Are you the kind of person who, upon hearing Establishment Authorities link up like a mad chorus chanting in unison about any subject, say to yourself, "Whoops, that is suspicious, I'd better check into it personally to verify if it is true?" Then this page is for you.
The Establishment Authorities are certainly chanting now about "global warming." Network television has already presented one special, "Too Hot Not To Handle", and on Sunday night Discovery will air a 2-hour program hosted by Tom Brokaw called "Global Warming, What You Need to Know." In addition, two "films" (I won't say which ones are fiction) called "The Day After Tomorrow" (global Ice Age due to man's CO2 emissions) and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" (global melt down due to man's CO2 emissions) have passed into the culture. Last night I watched a National Geographic show warning of a Big Freeze due to global warming!
My hope is that you will visit some of the sites listed below and then go "googling" yourself. The issue is intensely complex, few facts are actually proven, the science is brand new, the variables are slippery and there is a political football bouncing off heads.
This page lists Myths of Global Warming. The Establishment Authority dogma will be briefly stated, after which I offer my rebuttal, with links to websites in support; there are plenty of Establishment Authority sites screaming the "sky is falling," you can find those on your own. This page is for people with open minds concerning facts 'off-dogma.'
I urge you with all the intensity I can muster to not take anything on faith or reputation on either side; when someone makes an assertion and adds no 'uncertainty clause', require them to prove it. Think for yourself and go deep.
Conventions:
AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming = the paradigm that the earth is warming at an unprecedented and abnormal rate causing ice to melt, oceans to rise, climate to change. This is attributed to the activities of man since the industrial revolution, principally the release of CO2 into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels.
TEA = The Establishment Authority. This refers to the interlocking cartel of taxpayer-funded professors, leftish-intellectuals, corporate news media pundits, government policy makers, environmental activists, UN agency operatives and a community of climate scientists who have agreed to a consensus (See Myth #6 below) that AGW is real, is irrefutably proven, is drastic, is immensely dangerous and requires massive intercession into the industrialized capitalistic sector to control.
Personal Position: To state the obvious, I reject the totalizing, disingenuous "irrefutable" new global warming orthodoxy. I don't say they have everything wrong, that there is absolutely no harm caused by modern industrial or agricultural practices, nor that every soldier in the Global Warming army has it "in for" the oil companies and capitalism, but they are issuing so much propaganda, exaggerating so many points, and feeding on a constructed reality bandwagon called "a consensus," that holds people as the main culprits, I felt my time worth while digging into the facts as deep as I have, and presenting them in this memo.
Just so you know my
exact position, if
Global Warming means:
"the Earth is warming since 1850" or "CO2 levels are rising" or "Human activity contributes to the CO2 rise" or "It will continue to be warm over the next 300 yrs and possibly for longer, with likelihood of small amount of ice melt and sea level rise", thenI am on board. I accept these things as fact. Anything more drastic, you've got a fight on your hands.
Thank you for reading,
John Donohue
Ice House = A period of very cold conditions on earth, an aberration from the normal hot planet. In an Ice House, mean temperature falls from the normal 22 Celsius to 12-14 Celsius. Ice caps and heavy glaciation appear, whereas normally the Earth has no ice. There have been three Ice House periods in the last 542 million years (the Phanerozoic Eon). We are in one now.
NOTE: All the Ice Houses accepted as proven for the Phanerozoic Eon amount to about 4% of the life of the earth. There are hypotheses that in past Eons there may have been other Ice Houses, even several "Snowball Earth" scenarios. http://www.palaeos.com/Proterozoic/Neoproterozoic/Cryogenian/Snowballs.html These are NOT proven. If true, they would amount to another 10% of the Earth's history. So, for 86%-95% of Earth's history there has been no ice -- no glaciers, ice caps or floating ice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_glaciation
Fahrenheit/Celsius converter: http://www.csgnetwork.com/tempconvjava.html
NOTE: on this web page all temperatures are Celsius unless otherwise noted. In Celsius, 0 degrees is the freezing point of water and 100 degrees is the boiling point of water at sea level. In the United States it is common to call this scale "centigrade". I am going along with the convention Celsius for this page. [there is more to this issue, but now is not the moment.]
Suggested starting points for investigation:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
This site presents an exceptionally clear overview of climate change and geological time. It is richly linked and referenced and the graphs are top notch.
http://junkscience.com/
This site has a definite point of view: 'there has been some warming recently, and some of it man-made though varied activities (but not chiefly because of CO2 buildup), but "Anthropogenic Global warming" is way over-dramatized and environmentalists have an ulterior motive.' The website has been attacked by TEA as biased because the site's founder, Steven Milloy, "has connections" with ExxonMobile. (see Myth #6 below). If you become skeptical of TEA orthodoxy, junkscience.com is a site for you. Not only is it extremely rich with contrarian facts and arguments, it links a huge number of like-minded sites.
Here is the admirable thing about junkscience.com: there is a daily list of pertinent sites, blogs, news reports and media ON BOTH SIDES of the issue. That's right, they link stories contrary to their position. Sometimes they link a pro-AGW page in order to rebut with argument and links of their own. But at least 15% of the total links are strictly pro-AGW. For instance, today they linked a page citing a report that two researchers published a study that shows that Robins in a certain area show both brain damage and DDT residue. (The horrors of DDT is a sacred cow to TEA, even though such claims have been largely refuted.) Show me one TEA site that links a contrarian site ever, let alone every day. You can search text for the site. There are summary pages that group sub-topics. This is a tremendous jumping off site regardless of which direction you are heading.
Another source: a list of links to articles, go surfing from there: http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_Category=32
Within an ice house there are many (perhaps 20 in the current one) cycles of glaciation alternating with warmer interglacial periods. The big ice caps do not fully melt during an interglacial. They do, however, shrink, but then extend again towards the equator during the cold half of the cycle. The glaciation periods last 40,000-100,000 years, and the interglacials 10,000-30,000 years.
Note: Ice House is also known as "Ice Age", a term not used on this page due to colloquial confusion of it with the recently past glaciation period
Myths of Global Warming
Myth #1: It's getting real hot lately, alarmingly hot.
