While impressed by the arguments in the post and the comments, I was surprised that two recent additions to the information chorus were left out.
“the global warming observed during the latest 150 years is just a short episode in the geologic history. The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01°C (of approximately 0.56°C (1°F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century)”
“Any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4–5 orders of magnitude greater than available human controls.”
These two statements don't need an editorial content. Except to say that Al Gore will be surprised to find out that these are not the rantings of some axe-grinder. Rather it is quoted from a recent issue of Environmental Geology in an article entitled “On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?” It is written by two scientists at the University of Southern California. Environmental Geology is a first-class journal, and papers submitted to the journal are peer-reviewed by scientists at major institutions.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/12/01/are-humans-involved-in-global-warming/#more-199
In addition, the UN now states that man's contribution is only 25%, that the temperature increase expected is substantially less than earlier thought, and that sea level increases in 100 years are likely to be on the order of 17". This is reported here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nclimate10.xml
 Jim Hoggan |
  Slamming the Climate Skeptic Scam12 Jul 07
There is a line between public relations and propaganda - or there should be. And there is a difference between using your skills, in good faith, to help rescue a battered reputation and using them to twist the truth - to sow confusion and doubt on an issue that is critical to human survival. And it is infuriating - as a public relations professional - to watch my colleagues use their skills, their training and their considerable intellect to poison the international debate on climate change. That's what is happening today, and I think it's a disgrace. On one hand, you have the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific consensus in history, advising that:
On the other hand, you have an ongoing public debate - not about how to respond, but about whether we should bother, about whether climate change is even a scientific certainty. Few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change. This is a triumph of disinformation. It is a living proof of the success of one of the boldest and most extensive PR campaigns in history, primarily financed by the energy industry and executed by some of the best PR talent in the world. As a public relations practitioner, it is a marvel - and a deep humiliation - and I want to see it stop. Here's the way it works: Public relations is not a process of telling people what to think; people are too smart for that, and North Americans are way too stubborn. Tell a bunch of North Americans what they are supposed to think and you're likely to wind up the only person at the party enjoying your can of New Coke. No, the trick to executing a good PR campaign is twofold: you figure out what people are thinking already; and then you nudge them gently from that position to one that is closer to where you want them to be. The first step is research: you find out what they know and understand; you identify the specific gaps in their knowledge. Then you fill those gaps with a purpose-built campaign. You educate. If people are afraid to take Tylenol (as they were after someone poisoned some pills), you explain the extensive safety precautions now typical in the pharmaceutical industry. If people think Martha Stewart is arrogant and uncaring, you create opportunities for her to show a more human side. In the best cases - the cases that are most personally rewarding - the advice you give to clients actually drives corporate behavior. That is, if a client wants to protect or revive their reputation, if they want to convince the public that they're running a responsible company and doing the right thing, the most obvious public relations advice is that they should do the right thing. It's the kind of advice that, historically, has been a hard sell in the tobacco industry, in the asbestos industry - and too often in the automotive industry. Those sectors have provided some of the most famous examples of PR disinformation: "smoking isn't necessarily bad for you;" "it's not an absolute certainty that asbestos will give you cancer;" "your seatbelt might actually kill you if you're the one person in five million who flips his car into a watery ditch." But few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change. Few have been so coldly calculating and few have been so well documented. For example, Ross Gelbspan, in his books, The Heat is On and Boiling Point sets out the whole case, pointing fingers and naming names. PR Watch founder John Stauber has done similarly exemplary work, tracking the bogus campaigns and linking various pseudo scientists to their energy industry funders. One of the best examples - the most compelling proofs that the disinformation generation is no accident - came in a November 2002 memo from political consultant Frank Luntz to the U.S. Republican Party. Luntz followed the rules: he did the research; he identified the soft spots in public opinion; and he made a clever critical judgment about which way the public could be induced to move. In a section entitled "Winning the Global Warming Debate," Luntz says this (and all the points of emphasis are his own): "The Scientific Debate Remains Open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field." If you download the memo and read the whole thing, you will notice that Luntz never expressly denies the validity of the science. In fact, he says, "The scientific debate is closing [against us] but is not yet closed." " ... not yet closed"? Among those who disagree with that assessment are the 2,500 scientists in the IPCC, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Canada Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science magazine, says, "We're in the middle of a large uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have." And to back up his sense of certainty, he reported that Science had analysed the 928 peer-reviewed climate studies published between 1993 and 2003 and found not a single one that disagreed with the general scientific consensus. Journalists have consistently reported the updates from the best climate scientists in the world juxtaposed against the unsubstantiated raving of an industry-funded climate change denier - as if both are equally valid. Notwithstanding, Luntz wrote: "There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science." He