levels dangerous enough to upset the ideal and delicate climate balance that we have enjoyed for thousands of years.
I’ll ignore all your political rantings, as you do ask me to stick to the science.
Canbanjo, just for the hell of it I read csrefully your cited paper ‘An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950’ . What I discovered is that you and your junk scientists either don’t bother to check the actual satellite measurements or willfully choose to ignore them. Your paper erroneously ‘estimated’ that:
“After accounting for the measured terms, the residual forcing between 1970 and 2000 due to direct and indirect forcing by aerosols as well as semidirect forcing from greenhouse gases and any unknown mechanism can be estimated as ?1.1 ± 0.4 W m?2 (1?). This is consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s best estimates but rules out very large negative forcings from aerosol indirect effects.”
If their ‘estimated’ forcing effect from both ghg and aerosols can be equated as ?1.1 ± 0.4 W m?2 (1?) then please explain why the real world observed measurements don’t tally? As you can see from ERBE the actual readings are proven to be SIX times less than the exaggerated ‘estimate’ you’ve just cited.
http://masterresource.org/?p=4307
Since 1998 when global temps levelled off then went down, all you people can do is talk in terms of ‘estimates’ or ‘predictions’ made by junk scientists trying to scratch a few more tax dollars from their big government paymasters. Don’t you understand that science is not about ‘estimates’ – its actually about real world numbers, facts and proof and you have ZERO!
John – I don’t think you answered my question.
What would it take to persuade you?
Canbanjo points out “that Hansen had already been director of NASA GISS for 7 years by 1998 and posted Hansen’s CV to prove it.”
And what does that prove? When did you first hear of him? Most people still don’t know who he is. It’s such a trivial side issue but as you insist on labouring the point I’ll entertain it.
Here’s a link showing a graph that proves exactly how many news stories have referred to the name ‘James Hansen’ over the years – as I stated before – only recently has his infamy grown so widely. Literally, there are x100 more references to Hansen now than in 1990’s:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/the_honest_broker/001342technocracy_versus_d.html
There are numerous outputs if you Google the search terms “James Hansen”, “James E. Hansen”, “James Hansen” “climate change”. But I think that the search term with the most specific relevant yield is simply: James Hansen NASA. Using this, he gets only 37 articles in 1996 and 1080 in 2007. Go ahead and Google it all – knock yourself out.
John you have just proved you have no understanding of the scientific method.
John O’Sullivan: “Don’t you understand that science is not about ‘estimates’ – its actually about real world numbers, facts and proof and you have ZERO!”
WRONG. Science is totally about approximations and probabilities. Newton. Einstein. Quantum Mechanics. All approximations of the truth. Doesn’t mean it is wrong. Its about getting closer and closer to the truth. We do not have a grand theory of everything at the moment.
I recommend you the Richard Feyman lecture series written for undergraduates for a fascinating journey through science and the scientific method.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Easy-Pieces-Fundamentals-Explained/dp/0140276661/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268223394&sr=8-2
canbanjo, you’re so far off its not funny. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. See “Rules for the study of natural philosophy”, Newton 1999, pp. 794-6, from Book 3, The System of the World.
“A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.” Look up ‘ scientific method’ on Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
You’re referring to post normal science – a pseudo scientific politicised bastardisation of science now discredited that became prevalent from the 1960’s and of which President Eisenhower warned his fellow countrymen about. Your kind of ‘science’ is subservient to the state-its not true science which exists of itself based on REAL quantifiable, measurable certainties on which understanding can grow by predicting outcomes. Failure to predict an outcome renders all hypotheses obsolete. This is what has happened to your AGW theory- it failed after 1998. It merely had semblance of credibility from the short warming period of 1975-1998 when rising global temps correlated with rising levels of atmospheric co2.