TEA orthodoxy:
The earth has warmed significantly since 1850 and we are now in a period hotter than any time in the last 1000 years. Yes, there was a "little ice age" but it was trivial. The earth's temperature and climate have been very stable for 1000 years, but starting with the industrial revolution temperature abruptly began rising fast and is about to spike off the charts.
Response:
First Response Point: temperature has NOT been stable for 1000 years. It has fluctuated through approx .9 degree Celsius, up and down. Such a swing is enough to impart noticeable impact on human civilization. Temperatures are currently returning to the levels of the Medieval Warm Period (1000-1400), when Vikings grew wheat in Greenland, although things would have to stay at this level for some time for the wheat to thrive now; the wheat fields are under ice. The opposing swing is called the Little Ice Age, from about A.D. 1400 to A.D. 1850, when summer harvests failed and rivers and lakes, that previously stayed ice-free, now froze over during severe winters. Since 1850 there has been a general rebound upwards. So, three distinctive swings through .9 degree over 1000 years. You can see all this on the graph below.
Source: I looked at a LOT of temperature graphs http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Proxies.htm before creating the smoothed chart above by approximating one that was informed by all on this page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
Nearly every curve of the 10 on the chart shows temperature drop into the Little Ice Age (1400-1850) and the rebound out, with the end point reaching the levels of the Medieval Warm Period. Why didn't I include the odd black line that only comes in at the end, but spikes way up?
All temperature data before 1850 is "proxy" data, meaning the air temperature is inferred through analysis and interpretation of various other evidence, tree rings, seashell chemical analysis, ice core, etc. So, since I am going for temperature over the last 1000 years, I am looking at proxy data only. I threw out the "big spike" of direct measure (in black at the end) since there is no proxy data to support it referenced, and because "grafting" direct data onto proxy data is dubious.
Second Response Point: claims of a bizarre, outrageous temperature spike over the last 20 years indicating an important departure from this .6-.8 degree fluctuation (with an overall general trend down over 8000 years) are greatly exaggerated. Here is the (in my opinion and in the opinion of many) distorted graph competing with the one just above. This is the Michael Mann/IPCC Hockey Stick graph.
So, who is correct? Well, to start, here are two graphs derived from data from the respected Hadley Center, and they display no big spike at the end: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/images/update_images/tropical_upper_air.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Short_Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
Many additional temperature graphs can easily be found that refute or moderate the TEA hockey stick. The best page (but be prepared to study and absorb) I have found that attempts to put various methods of measuring and comparing temperature over the last 150 years, including graphs from the Goddard Center, the most aggressive, hot advocate of AGW, starring James Hanson. is linked here http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.htm I especially suggest reading the section at the bottom of that page called "A word about scale."
For a strong dose of anti-calamity perspective, check out John Daly's attack on the Mann 'hockey stick': http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
Overview of the hockey stick battle, with developments in July 2006. From the contrarian: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19835476-31478,00.html From the TEA: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/18/energy-committee-propaganda/
The following page, however, might be the most important regarding the "hockey stick" issue. Two Canadians, Ross McKitrick and Steven McIntyre have persistently and doggedly opposed the method and conclusions of Mann. As of mid-July 2006, M&M are gaining constant momentum, publicity and credibility world wide. They are forcing even the center of TEA to answer their well-formulated re-evaluation of the data. Mann claims M&M have been refuted, http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0716-climate.html M&M say 'not so fast'. This will be ongoing, with a new IPCC report due out. http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
BREAKING NEWS.....
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, held a hearing on July 19, 2006 http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/07192006hearing1987/hearing.htm with the purpose of receiving a report he commissioned from Dr. Edward J. Wegman and others, who are statisticians. They were tasked to review the statistical methods used by Mann et al in arriving at the 'hockey stick.'
After reading this report today, all I can say is that it is devastating. Not only did the report show how the graph would look under more accepted statistical methods, Wegman's graphs restore the missing context of the period 1000-1400 AD (the Medieval Warm Period) and thus supply the comparison between the amplitude of temperature then, and now. Mann's graphs, and those of the IPCC who picked them up, only display the period 1400-2000, conveniently leaving out the inconvenient truth that we have not yet returned to those temperatures. I urge you to look at this PDF. The graphs start just before mid-report, with the restored context after page 34. http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
Also... The Wegman team appears to have gone one step beyond it's apparent assignment. It did a study of the system of 'peer review' used by Mann. If anything, this is more devastating than the temperature charts. Seems there are severe quality control problems with the peer review system in question. I won't comment yet...I have to study it. jrd
now back to our regularly scheduled dust-up...
Key point: When the current upswing began around 1850 at the end of the Little Ice Age, Earth was at the COLDEST it has been since the last glaciation (see graph further down this page of the entire Holocene). The ~.6 to.9 degree rise since 1850 can most logically be understood as a rebound from that low, and we are just now reaching the level of the Medieval Warm Period. So, the claim of "highest temperatures in 1000 years" might be 'accurate', but not unexpected or significant. It is NOT the warmest time of this interglacial! Many scientists are betting (literally) that the expected downturn fluctuation (or even the next glaciation) will materialize right on cue, perhaps as early as within 30 years. but frankly perhaps not for 300.
Odd. Let your mind grasp what is being graphed here. It is an approximation of the global mean temperature over the last 1000. The graphs are close simulations of official IPCC (chief TEA agency) graphs, the first from 1990, the second 2001 (the year of their latest report).
Wow. The first one is the most radical thing so far. The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are REALLY pronounced. The 20th Century upturn has not even gotten back to the year 1200 levels. (I extended the line up to project from 1990 to now.) So.....what's the deal? If this is the way the millennium looked to IPCC in 1990, how the hell did it turn into a flat, straight-across line for 900 years with a rocket ship straight up at the end, 11 years later (a hockey stick)?
I think you should ask them that.
Linked here is the Wegman report, which looks very deeply into the Mann graphs (which led to the 2001 IPCC graphs.) This is where I got the information to draw up the above little firecracker.
While the fable of enormous temperature spike gets repeated over and over again by TEA, and taken to absurd, embarrassing heights by Al Gore, I have seen no graph or data -- other than the famous Mann graphs (picked up as whole cloth by the 2001 IPCC report -- and Mann is on the IPCC) -- which proves that temperature is doing anything but following a normal fluctuation around a gently falling interglacial slope at this time.
