Climate change - Hoax ?

passout

There was a good discussion a this topic on radio 4 this morning - I think it was the today programme before sometime between 8 and 9. Should be on-line.

passout

.......http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm
....go to 2:10 on the i player

Crapaud

New Scientist: Why there's no sign of a climate conspiracy in hacked emails

... You can't fake spring coming earlier, or trees growing higher up on mountains, or glaciers retreating for kilometres up valleys, or shrinking ice cover in the Arctic, or birds changing their migration times, or permafrost melting in Alaska, or the tropics expanding, or ice shelves on the Antarctic peninsula breaking up, or peak river flow occurring earlier in summer because of earlier snowmelt, or sea level rising faster and faster, or any of the thousands of similar examples. ...

New Scientist: Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong

... The "hockey stick" graph was the result of the first comprehensive attempt to reconstruct the average northern hemisphere temperature over the past 1000 years, based on numerous indicators of past temperatures, such as tree rings. It shows temperatures holding fairly steady until the last part of the 20th century and then suddenly shooting up (see graphic, right). ...

Tons to reads via this link from New Scientist: Climate change: A guide for the perplexed

... So for those who are not sure what to believe, here is our round-up of the most common climate myths and misconceptions. ...

OffTheBackAdam

Yet more evidence of fiddling the data to show warming!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/#more-13818

Crapaud

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Yet more evidence of fiddling the data to show warming!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/#more-13818

Willis Eschenbach:Amateur Scientist and Construction Manager

Amateur scientist???A quick google doesn't reveal much about him except that he's an enthusiastic blogger and poster on climate forums. He doesn't appear to have any qualification to be making pronouncements about climate change let alone science in general.

Conclusion: Probable moonbat, treat with caution.

OffTheBackAdam

But add it to the work being done by this highly computer-literate bloke on the GHCN network and GIStemp http://chiefio.wordpress.com/ and the evidence mounts.

Crapaud

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

But add it to the work being done by this highly computer-literate bloke on the GHCN network and GIStemp http://chiefio.wordpress.com/ and the evidence mounts.

About E M Smith

A technical managerial sort interested in things from Stonehenge to computer science. My present "hot buttons' are the mythology of Climate Change and ancient metrology; but things change...

Another blogger, OtBA? The 'musings of the chiefio' carry as much weight as my own witterings when it comes to evidence.

You don't really believe that 2 amateurs have any credibility compared to thousands of qualified scientists, do you? I'd rather consult Tarot cards than give any credence to those two. Are you at the wind-up?

jimmypippa

The case notes linked to in the top of this make pretty good reading too.


From the Guardian this week:

The climate denial industry is out to dupe the public. And it's working

Think environmentalists are stooges? You're the unwitting recruit of a hugely powerful oil lobby – I've got the proof
Read the case notes for this article here

George Monbiot
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 December 2009 20.00 GMT
Article history

When you survey the trail of wreckage left by the climate emails crisis, three things become clear. The first is the tendency of those who claim to be the champions of climate science to minimise their importance. Those who have most to lose if the science is wrong have perversely sought to justify the secretive and chummy ethos that some of the emails reveal. If science is not transparent and accountable, it's not science.

Good article requesting the information, and then this bit:

The second observation is the tendency of those who don't give a fig about science to maximise their importance. The denial industry, which has no interest in establishing the truth about global warming, insists that these emails, which concern three or four scientists and just one or two lines of evidence, destroy the entire canon of climate science.

Even if you were to exclude every line of evidence that could possibly be disputed – the proxy records, the computer models, the complex science of clouds and ocean currents – the evidence for man-made global warming would still be unequivocal. You can see it in the measured temperature record, which goes back to 1850; in the shrinkage of glaciers and the thinning of sea ice; in the responses of wild animals and plants and the rapidly changing crop zones.

Eau Rouge

I've always had a few problems with this "global warming" stuff. It's not that I doubt it, clearly something is happening, and if it isn't as a result of the man's exists since the industrial revolution onwards, it's doing a decent attempt at looking like it is.