recommended that his Republican Party clients do just that. He urged them to marshal their own "scientists" to contest the issue on every occasion. He urged them to plead for "sound science" a twist of language of the sort that George Orwell once said was "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind." Luntz's goal - embraced with unnerving enthusiasm by the Bush Administration - is to manufacture uncertainty and to politicize science. Like all tragedy, it would be hilarious if you could play it for laughs. It's an open question as to whether Luntz and company are being willfully blind or grossly negligent in the way they have ignored the science - and the potential catastrophic risks that they promote. But whichever way you cut it, their actions reflect badly on the whole public relations industry. Conspiracy theorists will be happy to hear that I'm not suggesting that Frank Luntz or even a dubious cabal of ethics-free PR people are solely to blame for the public confusion on climate change. They have received extensive, if clumsy assistance from the media, which in a lazy and facile attempt to provide "balance" is willing to give any opinion equal time as long as it is firmly in contradiction with another. This is not just a feature of the point/counterpoint talking heads that have emerged as the principal vehicle for television news. Newspaper reporters are just as guilty of canvassing "both sides" of every argument, often without providing any critical judgment as to the validity or relative weight of either side. On the issue of climate change, journalists have consistently reported the updates from the best climate scientists in the world juxtaposed against the unsubstantiated raving of an industry-funded climate change denier - as if both are equally valid. This is not balanced journalism. It is a critical abdication of journalistic responsibility. Any reporter who cannot assess the relative merits of a global scientific consensus - especially in contradiction to an "expert" that the coal industry is paying to help "clear the air" - deserves to have his pencil taken away in solemn ceremony and broken into bits. There is yet more blame to go around. You could criticize scientists for the dense, cautious and conditional language that they use in talking about the threats of climate change. But in science, credibility is a currency (this, in apparent contradiction to the state of affairs in journalism or PR). A scientist who strays, even momentarily, off the path of certainty or who wanders from hard science into policy is immediately dismissed as someone with an axe to grind. You could also criticize environmentalists, whose tendency has been to stray too far in the other direction, extrapolating scientific assumptions to create scare stories so dispiriting that they create apathy rather than activism. These, in turn, have made easy targets for the energy industry's climate change deniers. The important thing at this point, however, is not to assign blame. It is to educate yourself and to join this increasingly urgent policy debate. This is not one of those relatively low-level PR boondoggles. We're not talking about single individuals dying because the auto industry held out against seat belt laws. We're not even talking about many 100s of thousands of people dying of lung cancer because the tobacco industry held out for "sound science" while actively increasing the amount of addictive nicotine in their product. We're talking about the future of the planet. So please read on. Read everything. Check out the sites that deny the reality of climate change and then check on www.sourcewatch.org to see who paid for those opinions, read DeSmogBlog. Don't accept the word of people who pass themselves off as "skeptics." Be skeptical yourself. Ask yourself what motive the scientific community has to gang up and invent a phony climate crisis. Compare that to the motives that ExxonMobil or Peabody Coal might have to deny that burning fossil fuels indiscriminately could change irrevocably our existence on the planet. And if you still leave the lights on when you're done, make sure they're shining in the shamed faces of the PR pros who are still trying to prevent sound, sensible policy change to affect this, perhaps the biggest threat humankind has ever faced.  |
Climate change
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 2006-12-30 21:45.
Well, regardless if people cause 'climate change' or not (I believe we are contributing) and if oceans are rising or not(well, they actually are), people can fix self-inflicted 'climate change' by using nuclear force. If energy policy change does not slow/stop/reverse 'climate change' or when people decide they have reached the point of no return; as a last resort, humanity can detonate a number of nukes in each of the deserts of Earth, couging up enough dust to begin to cool the planet. This action could be regulated.(smarter people than me can figure out the particulars)
Humanity would have to prepare for the jolt of changes to ensue by dropping the planet's temperature in this manner, but that could be well planned, again by smarter people than me.
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I have to say that is only
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2007-01-04 12:24.
I have to say that is only in the benefit of the large public to have more sides of the climate change story. And I am not sure that scientist even have the same opinion, so it is really great that more and more people share their views. My opinion is that oceans have a big contribution in the climate change and that, by affecting the oceans with their wars, humans affected climate (see www.1ocean-1climate.com). There are many that do not agree with me, but I think is it very important that people realize that global warming is a big issue.
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Jim and other deniers
Submitted by Johan i Kanada (not verified) on Thu, 2007-02-01 11:01.
continue to deny real climate science, i.e. one that is facts based and not politically motivated consensus progaganda.
They also lie as they call the upcoming IPCC report a scientific report, while in reality it is a political report, written by politicians, for political purposes.
And these politicians are too scared to show the underlying scientific reports, model data etc, to the public (before publishing this they need a few months to "re-write reality to fit the map").
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Very Good Article
Submitted by Kendall (not verified) on Sat, 2007-07-21 03:12.
I definitely need to do my homework
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Global Warming ! !
