The “hockey stick” theory is now discredited: How fanaticism substitutes for science

You are very wrong, Kessy_Athena.

The NASA temperature chart you have presented represents temperature “anomalies” and not true temperatures. Even the ordinate axis on the NASA graph confirms this!

Again, the absolute temperature of the earth has decreased over the last two centuries.

Give me a break!

By the way, I did not imply you are stupid. Actually, you are very intelligent, but at the same time, you are very limited in your knowledge of science and very inexperienced.

Again, you need to take a course in middle school science and learn how to read and interpret a graph before you can play with the adults!

JC

 

LOL You didn't imply I'm stupid? Please, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. But it's okay, I'll forgive you, just cut it out, K? ^_^ So please, no more silly middle school references. I think it's better to let people's statements speak for themselves.

Temperature anomalies? Out of all the points I made, that's the only thing you could think of to pick at? (giggles)

Temperature anomalies are simply when the temperature differs from some reference level. Essentially what they are measuring is the change in temperature. The reason they do that instead of measuring absolute temperature is simply because it's very difficult to come up with any meaningful way to calculate it. surface temperature can vary a lot over very short distances. If you have only so many measurement stations, you really get no information about the areas between them, so it's very difficult to come up with an absolute average surface temperature. However, if all your stations are showing similar changes in temperature, you can reasonably assume that similar changes are happening in the areas in between them as well.

But really, don't you think it's time to stop trying to deflect the issue with all these tangents and just face the fact that the scientists, who are much more qualified to analyze this stuff then either you or me, are all saying that climate change is real and we're causing it? Yes, there are always studies going on into other possible factors, such as the cosmic ray induced cloud formation hypothesis that you referred to earlier. That's how science works - when we think we know what's going on, we do our very best to punch holes in our ideas. And it's only when we can't that we start to be confident that we have some idea of what's going on. Those cosmic ray studies are interesting, but there's just not enough evidence yet to support the idea that mechanism is the largest one behind the observed climate change. From what I was reading in that interview, it doesn't sound like there's even enough evidence to yet to say definitively that cosmic rays even contribute significantly to cloud formation at all. The scientific consensus follows the data, and right now all the dataq says that human CO2 emissions are causing warming.

 

Winning as usual? Uh-huh, sure you are, Windigo. Honestly, I have never understood why deniers are so obsessed with Prof Mann. I mean, did he run over your dog or something?

No, I'm not going to get into a blow by blow with you over Prof Mann's paper, for two reasons. The first is that the matter is over and done with - this is an issue from what? Ten, twenty years ago? He was investigated and re-investigated and no one found any evidence against him. It's like you're relitigating the Rodney King trial or something. Whether you like the outcome or not, the case is closed, the verdict in, and it's in the past. Deal with it.

Secondly, it's simply not relevant. If you hate Mann so much, then toss out everything he's ever touched. The case for global warming barely changes at all. Tossing out Mann's work does not change the dozens of other independent temperature reconstructions that all show a sudden and dramatic warming recently. Nor does it make the satellite data or the historic temperature record or the ice core data or the bore hole data or the retreating glaciers or melting sea ice or expanding deserts or killer hurricanes and tornadoes or rising sea level or the borehole data, or any of the rest of the mountain of evidence for climate change go away.

You want to pretend that Prof Mann is some sort of movie villain, sitting on throne in some dimly lit lair, swirling a glass of wine in his hand while orchestrating an evil plan to take over the world, you go right ahead. Just don't forget your tinfoil beanie.

 

"Temperature anomalies are simply when the temperature differs from some reference level. Essentially what they are measuring is the change in temperature. The reason they do that instead of measuring absolute temperature is simply because it's very difficult to come up with any meaningful way to calculate it. If you have only so many measurement stations, you really get no information about the areas between them, so it's very difficult to come up with an absolute average surface temperature."

Please tell us something we don't already know.

If you can't calculate it and you can't accurately measure it, how do you know global temperatures are increasing?

Reliable satellite measurements say global temperatures are not increasing

This obviously blows apart your theory of global warming.

 

Again, Kessy_Athena, you are wrong, as usual.

By the way, Michael Mann is more of a charlatan than a "movie villain".