A serious objection to the 'sudden huge spike' paradigm:
The Urban Heat Island distortion issue.
Direct measurement of temperature involved a substantial number of rural stations back in the 1850-1900 timeframe. During the period 1890-present fewer and fewer rural measurements have been consistently taken, more and more city measurements are considered. Also what was once a rural measuring station might now be a built-up suburb. Remember, it only takes a small fraction of 1 degree to seem gigantic on some of these graphs. Potential distortion due to increasing citification of measuring stations and increasing preponderance of city stations over rural is known as the Urban Heat Island phenomenon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island Some researchers say they can compensate for the UHI and have done so, but perhaps not. At the very least, the issue highlights the troubles with temperature measurement comparisons in general. We suspicious contrarians (speaking only for myself) wonder if the hockey stick in its entirety might not be a figment of UHI, or at the very least that UHI supplies the sharp up angle totally missing from many other temperature studies. My suspicion is particularly aroused because the unusually sharp spikes (always direct measurement for those famous spikes!) are not present or much less intense in proxy (not direct) measurements or consistent direct measurement at always-rural stations such as at Armagh of in the atmosphere away from cities. (see next paragraph).
Sobering thoughts for those who dismiss the UHI:
The meticulous English have been taking direct measurements in two separate programs for a very long time. These are the CET study and the Armagh study. The CET study data is gathered in the industrial center of England which has experience enormous urbanization, industrialization and paving(!) over the period in question. The director of the study says UHI has been compensated for, but will not reveal the details of how. The Armagh data is gathered in Ireland at one place, very rural, very stable, essentially the same settling now as when readings were first taken in the 1700s. Yet, it's not as if the two studies are continents apart and subject to different hemispheric climate. The results: the CET data shows a more upwardly directed mean. The Armagh study shows less increase. Neither shows any spikes or sticks, indeed no sharp objects of any kind at the end (2004).
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Armagh_vs_CET.htm comparison graph.
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.htm read about both studies on this page.
We have only been directly measuring temperature in thousands of stations for at best 100 years. Even at that, calibrated precision and consistency in the early days and over long time is questionable. Temperature graphs further back are constructed from "proxy" data. That means scientists measure various markers, such as tree rings or gas isotope concentration in bubbles in old ice, then make best correlation to temperature. In other words, with proxy data atmospheric temperature is inferred, not measured directly. There is nothing devious about this per se; the glory of science is induction logic to build proof of facts. However, all proxy data must be taken with caution; scientists often supply a plus/minus tolerance range, or an indicator of uncertainty, to put the cited figure in context. One particular avenue of confusion are graphed data sets that start out with a long chain of proxy data and then tack on a directly-measured final curve at the very end. The inaccuracy can be confounded by the "choice" of which proxy and which direct datasets are welded together. The result can be an apple tree with one long branch of bananas spiking out of the top.
Third Response Point: we are well into an interglacial period of the current Ice House, so it is best to hold the perspective of the last 12,000 years. Here is a smoothed temperature graph of the current Holocene interglacial:
Another graph of the Holocene, but going back 18,000 years. Description of how just the fluctuations around the 8000 year down slope impact civilization.
http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall04/atmo336/lectures/sec5/holocene.html
Referenced, cited studies that for most of the Holocene, things were warmer than now:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/05/25/more-evidence-of-arctic-warmth-a-long-time-ago/
Holocene temperature history described:
http://www.junkscience.com/news2/carlisle.htm
Summary of the above three websites and the graphs:
1) We are in an interglacial, the warm pause between glaciations called The Holocene.
2) This interglacial began about 12,000 years ago.
3) The Holocene can end any time, in the next 100 years or thousands of years hence.
4) The next epoch will be a big glaciation period, with ice down to Chicago.
5) The warmest point of the Holocene was about 8000 years ago.
6) Since then, temperature has gradually decreased (with fluctuations).
7) The end of the Little Ice Age, 150 years ago, was the coldest point of the Holocene.
NOTE: Item 4 above is a prediction only, not a fact. However, the gigantic forces that rule the cycles of earth climate would have to turn in another direction completely for there not to be a new glaciation soon.
Fourth Response Point: We are well into the third major Ice House of the Phanerozoic Eon, so we should retain the reality of the last 500 million years.
This is the period, beginning with the Cambrian Explosion, during which all animals above the complexity of tiny sea creatures evolved. Over this time the earth has been its usual hot self, about 22 degrees Celsius (72 Fahrenheit) mean temperature and no permanent ice anywhere. During the entire Age of the Dinosaur, there was no permanent ice.
Interspersed in this hot Eon, however, there have been three Ice House episodes. We are at the bottom of the third Phanerozoic Ice House right now. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps began to become permanent in this Ice House starting about 30 million years ago. As a result of being deep in this Ice House, the earth is REALLY COLD right now. Abnormally cold. The mean is right around 14 Celsius (54 Fahrenheit) as determined by the US Government: http://junkscience.com/GMT/compareNCDC.htm
For the source of Phanerozoic Temperatures in the above graph, see:
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
The point of holding the context of the Phanerozoic Eon is that it is good to remember that the earth is a hot planet, There has only been ice on the planet for about 5-14% of its history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_glaciation
When will the current 4th Phanerozoic Eon Ice House end, and the earth resume its hot, iceless history? Maybe in a million years. Probably when the continents smash together again. That will take more than a million years.
The illusion of cold
during a hot Eon
because of the Ice House:
We do not normally think of the earth as "hot" because our species memories are of a cold earth. We evolved in this Ice House, not in the hot, tropical norm, as did the dinosaurs, so we are "used to" a cold planet with ice.
The illusion of warmth
during a cold Ice House
because of the interglacial:
We do not normally think of the earth as cold, because human civilization arose in this tiny interglacial warm moment. When the interglacial ends, it will get much colder and we will have glaciation in Chicago.
Conclusions on Myth #1
For the earth to get a lot warmer, for instance enough to melt the ice caps, not only would it have to be the end of the 8000-Yr cooling trend of this interglacial, it would also have to be the end OF THE ENTIRE ICE HOUSE. In other words, instead of the earth soon (next 10,000 years?) returning to a glaciation period, as per normal cycle, with glaciers down to Chicago, this current upturn would actually have to be the end of a 30-million year old Ice House. If that were so, yes, all the ice on earth would melt. The seas would rise. The mean would go from 14 Celsius to 22 Celsius. The earth would be back to its normal self. It would take thousands of years, perhaps a million years, for this to come about, even if true. I highly doubt TEA would argue it has PROVEN that this tiny little up-blip within a 8000-year down slope signifies the end of a 30-million year old Ice House.