Submitted by Kent on Sun, 2007-07-15 21:11.
Hell I have the solution, lets nuke the towelhead islamies, say mecca and medina and tehran and demascus. That would creat a hugh dust cloud(actually a sand cloud) that would shade the earth for, oh maybe 15 or 20 years. Wallah, no warming, and many fewer islamies. I am sure that there are other great places to nuke that could really add to the "screen effect" like Bejing, Moscow, and lets not forget Pyong Yyong. More on this strategy as these great ideas strike me ! ! Kent p.s. I almost forgot to include in the sand cloud, there would be a considerable amount of camel dung and flying carpet content - - call OSHA !!!!!!
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1975...The "science" showed
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2007-02-21 21:38.
1975...The "science" showed we were heading towards a global cooling trend and melting the ice caps was the consensus. Actually, the proof was coming in so quickly the scientists could not keep up with it. The major difference was, these were scientists in the FIELD of climatology and not simply tree huggers that latch onto every passing fancy.
Want to put an end to GWarming? Remove the biggest factor, our lakes and oceans which account for 90%+ of the cause.
As for Pr...no subject in recent memory has had the PR the "climate change sky is falling crowd" has had.
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Well put
Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Mon, 2007-03-05 22:52.
This is the second time I've read your article and it's the best written one I have read in the months I have been surfing global warming.
Keep up the good work.
Mike
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Climate Skeptic
Submitted by John McLean-Hodgson (not verified) on Sat, 2007-11-03 09:26.
Climate is changing but it is not proved that it is man made. Check research on sun's influence on earth's climate. Check the error's in the hockey stick curve. Check the errenous readings from the many now misplaced temperature measurement stations. Some are a joke and these are used as proof of recent warming. I could go on and on. The IPCC is a joke. Their models are flawed and simplistic and they are taken as God's word by unthinking people who support them. Climates change as they have done since time began.
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the 30 (or so) common lies
Submitted by James (not verified) on Sun, 2007-06-03 18:05.
Hi all- I am a videographer and playwright who is writing a seriously funny Musical (for students 6th to 8th grades) which is all about Media Literacy. One of the songs we are developing plans to use (and explain) the common P/R lies that we see most often printed in the popular media denying global warming ("the scientists don't all agree...") My question is- Who has gathered all these sentences up so I can use them in our song. After our viewers have seen this play- they should be able to spot these when they see them. The working title of the song is Miss. Information. The working title of the Musical is "Target Marketing- The Musical, a seriously funny look at media" We will have skits and songs about alcohol and tobacco advertising, explain things like the common methods that are used by advertisers to target market to our audience, and one song about the P/R campaign that has kept America from knowing the truth about climate change. I need this infor very soon.
Thanks
James Valastro
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Global Warming - let's all make money not just Jim
Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Mon, 2007-03-19 11:17.
Hi Jim,
Got to admit you taught me a lesson or two tonught.
Not about global climate change - because we should all know by now that everything in life changes to a certain degree including the planet we live on.
No what you taught me was how greedy folk are.
The debate over climate change and how much, if any, is due to the influence of man and woman for that matter is an issue that concerns many.
I have websites and blogs that are commercially run. Yes I make money. That's how I feed myself and the kids.
Sadly folks are making money from this naturally ocuring climate change hogwash. They make money by getting finance for their gallavanting trips to the four corners of the globe. They get appearance money for lecturing about doomsday.
And you Jim - looking at your links bar - Google advertising and merchabt links to Amazon.
Yes you taught me a lesson of how to milk the public and make a few extra dollars.
So back to the computer and prepare a whole heap of websites that warn about the forthcoming peril of global cooling. Just getting ready for the next cycle.
Now thinking a little more
How to avoid the impact of a killer asteroid
The dangers of walking under pink elephants
What to do in case of a worst case environmental disaster - or in other words life after Al Gore gets elected
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Global warming
Submitted by Scott h. (not verified) on Sat, 2007-07-14 19:49.
After reading your manifesto I realizied that you are a gited PR. You attack any controversy of your opinion of global warming by discrediting the messenger. The truth of the matter is that all opinions are by nature biased as are mine and yours. If as you suggest big business is influencing all the scientists that disagree with the theory of co2 related climate. Then how can you explain that 8,000 years ago it was 2-3 degrees warmer and forests were miles farther north in North America. I suppose big business altered the information at NOAA's website years ago for this agument. You see the flaw in green house gas theory is that co2 levels do not proceed but follow each warming cycle of the earth. This is shown in the same ice core samples they use to prove global warming. As for the IPCC consensus many climate experts disagreed with the final report and tried to have their names removed. If you beliveve Dr. Richard Lindzen MIT, Dr. Christy University Huntsville Alabama, and a host of experts that would fill your blog with just their names were all paid off that is your choice. However you still can not dispute the flaws they show in the very same evidence that is used to prove this theory.