Check this out.

The Measurement of Global Temperatures

Over land regions of the world over 3000 monthly station temperature time series are used. Coverage is denser over the more populated parts (urban "hot" zones) of the world, particularly, the United States, southern Canada, Europe and Japan.

Coverage is sparsest over the interior of the South American and African continents (global "cool" zones) and over the Antarctic. The number of available stations was small during the 1850s, but increases to over 3000 stations during the 1951-90 period. For marine regions (also global "cool" zones) sea surface temperature (SST) measurements taken on board merchant and some naval vessels are used. As the majority come from the voluntary observing fleet, coverage is reduced away from the main shipping lanes and is minimal over the Southern Oceans.”

“Stations on land are at different elevations, and different countries estimate average monthly temperatures using different methods and formulae. To avoid biases that could result from these problems, monthly average temperatures are reduced to anomalies from the period with best coverage (1961-90). For stations to be used, an estimate of the base period average must be calculated. Because many stations do not have complete records for the 1961-90 period several methods have been developed to estimate 1961-90 averages from neighbouring records or using other sources of data. Over the oceans, where observations are generally made from mobile platforms, it is impossible to assemble long series of actual temperatures for fixed points. However it is possible to interpolate historical data to create spatially complete reference climatologies (averages for 1961-90) so that individual observations can be compared with a local normal for the given day of the year.”

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part2_GlobalTempMeasure.htm

 

Windigo, you are very correct.

Please don't become discouraged.

These people are trying very hard to silence you.

Free speech? The Left does not believe in free speech!

Here is some reliable new information of the subject.

When the "warmmongers" say global temperatures are increasing, they are talking about the northern latitudes. They completely omit data from the southern latitudes which say global temperatures are not increasing.

The northern latitudes include urban "hot" zones that result from population centers and metropolitan cities with lots of concrete, airports, people and asphalt.

Just one more way the "environmentalists" conveniently skew the data in favor of their new religion called global warming!

Global Satellite Data

The following figure shows a more recent satellite data trend from the RSS analysis 1979 - 2008 [http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html]. The left-hand figure shows regional warming around the world, the right-hand figure shows the average warming by latitude – zero warming at 60 degrees S with increasing warming into the Arctic. This illustrates that recent warming is a northern hemisphere phenomenon.

 

This is another very good reference.

Global Warming is Not Global

[last update: 2010/03/20]

The IPCC portrays the warming as global – but it is not.

Many reports quote the IPCC global trend as if it applies locally – but it does not.

http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_NotGlobal.htm

 

ROFLMAO That's hilarious. So you're saying that if you can't measure the absolute value of something, it's impossible to measure the relative value of something? (giggles uncontrollably) Tell you what, James, if you ever get stopped for speeding, try this argument out on the cop. Tell them that since Einstein proved that it is impossible to measure absolute velocity they can't possibly know if you were speeding or not.

There are a great many things that for practical considerations are only ever measured relatively, not absolutely. There are also a great many things that it is physically impossible to measure absolutely, because the structure of the universe makes the concept of an absolute measurement of them meaningless. Velocity is a good example, as are time and distance. Thinking that since you can't or don't measure the absolute value of something means you can't measure it at all is just silly.

For that matter, both Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales are strictly relative temperature scales to begin with, not absolute. Fahrenheit has entirely arbitrary reference points, 0F and 100F being defined by about the hottest and lowest temperatures you were likely to encounter in Western Europe at the time the scale was created. Celsius measures temperature relative to the boiling and freezing point of water at standard atmospheric pressure. Both scales were created before it was even known if there was such a thing as absolute temperature. Kelvin is the only commonly used absolute temperature scale, and I don't see you demanding to see all temperature measurements in K.

Just because it is difficult, inconvenient, or simply impossible to measure something in absolute terms does not mean that you cannot measure changes in that value, and measure them very very accurately.

A few first impressions about this satellite data. First, your link is broken. It's actually from here:
http://remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_amsu_trend_map_tmt
Second, Claiming this data shows in any way overall cooling is just silly. You will note that any area colored light yellow or darker is an area that is warming. It's only pale green or lighter areas that sow cooling. And that map is overwhelmingly yellow and orange and red. There are only a few isolated pockets of cooling. Furthermore, you will note that the largest value for cooling anywhere on the map is 0.2 (I'm not sure what the scale is, but I'd guess it's change in degrees C) while the warming goes up to at least 0.6.

