Although Climategate is still barely acknowledged by main stream media, it is very clear some of the fanatical supporters of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) are making very loud, chest-thumping comments about Global Warming Skeptics not being allowed to derail the upcoming Climate talks in Copenhagen. This is in no doubt in response to the leaked emails and the acknowledgement by CRU that they can no longer even provide the raw data from which they announced that the world is warming and mankind’s fault. This is particularly damning given their data forms a larger part of the foundation the IPCC had made its claims about AGW…
However, we at the Dappled Planet have to take issue here.
Firstly, it is wrong to call people who wish for an investigation into the massaged climate data as “Global Warming Skeptics.” It would be more accurate to say such people are ’skeptical of the claims of the AGW community” not deniers of the climate changing. It is pretty indisputable that the climate on this planet has been warming, first dramatically, and now gently since the end of the last ice age, 10,000 years ago.
What is highly disputable is how much influence man is having on the climate and what is probably even more contenscious is how much influence are we having specifically on climate by burning fossil fuel?
With that in mind then, the average so-called “Global Warming Skeptic” is thus more concerned that by focusing on ONLY man-made CO2 emissions, we ignore the following:
What if man-made CO2 emissions are NOT accountable for the warming trend? According to geologic history and Antarctic and Greenland ice core data, CO2 concentrations rise in the atmosphere in RESPONSE to warming. Rising CO2 concentrations come AFTER warming, not before
What if by focussing ONLY on regulating man-made CO2 emissions, we neglect other factors which can cause warming – both natural and man-made? Think about that for a moment. What if there are other factors – both natural and man-made, contributing to global warming at this time?
Maybe the climate is warming… but how much is actually aportioned to man’s activities? By reducing our contribution would we actually have an impact?
That means by focussing exclusively on cutting CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels may only have a NEGLIGIBLE TO NO IMPACT on global warming. Think about that for a moment as well!
If AGW is mainly hot air from climate scientists, then that means by focussing exclusively on regulating man-made CO2 emissions, it will NOT STOP CLIMATE CHANGE.
And that means all those dire predictions by the IPCC may yet come true (albeit, again, a glance at the geologic record doesn’t really substantiate the dire claims…).
By focussing exclusively on CO2 emissions, the AGW community do a great disservice to the cause of climate change. If man-made CO2 is not one of the main contributors to climate change on the planet (as would increasingly seem to be the case), then the climate is going to continue to change regardless of the very costly exercise of introducing cap and trade or carbon taxes. This means NOTHING is being done about actually preparing for changes induced by climate changes and by all means, mankind is not as nomadic and adaptable as they used to be.
What if for example, clearing of land and creating a darker albedo for the Earth is having a larger effect than CO2 emissions? This is not something being considered because of the blinkered approach of the AWG movement.
The problem is it is most likely, there are many things contributing to climate change at this time – both natural and man-made. By focussing exclusively on one thing, it is easy for politicians to look like they are doing something when in reality, the very thing they propose is too simplistic and too expensive
The reality is we need to be focussing on many things, and probably the largest thing we need to be focussing on adapting to climate change – not thinking we can control it. That is much harder for politicians to acknolwedge and follow through on. And only the so-called “Global Warming Skeptics” are focussing on that right now…
If you follow the slightly not mainstream media, then it is hard to have missed the news that emails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit have been released with some of the more damning content being distrubuted quite widely on the web.
What these emails and documents show is a handful of prominant scientists who support man-made or anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theories colluding (one might say) to ‘doctor’ or loose the data which doesn’t fit the theory and also try to force people to not submit papers to a journal in an attempt to ruin its reputation. There will probably be other damning emails and documents that will emerge as well.
Worse, this data forms just about the entire basis the IPCC claims that there is AGW happening! If this data is wrong or not reflective of the truth, then this makes many of the extreme claims of the IPCC wrong which means it is wrong at this time to create policies based on scientific data which is demonstrably questionable.