Even granted, for the moment and for sake of argument, a .6-.9 degree increase over the last 150 years on a normal, spikeless wave, all that does is finish the upward rebound from the Little Ice Age, plus previously observed overshoot, which gets us back to a normal fluctuating curve around the 8000 year down slope of this interglacial. Perhaps the wave will continue up for another 100 years and another .4 to .6 degree increase, propped up, for the sake of argument, by AGW. Would a total 1.3 degree overall increase be noticeable? Sure. We might grow wheat in Greenland again if the swing lasts any period of time. It will surely take 50-200 years for that to happen. Engineers in Holland will be challenged. It might loosen the Arctic Ice so ships can navigate across the top of the world in summer. But unless the 30-million year Ice House is over, there is no reason temperatures will not turn downwards and then continue to weave around the slightly downward sloping mean for this interglacial (The Arctic will freeze solid again), until the plunge into the next glaciation kicks off.
My personal opinion (hypothesis) is that the Earth will continue to stay at the current high or even warm slightly for a while before turning back to the midline of the current 8000 year cool down slope of the Holocene Interglacial. There may be some melting of the ice caps over the next few hundred years. But inevitably there will be a reverse bump back to the midline, back to what we have now, and then past the midline towards cooler fluctuation. Then, at some point in the next 10,000 years, a new glaciation will begin. I have no belief whatsoever that the temperature will continue to rise another 1,2,3 or 4 degrees Celsius at this time.
Myth #2: Recent warming is human-activity-driven.
Response: this is called "attribution."
As shown above in Myth #1, this is not true prima facie. The current uptrend is most easily explained as simply a bump on the temperature graph of the current interglacial caused by titanic geological factors that have driven earth climate change for eons. Humans are not in control of these forces. In fact, if the bumps take us significantly warmer or cooler over the next few centuries (the general trend is down towards colder temperatures, possibly signaling a beginning of a new glaciation), we'd better be ready to cope. We won't be able to change it.
Admittedly, there is a possible hole in the above argument. What if someone could actually proactively prove human attribution, that mankind's activities were overriding the stupendous forces of nature, including a 30-million year old Ice House. For anyone claiming human attribution, the burden of proof is on them, since the prima facie case says it is business as usual on Earth. I mean PROVE it, not fear it, imagine it, assume it, lust for it, exploit it or 'persuade a lot of people it is True even if not actually proven.' That takes us to the next myth…..
Myth #3: Accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming.
TEA Orthodoxy: Rising CO2 concentration causes a warmer earth. When CO2 increases in the atmosphere because of burning fossil fuels and other human activities, it intensifies the "greenhouse effect" and traps more and more heat, raising world temperatures proportionately. CO2 levels are very high now, and growing fast, and will soon attain levels as high as ever in Earth's history.
Response: this is called anthropogenic global warming.
First, let's throw heavy doubt on two of the TEA facts with several studies and graphs. The illustration graph below is my own interpretation of the data on the two links below it. Please click into those links to see the statistical data, fully referenced, that informed my making of the CO2 and temperature curves (and much better graphs!)
See: 'Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time' click here: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html (Monte Hieb, with paleomaps by Christopher R. Scotese).
See also this page with a graph from several diverse studies. http://www.answers.com/topic/phanerozoic-carbon-dioxide-png NOTE: The graphs are drawn in reverse direction, with 'now' being at the left side instead of the right.
1) Does high concentration of CO2 force high temperature? In the above graphs of the Phanerozoic Eon, 17-20 Degrees Celsius or so is the temperature below which it gets cold enough for ice sheets to form and stay. We are at the bottom of the third Ice House over the last 500 Million years. When this Ice House began, about 30 million years ago, CO2 levels were around 700-1000ppm, perhaps three times what they are today (about 336 PPM). During the Mesozoic dip, levels were on the order of 2500 PPM. In the Paleozoic, there was an incredible temperature drop with CO2 levels in the range of 4200 PPM and rising.
2) Is CO2 extraordinarily high right now? Au contraire, we are in a period of extremely low CO2 levels, perhaps the lowest in 650 million years. During many past times of heavy glaciation (and not), CO2 levels were 10 times. 20 times what they are now. The high levels of early Phanerozoic CO2 are due to the long change of our atmosphere from CO2-heavy (as much as 80% 1500 million years ago) all the way down to .5% now. Oxygen has replaced CO2 during that process, from the effects of millions of years of photosynthesis. http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Paleoclimatology Regardless of the cause of such high CO2 earlier, the point is that massive CO2 concentration did not drive temperature past 22 degrees C, and further it did not prevent two deep Ice House episodes.
Conclusion: Far from being at or near all time highs, CO2 levels are VERY LOW right now. Also, the correlation between CO2 levels and global mean temperature is NOT LINEAR or causative. The truth of Phanerozoic CO2 levels vs temperature makes it difficult for pro-AGW proponents to prove CO2 levels correlate to, let alone drive, temperature.
Even though CO2 attribution to catastrophic climate change is the most common claim of TEA, it is the least proven.
Contrarian position on CO2:
CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and has an impact threshold. It is indeed a contributor to maintaining temperature, but minor. Water in clouds and water vapor constitute 90% or the greenhouse effect. Of the remaining 10%, as much as 25% might be from carbon dioxide, and some of that may be man-made. Moreover, there is a threshold of effectiveness, beyond which adding more CO2 has no effect whatsoever on earth retaining heat. (Logarithmic, not cumulative/geometrical)
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/MSUtemps.htm
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
If you did not agree with the above position, how would you go about proving proactive, causal attribution that CO2 drives temperature? In lieu of such proof, if the assumption is simply made of a causal relationship, that CO2 level drives temperature, then one can proceed to rationalize away the many and sundry studies that indicate otherwise. One critical smoking gun is that over long periods of time, increase in CO2 follows temperature by about 800 years; the simplest explanation is that temperature change alters the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. One such counter rationale (not proven) is that 'well, maybe rising CO2 does not initiate warming, but once warming happens there is a reinforcement loop whereby rising CO2 caused by warming in turn adds to the greenhouse effect massively and causes/accelerates more warming.' It is easy to see how if a person believes that paradigm strongly, the jump to "run-away warming" and "tipping points" follows immediately. I welcome proof of the phenomena in this section, starting with proof (not assumption) that CO2 actually drives temperature, and will post it here if directed to it.