This map shows very clearly that there is a strong overall warming trend worldwide. It does show a more intense warming trend in the northern hemisphere, but it also shows an overall warming trend in the southern hemisphere. I don't know off hand why there would be more warming in the north then in the south, but my guess would be that it has to do with the fact that there's much more landmass in the north, and land has a lot less thermal inertia then ocean.

So basically, you're trying to cast doubt on global warming with satellite data that shows very strong global warming.

And believe it or not, the folks working at NASA and CRU and all the other places doing climate research really are smart enough to figure out that urban heat islands could effect the temperature data, and it was taken into account. Those graphs I put up a few posts back already take that into consideration.

Oh, puh-lease. You sound like the peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!!" Showing that what your saying is simply wrong and can be shown to be objectively wrong with facts and evidence is not trying to silence you. If your argument can't stand up to examination, that's your problem.

And you are still doing your very best to pretend that the scientific consensus that climate change is real and it's being caused by humans doesn't exist. Squinching your eyes shut, sticking your fingers in your ears, and shouting "La la la la! I can't hear you!" is not going to make the AAAS and NAS disappear. Given such definitive statements from the experts, why shouldn't we take climate change as almost certainly being fact?

 

Kessy, it surprises me that someone as intelligent as yourself is still defending a fraud and charlatan like Mann. You deserve better than that...

 

Kessy_Athena, You are funny!

You are taking this much too personally.

You will not admit or accept the truth even when it is clearly presented to you. You have become a devout disciple of AWG and you are not about to change your mind!

Unfortunately, your ego is now tied up into this discussion.

Otherwise, you would not have to resort to the immature insults!

Sad .. very sad.

James Cessna

 

LOL Are you talking about me or about yourself, James? You have yet to present any evidence that contradicts the climate change model. Nor have you made any terribly persuasive arguments. My ego is not at all tied up in this issue, in fact I do and have changed my position on issues when given a good reason to do so. Now I admit that given things like the AAAS and NAS statements, it would take a lot to make me change my mind. But what you've said so far just has not held up to scrutiny.

My question is why are you so convinced that the scientific consensus on climate change is wrong? You don't seem to be able to put forward much in the way of an argument against it. Are you really sure your reasons for thinking that are all that solid?

 

Well, thank you, Etheral, but we've been over this. Mann may well be wrong, but I see absolutely no reason to think he purposefully tried to commit anything like fraud. And I really do think you guys focus on him way too much. Prof. Mann is only one of a great many researchers who have contributed to the scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans.

I've never met Prof Mann, and have no particular feelings about him one way or another. It's entirely possible that he did do something underhanded. But, you know, innocent until proven guilty...

 

You are absolutely correct, Ethereal.

Very few people on the Left can be considered true "intellectuals". They simply repeat the party line and read off well distributed talking points. True intellectuals do not do that!

"Warmmongers" are a perfect example. When the "warmmongers" say global temperatures are increasing, they are talking about the northern latitudes. They completely omit data from the southern latitudes which say global temperatures are not increasing.

The northern latitudes include urban "hot" zones that result from population centers and metropolitan cities with lots of concrete, airports, people and asphalt.

Just one more way the "environmentalists" conveniently skew the data in favor of their new religion called global warming!

Sad ... very sad!

^



The undeniable proof of global warming ... Albert Gore style. GORE: "In terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot." ... Gosh, Mr. Gore, If the earth were indeed this hot, we would be a star!

 

Kessy_Athena, why mandate changes that are not necessary when the solution to global warming is right at our fingertips! You solutions will destroy jobs and force more people to join the unemployment lines. My solutions will create well-paying jobs and will put many highly-skilled people and their families back to work!

 

Investegated by who? His own University. The University he brings in grant money to? The University that concluded he didn't inderectly take part in the destruction of E-mails when NOAA's own interview of his former Grad Student Dr. Wahl says that he in fact did? You do undsertand the term 'white wash' dont you.