That these emails are authentic is not in doubt – some of the scientists whose emails have been revealed doing the rounds of some heavy spin doctoring to try and ‘qualify’ their statements. Some media sources are up in arms over the legality of the leaks – as if that is essential given many media’s desire to blow open secrets!. Maybe the emails were hacked, although it sounds like they had been compiled as part of a Freedom of Information request which was being thwarted, or maybe they were leaked by a whistleblower. But those emails are real, the scientists in question have been colluding to fudge data for 10 years now. What does this mean?
Well the good news is it might finally force the whole issue of AGW out in the open! That has to be a good thing. As readers are aware, here at the Dappled Planet you could put the whole issue for us like this: (1) Is warming happening? Yes… although it is quite benign at this time, (2) Is man causing this warming? Probably only in a very small, insignificant part and (3) Can we stop global warming if we stop burning fossil fuels? No.
So, we are left with the fact our planet is dynamic, it is changing, it might be warming – rapidly or slowly, we don’t know although we suspect slowly and if CO2 emissions aren’t controlling it then regulating the human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere isn’t going to stop warming. Which means we better adapt to climate change on this planet! And of course when we do that, we’ll probably find a lot of our environmental woes stem from other more easily remedied human actions.
But what about the emails? Well, for starters they are a HUGE blow to government’s wanting a new source of revenue, as well as companies who were all hoping to profit from the so-called Cap and Trade schemes for CO2. Last week, it was unlikely the US President was going to attend the Copenhagen Climate talks in Copenhagen as they clashed with receiving his Nobel Peace Prize. Now suddenly he is opening it. It is very important at this time for governments to unite and hang their reputation on questionable data because to do anything else would mean possibly loosing an enormous cash cow….
What about all the media outlets which have been screaming the ’science is settled’ for the last 5 or 6 years? Well, they seem to be remarkably silent. We went and tried to information about the CRU email leak at websites such as BBC and CNN. We had to dig very deep – to only find the odd opinion piece. Other media outlets like CBS, ABC, NBC (USA), Fairfax (Australia) and CBC (Canada) are all but ignoring it. At best, by plugging in search terms into their websites, you may find someone has managed to sneak in an opinion piece - not an article at all by a full time journalist or a headline news item, just an opinion piece by a blogger or contrinutor to the media. That is disgraceful! This is major news because it calls into doubt the entire legitimacy of the climate talks in 2 weeks time, talks which might have a huge and largely negative impact on the lifestyle of people across this planet.
But sadly, and possibly the ugliest thing of all, is it calls into question the scientific process. A few years ago reputation of stem-cell research was set back by the actions of one Korean scientist who fudged data. People have died because of pharmaceutical studies not being transparent about side effects. But the fact that scientists who probably for the most part do scientific work felt compelled to discuss applying statistical trickery, threatening people and ‘loosing’ data from one of the biggest data sets on temperature collated so far just because the result doesn’t fit the theory…. In the cold dispassionate world of science, that is high treason!
The beauty of science is when done correctly and not massaged into something unrecogniseable, it is pretty inarguable. For years many scientists have been unable to get information published that questions the so-called proof of AGW. Many just want to present a balanced picture of the vast body of data and factors which contribute to climate change. But basied media outlets and environmental fanatics like Ed Beagley want the public to ONLY listen to Climate Scientists on the issue – and ignore weathermen, geologist and physicists who all contribute to our understanding of climate on this planet (watch his rant below).
Let us not forget, climate scientists are for the most part mathematically modelling data – they are not checking if the Earth’s history does back them up as geologists do, or accounting for all the other variables and assumptions they couldn’t squeeze into their mathematical program as physicists and meterologists do. But geologists have worked out the temperatures AND CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere going back over 600 million years, physicists can tell us more about the sun than a computer model – and at the end of the day… the source of surface heat on this planet is largely that big ball of fire in the sky – it is going to have an impact!
It also calls into question the peer-review process for scientific papers – something Ed Beagley seemed to think was infallible. How infallible is the process when most of the papers submitted are being reviewed by (1) people with like minded ideas and (2) people who have probably co-authored many times with the authors of the submitted paper? That introduces bias right there! And this isn’t a flaw with just peer-reviews of climate papers – the same thing is seen quite frequently in papers concerning pharmaceuticals or genetics.