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Trolling for Truth
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Sat, 2008-03-22 13:36.
Jim Hoggan, are you a troll? I've never seen anybody twist truth so preversly as you. How does the IPCC's cruddy science add up to 'truth' when it has been 'managed' and 'authored' by one-eyed political extremists? Here's an account of how the IPCC 'claimed' man-made climate change;
According to an article authored by John McLean and Tom Harris, published in Canada Free Press, only 600 of the 2,500 IPCC scientists reviewed the specific multi-chaptered report related to the possibility of man-made global warming. Of those 600 scientists, 308 made comments, but only 62 reviewed and made comments regarding the critical Chapter 9 related to man and his activities being the primary cause of climate change.
Of those 62, 55 are said to have a 'serious vested interest', leaving very few credible IPCC scientists out of the 2,500 who supposedly agree that global warming is manmade.
Virtually hundreds, if not thousands, of qualified and well respected scientists who have studied global warming and its causes and effects disagree with the IPCC scientists who were hand-picked by the notoriously corrupt United Nations organization to come to a consensual agreement regarding global warming.
So rather than 'look at the plank' in others eyes maybe you should take a closer look at your own shoddy science methods.
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Climate Skeptic Scam Scam
Submitted by Jack Marshall (not verified) on Wed, 2008-01-30 19:25.
One does not have to be skeptical about the science of global warming to be skeptical of excessively "certain" long term predictions that involve weather and climate, the ultimate chaotic system that cannot be accurately predicted. OK, the earth is warming---it is always warming or cooling, after all. But there are enough credible, non-politically motivated contrarians in the scientific community to remind us that on this topic (unlike many of the others that the author improperly compared global warming to), there is huge room for disagreement. They just found a volcano under Antartica--gee, ya think that just might effect ice melting levels there? All those scientists didn't factor in THAT---they couldn't. A year ago we were told that global warming would lead to more hurricanes. Now a study comes out that says it may lead to fewer. You call THIS consensus? Is there anything that could occur in the next 5 years that would either prove or disprove global warming theories? No! Well then, is it responsible to spent billions of dollars, disrupt the economy, paralize developing nations and divert resources from other far more certain problems---infrastructure collapse, public health, funding social welfare programs, when more volcanos might be lurking? When other assumptions about the effects of climate change may be shown to be 180 degrees wrong? This is an ethically inert and scientifically inept article. When we are taling about such momentous consquences and sacrifices, "broad" consensus and "general" agreement are not enough. God bless the skeptics.
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Jim is that you in the sand?
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Tue, 2008-03-18 15:52.
Hi Jim, talking about 'spin and propoganda' how do you state the IPCC Reports are "the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific consensus in history" when you know in fact the IPCC was set up by Governments, funded and manned by Governments, that the science isn't peer reviewed (or the Michael Mann 'Hockey Stick' which the IPCC has since removed wouldn't have ever appeared).
In fact Jim you know there's so many errors in your 'peer reviewed' IPCC Reports that even the IPCC vice president stated this month 'the IPCC have made a lot of mistakes'. I presume you know he's referring to the many statistical errors in the IPCC reports?
Like temperature gauges that aren't accurate, sea level recordings that aren't accurate, IPCC computer models that aren't accurate, maths that aren't statistically accurate, that the weather hasn't changed temperature since 1940, that the ice caps haven't melted in 50yrs, that there is no extreme weather, that global warming helps plant growth not as the IPCC claims makes food more insecure, that warming encourages rain and makes the Earth wetter, not as the IPCC claims leads to drought, shall I go on and on and on with your 'peer review'?
You say "there is a difference between using your skills, in good faith, to help rescue a battered reputation and using them to twist the truth - to sow confusion and doubt on an issue that is critical to human survival."
I agree with you. Are the IPCC hiring anybody at the moment because they could do with your skills for talking BS.
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Consensus in the past
Submitted by Brooks on Tue, 2006-11-28 07:57.
Consensus has often been wrong.
When Columbus set sail heading west, the consensus was that the world was flat. When Copernicus presented his heliocentric model, the consensus was that the Earth was the center of the universe. The medical consensus in the 1800s was that doctors need not wash their hands in between operations. The scientific consensus was that Einstein was wrong. In the 1930s the consensus was the Hilter could be appeased. The scientific consensus was that plate tectonics was totally false.
We now look back at each of these examples and think how silly it was to have trusted in each of these examples of consensus. Why should we expect that a consensus today should be any more correct?
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Eh, consensus. What are the
Submitted by Owen again (not verified) on Thu, 2006-11-30 17:26.
Eh, consensus. What are the interests at stake? In each of Brooks' examples there is a vested 'orthodoxy' that resisted the radical (paradigm-shifting) challenges to convention for all the obvious vulgar reasons.