Look up Occam’s Razor – it will enlighten you as to the need to look for the obvious, most simple explanation based on the known facts. We know for a fact that for the past 15 years there has been no rise in global temps. We also know that the warming blip from 1975-98 correlates beautifully with those warming blips of 1860-80 and 1910-40 which NO climatologist attributes to AGW. Thus the reasonable conclusion is that all three warming blips are entirely natural as they correlate with slowly rising temps for the past 300 years since the Little Ice Age.
We live in an interglacial of the Holocene Period whereby for the past 11,000 years we’ve been exiting an ice age. Any examination of the temp record proves that temps fluctuate chaotically and randomly because climate is a non-linear chaotic system as per Lorenz (1963).
I suggest if you want to learn more about the REAL philosophy of science look up Karl Popper and educate yourself.
John re climate sensitivity you have picked out the one paper that shows significantly different results from all the others (and has since been discredited by Trenberth 2010):
Climate sensitivity from models
The first estimates of climate sensitivity came from climate models.
* In the 1979 Charney report, two models from Suki Manabe and Jim Hansen estimated a sensitivity range between 1.5 to 4.5°C.
* Forest 2002 uses a fingerprinting approach on modern temperature records and finds a range 1.4 to 7.7°C.
* Knutti 2005 uses modelling (entering different sensitivities then comparing to seasonal responses) to find a climate sensitivity range 1.5 to 6.5°C – with 3 to 3.5 most likely
* Hegerl 2006 looks at paleontological data over the past 6 centuries to calculates a range 1.5 to 6.2°C.
* Annan 2006 combines results from a variety of independent methods to narrow climate sensitivity to around 2.5 to 3.5°C.
* Royer 2007 examines temperature response to CO2 over the past 420 million years and determines climate sensitivity cannot be lower than 1.5°C (with a best fit of 2.8°C).
Climate sensitivity from empirical observations
There have been a number of studies that calculate climate sensitivity directly from empirical observations, independent of models.
* Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.
* Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.
* Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.
* Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.
* Chylek 2007 examines the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. They calculate a climate sensitivy range of 1.3°C and 2.3°C.
* Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C.
Matthew, in answer to your question of what would it take to persuade me, I need FACTS not guesswork, not estimates, not failed computer model predictions, not statistical fabrications, not political advocacy or blind faith which is all canbanjo has offered this debate.
As per my answer above to canbanjo, I stick to the true scientific method whereby a hypothesis is only given credence if it withstands rigorous real world testing. Canbanjo labours the point that the greenhouse gas theory is real. I agree it has some credence but only in the laboratory and operating within a closed system i.e. within a sealed flask or container.
However, within an open system – like the Earth’s atmosphere – there is no closed seal preventing energy we get from from the sun from being re-emitted back into space – thus heat cannot be trapped within the atmosphere and cause runaway global warming-its pure nonsense.
But if you can prove from the observable data that the planet is storing energy by way of co2 and not releasing it into space, so that it does cause runaway global warming, then I’ll believe it.
Canbanjo, regarding your post of March 9, 2010 at 10:28 pm when you say, “That is why it is so worrying that 97.5% of climate scientists endorse the core AGW theory” and you post the following link as ‘proof’
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
Your link does not even mention once that ‘97.5%’ number – why do you persist in such an outrageous lie? In fact the best the link offers you is the study by Oreskes [2004] who reviewed 928 abstracts from peer-reviewed research papers and found that more than 75% either explicitly or implicitly accepted that the Earth’s climate is being affected in some way by human activities.
But this whole debate is not whether mankind is having ‘some’ effect on the planet – to me that’s a given – we most surely do! But the real hot debate is whether mankind’s emission of carbon dioxide are causing ‘catastrophic’ runaway global warming – which NO climate scientist has ever proven. If they had they’d have won the Nobel Prize by now.
Not only is there no proof of any impending ‘catastrophe’ there is no proof whatsoever that co2 causes global temps to rise. We know this because the rate of co2 emissions is measured to have increased exponentially during the 20th century yet the warming blip you people get so hot about lasted only from 1975-1998. Thus the theory is not only not proved, its totally discredited.