The Rodney King trial was a trial? You know a real legal process. What Dr. Mann went through was his friends saying that he did nothing wrong. And as I showed in teh interview with Dr. Wahl his friends clearly where wrong in their conclusions.

I love this word "independent". Is his former grad student Dr. Wahl with whom he is in constant contact with "independent". Is his e-mail buddy Dr. Jones with whom he is also in constant contact with "independent". Is Dr. Briffa who said flat out in private e-mails that he believed that the medieval warm period existed and was warmer than the present but also understood the pressure to present a nice neat package "independent". Is Dr. Rutherford who used the same data set as Dr. Mann "independent". Is e-mail buddy Dr. Esper who is in private flat out afraid of crossing Mann "independent".

I don’t know how after Climategate we can honestly use the word "independent". These (*)(*)(*)(*)heads all work together and make sure that the are all on the same page. Its well understood in their e-mails that there will be hell to pay for anyone who doesn't tow the party line so I don’t know where you get the world "independent". They aren't independent. They are a team. Say what you want about the Climategate e-mails but they most certainly proved that.

Go ahead list any specific reconstruction you want I’ll blow it out of the water. They all make the same errors and/or use the same erroneous data like bristlecones, or Yamal, or upside down tiljander, to get a hockey stick.

Its been over 1000 days since a hurricane made landfall in the US. Longest such streak since the civil war.

Caused by a cooling pacific.

Rising at a rate that will make a difference long after we are all dead if ever.

What about it. Bore holes show a strong Holocene optimum and medieval warm period. Hockey stick reconstructions don’t get their shape from the borehole series.

Your mountian is a mole hill.

No I think he is a hack. The AR2 fell flat on its face because the IPCC couldn't show that the current warming was any stronger than the medieval warm period. That was until an unknown fresh out of grad school Dr. Mann somehow became a lead author despite having no qualifications for the IPCC AR3 and gave them the evidence they needed.

 

Great responses, Windigo.

Attempting to explain the facts to Kessy_Athena is a lost cause and an exercise in futility.

She has become a sycophant and an official “spokesperson” for the far left global warming crowd!

 

They just want someone elses money. Thats all. Thats it.

Gimme Gimme Gimme is the EU motto.

 

You know, James, saying that you have a solution to global warming implies that you both recognize that global warming is real and that it's a problem.

So far in this thread, we've mainly been discussing about whether or not global warming is real, not what we should do about it. That's actually a discussion I'd much rather have. What really concerns me about the persistence of climate change denial is that it's making it politically dangerous for any conservatives to contribute constructively to any discussion of a solution. We need the sort of business expertise that conservatives can provide. We need their contributions to make a better plan that will protect the economy as well as deal with climate. And we need the people with the most business expertise to not only prevent damage to the economy but to find and exploit the economic opportunities that new technologies and new techniques can afford. We desperately need the contributions only conservatives can make, but instead we're stuck in a debate about the existence of something that is becoming more and more blatantly obvious.

We need you. The nation needs you. Heck, the world needs you.

BTW, I happen to agree with you that a lot of the opposition to nuclear power is unreasonable, and rooted in an emotional response to the words "nuclear" and "radiation", not on a reasonable assessment of the risks and benefits.

 

"BTW, I happen to agree with you that a lot of the opposition to nuclear power is unreasonable, and rooted in an emotional response to the words "nuclear" and "radiation", not on a reasonable assessment of the risks and benefits."

You are very correct, Kessy_Athena!

By the way, I also agree with you that global warning does indeed exist.

However, as I have said throughout this thread, the cause for global warming is very natural and not man-made.

The people who shout "anthropogenic (man-made) global warming!" are the very people who are wearing blinders and refuse to see or accept anything else!

For example, they ignore reliable satellite data that clearly show "global warming" is confined to the northern latitudes where many urban "heat centers" and very large metropolitan cities are in high concentrations.

They also ignore the fact that 75% of the earth's surface is covered with oceans and oceans are very effective at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The other 25% of the earth’s surface includes a lot of plant life and vegetation that is also very efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then converting and releasing it as molecular oxygen!

Would you care to render a guess as to what this very natural and very common process is called?