A spherical globe challenged the church (but poor old Columbus still got backing from the dominant European monarch of the time for his little whim which suggests the consensus was frail, no?) There WAS no real consensus in the 1930s, you've misrepresented that one. Einstein published his first important paper in his twenties and unless I'm mistaken didn't spend too many decades in the wilderness after that...
Wrt global warming, when we have such an obvious disparity: on the one side, the scientific community, on the other, hegemonic economic forces (carbon fuels etc.) its a bit rich to be trotting out metaphors that present the latter as bold defiers of conventional wisdom and the former as hidebound reactionaries. The battles have already been fought in the scientific community, that's all, and I'm sure they were bitter enough.
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Ah consensus
Submitted by Brooks on Fri, 2006-12-01 17:49.
There was no real consensus in the 1930s? Is that because the US was isolationist in the 30s and therefore does not count? Perhaps you could explain how Hitler got the Sudetenland. Does appeasement come to mind?
The issue of GW is not whether we have been warming for 150 years. We clearly have been warming since the end of the little ice age. Furthermore, the Earth's temperature has been trending upward since the end of the last ice age. I have not heard anyone denying these facts. I have been seeing how a lot of people build a big straw man out of this issue by claiming that there are many deniers out there, who are all getting paid off by an oil industry conspiracy. One issue of GW (not the straw man issue) is whether or not we are experiencing unprecedented temperatures and rates of warming. Our climate has never been stable, rather it is always changing.
Another issue of GW is what portion of the climate change is human induced (anthropogenic). There is a clear consensus that man has influenced climate change, however Oreskes oft quoted article on consensus did not discuss how much of an influence man has had on climate change.
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That's not what the deniers
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2006-12-21 18:09.
That's not what the deniers say.
Frontier Centre: We are all familiar with the modern theory that the world’s climate is getting warmer. Is it?
Tim Ball: Yes, it warmed from 1680 up to 1940, but since 1940 it’s been cooling down. The evidence for warming is because of distorted records. The satellite data, for example, shows cooling.
FC: Could you summarize the evidence that suggests the world is cooling slightly, not warming up?
TB: Yes, since 1940 and from 1940 until 1980, even the surface record shows cooling. The argument is that there has been warming since then but, in fact, almost all of that is due to what is called the “urban heat island” effect – that is, that the weather stations are around the edge of cities and the cities expanded out and distorted the record. When you look at rural stations – if you look at the Antarctic, for example – the South Pole shows cooling since 1957 and the satellite data which has been up since 1978 shows a slight cooling trend as well.
http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=864
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Sorry
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2007-02-05 11:32.
No. The satellite data you quote was shown to be wrong a couple of years ago, and has since been revised to agree with the earth-based measurements. The earth is not cooling. Evidently you didn't get the memo.
Here's a suitable right-wing source, if you need one.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/36811.html
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Earths not warming either!
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Wed, 2008-03-19 14:15.
Both the RSS and the UAH temperature records show that January 2008 was below the long term (1979-1998) average for the month. This is the first time since January 2000 (exactly 8 years ago) that both records were colder than normal.
From January 2001 through to January 2008, sevenvyears, during which time global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by probably 15-20% there has been absolutely no warming whatsoever in the lower atmosphere. In fact, global temperatures were 0.63ºC cooler in January 2008 than they were in January 2007.
If CO2 is a temperature driver it obviously hasn't got in the car yet!!
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Consensus in the past
Submitted by S. Coulson (not verified) on Thu, 2006-12-07 21:01.
When Columbus set sail heading West the consesuns was not that the world was flat, rather the understanding at the time was that the world was spherical. Columbus, however, believed that the globe was significantly smaller than the consensus and so, when he got half way round, he really truly believed that he had made it all the way to India and that the people he encountered were Indians.
In the case of Columbus it turned out that the consensus was correct. However, the trip was still worth it. If there hadn't bee a continent between Spain and India, Christopher would simply have sailed off the pages of history.
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Consensus by the politicians
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 2006-12-31 09:38.
Consensus by the politicians and royals, you mean.
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Columbus and Popular Myth
Submitted by Kari (not verified) on Sun, 2007-03-04 09:13.
There's no evidence that the idea that the world was flat was the commonly held view when Columbus made his voyage.
The late Stephen Jay Gould traced the idea that Europeans believed the world was flat prior to Columbus' voyage to a book on the war between religion and science. Gould concluded that the whole episode was fabricated by author of the book to shore up his argument.
There's a big difference between making assumptions because you have no evidence to the contrary, as in your hand washing example, and coming to conclusions based on scientific evidence the way scientists have with Climate Change.
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legend
Submitted by colinski on Thu, 2007-10-11 23:23.
It is a segue, but the legend is so annoying that I had to take the time to debunk it.