You are a lying propagandist – nothing more or less – why bother to make such a fool of yourself? You are the best advert for my whole case that climate alarmism is a hyped up conspiracy by despicable self-serving con artists.
canbanjo as for climate models they are all discredited GIGO- garbage in, garbage out. Trenberth is deeply implicated in the climategate leaked emails for his part in the fraud. As I’ve re-iterated to you over and over again, real world measurements disprove all your guesstimates for climate sensitivity- there just is no such signal in the real world data.
OK John
I think I can see where you are getting confused about the greenhouse effect. You seem to think it is something to do with runaway global warming? Its not.
Let me try to explain. The atmosphere’s greenhouse gases are like a blanket around the earth. Now imagine adding another blanket. The earth will warm up, and then stay at the new temperature, just like if you add a blanket to your bed.
What humans are now doing is adding more and more blankets to the atmosphere, so the temperature is going up and up.
Does that help?
John re your 2:14 post, you know I gave you empirical real world sensitivity papers too:
* Lorius 1990 examined Vostok ice core data and calculates a range of 3 to 4°C.
* Hoffert 1992 reconstructs two paleoclimate records (one colder, one warmer) to yield a range 1.4 to 3.2°C.
* Hansen 1993 looks at the last 20,000 years when the last ice age ended and empirically calculates a climate sensitivity of 3 ± 1°C.
* Gregory 2002 used observations of ocean heat uptake to calculate a minimum climate sensitivity of 1.5.
* Chylek 2007 examines the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene transition. They calculate a climate sensitivy range of 1.3°C and 2.3°C.
* Tung 2007 performs statistical analysis on 20th century temperature response to the solar cycle to calculate a range 2.3 to 4.1°C.
You can lead a sceptic to the science, but you can’t make him believe / understand.
And John re your 1:35 post, you are quite right, the survey does not mention 97.5%. It does mention 97.4% however – this figure represents those where climate science is their field of expertise, and where they have published at least 50% of their recent papers on climate science.
Sorry John for the 0.1% inaccuracy.
Canbanjo, all the old 6 papers you cite (your newest from 2007) are premised on models from past proxy data that are merely estimates of climate sensitivity. These obviously need REAL WORLD observational testing which we have seen done last year using the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) satellite data.
What climate scientists have found is that rather than the positive feedback predicted by your junk models indicating a climate senstitivity between 1.4 to 4°C what we see, in fact, from the REAL WORLD OBSERVED DATA is climate sensitivity of only 0.5°C (see Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi:Revised on July 14, 2009).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/23/new-paper-from-lindzen/
Lindzen and Choi found that the observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity. Climate feedbacks from fluctuations in the outgoing radiation budget for the entire tropics shows observed outgoing radiation fluxes increase with the increase in sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Thus the Earth emits the extra heat energy into space-it doesn’t retain it.
This is the opposite of the behavior predicted of not only your 6 cited examples but of all 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs.
Thus your so called ‘blanket’ effect isn’t showing up as your debunked theory and pre-2009 outdated papers predicted so that ALL your models are still GIGO as per the latest satellite data. Why are you still flogging a dead horse over outdated and debunked models?
canbanjo, you are digging yourself deeper with this fictitious ‘97.4% or 97.5% of scientists’ nonsense. As you well know, the actual question put to scientists has NOTHING to do with the AGW theory. Go back and read the question – it says:
“When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?”
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
AGW is not even mentioned is it! Of course these scientist answered YES to the question because since the early 1800’s global temps have been increasing naturally at an overall rate of only 0.25 C degrees per century (proved by the UK’s CET and the Central European Temp Record from Prague-Klementinum).
Scientists refer to the period from 1300-1800 as the Little Ice Age (LIA) because it is accepted as being a cooler period between the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the post 1800 resumption of natural warming that has been happening since the last major ice age ended 11,000 years ago. No climate scientist attributes ANY of the warming from 1800-1975 to human emissions of CO2.