What actually drives big changes in climate?
Overview: http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/cause.htm
Solar variation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation_theory
Milankovitch cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
Another tidbit is the hypothesis that significant percentage of climate variation can be attributed to the flux in cosmic rays. Here are three links, pro and con:
http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/global/CREC.html
http://www.sciencebits.com/ClimateDebate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=42
Sidebar: Do you think CO2 attribution is settled and irrefutable? Please check out this webpage, which is pro-AGW. What is interesting is the intensity of debate in comments following the article, and the strength of rebuttal, back and forth.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/11/650000-years-of-greenhouse-gas-concentrations/
Sidebar: Mr. Gore, put your cards on the table: In his film "An Inconvenient Truth" Al Gore's shows a graph of lockstep correlation between CO2 level and temperature. He ridiculously attempts to plot a point off the top of the chart using a forklift. We are not sure if he is attempting to post a CO2 datapoint or a temperature datapoint, but it is probably CO2. I cannot find that chart; I have looked. I am virulently suspicious of that graph, and challenge Mr. Gore to post it somewhere where we can see the scale and the data-points, specifically the one he is attempting to plot 12 feet off the ground, and also to provide the source of his data. Additionally, if Mr. Gore's graphing of the projected rise in CO2 level on that graph were to come true, and if the lock step nature of CO2/temperature were true as he claims, I'd say the Global Mean temperature in a few years will be about 197 degrees Fahrenheit. How shall I put this politely?
I dispute this projection.
Myth #4: Accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is spiking dramatically and catastrophically
TEA Orthodoxy: CO2 levels began rising gently since the start of the industrial revolution, accelerated through the 20th century, and in the past 20 years the concentration level is massively spiking. This is and will push temperatures abnormally high, leading to dire consequences.
Response:
We have few CO2 studies that employ direct measurement. It's no easy thing; there is no equivalent to the thermometer for CO2. You have to carefully collect an air sample and then run it through a process to come up with a percentage, expressed in parts per million. Imagine the care needed to assure consistency and control when you are measuring a trace gas with 300 parts per million! Additionally, until recently, no one cared. It's a minor gas in the atmosphere, approximately 2%. Every school kid knows the plants breathe out oxygen and take in CO2, just the opposite for animals.
Evidence that CO2 concentration has been on a gradual upward climb since 1958:
The most respected direct (not proxy) measure of CO2 concentration is considered to be the Mauna Loa Observatory data. It measures CO2 concentration on the top of a volcano in Hawaii and has been reporting careful, steady data since 1958. The Mauna Loa Observations reveal a steady upward slope for CO2 concentration. Below is the graph of the data from 1958 to 2004. Please visit the site of the Observatory if you wish a clickable enlargement of this graphic and general information about the Study.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2654.htm
Home page for NOAA, the US Federal Government's Climate website. http://www.noaa.gov/
Below is a close up of the data 2002-2006. Same slope. No stupendous spike that would require a person to get on a forklift and go to the ceiling to plot, nor to freak out about and make a movie for the purpose of scaring the bejesus out of the general populace. [Sorry, I lost control of my dignity there for a moment.]
Issues with the Mauna Loa data and implications for its interpretation:
1) Many have challenged the overall study (but not the integrity of the working scientists at the site) because of it's proximity to active volcanoes. What if the Mauna Loa site is NOT a 'pure' site, despite the best intentions of its dedicated founders and staff? What if there has been a steadily increasing release of CO2 from the current volcanic cycles now in action in Hawaii of the buildup of 'civilization' on Hawaii? What if Mauna Loa recently became a 'downwind suburb' of Peking and Shanghai?
Mild-ish blogger common sense: http://oilcrash.blogspot.com/2005/12/questioning-mauna-loa-co2-data.html
Rabid anti-AGW activist with the bit in his teeth: http://www.aetherometry.com/global_warming/Section_I_6.html
2) While this is the longest scientifically-gathered direct data set we have, it is only for a split second of geological time. The hundred years prior to 1958 could easily have been much higher, with a down trend at the end, and this slope is a mere momentary rebound. Just as possible, CO2 immediately prior could have been much lower and this slope is a tapering off of an upswing rebound. This slope in and of itself does not predict that it will continue up, or turn down, or go flat. It simply is what it is.
3) I found no significant DIRECT measurement of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere prior to this study. All graphs and numbers prior are derived from proxy information (measurement of other factors that have strong implication for measuring what CO2 was when they occurred.)
4) The data was collected at one location. I have found no reports of proxy studies at that same location that went back to 1850, or to 1000 years ago, or 120,000 years ago, etc., Meanwhile, proxy studies for data prior to 1958 were undertaken at other sites totally different than this Hawaiian mountaintop, for instance a 3K deep ice core sample in Greenland and similar in the Antarctic. Be suspicious of all graphs that end with the Mauna Loa data but extend back with data from a different location.
5) The CO2 study in and of itself has nothing qualitative or quantitative to say about the SOURCE of the CO2.
6) There are no violent titanic spikes at the end to signal any sort of end-of-the-world scenarios.
7) It is important to remember that this is empirical data on the FACT of increasing CO2 concentration; it says nothing per se on the cause of the CO2, nor does it signal what trend would follow for the next x years.
Conclusion: The Mauna Loa Observations are an important contributor to the factual study of CO2 amounts. There are challenges to the data itself. Additionally, the Mauna Loa numbers in and of themselves speak only to the factual amount of CO2 in the atmosphere above Hawaii, not to its source, or to any potential "greenhouse effect" or to any correlation with temperature.