Columbus was a poor mathematician but his geography wasn't that bad. He thought he could reach the East Indies by taking a new, western route, although he miscalculated the size of the earth, by about 1/7th (as I recall), and also didn't count on running into the Americas, which were unknown at that time.
It's worth noting that the globe had already been invented at the time of Columbus' first voyage, so we're dealing with a legend that sprang up after his voyages, and there are some obvious sources of that legend.
Washington Irving, a very widely read author, and inventor of the famous myths about George Washington's cherry tree chopping and silver dollar throwing feats, also gave us the Columbus myth.
I'm not trying to knock Gould, especially since I've got six of his books, but it doesn't really matter. Legends like this often spring up from many sources.
Citing instances of the fallacy of the many, as Brooks does, isn't particularly hard, but it's not particularly persuasive either. Climate science isn't a popularity contest, the point of the consensus in climatology is that it's a consensus of people who can back up their opinions with empirical proof. Although I'm sure it was an unintentional example, the legend that Columbus thought the world was flat is a very good example of a belief that many people hold that lacks empirical support -- a true fallacy of the many.
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Apples and Oranges
Submitted by climate criminal on Wed, 2007-12-12 00:09.
Typical denialist crap likening apples with oranges.
The consensus is only important because of the overwhelming SCIENTIFIC evidence.
You further choose to overlook that these examples are primarily of opinion without much science and that exceptionally Einstein introduced a paradigm shift in understanding. The problem for people like you is that there aren't any Einsteins in the Denialist camp! In-fact there's only one half-decent scientist [Lindzen], but there sure has been a lot of fossil-fuel money going their way!
Your example of the consensus in the time of Columbus overlooks the Greek Eratosthenes [276 BC - 194 BC] had already calculated the radius of the Earth.
All in all, your argument has gone rather flat!
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Lemons
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Wed, 2008-03-19 14:22.
Actually there's 19,000 scientists that have signed a petition against the 2,500 (maximum) of the IPCC.
The IPCC is flat because there is absolutely no proof whatsoever CO2 is a temperature driver. The only 'proof' is IPCC computer simulations with CO2 theories.
Since its iception the IPCC has yet to find 1 sliver of evidence CO2 is a driver. Indeed even the IPCC's vice president has said we should wait until there's more scientific evidence. If he doesn't believe, and it's hard to when the IPCC Reports don't demonstrate any evidence other than computer game science, then why should anyone else!
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Is there even a consensus?
Submitted by Brooks on Tue, 2006-11-28 00:00.
I keep on reading about a consensus that claims:
1. The climate is rapidly changing at an unprecedented pace.
2. Man's actions are the cause of climate change.
3. We must take drastic action immediately to avoid catastrophe.
Let's consider each of these claims.
1. There is no question that the climate is changing. The Earth's climate has always changed. But is the change really unprecendented? Do 98.5% of all the world's scientists agree that we are experiencing unprecedented change?
2. Surely man's actions are contributing to climate change, but how much of the change is attributable to man? Is it 100%? Do 98.5% of the world's scientists accept that man is causing 100% of climate change? I would find this extraordinarely surprising because Lonnie Thompson does not believe that man is causing 100% of climate change.
3. I believe that we all need to take actions to reduce our energy usage. I am certain that most scientists agree with this also, but does that mean that 98.5% of the world's scientists agree that we need to take the extraoridinary steps laid out in the Kyoto agreement?
When people say that there is a scientific consensus, what does it really mean? Doesn't it really mean that most scientists agree that:
A. The climate is changing.
B. Man's actions are contributing to climate change.
C. We all need to take actions to reduce our energy use.
A., B., and C. are similar to but somewhat different from 1., 2., and 3. Agreement with A., B., and C. does not mean acceptance of 1., 2., and 3.
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Excellent website. Much of
Submitted by Owen (not verified) on Thu, 2006-11-30 17:03.
Excellent website.
Much of the discussion from the skeptic side of the posts here focusses on reported scientific consensus on the issue. Leaving aside the dead horse aspect of that discussion - I mean, shall we move on to how well George is doing in Iraq? - are you all completely oblivious to the swarm of anecdotal reportage that is creeping into mainstream media? Have none of you flipped open a National Geographic to see the splendidly irrefutable colour illustrations showing for example the rapid shrinkage of Greenland's icecap? I mean, even if you dispute the anthropogenic component - and, really, in the interests of do-no-harm the onus is on you to provide credible alternatives...strangely absent...to this generally held hypothesis - it must still cross your minds to speculate, well, what ARE the implications of all that thawing ice releasing into the oceans? And the crudest research will furnish good data you can develop yourself on that, in terms of volume, temperature changes, etc.
What of all this documented species extinction or migration? 70k/year north...these phenomena are showing up across disciplines, from butterflies to plankton to polar bear to the arrival of spring...the data is coming in across disciplinary boundaries, its long past 'containable'...doesn't that make any of you just the least bit nervous? There MAY actually be something to it?