Moreover, skeptics have identified that the temporary faster warming blips of 1860-80 and 1910-40 neatly match the faster temporary warming blip of 1975-98. There has been no warming since and yet we’ve not reduced co2 output but actually increased it. Thus there is no logical reason to conclude that AGW theory caused the most recent warming because logic and Occam’s Razor tells us the most blip is also likely due to nature because it matches the earlier warming blips so well and co2 can no longer be shown to correlate with the recent ups and downs of global temperatures.
So you completely debunked yourself making the absurd statement that:
“it is so worrying that 97.5% of climate scientists endorse the core AGW theory”
Because they DON’T – either you can’t comprehend Basic English or you are blatantly spinning a lie. I’ll let you pick which.
John,
I have read it 3 times just to be sure. The 97.4% is the percentage of climate scientists saying yes to the question “2. Do you think human activity is a significant
contributing factor in changing
mean global temperatures?”
and the observed changing is warming. warming due to human activity = AGW = anthropogenic global warming = warming due to human activity. significant.
Not sure what planet you are on. Maybe one without a greenhouse effect. Is it cold at night?
Canbanjo,
Read the following carefully and I will prove you have been caught out in a pathetic lie. In your latest post you state:
“I have read it 3 times just to be sure. The 97.4% is the percentage of climate scientists saying yes to the question.”
Again, this is a repeat of your earlier lie that nearly all climate scientists support your position, which they don’t. So to prove what a cynical liar you are let’s back track to your post of February 8, 2010 at 10:33 pm when I first picked you up making the preposterous statement that,
“97.4% of climate scientists believe AGW is significant.”
You cited no sources for this false claim. On the same day I replied to your posting and emphatically stated,
“There was never a ‘consensus’ on climate change among scientists – it was hyped just like the phoney data.”
The following day you replied with the statement that I was,
“propagating myths about climate science.”
Matthew, trusting that you were honorable, then naively picked up and ran with your lies. In my post of March 1 I rebutted him for repeating your BS and I again challenged you to prove that 97.5% of climate scientists support AGW. I know they don’t and I know you know they don’t.
I’m then subjected to abuse and ridicule and accused of being a crackpot climate conspiracy theorist. Then on March 2 at 9:40pm you spout more of your usual absurd doomsaying guff saying,
“if we don’t solve this everything else is doomed anyway.”
I then spend the next week refuting your guesstimated and out of date junk science with up to date peer-reviewed observational science from satellite data. I proved the IPCC have rigged the game. The IPCC admit their understanding of 80% of the key atmospheric climate variables is woeful – they concede in their report that their actual level of understanding is ‘low’ or ‘very low’.
For them and you to then blame all our so-called ‘ills’ on CO2 is simply irresponsible, unsubstantiated anti-scientific political advocacy. To which you respond by claiming I’m part of some right wing conspiracy-which I’m not. I’ve only ever voted Labour and I’m unpaid for my climate commentating work. Again you repeat the absurd lie that,
“97.5% of climate scientists endorse the core AGW theory”
But this time you actually include a link to the following study –the only study of its kind – and that finally allows me to prove you are an absolute liar:
,http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
The author of this paper clearly admits that:
“Approximately 5% of the respondents were CLIMATE scientists”
Yes, READ IT AGAIN please for the fourth time – it states in black and white that only 5% of the respondents to the survey were climate scientists. Thus your continually repeated statement that “97.5% of climate scientists endorse the core AGW theory” is proven false. Each time I urged you to withdraw or back up your lie you refused until you eventually did try to back it up hoping no one would look too closely at your link. Thus we may fairly infer that you are a cynical compulsive liar.
John, you might not like the truth, but that does not make me a liar.
My original post of February 8, 2010 at 10:33 pm had the link to the survey for everyone to see. Quite transparent for a liar…
The survey was a survey of ‘EARTH SCIENTISTS’ including specialist climate scientists.
What the survey shows is that the greater level of expertise in climate science, the higher the endorsement that human activity is significantly responsible for the warming.
Of the most specialist climate scientist group, 77 out of 79 agreed.
