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Global Warming
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Bollocks On A Massive Scale
Global warming has always looked to me like an apocalyptic religious cult. Although unimpressed with the "facts" used to justify the cult of global warming, I used to keep out of this discussion for three main reasons.
Firstly because disagreeing with global warming is like being seen as a "holocaust denier" - logic goes out the arse, people go into rabid attack dog mode, and what the hell, if they want to freak out about global warming, that's their problem.
Secondly, I'm too busy with other stuff to do justice to this huge subject - for that I recommend going to a more in depth site like Global Warming - A Chilling Perspective
And thirdly, the last thing I want to look like is a defender of the American right to drive "SUV's" - cutting down on pollution is a good thing, it just has bugger all to do with global warming.
In some ways it was a shock to trawl through right wing US websites, reading articles by people who think that Gore is wrong, so Bush must be right. For the record I thought Bush (or at least the people who used to operate his strings) was evil too, but that doesn't mean Gore isn't a lying con man.
So I'll just attempt to keep this very simple, and maybe it will encourage someone somewhere to think this stuff through for themselves.
The Time Span is the Key
More than anything else, time is the key factor in understanding global warming. The earth doesn't run on human time frames - like most planets it runs on much longer cycles. If we look at the past 2000 years, it's true that the temperature is at the upper end of it's range right now. But 2000 years is insignificant to a planet - the sort of time span we need to be looking at is half a million years
The patterns of warming and cooling become clearer the longer the time span we look at - in fact over 500,000 years the temperature chart looks almost like a heartbeat. Yes, it's been hotter, and it's been colder, and it's managed to do both without any help from humans...
Over this time frame the key factor in temperature change appears to be variations in the shape of earth's elliptical orbit - when we orbit closer to the sun the earth gets hotter.
Approximately every 100,000 years Earth's climate warms up temporarily. These warm periods, called interglacial periods, appear to last approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years before regressing back to a cold ice age climate. At year 18,000 and counting our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age is much nearer its end than its beginning.
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
Humans do not control the sun, or the earth's orbit!
But here are four major temperature change cycles related to the sun that do have a big hand in changing the earth's temperature:
* 11 year and 206 year cycles: Cycles of sunspot activity
* 21,000 year cycle: Earth's combined tilt and elliptical orbit around
the Sun
* 41,000 year cycle: Cycle of the +/- 1.5° wobble in Earth's orbit
( tilt )
* 100,000 year cycle: Variations in the shape of Earth's elliptical
orbit
Correlation Does Not Prove Causality
The mainstay of the Global Warming movement is that CO2 causes global warming.
They like to show a chart of global temperatures next to CO2 levels, and say things like:
"You can see almost perfect correlation between CO2 levels and average global temperature"
And indeed you can, because CO2 levels FOLLOW temperature - and this is a rare instance where the warmerists like to pull out a long term chart.
The long time frame allows them to transpose the temperature and CO2 data from the ice core samples in such a way as to make them look simultaneous.
But a more detailed chart would reveal that the CO2 rises hundreds of years after the temperature goes up.
They get all fired up and say things like:
"The graph shows that after the invention of the automobile CO2 started to increase and hasn't stopped in the last 100 years since - I rest my case"
To which someone might ask - Was it cars that caused the rise in CO2 130,000 years ago as well? And then if we are going to be picky we might also point out that this chart shows CO2 starting to rise sharply around 15,000 years ago, which somewhat predates the invention of the car...
But I digress, it's probably best to stick to the basics, or things can get very confusing.
CO2 is NOT a pollutant - it is a naturally produced gas
CO2 is produced by ALL LIVING ORGANISMS. Bacteria and other microorganisms produce more CO2 than all humans put together could ever produce. In fact human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is less than 0.3% of the total.
Where does the rest come from? - well, from water vapour mostly.
Oceans, rivers, lakes, clouds, that sort of stuff. Not Humvees all that much.
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_contrib.html
Al Gore
The guru of global warmerists looks to be slightly dodgy in some respects. While he flies around the globe telling other people to use less power, his own usage is quite high really...
Al
Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
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Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the US national average.
(And the US national average is pretty hefty in itself)
While Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth,
has collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, the Tennessee
Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves another
gold statue for hypocrisy.
Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville,
consumes more electricity every month than the average American household
uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service
(NES).
In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to
conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.
The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh)
per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured
nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more
than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family
uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s
average monthly electric bill topped US$1,359.
Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption
has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400
kWh per month in 2006.
Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill.
Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged
$1,080 per month last year.
In total, Gore paid nearly US$30,000 in combined electricity and natural
gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.
To put this in a global perspective, Al Gore's household electricity useage is greater than that of many third world towns. On average 27,000 Cambodians would use LESS power than Al Gore's house!