Global Satellite Data

The above figure shows a more recent satellite data trend from the RSS analysis 1979 - 2008 [http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html]. The left-hand figure shows regional warming around the world, the right-hand figure shows the average warming by latitude – zero warming at 60 degrees S with increasing warming into the Arctic. This illustrates that recent warming is a northern hemisphere phenomenon.

 

So you're saying that anyone who's ever had any sort of professional contact with Prof Mann is part of this "team"? Given that the scientific community works on the free exchange of information and ideas (well, at least after your work's been published) that's a really convenient way to dismiss the entire field of climatology without having to show there's actually anything wrong with any of the data. What about the 125,000 members of the AAAS, are they all part of this "team" as well? The 2,000 members of the NAS? The national academies of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the UK? The membership of every other professional scientific organization on the planet? The million strong readership of Science? The readers of every other journal that's published climate research? The leadership of companies like Alcoa, Chrysler, Dow, DuPont, Ford GE, Honeywell, Johnson & Johnson, PG&E, Rio Tinto and Shell Oil? The generals at the Pentagon who are taking climate change dead seriously? Are they all part of this "team"? Are they all afraid of the wrath of Micheal Mann?

You kind of need to make up your mind. Is Prof Mann a charlatan and a hack, or is he the mastermind of a massive conspiracy including millions of people at the highest levels of science, government, industry, and the military around the world? For that matter, what exactly would those millions of people have to gain from such a global conspiracy? Or has Prof Mann highjacked the CIA's mind control satellites or something?

The research supporting the science of climate change is publicly available - anyone who wants can pick up any of those journals and go over any of the papers with a fine toothed comb. The Mann - McKitrick dispute is actually illustrative of this. McKitrick is an economist by trade, not a climatologist, and not even a scientist. But he was able to not only go over Mann's work on his own, but he put together a sufficiently rigorous criticism that he was published in a journal himself. And Nature, which had originally published Mann's work, went back over it and wound up publishing a correction, pointing out that some of Mann's analysis was sloppy - although that did not change the over all conclusion of Mann's paper.

What the so called "climategate" affair actually showed was that yes, climatologists do generally view climate change as settled science (which it is), and yes, the do hold deniers in a fair bit of contempt (which is understandable, considering the blatant politicization of the denier camp and their habit of grossly distorting science to try to sow doubt in the minds of the public.) What it does not show is any sort of grand conspiracy. Most of the time, deniers cite a grand total of exactly one email out of more than a thousand (and thousands of other documents) that, when taken out of context, can be made to sound bad. The most I've ever seen cited anywhere is a grand total of six emails out of the lot.

If I'm wrong, and you think a real case for conspiracy can be made from those documents, then show me. You can access the entire thing here, http://www.climate-gate.org/ so show me the documents in full context, make your case.

And for the record, Prof Mann has been investigated by Penn State (twice), the US National Academy of Science, the Virginia Attorney General's office, and the US Congress. Also for the record, Penn State has a lot more to lose if it were found to be covering up misconduct by a faculty member then any grants Mann might bring in, notably being its reputation for academic integrity, alumni contributions, and government financial support.

And if you want a list of all the evidence saying that yes, we are in a period of rapid and unusual warming, NOAA has one for you here.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html
Go ahead, I'd like to see you try to discredit every single data set they have there.

Speaking of evidence, I find it interesting that you didn't even try to discredit the satellite data, the historic temperature record, the ice core data, the retreating glaciers, melting sea ice, or expanding deserts. So out of the ten things I rattled off the top of my head, you could only find anything at all to say about four of them.

The recent spate of tornadoes in the US could well have a lot to do with the ENSO. I'm not a climatologist, so I don't know. And I honestly don't feel like going to the trouble of reading up on it, since it's a pretty minor point. An increase in violent and extreme weather has been a predicted consequence of climate change for decades, and that's exactly what we're seeing right now.

Ah, yes, hurricanes and the climate in general pay ever so much attention to political boundaries...

Given that we were discussing evidence for climate change, it's not especially relevant how long it would take the current rate of sea level rise to substantially impact humans. The point is that it is rising, and at the moment mainly due to thermal expansion. If global temperatures aren't going up, why then would sea water be getting warmer?