Of all the publishing earth scientists, it was about 9 out of 10 agreed.
Of all the earth scientists including non publishing scientists, about 8 out of 10 agreed.
Then you get down to the general public…which on the basis of the RCG survey is 4 out of 10.
No lies.
And there have been other surveys – eg the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University:
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global_warming_survey_apr23_08.html
and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:
http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550
The STATS survey found that 84% of climate scientists surveyed “personally believe human-induced warming is occurring” and that “only 5% believe that that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming.” The STATS survey involved a random sampling of “489 self-identified members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union” and it has a theoretical sampling error of +/- 4%.
The Pew survey was taken in early 2009 and asked over 2000 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) their opinion on various scientific issues, including climate disruption. 84% of AAAS respondents felt that “warming is due to human activity” compared to only 10% who felt that “warming is due to natural causes.”
Out of interest John, perhaps you could let me know of any scientific establishments (lets say that have been going for more than 30 years, to avoid you naming any think tanks set up specifically to cast doubt about AGW) that have a formal position of being contrary to the IPCC conclusions?
I know you tried the IOP, but I have already proved they do not share your views.
canbanjo,
Lie after lie won’t help you. Your own cited link shows the author of this paper (not me) clearly stating that:
“Approximately 5% of the respondents were CLIMATE scientists”
I precisely quoted your cited author because you repeated over and over the same tired old pathetic lie your kind always repeat which was:
“97.5% of climate scientists endorse the core AGW theory”
What’s even more pathetic is that nowhere in any of your posts did you ever state
“97.5% of EARTH SCIENTISTS endorse the core AGW theory”
Earth scientists are NOT climate scientists – they are wholly seperate disciplines as different as dentists and brain surgeons! Would you ask a dentist for an opinion on brain surgery? You show no integrity shamelessly defending to the death each and every lie.
You’re so out of order its not funny!
So tell us, canbanjo – how many climate scientists are there all told on the world? If we take one of your OWN eminent alarmist blogs, ‘Rabett Run’ we’ll let them tell us:
“the answer in the US is 13,746. However, there is no international register of climatologists so it’s very hard to provide a specific number….If we look at foreign members we get a total of 19,340”
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-many-climate-scientists-are-there.html
And how many have you just cited to back up your latest absurd ‘consensus’ meme?
“489” and then the “Pew survey was taken in early 2009 and ASKED over 2000.”
That’s ASKED not received answers! While from your post of yesterday we had pinned down the fact that your previous cited paper could muster a measly 77 climate scientists to support your junk theory.
It’s not looking good for you is it?
But now, seeing yourself dug so deep into your hole you’re abandoning that little game and now moving onto jabbering on about “scientific establishments.”
Now are you absolutely sure you really want to go down this path, too, for another debunk?
No John, there are no lies, just stating exactly would the survey says, anyone can check. I have provided the surveys that I know about – they all show similar results.
If there was a survey of the contributing 2000 number IPCC scientists, what result would you get? I’d be surprised if it wasn’t 100%, because, even the scientists with grumbles about details in the report, accept that the world is warming and humans are responsible.
I do hope you are right John, but as you disagree with most of the science of this world, you must either be a genius or an idiot, and based on what I have seen on this blog, I would bet the earth on the latter.
Canbanjo,
I’ll show how it is you who is either the idiot or the scammer. There’s just been so many things cockeyed in your posts I’ve let a lot of it slide and focused on key areas of misapprehension. But just to show how illogical and deceitful you are let’s examine one of your earlier statements in which you said:
“and the observed changing is warming. warming due to human activity = AGW = anthropogenic global warming = warming due to human activity. significant. Not sure what planet you are on. Maybe one without a greenhouse effect.”
Thus you have inferred that warming is occurring; it is due to human activity (AGW) and you conclude the specific cause is the ‘greenhouse effect.’