*****
Is Al Gore's Movie Accurate?
"An Inconvenient Truth" is a very well made and emotionally appealing PR movie, that has drawn a huge response from it's "supporters", and also a huge range of criticism from scientists and "skeptics"
"The man is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science." - Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K.
I won't get into that too much here, but will point out that in order for his claims to be accurate, Al Gore would need to show:
1 - That the earth's temperature increases are CAUSED by increased CO2,
2. - That increased CO2 is CAUSED by human pollution
3 - That the current change in global temperature is different to that which has been naturally occurring for millions of years
But he doesn't show anything conclusive about these things. What the movie mostly focuses on is whether the earth is getting hotter than it was in 1970 (yes it is, but only in some places - others are getting cooler, and overall the average increase is very small), which is a different issue, and whether humans are screwing up the planet (yes we certainly are, but more because of problems like overpopulation, wars, greed, mismanagement, and the pollution from toxic chemicals, rather than because we are producing CO2)
Much as it would be great if mankind stopped polluting the planet so much, Gore's movie does not offer any proof that the CO2 produced by humans has any bearing on the temperature. While the world might be a very different place if Americans used no power, let's face it, half of 0.28% is not very significant to CO2 emissions. (And even if Americans shop at Walmart and pay the Chinese to do their dirty work for them, that probably won't help much either)
Humans are having a very destructive effect on the planet, and one of the ways to reduce that would probably be to reduce the human population to a more sustainable number. Maybe around two billion, as it was around WWII when humanity and nature were in perfect harmony. (This stuff really is quite confusing!) But if global warming gets people fired up, any discussion of this "4.5 billion too many people problem", gets them really mad. I'm not going to go down this road, for obvious reasons, other than to say that a long term (natural) reduction in population might have some positive spin offs. And I certainly don't blame Gore for not tackling this issue!
*****
The Media Ignore Al Gore’s Financial Ties to Global Warming
First, Gore sets up a company that will invest in other companies that
will benefit from global warming alarmism
*
Second, Gore gets Hollywood to fund and produce a movie designed to
scare the population
*
Third, Gore travels the world promoting this movie, while pushing the
view that a cataclysm is imminent if the world doesn't immediately act
*
Fourth, an adoring media falls for the con hook, line, and sinker. Rather
than debunking the flaws in the theories, the media promote every word
of it while advancing the concept that Gore's views represent those
of an overwhelming majority of scientists
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Fifth, scared governments and citizens across the globe invest in alternative
energy programs driving up the shares of companies Gore's group has
already invested in
*
Sixth, Gore and his associates make millions as they laugh all the way
to the bank at the stupidity of their fellow citizens.
*****
Al Gore's assault on reason
"Al Gore's new book is aptly titled 'Assault on Reason'. When I first heard about it I said to myself, now there's a topic this man knows all about. Arguably, his expertise is so great he scarcely needs a ghostwriter. His last book, An Inconvenient Truth, is perhaps the biggest assault on reason since the Pope went after Galileo in the 17th Century.
In between knocking down big paydays from investment bankers and six figure speaking fees, Gore has been the front man of this truly amazing campaign. Public relations professionals will study his global warming campaign for decades on"
Christopher J. Alleva
What happens when a famous American politician misleads the public for massive profit?.... He gets a NOBEL PEACE PRIZE! - and why not? - the man's a genius
Former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN climate panel have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their part in galvanising international action against global warming before it "moves beyond man's control"
Reuters - 13 October 2007
The global warming con-trick
By Melanie Phillips. First published in the Daily Mail, February 25
2002.
The first cuckoo may not yet have been heard, but the noise of its human namesakes is loud in the land. Despite the weekend’s blizzards, spring has sprung unseasonably early. Daffodils are already nodding, hawthorn is budding, lambs are gamboling.
So, according to daft naturalists who have been popping up like the crocuses, it’s apocalypse now. This is, they tell us breathlessly, the warmest winter since records began three hundred years ago – further proof of global warming.
It is an article of faith that the planet is about to fry. The fact that something funny is going on with the weather only serves to confirm it. Does it not?
Well, actually, no. It proves nothing except the existence of that natural phenomenon, the human herd instinct, and its closely related marvel, cosmic credulity. For, believe it or not, there is in fact nothing at all strange or untoward about our current temperatures.
This warm spell is well within the normal cyclical fluctuations in temperature from century to century. In 1200, for example, Europe was a full 2°C warmer than it is now. Vines were grown in Britain as far north as Northumberland.
That was followed by a period known as the ‘little ice age’, which lasted from about 1400 to the latter part of the 19th century. So it is hardly surprising that since then, temperatures have warmed up a bit. But it is only a bit – a mere 0.6°C rise in the last 150 years.