My CO2 position:
The issue of CO2 attribution for warming, and moreover human-caused CO2 accumulation for catastrophic warming with a possible run-away meltdown, is a heavily fought-over issue. Despite the arrogant hubris of TEA in stating that the science is settled and irrefutable, that is far from the truth. I will not attempt to lay out both sides of the argument on this page; the burden of proof is on those believing in AGW to prove the affirmative of their case. If any readers wish to point me to a webpage, book or journal that makes a strongly supported case for CO2-caused AGW, I will take a look and respond more specifically. In closing this myth section, I will simply point the way, once again, to contrarian sites that make the argument better than I can.
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
www.junkscience.com
http://www.john-daly.com/
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
http://www.oism.org/
http://www.co2science.org
In his movie, Mr. Gore cites as his inspiration Roger Revelle, the founder of the Center and during the movie the viewer gets a glimpse of actual numbers being written down! Mr. Gore does not provide the actual data on screen, nor does he provide a link to the scientific study in question (The Mauna Loa study) that others could use to validate claims. More importantly, Mr. Gore leaves out the interesting tidbit that (reported by Reason magazine and many other sources here ) "while professor Revelle is responsible for the creation of the Mauna Loa Observatory that has been measuring the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958, Revelle co-authored an article in the house journal of the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC in 1991 which concluded, "The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time." Professor Revelle died shortly after the article appeared. This conclusion apparently dismayed Gore whose staff worked behind the scenes to spread the rumor that Revelle's co-authors had taken advantage of a senile old man and that Revelle's name should be taken off the article. This sorry episode ended with a lawsuit in which another Harvard professor who had conferred with Gore's staff formally apologized for making his insinuations." Disclaimer: I did not attempt to dig deeper on this point, except to search for rebuttals or retractions, and found none.
TEA Orthodoxy: CO2 levels are spiking because of man's emissions. Temperature is shooting up. The ice is melting. The sea is being raised. Certainly, the thin Arctic ice cover is already getting smaller and thinner, the edges of the Greenland ice cap are melting back further each summer, and great portions of the Antarctic are both melting and breaking off (to melt later) leading to dire consequences. Torrents of meltwater are spilling into cracks in the Greenland ice and reaching the bedrock below; once this gets serious enough, its lubricating qualities can cause some or all of the ice to slide off Greenland and crash into the sea. With dire consequences.
Response:
General information about the Greenland Ice Cap, but with unbalanced reporting of mass loss: only pro-loss studies are referenced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_cap
Even though this next link is generally pro-AGW, it makes a much better, sober, balanced analysis, which includes the Rignot "radical melt and slide" hypothesis, but cites also Johannessen et al (see below) and a second ERS study. It also suggests probabilities of certainty and areas of the unknown with regard to the subject of Greenland.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=267
Skeptical recent history of Greenland Ice:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2004/03/15/greenlands-secret/
Short and to the point:
http://www.junkscience.com/news/greenlnd.htm
1) Every summer, the fringes of the Greenland ice cap become slushy, partially thawed. Additionally, actual pools form and runoff flows to the sea and/or down through fissures in the ice to the bedrock below. Only the thinnest top layer of ice melts, and only at the fringes of the cap; the center remains solidly frozen. Also, there are about 20 'outlet glaciers" that reach the sea, and solid ice flowing down ends up in the ocean. So, there is a loss of ice cap size.
2) Every winter the slushy surface refreezes, significant precipitation falls on the ice cap and freezes. So, there is a gain of ice cap size.
3) When the winter accumulation equals the summer runoff, "the balance" is maintained.
4) The Greenland Ice Cap (current iteration) formed about 1MYA, but the current ice extant in the cap is probably about 120,000 years old only.
5) During the past million years, the cap has not been stable; it has waxed and waned with the glacial and interglacial periods as "the balance" swerves positive and negative.
a. For instance, the Vikings grew wheat on Greenland. Do not attempt that today.
b. At the beginning of the 20th Century the balance was negative due to warmer temperatures, and glaciers receded.
c. The balance has been positive since, with the ice cap growing.
d. During periods of cyclical warmth and ice loss, the ice cap did not "go total" and become irreversibly lost, as implied could happen today.
6) Contrary to some alarmist claims, there is not, nor need there be, a "Point of no Return" or "runaway melt" paradigm. Greenland could warm and lose mass for 100 years or so, then enter a cycle of cooling and net mass gain. It clearly has done so in the recent past (in this interglacial, for instance). Claims for "runaway" need to be proven by those that claim it.
7) Scientists do NOT agree at all on "the balance". Most hold it true that there has been a warming trend on Earth for 150 years, a rebound from the Little Ice Age. However, this does NOT mean there is a negative balance (net ice loss), but perhaps a slow down in accumulation, if that. I fully admit, however, that it could signal a momentary deeper (warmer) dip into the interglacial, or perhaps even signal the end of this Ice House. That last event would see the end of ice, but it would doubtless take millions of years and require some significant change in land mass.
8) Since the earth's landmasses will not re-coalesce into a super continent any time soon, there is little chance that the earth will soon exit the current Ice House, which was triggered when Pangaea broke up, allowing oceanic currents to flow between continents, thus enabling heat convection to better flow in the oceans, thus allowing ice to form as a land mass moved over the South Pole. In other words, the powerful forces that cause the Poles and Greenland to be cold and carry ice are non-trivial. They cannot be counter-acted by a few decades of "extra" carbon emission into the atmosphere.
For sake of argument, assume that the greenhouse effect is highly potent right now, to some extent caused by human activity, to some extent not. Now, throw away the ridiculous apocalyptic Gore-ish drama. What is left? Well, perhaps the current interglacial might be extended in time. Instead of it plunging into a glaciation epoch within the next few thousand years, perhaps it would not do so for 10,000 years. (this is all speculation) Is that a good thing? We can't fine tune the system. With a AGW extension of this interglacial, it might get a little hotter. Some ice might melt. Engineers in Holland will be challenged. (I know I said that elsewhere, but I am in love with that picture, and admire those engineers). On the other hand. In spite of AGW, it still might get colder as the interglacial ends. If anyone thinks that an excess of greenhouse gasses can STOP the next glaciation, that will take some intense proof; it is highly dubious hypothesis. Rather, isn't the challenge to mankind not "how do we stop or handle global warming" but rather, how are we going to cope over the next few thousand years as the temperature drops, and over the next 40,000-100,000 years of a new glaciation epoch?