My biggest problem is the idea that we need to do something about it. It implies we *can* do something about it, is there any reason at all to think we can? Yet we are expected to radically alter our lives, both as individuals and nations on the pretext that it will "save the planet". These measures are mostly aimed at reducing our standard of living, to the point where it seems everything humans have done in terms of making out lives better since 1850 has to be stopped. I really don't like that way of thinking, but it seems to me we are blindly going along with it to achieve the impossible, to achieve something it can't achieve.
That just seems really silly of us.

If global warming (man made or otherwise) is true (and it seems to be) things will be different on planet earth in the future. It seems most of that will happen anyway, whether we change things or not. Don't we need to stop trying to appease some 'guilt' at our apparent 'eco crimes' and try and figure out what we really should do about the problem?
Is it really self-flagellation and living in caves as far to many in the eco-movement have long wanted us to do, long before "global warming" was so much as a twinkle in a climate scientists eye. Those people have been jumping on any bandwagon going, this one hasn't broken down yet, partly cause it really is happening, but that doesn't mean it supports their conclusions about what to do about it.

Global warming is a global problem, so why are so many of the solutions not really global at all? A lot of these schemes seem to do a great job of cutting my personal CO2 by simply moving it elsewhere, to where it's production is actually worse than if I was responsible. Electric cars spring to mind. Is me burning petrol really worse for the environment than having a 20 year old coal-powered power station doing it, cause those things are horrible inefficient. This seems to be a recurring theme.

I'd just feel happier about the whole thing if I actually thought any of it would really make a difference (which is why I like recycling schemes, they cut down on landfill, and finding new landfill sites is a pain) but I just see guilt-trips and ways to make your life a little harder to appease that guilt and I can't buy into that.

mercsport

Pleasant to read Eau Rouge's reasoned thoughts to temper the shrieking CC zealots here.

I haven't looked in on this thread for awhile, and have missed several pages, but I came across this article in the DT a couple of days ago : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6754 ... uture.html
Highfield is the current editor of New Scientist.

OffTheBackAdam

Crapaud wrote:

You don't really believe that 2 amateurs have any credibility compared to thousands of qualified scientists, do you? I'd rather consult Tarot cards than give any credence to those two. Are you at the wind-up?

Are you capable of anything other than giving out ad-homs as arguments when data is presented?

finchy

Eaurouge - the point behind most eco-thinking is that we should be looking at ways of maintaining a decent quality of life without trashing the environment. Having a degraded environment can really affect your quality of life in a very negative way. I've lived in industrialised cities in Eastern Europe, and believe me it is absolutely horrible -sometimes physically painful - having to breathe in the filth that passes for air out in some of those places. God knows what it must be like in the Third World. With such massive efforts having been made to clean up countries in the West, not to mention de-indutrialisation, people no longer appreciate just how lucky we are to have a relatively clean environment - and yes, even the most polluted cities in this country are better than many parts of poorer places.

Mercsport - there was a Horizon special on nuclear fusion about a year ago. It is a very promising technology but none of the scientists working on it could really agree on when it would be ready for use (if at all). They mainly put it at about 3-5 decades from now. Fingers crossed that they'll get it all working sooner rather than later. Hopefully research into it will be properly funded in the future.

Seanos

mercsport wrote:

Pleasant to read Eau Rouge's reasoned thoughts to temper the shrieking CC zealots here.

If you could quote an example of shreiking zealotry it would help your argument.

mercsport wrote:

I haven't looked in on this thread for awhile, and have missed several pages, but I came across this article in the DT a couple of days ago : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6754 ... uture.html
Highfield is the current editor of New Scientist.

And your point is...?

Seanos

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Crapaud wrote:

You don't really believe that 2 amateurs have any credibility compared to thousands of qualified scientists, do you? I'd rather consult Tarot cards than give any credence to those two. Are you at the wind-up?