Nah! What do scientists know, eh? All just victims of fashion, apparently.
And I agree with the poster who opined that the ringleaders should be properly dealt with. Automobile executives who oversaw the development and marketting of the SUV phenomenon, in the face of already abundant gw science, likewise oil, and their political bagmen...all culpable, long jail sentences all round. I'm not kidding. Not that it'll do any good.
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Don't believe your eye
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Wed, 2008-03-19 07:14.
Owen, when you flip open a National Geographic you might also see the Earths creatures enjoying one of the planets warm periods which leads to the greatest bio-diversity, greatest plant growth, greatest food production and greatest wealth in the entire food chain.
You might also flip open the 2007 IPCC Report where it states the ice-caps haven't changed mass or area and are NOT melting away.
You might also like to look up some temperature charts that Earth hasn't changed since 1940, that extreme weather is no different today than it was in 1940 and that you might come to the conclusion there's nothing going on with the weather.. all is well.
I know it's hard t swallow but like crime reporting, weather reporting has become 24 hour hyperbole. Both crime figures and climate have hardly changed in decades but 24 hour media would make you think the Earths falling apart. It's not true. Wise Up.
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*more* than 98.5% agree
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2006-12-21 18:10.
*more* than 98.5% agree
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Agree, with what?
Submitted by Brooks on Sun, 2006-12-24 11:43.
With what exactly do all these people agree?
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anthropogenic greenhouse effect
Submitted by colinski on Thu, 2007-10-11 23:28.
The "consensus" is on the anthropogenic greenhouse effect.
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98.5% of IPCC
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Wed, 2008-03-19 14:28.
98.5% of the IPCC's 2,500 scientists may believe in man-made Global warming. Unfortunately 19,000 scientists outside of the IPCC disagree and have bothered to sign a petition against this unproven 'theory'.
If science was a popularity vote the IPCC theory would be history already. Even if it's not the theory is still being left in tatters every year that science reveals the real movers of climate have nothing to do with CO2 levels.
IPCC RIP.
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GW is bunk
Submitted by NH (not verified) on Tue, 2007-10-23 00:03.
The earth warms and cools in cycles over the years.
Man cannot possibly cause or control this.
Dinosaurs died out without the help of humans.
What happened to the 'coming ice age' we were supposed to have that they warned us about in the 70s?
Those of us with memories don't buy this current scare tactic.
1 degree is not enough to do anything.
People like you want us all to stop breathing I guess, because we create Co2.
Conclusion:
Liberals always want us to whine about something. But GW is not one of them.
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Right Method - Wrong Conclusion
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Thu, 2008-03-27 06:28.
The only 'people' who say that there is a scientific 'consensus' are funnily enough those that are in a distinct minority. The pro-warming troop. And the only 'people' that say that 'the debate is over' are the same pro-warming troops. The only people that say we need to 'act fast.. without delay' are also these same pro-warming people. And the only people that say 'it won't cost alot' are these same pro-warming protagonists.
But the vast majority of the worlds scientists (19,000 and counting) don't believe the science is established or that any of this scaremongering or the proposed actions are at all neccessary or will alter Earths climate. And the longer a real debate goes on the faster the proof piles up aganist this minority of pro-warmers.
The science against this pro-warming minority is aleady substantial and pretty overwhelming. Science isn't about consensus but if you claim it you better get your facts straight and it doesn't appear the pro-warmers have even got that part right either!
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Since you asked -
Submitted by J. Althaus (not verified) on Sun, 2007-01-14 01:43.
Climate Science was combined with Politics at the insistence of the Reagan Administration. The original proposed framework to write the international climate reports was that scientists from each country would do the work and write the reports. Reagan officials didn't care much for that. And since they felt so strongly against big government, they insisted on an equal number of government officials for each country. It was a way to water down any conclusions they might not like. The result - scientists essentially write the seperate Science Reports. But the Summary Reports are the combined work of scientists and officials.
I am giving the link to Vice President Gore's response again below. The extra characters that somehow appear at the start and end of the link might prevent readers from viewing it, (unlike the other 3 links given). Just an oversight, no doubt. Al Gore:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/19/nclim19.xml
There is also the reply made by the director of An Inconvenient Truth. George Monbiot:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1947248,00.html
A wikipedia search will show that Mr Monckton is also the 3rd Viscount of Benchley and loves to create puzzles to stump others. He offers (and pays) large prizes for the solution. He is apparently 'self-taught' in climate science since his schooling is in journalism/publishing. So he isn't part of the regular fossil-fuel-funded denial network. Rather a guy who likes to show he is smarter than others. However as the two links above show, his writing is sprinkled heavily with their red-herrings.