Excoriating Mr. Gore:
In the second half of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore presses home a projected alarming consequence of a warming earth: the Melting of the Ice and the attendant rise of sea level. He makes a case, using images assisted by outlines, that both the West Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets are losing volume. There follows a montage of enhanced image sequences illustrating the dire results for coastal civilization as a result of sea level rise. Attention must be brought to bear on Mr. Gore's apocalyptic style. After illustrating a tiny portion of the Antarctic story, namely the disappearance of a small section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Mr. Gore blatantly refuses to put the event into the perspective (see facts right) of overall current growth of Antarctic ice. He also fails to place any sort of time frame on his vision of coastal cities flooded and civilization drowned. The fact is, for the worst of Mr. Gore's predictions to come to pass it would mean the end of the current Ice House and would take thousands or millions of years for all the ice to melt. Yet, because of his very dishonesty in deliberately refusing perspective of time line, Mr. Gore (if challenged) retains plausible deniability. "I never said the flooding would happen really fast." True, Mr. Gore, you didn't name a number, but you backed your pictures of a flooded World Trade Center with 'dread music' and you cited verbally the tragedies unfolding upon modern settings, you tugged at hearts by including a polar bear attempting to climb up on a (one would suppose globally warmed) thin ice floe, you intimated this was an immediate threat to the world, and in most cowardly fashion you let your believing audience's horrified imagination supply the time frame, namely REAL SOON. As stated in my movie review, Mr. Gore does not provide supporting references (let alone proof) for his assertions of immanent sea rise. Since he does not, I will simply state that they are grossly misleading and false. I will NOT attempt to refute them directly (he gives nothing but emotion to refute); Mr. Gore bears the burden of proof that his assertions about immanent total ice melt are true, and he makes no effort to do so. Should he ever comply with this obligation, many will jump in to specifically respond to his references and logic chain
Best scientific evidence that the Ice is losing mass:
NASA launched a satellite (GRACE) in 2002 that has been cited in many studies of earth ice mass. This tool can possibly help bring sober factual analysis to bear on a loaded topic. So far, the instrument shows loss of mass on both Greenland and Antarctica. Very well. It is possible there has been a small net loss of ice in the last few years.
Please read here for an affirmative (pro ice loss) analysis:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/2005/2005122121270.html
Summary: "In an update to findings published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by Dr. Isabella Velicogna of the University of Colorado, Boulder, found that Greenland's ice sheet decreased by 162 (plus or minus 22) cubic kilometers a year between 2002 and 2005. This is higher than all previously published estimates, and it represents a change of about 0.4 millimeters (.016 inches) per year to global sea level rise."
GRACE reports a similar rate of loss for Antarctica, even though the Ice Sheet there is tremendously larger. Together, the loss equates to 3.2 inches of sea rise PER CENTURY. At that rate, it would require 22,500 years for all ice to melt. And of course, it would require that the natural phenomena causing the melt not reverse itself for 22,599 years! This is not likely, since a new glaciation is due, unless the current Ice House is over and Pangaea2 should occur immediately.
There are objections to the interpretations of GRACE satellite findings, however.
The data and analysis from GRACE covers less than three years - the satellite was launched in 2002 and the report was published in 2005. This tool is welcome. It measures ice volume by detecting changes in gravitation. With a tool so young and new, however, there are questions regarding how well the interpreters can screen for gravitational variances NOT caused by recent ice loss/gain. And of course, with such a small sample, natural variation that runs in cycles many times 3 years could well be the true interpretation (the cycle might well be on a slight downhill, soon to go back up.).
Further, there are many other more settled, vetted and cross-checked satellite studies that find that Antarctica is GAINING mass overall, not losing it.
Please see this page for the deeper study:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=030306H
(notice how this piece respectfully cites and links the opposition viewpoint before it offers rebuttal. Additionally, it offers due respect for Velicogna and Wahl. It also cites references for its own point of view.)
and this…..
Reference
Johannessen, O.M., Khvorostovsky, K., Miles, M.W. and Bobylev, L.P. 2005. Recent ice-sheet growth in the interior of Greenland. Sciencexpress
www.sciencexpress.org
(search on Khvorostovsky and the paper will come up. You can read the abstract, but the paper itself is only available by subscription. The email address for Johannessen, remarkably, is provided.
Here is the abstract:
A continuous data set of Greenland Ice Sheet altimeter height from European Remote Sensing satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2), 1992 to 2003, has been analysed. An increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 centimeters per year (cm/year) is found in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters, in contrast to previous reports of high-elevation balance. Below 1500 meters, the elevation-change rate is -2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year, in qualitative agreement with reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins. Averaged over the study area, the increase is 5.4 ± 0.2 cm/year, or 60 cm over 11 years, or 54 cm when corrected for isostatic uplift. Winter elevation changes are shown to be linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation.
1 Mohn-Sverdrup Center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Bergen, 5006, Norway.
2 Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, 5007, Norway.
3 Nansen International Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, St. Petersburg, 197101, Russia.
4 Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, 5007, Norway.
5 Environmental Systems Analysis Research Center, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.
My personal assessment of the situation with the ice: Greenland was warmer in the early part of the 20th century, and previous to that 1000 years ago. This reflects the normal ice cycle of around 400 years in this interglacial. Since then, it has cooled and the ice cap has grown. With current warming, it is loosening a little. If this warming stays around for the normal amount of time in the Holocene fluctuations, there will be some melting, perhaps a return to the conditions 1000 years ago.
However, if some of the least absurd AGW forcings are true, this cycle, and/or the entire Holocene, could be extended. That would provide more time for ice to melt. Inevitably, however, the forces that normally drive the end of interglacials will overwhelm, and we will gradually cool until there is ice covering Wrigley Field.
That is all I wish to say about The Ice now. If anyone wishes to engage, I will follow their rebuttals and/or answer questions and supply more references. Thank you, jrd.
TEA Orthodoxy: A consensus of honest climate scientists agree that AGW is real. They say the "science is settled and irrefutable." They claim there is no wiggle room. They most adamantly claim all work having been through peer review, which means it is proven. They claim 'there are few credible scientists that disagree with the mainstream AGW paradigm. Anyone disagreeing with AGW is either fatally unknowledgeable, a fringe crackpot or a shill for the oil industry, especially ExxonMobile.'