Ok, let’s debunk that illogical load of garbage. As you know, the IPCC admits that it has ‘low’ or ‘very low’ scientific understanding of 80% of all factors impacting the climate system. Yet right from their first Report in 1991 they’ve always mainly focused on and then blamed Co2.
However, as I pointed out to you in my post of March 8, 2010 at 8:22 pm the IPCC admit they don’t understand ( because in over 20 years they willfully haven’t investigated) what effect the following have on the climate:
Aerosols from CO2
and from fossil fuel
Sulphates
Biomass burning
Mineral particulates
Aviation contrails
Aviation-induced cirrus
Land use – albedo
And [for skeptics] the BIGGEST player of all – Solar [and cosmic] radiative forcing.
Thus 80% of all known climate-changing factors are poorly understood and ignored (skeptics argue because they are not easily or conveniently taxed). So how can the IPCC conclude that they know with ‘90%’ certainty that human CO2 emissions are the main cause of serious harm to the climate? (even though we contribute less than 2% of co2 already in the atmosphere because nature adds the rest).
In effect, your theory is as dumb as taking your car into a dealership because there may be a problem; the dealer then tells their mechanic to only look at the windscreen wipers. The mechanic then sees the wipers are worn and perhaps dangerous in the rain. The dealer, without having their mechanic examine the rest of the vehicle, then tells you that your car is unsafe and needs replacing. And because they are the ‘experts’ you are supposed to take their advice, scrap your car and buy a replacement from them. How handy is that? I’m simply using logic and science to prove the ‘dealer’ [the IPCC] is full of BS.
And why are the IPCC ignoring the key greenhouse gas (ghg) – water vapor that determines 60% of the so-called ‘greenhouse gas effect’?
Are climatologists and governments advocating we tax or ban man made activities that ‘recklessly’ uses water that leads to increased evaporation causing more ghg to exist in the atmosphere? No. Just think of all those ‘unnatural’ activities such as garden and agricultural sprinklers, irrigation systems, outdoor pools, man made reservoirs and dams, ornamental fountains, etc. all needlessly adding to the ghg effect. Because we know that every one of these ‘unnatural’ human activities creates additional water vapor (key greenhouse gas) to enter the atmosphere.
It’s too absurd for words and anyone with a brain can see it! That’s how crazy the IPCC position actually is that you support.
OK, let’s try to bring all this to a conclusion finally.
According to the voting on my website, roughly 40% of people believe humans are causing the earth to warm up, and 40% believe they are not. A further 20% are unsure.
I’ve really enjoyed listening to the different arguments from various people.
John has put forward a case for the skeptics and has argued a very strong case, which is clearly supported by many of my readers, and the population as a whole.
Canbanjo has put forward an equally strong case for the ‘warmists’ and having listened to both arguments, I support Canbanjo’s thinking, although this is incidental.
Clearly, overall people are split on the subject, or generally either confused or not concerned.
It’s clear that there isn’t going to be a winner of the debate, and I’m concerned that you both are putting in a lot of your personal time here with only a small audience observing.
I’m wondering whether you both accept and respect the opposing views, without necessarily agreeing, and bring the debate on this site to a close.
John – are you OK with this?
Canbanjo – are you OK with this?
And, can I thank you both for visiting my website so regularly over the last couple of weeks, and can assure you both that at least one person has made his mind up as a result.
Regards
Matthew
Indeed, thank you Matthew for hosting.
and thank you John, it has been enjoyable.
Thanks Canbanjo.
John – are you OK to bring it to a close?
As I expected – the alarmists end the debate as usual before their defeat turns into a rout. It’s your site, Matthew, you do as you please. I have more respect for you than canbanjo but that’s not saying much.
I’m sure you’ll both carry on with your unprincipled personal slurs against honest skeptics regardless of the facts. But rest assured – the criminals you support are now being hounded ever harder and they will pay dearly in both the civil and criminal courts.
John – well, I was hoping we could bring the debate to an end with a degree of dignity, but if that’s how you wish to sign off then that’s fair enough.
Regards
Matthew ‘the alarmist!’ Glover