The good thing about media today is no matter how much the mass media outlets may want to distort and supress data contrary to their platforms, there are is now a plethora of blogging outlets which allows people to get out alternate news and view points. If nothing else, this should help stimulate the scientific process – science happens because people question what is going on around them. Usually when the science is ’settled’ it just means one aspect of a theory is settled – plenty more questions usually open up. The same thing has happened with global warming. Geologists have been quite cosy with the idea the planet is warming now for decades because the rocks tell us so. Physicists are generally OK with the planet cooling a little right now because the sun is being quite calm (for a ball of fire burning at 6000C at its surface and 15,000,000C in the middle…).
But does the science support man-made CO2 being the sole factor in climate change on the planet? No. Far from it. And that is what needs to be debated and if “Climate Gate” can bring that out in the open and force political and environmental groups to really present a cast iron case that CO2 and ONLY CO2 is causing climate change, only then can we really truly proceed with CO2 emission control.
After all, have you ever wondered why chloroflurocarbons or CFCs were banned almost immediately when it was revealed they were having a devastating impact on the ozone layer, but after nearly 20 years of campaigning by Al Gore to start a Cap and Trade scheme for CO2 emissions, there is still nothing firm in place? Its because there was almost no question about CFCs contributing significantly to ozone depletion, but there are a lot of questions about CO2 being the sole cause of climate change on this planet…
Lets now have a truly open discussion about climate change on this planet – one which includes the sceptics as well as the ‘believers.’ Let the real scientfic process begin, removed of politics and money on this issue. Because only then, do we at the Dappled Planet, believe the human race can move forward with rectifying the other damaging things mankind is doing to our fragile environment!
It is interesting to see that as the farce that is the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen draws ever closer, the political machine is cranked up to the max. The campaign is quite reminscent to the one Dubbya Bush ran in the run up to the last US presidential elections where all of a sudden the US of A was under an imminent threat from terrorism and the terrorism alert scale notched up.
However, if you are to be a true scientist and debater in this, you HAVE to know the point of view of the so-called ‘deniers.’ It is an unfair fight when the Global Warming Supporters refuse to listen to the problems raised by deniers and then supress them. To that end, a “Global Warming Sceptics” handbook has been created highlighting the sceptics story.
This booklet has been sent to Australian politicians in the lead up to Australia deciding on their course of action with regards to climate change. Bear in mind, this issue is as close to their hearts as those who believe man is causing warming and they want to honestly debate this issue.
It is ironic that this book raises the same issue we do – that the funding for finding evidence to support Global Warming has been very one-sided and biased. If this is not acceptable when reporting drug trials, why is it acceptable on an issue which could cost the trillions of dollars to the average consumer?
Bear in mind, we at the Dappled Planet don’t dispute warming is happening… we just don’t believe any but an insignificantly small part of it is caused by man, so that means if we spend trillions of dollars trying to lower CO2 emissions which isn’t really causing global warming, then… what are we going to do when we have to adress the REAL issues that are changing the environment we live in- and the warming continues? And what are we going to do when in 100 years time, the evidence will probably be rather overwhelming that all the CO2 emissions control hasn’t stopped the planet warming? We’d rather the trillions of dollars were spent creating a sustainable environment between humanity and the rest of the planet. Not lining Big Corporation pockets on something we probably won’t ever have much impact on. Warmimg is happening… we’d better adapt to it, not think we can stop it.
Remember… at the end of the day, the entire Global Warming Catastrophe is being driven by politicians and business men, not scientists, and its based on nothing more than number crunching in a computer. We have at our disposal millions of years of earth’s climate history locked in the rocks and they tell a different story to the number crunchers. Ignore that and we will find ourselves in a far worse enivronmental crisis than anything gradually increasing levels of CO2 will deliver.
Here at The Dappled Planet, we received a shocking email in response to one sent for “Letters to the Editor” at New Scientist magazine. New Scientist is for the most part, an excellent magazine which tends to present a wide range of new scientific news across a broad variety of science. For every scientist who comes out with some new theory, they will generally tend to find a few sceptics as well – to give one and all a balanced story.