Are you capable of anything other than giving out ad-homs as arguments when data is presented?

Data haven't been presented. Some random non-experts have scrawled on a bit of cyberspace. Of course they could be right but they would have to put a paper together explaining why, then submit it to a journal for peer review and...oh, sorry, I forgot about "teh big scienze global warming conspiracy to stop teh skeptics being published so the new world order government can tax us morel!!1!!!"

mercsport

johnfinch wrote:

Eaurouge - the point behind most eco-thinking is that we should be looking at ways of maintaining a decent quality of life without trashing the environment. Having a degraded environment can really affect your quality of life in a very negative way. I've lived in industrialised cities in Eastern Europe, and believe me it is absolutely horrible -sometimes physically painful - having to breathe in the filth that passes for air out in some of those places. God knows what it must be like in the Third World. With such massive efforts having been made to clean up countries in the West, not to mention de-indutrialisation, people no longer appreciate just how lucky we are to have a relatively clean environment - and yes, even the most polluted cities in this country are better than many parts of poorer places.

I grew up after the war here in the industrial north when the skyline was thick with chimneys. For a fact we now live in a blessed land here compared to how it was.

johnfinch wrote:

Mercsport - there was a Horizon special on nuclear fusion about a year ago. It is a very promising technology but none of the scientists working on it could really agree on when it would be ready for use (if at all). They mainly put it at about 3-5 decades from now. Fingers crossed that they'll get it all working sooner rather than later. Hopefully research into it will be properly funded in the future.

Yes, would that it were a reality now. Over the years there have been quite a few prog's on fusion. I fear the landscape of our country may have had a near irreversible 'going over' (wind turbines) by that happy time in the future when fusion happens.

mercsport

Seanos wrote:

mercsport wrote:

Pleasant to read Eau Rouge's reasoned thoughts to temper the shrieking CC zealots here.

If you could quote an example of shreiking zealotry it would help your argument.

mercsport wrote:

I haven't looked in on this thread for awhile, and have missed several pages, but I came across this article in the DT a couple of days ago : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6754 ... uture.html
Highfield is the current editor of New Scientist.

And your point is...?

I dropped out of this thread early on because of the combative nature of this great debate on here and in the world around. It erodes the spirit after awhile. I , as often as not, switch off the radio now when the issue comes up. Perhaps you're a fair example of what I mean.

As for your smart alec "And your point is...?". Is it not plain ? There may be hope yet.

Alain Quay

What I have leaned is
- deniers won;t read mainstream scientific reports, or those by governments or the UN
- some of the denier scientists are seriously lacking in credibiliity e.g. Lumsberg, Spencer, & co.
- the East Anglia incident was uterly pathetic, but not premeditated fraud
- anonymous correspondents to the Times etc are basically fearful of changing their way of life,hence their clutching at straws on this issue. The irony is,the more we delay, the
more Government intervention in the future
- the evidence of climate change is much more than mathematical models
- I have lived in Scotland for 20 years and the weather has changed a lot,
even though that in itself is not scientific, of course
- look at what the smart countries - Netherlands etc - are doing. There the debate is over and they are actively preparing for a changed world.
- I am willing to listen to the other side but the case for man made climate change is
way too strong to be refuted now. I dread it, but it is going to happen.
- people who won't read the mainstream, independent, peer reviewed, internatonally recognised reports and point out their inaccuracies are wasting others' time.

finchy

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Crapaud wrote:

You don't really believe that 2 amateurs have any credibility compared to thousands of qualified scientists, do you? I'd rather consult Tarot cards than give any credence to those two. Are you at the wind-up?

Are you capable of anything other than giving out ad-homs as arguments when data is presented?

The problem is the material available on the Internet. There is absolutely no quality control.

I could present you with "evidence" that natural selection is a big lie. In fact, if I searched hard enough, I could probably find hundreds upon hundreds of sites and articles dedicated to that theme. Doesn't mean it's true.