Compare that, after all, with the period known as the Younger Dryas nearly 11,000 years ago. Temperatures then dropped by as much as 10°C , followed at the end by a rise of between 7°C and 15°C over no more than 50 years.
The theory that the earth is heading for environmental catastrophe rests on two assumptions: that it is warming at an unprecedented rate, and that man-made carbon dioxide is to blame. The Inter-Government Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted a rise in temperature of between 1.4°C and 5.8°C by 2100. This led to the Kyoto protocol, which required swinging cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by the industrialized nations.
But there is simply no scientific evidence to support this theory. Indeed, many of the scientific claims made by the global warming industry are demonstrably wrong.
Global warming is a scam. The latest evidence is provided in a report published today by the European Science and Environment Forum, in which a group of the most eminent scientists from Britain and America shred the theory and with it the credibility of the IPCC.
This panel got it wrong, these scientists say, because it used wholly inadequate computer models. These omitted numerous factors contributing to climate change such as clouds, water vapour, atmospheric and ocean currents and the effects of the sun.
In addition, they failed to deal with the complex reactions involved in climate change. One study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National American Space Agency revealed the effects on heat levels of high level clouds, which knocked the climate models for six.
Computer modeling is in general a dubious scientific tool. When it comes to climate change, it uses partial data to transform flawed hypotheses into prophecy. It is of little more use than a ouija board.
As for mankind’s involvement in climate change, this is even more debatable. Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas for which industrial man is blamed, accounts for only a minute proportion of the atmosphere.
Hair-raising claims by the warming lobby have been shown to be false. The ice sheets, for example, are not shrinking but are actually increasing overall. Evidence about sea-level rise is contradictory, but in general the seas are not rising.
As for air temperatures, past calculations which mistakenly used the seas as a gauge over-estimated air temperatures as a result by one third. When air alone was measured, it was found to have got cooler, not warmer, over the past two decades.
Now even James Hansen, the NASA scientist whose predictions of a huge rise in global warming helped light the bonfire 14 years ago, has stood on his head. He now agrees with the skeptics that the world will most likely heat up during this century by no more than 0.7°C, virtually identical to the rise in the last hundred years.
So why have so many scientists produced ‘evidence’ to support a theory which doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny? The brutal explanation is that they don’t get grant money or the approval needed for promotion unless their work supports the politically motivated theory of the times.
Look at what’s happened to Dr Bjorn Lomberg, a Danish statistician and former member of Greenpeace. In his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, he shows how green doom and gloom has been wildly exaggerated.
Natural resources are not running out but becoming more abundant; only a tiny fraction of species is likely to become extinct in the next fifty years; and – heresy of heresies – richer countries are cleaner countries.
For this, Lomberg has been subjected to relentless and vicious attack by the massed battalions of the heavyweights of science.
But why is global warming so popular politically? The short answer is that a doctrine which declares that industrialisation and globalisation are enemies of humanity is a wonderful stick with which weaker western economies can beat up America, and clothe anti-western self-hatred in ostensibly scientific respectability.
The longer answer is that the roots of the environmental movement go back to Thomas Malthus, the 18th century thinker whose dire predictions that the world’s population would outstrip its food supply led to the rise of eugenics, the theory of racial enhancement through selected breeding.
After the Nazis took this theory to its grotesque conclusion, eugenics went deep underground and re-emerged under the cover of the world-wide birth control and environmental movements – both of which view the third world as a threat to be contained.
Wouldn’t the billions being poured into funding the global warming theory be better spent providing clean water for Africa and Asia?
Now President Bush has presented his own alternative to Kyoto, which involves voluntary and market-based methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions instead of mandatory targets. But in seeking merely to protect America’s interests, he has missed the point completely. Forget the prescription – the diagnosis is wrong.
The misuse of facts by the global warming lobby may destroy the credibility of both scientists and the green movement, making it less likely that people will take the action that is necessary to protect the environment.
For we do have a duty to steward the world’s resources, to find new sources of energy and act against pollution. But false theories will prevent us from adapting responsibly to inevitable change.
Put that apocalypse on hold. Take pleasure in those green shoots. They are a signal not for despair but for realism and for hope.
The Global Warming Myth
By
Prof David Bellamy
Am I worried about carbon induced global warming? The answer is no and yes. No because there has been no sign of global warming in New Zealand since 1955, this year snow has fallen in Portugal for the first time in 52 years and 3 US states are united by the fact that they have recorded their lowest temperatures ever. Yes because it has become a political football that has lost its foundations in real science.
What especially worries me is that if anyone dares to question the dogma of the global warming doomsters who repeatedly tell us that C not only stands for carbon but for climate catastrophe, we are immediately vilified as heretics or worse as deniers.