Well, something changed about 3-4 years ago. Suddenly that wasn’t happening with regards to stories on the climate. To a certain extent, that was probably to be expected – the magazine is British and the British seem to have completely bought into the subject to the point of stupidty – as we’ve mentioned other times.
But as impartial as New Scientist is, it has become less and impartial in this issue and finally we felt compelled to send a letter to the New Scientist. This is what we sent (25 October, 2009):
Up until about 4 or 5 years ago, New Scientist magazine was carefully neutral on the issue of Climate Change. And then it seemed to change its policy and began supporting the hysteria about global warming. Since then, there have been practically no articles from the thousands of scientists who publish contradictory evidence to the media hysteria over global warming. Instead the emphasis seems to be all about the mathematical modelling of a potential future with absolutely no effort made to see if this modelling even stands up to the record of past Climate firmly laid out in the rocks. The article, “Earth: The Comeback” (New Scientist, 3 October, 2009) is the latest in sensationalistic journalism. Looking back over a period of 600 million years, we are in a particularly benign period with regards to climate and the conditions the modellers propose have never been seen on Earth – even with higher CO2 concentrations so it is unlikely they will happen now. It is increasingly tiring that New Scientist, a supposedly scientific magazine, no longer does fair reporting on the science of the climate. I have to assume that if you no longer fairly report one scientific issue, then this neglect applies to other articles you write, making you not much better than a tabloid magazine. I just hope you return to proper, fair and balanced researched scientific reporting before I loose interest in to what used to be a respectable scientific magazine.
And this was the (incredible) reply we got back from the Deputy Editor for New Scientist:
Thank you for your letter. Please let me reassure you that our reporting on climate change reflects the current scientific consensus. It is simply not true that thousands of scientists publish contradictory evidence. A few do, but they have failed to persuade their peers that they are right (they are approximately as successful as intelligent design “theorists” are in challenging the theory of evolution). That is how science works; if the current orthodoxy is wrong it will eventually be exposed as such. Until that day we will continue to report the overwhelming consensus, as we do for other scientific disciplines.
Yours sincerely,
GL (name abbreviated just in case but full name was given in the reply…)
Deputy Editor
Good grief -were scientists who disagree with man-made global warming now being equated to Intelligent Design supporters??? In a court of law – and Intelligent Design at least HAS had its day in court, there is no issue at all – there is no proof for Intelligent Design. The evidence is overwhemlingly against it.
But for global warming… one doesn’t have to dig very deep to start finding contradictory evidence. Ian Plimer in Heaven and Earth, managed to find over 2300 scientific papers all pointing to a more natural origin about any (if any) warming we are experiencing, and the perils of ignoring the fact if CO2 is not causing warming… then we aren’t going to stop it by controlling our own minute annual CO2 contribution.
Sadly though, unlike Intelligent Design, man-made global warming hasn’t has its day in court – although the decimation by the British themselves of Al Gores’s movie, An Incovenient Truth, is a start.
However, not at all impressed to be equated to Intelligent Design fanatics when we are trying to point out that focusing on rising CO2 emissions might be the eroneous thing to do if we really want to adapt to upcoming changes in the environment, we fired back with this (comparatively mild) response (sent 17 November, 2009):
We will have to agree to differ. In the pharmaceutical industry, a negative or null result generally does not get published – an issue New Scientist has raised. In the realm of climate science, a paper which looks at the Earth’s entire history to see if the predictions of climate modellers are supported is generally not published either. Unlike the pharmaceutical industry, we DO have a history of past climate on this planet – a history which has been fairly accurately documented to at least 650 million years and one which can be fairly well estimated to 2000 million years. There is ample evidence the world has been warmer for most of that time – and ample evidence the CO2 levels have been up to 10 times higher DURING AN ICE AGE.
With regards to publishing discouraging results from the pharmaceutical industry, there is a greater cry for public disclosure of who sponsored the scientists work and for negative/null results to be published. Maybe the same thing needs to be applied to the papers currently being published by climate modellers – who sponsored them? Anti-’carbon’ governments or legitimate funders? And where are the papers by the 1000s (and there are 1000s) of exasperated scientists who can’t get their work published who contradict the work of climate modellers.