I am giving the link to Vice President Gore's response again below. The extra characters that somehow appear at the start and end of the link might prevent readers from viewing it, (unlike the other 3 links given). Just an oversight, no doubt. Al Gore:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/19/nclim19.xml
There is also the reply made by the director of An Inconvenient Truth. George Monbiot:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1947248,00.html
A wikipedia search will show that Mr Monckton is also the 3rd Viscount of Benchley and loves to create puzzles to stump others. He offers (and pays) large prizes for the solution. He is apparently 'self-taught' in climate science since his schooling is in journalism/publishing. So he isn't part of the regular fossil-fuel-funded denial network. Rather a guy who likes to show he is smarter than others. However as the two links above show, his writing is sprinkled heavily with their red-herrings.
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Hockey Stick hit Al Gore
Submitted by JohnnyB (not verified) on Wed, 2008-03-19 07:39.
J. Althaus, in your link to Al Gore's critique of Lord Monckton, Al Gore claims the '..National Academy of Sciences eventually put together a formal panel... which vindicated the main findings embodied in the "hockey stick".
Al Gore is clearly living in a dream world. The Mann Hockey Stick chart is statistical nonsense as proven by leading sstatisticians Dr Edward Wegman who found that Mann made a basic error that "may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology."
Dr Wegmans expert panel concluded "Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported," Wegman stated, adding that "The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable."
The IPCC 2007 Report now has the infamous Michael Mann Hockey Stick graph removed which tells us all we need to know!
And Al Gore also falsely claims "..the basic facts remain the same. What the models have shown, unequivocally, is that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases mainly released from industrial activities are warming the planet."
Yes "models" Mr Gore. Models are not and have not and cannot replicate Earths climate. The reality is there is no evidence whatsoever CO2 levels has ever been a temperature driver in Earths 650million year history or as far back as ice-core samples go - 140,000yrs. There is nothing but the weakes case that CO2 is a temperature driver. It remains unproven speculation. Fact.
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Hi Jim, Got to admit you
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2007-03-23 01:58.
Hi Jim, Got to admit you taught me a lesson or two tonught. Not about global climate change - because we should all know by now that everything in life changes to a certain degree including the planet we live on. No what you taught me was how greedy folk are. The debate over climate change and how much, if any, is due to the influence of man and woman for that matter is an issue that concerns many. I have websites and blogs that are commercially run. Yes I make money.
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only 1%?
Submitted by livewell (not verified) on Wed, 2007-04-04 03:05.
If humans only contribute 1 degree F to the climate change, why was there up to a 3 degree difference of mean ground temprature after 3 days of 'no fly' after 9/11...and why did I only hear one mention of it (on CBC, I think it was 9/15/01 on Dispatches).
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Clean Air after 9/11
Submitted by Harold Pierce (not verified) on Tue, 2008-03-11 11:29.
Hello LIvewell!
The most likely explanation is that amount of particulate matter such as soot from the jet engines was greatly reduced. Black carbon in the lower absorbs out-going long wave infrared radiation and warms the air. However, too much of these particles can block the incoming sunlight.
These effects are highly dependent on altitude and the weather. Rain tends to wsh these particles out of the air.
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only 1%?
Submitted by livewell (not verified) on Wed, 2007-04-04 03:06.
If humans only contribute 1 degree F to the climate change, why was there up to a 3 degree difference of mean ground temprature after 3 days of 'no fly' after 9/11...and why did I only hear one mention of it (on CBC, I think it was 9/15/01 on Dispatches).
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do your homework
Submitted by Dave (not verified) on Wed, 2007-04-18 08:01.
...come on, do at least a bit of fact checking on these two scientists at USC - they're petro-geologists who both have worked for major oil companies. And, there's a big difference between "looking" for consensus, and recognizing it when it's there.
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Wow I thought only the White
Submitted by me (not verified) on Wed, 2007-06-27 17:50.
Wow I thought only the White House engaged in such tactics.
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Nuking the islamies???
Submitted by Nancy (not verified) on Sun, 2007-10-14 09:21.
How lovely! What a great solution for our planet - more hatred and destruction. Kent - be part of the solution, not the problem.
Nancy
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Reversed Logic
Submitted by climate criminal on Tue, 2007-10-30 03:21.
Consensus is not needed as you should know full-well. The consensus is ONLY important because the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are convinced by the scientific evidence!
The science of climate change ONLY became politicized when Republican Politicians decided to do so.
The flawed line of reasoning is:
The US economy requires abundant cheap energy.
Claims that climate change AKA global warming is caused by CO2 emissions implies carbon taxes.
Carbon taxes imply harm to the US economy are made
Therefore, anyone who mentions any of the following is part of a Left-wing conspiracy, COMMUNIST PLOT or some other clap-trap!
When, in-fact this is a great opportunity, one not to be missed for all the right reasons.
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Since when is consensus required in Science??