John, when you stick your head in the sand do you also close your eyes to increase your chances of not seeing what is happening around you?

If you would only do some real reading, look around you and you will see that what you are claiming is utter nonsense.

The models predict reality (Hansen's work) and there are many easily identifiable situations where the effects of global warming are actually happening.

Who pays you to distribute this utter nonsense?

Ian Forrester

The models are, in fact, excellent at recreating events that have already occurred - but the only way they can recreate the climate trends of the latter half of the 20th century is to include the scientifically unquestionable impact of additional CO2 in the atmosphere. The best scientists in the world (a group to which I am not sure that you belong) have looked at the data and agreed.

In light of that, I don't get why you're clinging so desperately to this a potential escape in your "non-linear, chaotic system." Forest fires are non-linear and chaotic, too, but that doesn't mean we don't try to prevent them - or fight them when they are burning toward our town.

1) Hansen's models weren't predicting those numbers, and ice sheet models are not the same as climate models.
2) Thanks to the GRACE satellite, we know that Greenland is losing ice at a rate much faster than any models predicted.
3) The models underestimate sea level rise. For example, we can compare actual sea level rise vs. what was modeled in the TAR. http://www.realclimate.org/images/sealevel_2.jpg
More on this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/#more-427

John Dowell, which intellectually dishonest rightwing website did you get the Maurice Strong quote from? Did it also fail to explain the context of the quote?

You wrote "...This comment by Maurice Strong, as chair of the 1992 Rio Conference that hatched Kyoto, is revealing:..." False; he did not say it as chair of the Rio conference. You have quoted part of an interview with Strong by Daniel Wood, which was published in West Magazine, Alberta, in May 1990.

He was talking about an idea he had for a novel. You know? Like, fiction, not factual? Like a work of the imagination? Like Michael Crichton writes?

Here is one discussion about the article, which itself does not seem to be online.

But of course there is another author who described the destruction of our civilization: Ayn Rand. So why don't you go after all the libertarians and objectivists infesting the rightwing websites?

Wiki description of Atlas Shrugged:

"...The theme of Atlas Shrugged is "The role of man's mind in society." Rand upheld the industrialist as one of the most admirable members of any society and fiercely opposed the popular resentment accorded to industrialists. This led her to envision a novel wherein the industrialists of America go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway. The American economy and its society in general slowly start to collapse. The government responds by increasing the already stifling controls on industrial concerns..."

Looks like a mirror image of Strong's idea, doesn't it?

John Dowell said: "How do you know models predict reality, Ian, since they are predicting a future that hasn't happened yet"? Well John, Hansen published data in 1988 showing predicted temperature over the next few years (30 years, 1988 to 2020 IIRC). He used three scenarios which he called A, B and C. A required an exponential increases in CO2, B and c assumed lower emissions.

The actual temperature and CO2 emission data match the B and C scenarios very well. Does this not count as prediction in your world John? Scenario A did not match either temperature or CO2 emission (note that it was the CO2 concentrations that were wrong not the computer model).

Funny that when that "climate expert" Pat Michaels went before congress or whatever the only scenario he showed on his graph was scenario A, the one which did not match. Most reputable scientists consider this to be scientific fraud.

If you believe that the models do not match reality then you are either a bigger fool that I thought, or are a paid shill of the CO2 emitting industries.

Ian Forrester

... too criticize the work and conclusions of others than it is to actually back claims with evidence. As the weight of scientific evidence making the global warming reality clearer and clearer, the total void of scientific evidence on the part of the deniers gets bigger and bigger.

Gore's movie was no joke. He had the science right for the most part. The climate scientists at RealClimate.org said so, themselves.

Time to stop drinking the kool-aid the denier PR spinners have provided you, John.

Lindzen's doubts are refuted on the following site:

http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/Lindzen.htm