I am quite happy to be branded a heretic because throughout history heretics have stood up against dogma based on bigotry.
I don’t like being called a denier because deniers don’t believe in facts. There are no facts linking the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming there are only predictions based on complex computer models.
Name calling may be acceptable in political circles but it has no place in the language of science, indeed what is happening in the annals of global warming smacks of Macarthyism complete with witch hunts.
Robust science is carried out in a robust way through reasoned argument based on well researched data and although it may dent the ego of the loser it does not smear the name of science.
I offer two simple data sets that are already in the public domain.
The most reliable global, regional and local temperature records from around the world display no distinguishable trend up or down over the past century.
The last peak temperatures were around 1940 and 1998, with troughs of low temperature around 1910 and 1970.
The second dip caused pop science and the media to cry wolf about a catastrophic ice age just around the corner. Our end was nigh! As soon as the temperatures took an upward turn in the 1980’s the scaremongers changed their tune switching their dogma to imminent catastrophic scenarios of global warming all based on computer models some that were proved to be as bent as the hockey stick which no longer features in IPCC’s armoury.
I used to discuss climate change with my undergraduates and point out that there was much good scientific evidence that the latest of a string of ice ages had affected the climate and sea levels around the world. Thank goodness it began to come to an end a mere 18,000 to 20,000 years ago The Romans grew grapes in York and during the world wide medieval warm period when civilization blossomed across the world, Nordic settlers farmed lowland Greenland (hence its name) and then got wiped out by the Little Ice Age that only started to wane around 1850).
Back to the data, how can a sixty-year cycle of changing temperature give any credibility to claims that carbon dioxide is causing an inexorable march towards a climate Armageddon.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen throughout this time frame, yet the temperature has gone up and down in a cyclical manner. How can this be explained unless there are other factors in control overriding the effect of this greenhouse gas? There are of course many to be found in peer reviewed literature, solar cycles, cosmic ray cloud control and those little rascals El Ninos and La Ninas all of which are played down or even ignored by the global warming brigade. As are the positive aspects of carbon dioxide in the growth of plants.
Add to that the fact that since 1998 the world’s average temperature has shown a tendency to fall not rise. This fact the warmers play down by arguing that you need a 10 year period, or better still a 30 year period to register a convincing change. Well 2008 is just around the corner and sadly another 20 years on the next natural cycle will have done its best or worse vindicating carbon dioxide as the villain of the piece.
Turning to Al Gore’s doom and gloom laden Oscar, I will pose but two questions. Why scare the families of the world with tales that polar bears are heading for extinction when there is good evidence that there are now twice as many of these iconic animals, most doing well in the Arctic than there were 20 years ago? Why cry wolf on a rise in the spread of malaria thanks to rising temperatures when this mosquito borne disease was a main killer of people throughout the Little Ice Age in Britain and northern Russia?
To date it has cost the world around $ US 50 billion to spread global warming doom and gloom. However now thanks to questions asked by we the sceptics The New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s Dr Jim Renwick has spilt the beans that "Climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable, so we don't expect to do terrifically well." Later on New Zealand radio, Dr Renwick said: " The weather is not predictable beyond a week or two." The spin of a coin starts a rugby match the spin on 50 million greenbacks surely deserves an unbiased referee.
New Zealand leads the world in the eradication of feral plants and animals
making restoration of the natural ecosystems that kept the biosphere
in balance long before the IPCC was invented. Habitat destruction and
the loss of biodiversity is one of the greatest threats to climate and
landscape stability. I beg your government to continue to lead the world
in this sustainable endeavour.
In the words of a great mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer, “Don’t be scared be prepared”.
David Bellamy June 2007
"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming theory)
"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canada
“Blaming it on ‘Man’ is an exercise in self-flagelation - just like the monks in Monty Python’s ‘Holy Grail’ bashing themselves in the heads with boards"
J. Cunningham
In Michael Crichton's very well researched book "State Of Fear" (if only Al Gore's references were that good), he concludes with an appendix drawing a parallel between the "science" of global warming, and the previously very popular "science" of eugenics (the theory of a danger to the human gene pool of allowing "feeble minded" people to breed - best solved by sterilising or killing them). And holy crap that's an eye opening parallel - "global warming - the new eugenics"
"... global warming is the theory that increased levels of carbon dioxide and certain other gases are causing an increase in the average temperature of the earth’s atmosphere because of the so-called greenhouse effect "
Why Invent Global Warming? - In 2004 $4.3 billion was earned by the global warming industry. Most was invested in research and development, and the media fed at the trough too. Fear is bankable. If a population can be convinced that global warming is occurring, there is money to be made. What started off as a small group now has thousands of employees drawing wages.
Ken Ring - Predict Weather.com
"The effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming."