Eau Rouge

johnfinch wrote:

Eaurouge - the point behind most eco-thinking is that we should be looking at ways of maintaining a decent quality of life without trashing the environment. Having a degraded environment can really affect your quality of life in a very negative way. I've lived in industrialised cities in Eastern Europe, and believe me it is absolutely horrible -sometimes physically painful - having to breathe in the filth that passes for air out in some of those places. God knows what it must be like in the Third World. With such massive efforts having been made to clean up countries in the West, not to mention de-indutrialisation, people no longer appreciate just how lucky we are to have a relatively clean environment - and yes, even the most polluted cities in this country are better than many parts of poorer places.

That's old-skool environmentalism, back from the days when nuclear power was the hated enemy, and I go along with it a fair old bit, but it's got nothing really to do with global warming. That is all CO2 and Carbon Footprint's and actually encouraging more nuclear power plants as they are, apparantly, "green".
The current debate is about climate change and the greenhouse gasses causing it and seemingly nothing else. We can clean up an industrial wasteland and the air pollution in our cities, I've still seen nothing that says we can stop the climate changing, even if we lived in caves and were vegan, so why take drastic measures that can't work?

finchy

Eau Rouge wrote:

That's old-skool environmentalism, back from the days when nuclear power was the hated enemy, and I go along with it a fair old bit, but it's got nothing really to do with global warming. That is all CO2 and Carbon Footprint's and actually encouraging more nuclear power plants as they are, apparantly, "green".
The current debate is about climate change and the greenhouse gasses causing it and seemingly nothing else. We can clean up an industrial wasteland and the air pollution in our cities, I've still seen nothing that says we can stop the climate changing, even if we lived in caves and were vegan, so why take drastic measures that can't work?

I think that green movements are still a bit more diverse than that. Check out the Greenpeace campaigning site, for example:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/what-we-do

One important point about CC is that seeing as we're going to be running out of fossil fuels probably within out lifetimes, then it would be better to start to move to low carbon alternatives now, rather than getting caught with our pants down when the price of oil does start to rocket.

mercsport

John, weren't you around the last time we were caught "caught with our pants down" in 1973 ? Three day week and all that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_crisis

Collectively, we appear not to be able to learn much. We were told then that oil would run out by 1990, but it's still very much with us, and powers the world still. Way back then we were warned of the imperative to find alternative sources of energy, but little seems to have happened since other than in spasms and jerks. Nothing much has happened collectively until this CC business came along and appears to have galvanised everyone in one or another. A small miracle perhaps.

Incidentally, so jaded am I, I recently cancelled my DD to Greenpeace after over thirty five years of forking out. I'm still not sure why precisely, other than a deep unease at the way they were spending my hard earned. Perhaps it was the helicopter I saw strapped down to the deck of the Rainbow Warrior (was it?) that did it.

finchy

mercsport wrote:

John, weren't you around the last time we were caught "caught with our pants down" in 1973 ? Three day week and all that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_crisis

Collectively, we appear not to be able to learn much. We were told then that oil would run out by 1990, but it's still very much with us, and powers the world still. Way back then we were warned of the imperative to find alternative sources of energy, but little seems to have happened since other than in spasms and jerks. Nothing much has happened collectively until this CC business came along and appears to have galvanised everyone in one or another. A small miracle perhaps.

Incidentally, so jaded am I, I recently cancelled my DD to Greenpeace after over thirty five years of forking out. I'm still not sure why precisely, other than a deep unease at the way they were spending my hard earned. Perhaps it was the helicopter I saw strapped down to the deck of the Rainbow Warrior (was it?) that did it.

No, I was 7 years too late into this world for the 1973 crisis. I suppose the difference between now and back then is that we have surveyed much more of the world for oil reserves since back then.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you that humanity does seem to have problems learning from crises - with the knowledge we have available to us, surely economic bubbles should be visible to economic decision-makers for example.