Umm, Holocene optimum? You do realize that borehole data only allows for temperature reconstructions of the last 500 years, right? And yes, this method does show dramatic warming over that time, and they do contribute to the hockey stick.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html

So this is a molehill, then? Does that make Olympus Mons a hillock, then?

 

I'll make a fuller response later.

#1 Yes there is such a thing as conspiracy. That is why there are criminal statutes. Conspiracy is easy in today’s world of e-mail and social networking. Dr. Mann went along to get along. He provided the science the IPCC needed. Can come up with another explanation of how a fresh out of grad school unknown became an IPCC lead author.

#2

Oh my (*)(*)(*)(*)ing god. Where does that say that they only go back 500 years. They go back thousands of years. They truncate the data to 500 years so their graphs wont show the show the strong Midlevel warm period and Holocene optimum. God you are gullible. What you thought that since their grapsh didn’t' show it that it didn't exist. All your source does is prove my point. They intentionally hide the data that doesn't agree with their narative.

"Pollack et al. found that the 20th century to be the warmest of the past five centuries, thus confirming the results of earlier multi-proxy studies."

Yep it confirms them when it does and we wont look at when they dont.

 

Okay, when it comes to the carbon cycle, let's take a look at the numbers. Talking about climate, you typically measure things in gigatons of carbon per year (GtC/yr). That's metric tons, and just measuring the mass of the carbon itself, not the other elements in carbon compounds like oxygen.

The oceans absorb about 92.4 GtC/yr, and emit about 90.8, so the ocean is net carbon sink to the tune of about 1.6 GtC/yr.

Humans are currently emitting a total of about 6.2 GtC/yr from burning fossil fuels and making cement. About 3.8 GtC/yr of that stays in the atmosphere. The rest is absorbed by the oceans, the terrestrial biosphere, and a good bit goes we know not where.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/graphics/c_cycle.htm

As I explained before, the fact that CO2 is absorbed by various sinks is worrying, not reassuring, since all carbon sinks have a finite capacity, and will at some point become saturated. And given the large uncertainties about the exact nature of the sinks (especially the missing sink) the amount of our CO2 that stays in the atmosphere could go up quite suddenly at any time.

Urban heat islands are really not a reasonable interpretation of this data. For one thing, the satellite data shows the most warming in places that are most decidedly not major urban centers, such as the Gobi desert, the Arctic Ocean north of the Bearing Straight, and the area around Greenland and Iceland. For another, areas that do have big urban centers such as India, china, the Northeast Corridor of the US, and the US west coast show only moderate to low amounts of warming.

It's also not right to say that this data is only showing warming in the Northern Hemisphere. It is certainly true that the north is warming more then the south, but the south is also warming. To illustrate this, I've retouched the map to just show where there is warming and where there is cooling, not how much.

It's never been expected that all areas of the world would warm uniformly, and local factors have a lot to do with where you see warming and where you see cooling. I would imagine the cooling this shows in the Southern Ocean has a lot to do with the circumpolar current, which isolates the climate of Antarctica from the rest of the world. but you'd have to ask a climatologist to explain the details.

 

So you're saying that you seriously believe that there is a conspiracy of millions of people around the world at the highest levels of science, government, industry, and the military? What possible motive could they have for such a thing? I mean, Shell is campaigning for action on climate change. You know, Shell, the oil company? What reason could they have to participate in such a conspiracy? And how do you get everyone who reads scientific journals to go along with it? (Apparently except for McKitrick, who I guess must have gotten a mind control free copy of Nature.) Why would governments around the world, including China, go along with this? What do they have to gain? Or the Pentagon, why would they help perpetuate this "hoax"?

Or maybe you think this is all due to mind control implants used by the Greys to soften humanity up for invasion?

Umm, you are aware that the core of the planet is hot, right? And that below a certain depth the thermal flux from the interior completely overwhelms any temperature signal from the surface, right?

Well, I'd ask you to show some evidence that borehole data goes back thousands of years, but I guess it would be pointless since Prof Mann and his nefarious men in black have made it all disappear, right? So if it's been so thoroughly suppressed, how exactly do you know about it?