If mathematical modellers can’t even predict the stock market tomorrow or the weather a week from tomorrow – because of variables they have not been able to factor into their computer simulation, then other people need to be able to speak about the problems and limitations of the climate models.
At the Dappled Planet, we were pretty pleased to read this article about the deteriorating conditions of Hawaiin beaches. No… We don’t want to see the beaches of Hawaii disappear – and neither do the residents and other tourists!
No, what pleased us about this article was no matter how desperately the journalist struggled to attribute the deteriorating conditions of Hawaii’s beaches to global warming, the local scientists and residents seemed to be more accepting of local man-made factors which had absolutely nothing to do with global warming.
In fact, the disappearing beaches of Hawaii were, according to Chip Fletcher, a geologist at the University of Hawaii, says Hawaiin scientist “haven’t yet observed an accelerated rate of sea level rise due to global warming.”
In fact, Fletcher goes on to say the beach erosion is caused by several factors, “including a steady historical climb in sea levels that likely dates back to the 19th century.Other causes include storms and human actions like the construction of seawalls, jetties, and the dredging of stream mouths. Each of these human actions disrupts the natural flow of sand.”
But the most heart warming part about this article was the action the residents are taking. Instead of crying for more action to be done to curb rising CO2 emissions, they are tackling the immediate and obvious things man is doing to cause changes at the beach ie they are blocking development in new areas. We wonder if they will take the next step of removing seawalls and jetties…
Did you read that? Good old fashioned erosion due to man made structures is destroying the Hawaiin beaches faster then the gradually increasing concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere! At last, a mention of another aspect which can also cause beach erosion beyond rising CO2 emissions! In fact, a blunt admission really that the rising CO2 emissions are having next to no impact on the beaches versus the man made structures!
Anyway. It is encouraging to see people starting to realise the immediate danger to the environment isn’t necessarily (and generally rarely) man made emissions of CO2, but other actions being done on behalf of humanity – and then acting intelligently with knowledge of the consequences in mind.
This is what we argue for all the time at The Dappled Planet – not mindless submission to control CO2 emissions in which usually, only a government benefits by being able to impose taxes and some scientists get enough funding to keep the idea alive for another day. No, we want people to take immediate actions to rectify the OTHER things mankind does to damage the environment, take immediate action to modify or better manage these OTHER actions to help protect and preserve our precious environment. Maybe if we better managed our environment, rather than deferring the entire problem to something which cannot and will not be rectified – or proven – for several more decades while we wait for the Great Proof we alone are causing CO2 concentrations to rise catastrophically, (deep breath) we will preserve far larger chunks of our diverse environment than by just trying to tame CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. [Ed's note: we realise some people think there is Great Proof of anthropogenic warming.. but if the science was as settled as Al Gore says it is, there wouldn't be a raging debate between the science world and the political/media world over the issue - they'd all be in agreement...and they are not]
Of course, it did not escape the more cynical of The Dappled Planet that only geologists were quoted in this article, and none of them could be sucked into supporting the Man Made Global Warming Scenario… There is too much evidence in the anals of geology that doesn’t support anthropogenic warming… and too much to say if we continue trying to control one aspect of climate, we are doomed to a lot worse than rising sea levels!
As we keep maintaining, its better to work on adapting to and controlling the myriad of smaller things mankind is doing to threaten the environment on the planet, rather than focus on one thing which is so hopelessly beyond our control – and with a time frame that exceeds that of the average human being (unless you like playing with numbers in a computer). If we can focus our efforts on reducing our impact on the environment with the more immediate things – like dredging and sea walls, in all probability, we won’t be so greatly impacted by CO2 concentrations because we’ve already removed the main factor causing the environmental degradation.
Go Hawaii… go save your beaches by preventing development of the very man-made artifacts that erode the beaches! It’s a much quicker and longer lasting way to preserve your beaches than hoping the world will come to an agreement over CO2 emissions.