OffTheBackAdam

Looks like we're actually lucky to be living at this time and are able to warm the climate!
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553

Seanos

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Looks like we're actually lucky to be living at this time and are able to warm the climate!
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553

You mean aren't we lucky not to live in Central Greenland? What has this got to do with global temperatures? Do you actually read (let alone understand) what you post?

Porgy

cjw wrote:

Now on to solar activity....



This is solar activity, looks a lot like climate change graphs doesn't it?

I wonder if this is what could be predominately driving the changes in temperature. Note especially the increases exactly when industrialisation starts in 1900s.

To Porgy, the point I make is that you can't subtract solar activity and be left with human causes. The solar activity IS the main cause and the human bit makes almost no difference.

These papers are for another day however.

It is accepted that until about 40 years ago the sun was the major driver of temperatures, but it is in the last 40 years that the deviation occurs. Your graph does not show this period clearly - and seems to emphasise the relationship from 1600 to mid 20th century quite well - however this is not in dispute.

So your graph is a red herring thrown in not to add to the debate but to distract.

someone posted up the very good material that can be found on New Scientist earlier - I recomend checking their graph of various aspects of solar activities compared to global warming over past 40 years, and you will see no relationship whatsoever.

Seanos

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Yet more evidence of fiddling the data to show warming!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/#more-13818

Firstly there would have to be some evidence of 'fiddling the data' in the first place before you can demonstrate more. (If you can demonstrate that fiddling did actually happen then please do so, a link would be nice).

Secondly, your 'amateur scientist' (for which read 'unqualified non-specialist with a wildly exaggerated sense of his own competency') would have to be right. Not looking good:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12 ... _lying.php

OffTheBackAdam

More data massaging?
Antarctica
http://savecapitalism.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/ghcn-antarctica-careful-selection-of-data/
Alaska
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/alaska-bodged-too/
IPCC suppressing awkward questions?
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/ipcc-shut-up-or-go-to-prison/
State of the US temperature monitoring stations?
http://www.surfacestations.org/

Good question as to why the amateur scientists are having to do this.
Nice to see that George Soros (Remember him, made billions by forcing Sterling outof the ERM) has chipped in http://rokdrop.com/2009/12/11/george-soros-demands-more-money-from-developed-nations-to-fight-global-warming/
I wonder what his rake-off will be?

finchy

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

More data massaging?
Antarctica
http://savecapitalism.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/ghcn-antarctica-careful-selection-of-data/
Alaska
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/alaska-bodged-too/
IPCC suppressing awkward questions?
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/ipcc-shut-up-or-go-to-prison/
State of the US temperature monitoring stations?
http://www.surfacestations.org/

Good question as to why the amateur scientists are having to do this.
Nice to see that George Soros (Remember him, made billions by forcing Sterling outof the ERM) has chipped in http://rokdrop.com/2009/12/11/george-soros-demands-more-money-from-developed-nations-to-fight-global-warming/
I wonder what his rake-off will be?

Wow, congratulations, you really are digging up all the most reliable sources out there now.

Here's a piece of real evidence, investigating how the Bush administration tried to influence the climate change debate. It's a bipartisan House of Representatives Committee report initiated by Republican members.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/resources/gl ... erence.pdf

Seanos

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

More data massaging?

No. More drive by C&Ping of non-peer reviewed, unpublished, unchecked cargo cult science produced by non-experts who have no more than a superficial understanding of the subject.

But back to the original point. You've effectively accused the UEA of fraud. Want to try and substantiate that accusation? Should be easy, you've got the emails.

Seanos

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Nice to see that George Soros (Remember him, made billions by forcing Sterling outof the ERM) has chipped in http://rokdrop.com/2009/12/11/george-soros-demands-more-money-from-developed-nations-to-fight-global-warming/
I wonder what his rake-off will be?

So a billionaire philanthropist who gives money away to the developing world is asking governments to give more money to the developing world.

Would you care to point out how he'd get a 'rake-off'? Using actual evidence and facts and stuff.