 

While I certainly don't mean to try to speak for you or anyone else, James, but some of your posts make it sound to me as if the economic consequences of political action on climate change are more of a concern to you then any issues with the actual science. Am I right about that?

If I am, I think it might be more constructive to talk about the economics and politics of the issue, rather then the science.

First, let me assure you that I and most other Democrats are very aware of the potential economic damage of a clumsy approach to the climate. The last thing I or anyone else wants is legislation that deals with climate change by sending the economy down the toilet. We don't want to put people out of work, we don't want to put companies out of business. What we want is a smart, market based approach that will minimize any drag on the economy.

We also don't want excessive and intrusive government regulation either. We don't want government bureaucrats micromanaging the economy, and we don't want Washington making arbitrary decisions that may later to turn out to have been less then far sighted. And we know that one thing the market does well is finding the most efficient solution to a problem.

So what do we want? That's the real question. It's important to keep in mind what the ultimate goal of any attempt to deal with climate change is. To find an alternative to fossil fuels. In other words, energy independence. Remember that climate change is only one of the issues caused by our dependence on fossil fuels. OPEC, gas prices, Mideast politics, terrorism funded by oil money, you get the idea. Even if climate change turns out to be no problem at all, energy independence would still be worthwhile.

I think that we can find a way to achieve that without wrecking the economy or having the government take over everything. The idea behind a cap and trade approach is to let the market do the heavy lifting, to have the government only give things a push to get things rolling. The idea is to incentivize finding solutions, and then step back and let the people actually doing the hard work figure out the best way to go about it. Now, the proposal as it stands now is certainly far from perfect, and could definitely be improved. And we could really use your help in doing that.

I would also like to point out that some special interests seem to have been greatly exaggerating the economic consequences of action on climate change. Think about it, have you heard anyone object to cap and trade, or any other proposal, because it would reduce GDP by X amount, or increase unemployment by Y points? It seems to me that when you see someone making an argument without any sort of numbers, you should be suspicious. If the numbers were there and supported the argument, wouldn't they be included?

One of the few examples I could find of real numbers being used to argue against action on climate change comes from back when the Kyoto Protocol was being debated. The Heritage Foundation released a commentary in 1998 on a report from the US Department of Energy on the likely results of Kyoto. The biggest, baddest, scariest number Heritage could come up with, the one they headlined and repeated several times was that by 2010, the price of gas could be as high as $1.91 a gallon. You can read the entire document here: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1998/10/the-department-of-energys-report

 

No I beleive that the big con is the same as it always was. Marks like yourself think it cant be that big because you think everyone has to be in on it. The truth is that the big con is the easiest to pull off because fewer people have to be in on it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWj7oWlVtag&feature=related"]YouTube - ‪Revolver - The Formula‬‏[/ame]

I hope you can follow it. Cons are actually quite simple. The problem is people with large egos like yourself over think them so you fall for them.

Take the IPCC. The IPCC is set up to look like it is large. But it is not. It is actually small. Every conclusion the IPCC comes to is really just the opinion of a couple of dozen of lead authors. Specific conclusions like Solar forcing or historic temperatures are often the result of the single lead author of that chapter.

Warmmonger Mike Hulme let this slip, not that we didn't know it already, recently.

"Without a careful explanation about what it means, this drive for consensus can leave the IPCC vulnerable to outside criticism. Claims such as ‘2,500 of the world’s leading scientists have reached a consensus that human activities are having a significant influence on the climate’ are disingenuous. That particular consensus judgment, as are many others in the IPCC reports, is reached by only a few dozen experts in the specific field of detection and attribution studies; other IPCC authors are experts in other fields."

The thousands of people claim comes from all the expert reviewers the IPCC has. But the catch is that by the IPCC process only the lead authors have the final say. The reviewers are powerless and truth be told only a small minority of expert reviewers actually bother to send back review comments of the IPCC ARs.

While the environment appears to be big it is actually quite easily controlled. This is fundamental to the big con.

That is a dumb statement. I cant even begin to start to point out how many things are wrong with that. Were you just talking out of your ass?

Uh that first graph I posted. That was a borehole graph. It goes back 20k years.