Response:
Surely I will be flamed for constructing the entity "The Establishment Authority" as defined at the top of this page, and put to use throughout. "First, there is no such conspiracy, and second, you can't just marginalize everyone who believes in Anthropogenic Global Warming by throwing them into a category and then performing a mass attack on it."
Well, how does it feel?
I confess now, here at the bottom, that I did it for effect. I wanted to give the many pro-AGW proponents who perform just such marginalization on their opposition a reality check. From Al Gore to James Hansen to Chris Mooney (who calls Senator Imhoff 'Senator Crank') you should realize three things:
1) when you resort to name-calling, such as smearing your critics as "deniers" (an intimation that they are equivalent to Nazi sympathizers), you are committing the logical fallacy of ad hominem attack. This invalidates your rebuttal to them and leaves it standing. It also makes you look really afraid.
2) If you seal off your data and methods and ask others to accept your conclusions as 'settled, because my self-chosen peer review group and I say it is settled' you commit the logical fallacy "appeal to authority." This invalidates your argument.
3) when you claim your critics ought be either ignored or denigrated because they receive money for their work, especially oil-industry money, you commit the logical fallacy of poisoning the well. This invalidates your argument.
Speaking to those who dismiss out of hand, or simply despise at first encounter, critics of AGW who have received remuneration from the oil industry, the third point above has an even more devastating consequence than rendering your argument against those critics void: you open yourself up to having the tables turned on you. If mention of a critic's receipt of oil-industry money is "allowed" into the debate, a gigantic case can be made against all taxpayer-funded-institution, academia-based conclusions on the grounds of the billions of tax money that has been poured into your sector, in amounts that make ExxonMobil grants of a few thousands look like a tip at the car wash. I will not go down that road, except to say you should fear the argument being turned against you. I will make one last reference, a paraphrase of Upton Sinclair, a hero of the progressives:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his government contract, research grant, tenure, publishing deal, reputation as an anti-capitalist, collegiate prestige or tax funding depends upon him not understanding."
My suggestion to any pro-AGW activists for whom the above shoe fits vis a vis attacks on critics: resist demagoguery. Slay us with your data and methods, since you hold them to be irrefutable.
So, I now put my categorization of TEA aside. I have a more important dichotomy to present.
Objectivism:
There can be no more solid substance than the fact of the Earth's existence, including all aspects of its factual components, its rock crust, its land masses sitting on plates of the crust which float on Earth's plasma and molten interior, its vast oceans and its atmosphere. Additionally, the flora and fauna (life) on the Earth and all conditions of the galaxy and universe of galaxies surrounding are real. We are not 'making up the the earth as we go along' or constructing its reality with our minds. Its existence is a primary, an absolute, not contingent on human consciousness. Time is real. We are at a certain time in Earth's history, now. There are some things that man has proven about conditions on earth, some things about which there are hypotheses, for which more data is being gathered and about which scientists are debating. But in the end, these facts are discoverable over time, they are knowable to human reason, measurable under a rational epistemology, and can be validated as true.
Relativism:
Facts are contingent and the truth is never certain. There are no absolutes. Even on the issue of measuring things, by the action of measuring we affect that which we measure. We can never 'get outside', so there is no such things as objective reality. Our senses distort our perception of reality because they are not perfect nor ever direct; the message received is mediated by other consciousness and the space between things. At best, scientific certainty is only a 'probability' that something is true and almost always gets overthrown by shifting conditions and new perceptions.
More important than truth about things is the vital spark of consciousness in your mind. It is your living conflux point. Depending on your environment and genes and the happenstance of your education and intellect, you are somewhere on a continuum of Power. Good people own their personal power and hope for a world where no one is victimized under this paradigm. Evil people realize they can exploit this situation, and attempt to compound and horde perception of knowledge in order to use Power to manipulate and enslave others for their own gain. So, as with all issues, "truth" about climate can be socially constructed for good or for evil.
The degree to which Michael Mann, James Hanson, Al Gore and myriad other individuals and institutions are insisting that AGW is settled science, irrefutable, with no room for wiggle or debate might lead one to believe they are being Objectivist. They are voicing their claim is if they have scored a great victory for science and proven this Truth in Objective Reality, validated beyond doubt, gotten the entire world population of rationals to vet it down to the last doubt, turned it into a theory for which not only can predictions been made, but for which it has already had predictions come true. They are leaning on the this as an Absolute Fact.
Where is the humility? The supposed human-driven anomaly is only a few decades old out of 4.5 billion years. The difficulty of taking temperature down to the level of fractions of a degree, with control and consistency and calibrated thermometers, the amazingly sparse number of measuring stations that even try to achieve a plus/minus tolerance as low as the variance from million-year-old patterns their models require to predict disaster, the large number of credible dissenters from their graphs and conclusions, the large number of data sets that actually conflict with theirs and are simply ignored, the tiny set of rationals that have validated the data, methods and conclusions of the theory, the lack of scientists from far-flung disciplines that have cross-validated, the lack of time required to have the theory proven by predictions that indeed come to pass decades, centuries out, the lack of denunciation of pop-science "documentaries", articles, sound bites and movies that exploit carefully selected anecdotal happenstances, the evidence that the main graph that sources this entire scenario is seriously faulted....you get my point. It is too soon, too little, too dubious and the proponents protest too much about normal rational criticism.
The topper: in Spring 2006 Michael Mann was asked for data tables, source-code and revelation of methods used to generate his findings and graphs that later became known as the hockey-stick. This graph subsequently became the fundamental fountainhead for AGW fervor and claims of 'emergency status.'
The asker was Senator Joe Barton. His position was that with such titanic stakes on the table, accepting the conclusions outright of Mann et al (and the IPCC findings driven by Mann) and the particular peer group to which Mann had submitted his study, was insufficient. Some would say that made Barton was 'antagonistic', others 'determined to get all the way to the bottom'. Barton wanted the full basis of Mann's study.
Mann refused, on the grounds that he suspected that instead of coming to him for implications of the settled theory and how Congress should act based on its predictions, the request by Senator Barton had the (to Mann) inappropriate intention 'of proving us wrong.'
But..... if you are claiming your theory is irrefutable, it ought to stand up to scrutiny from all rational people, so what are you hiding? This episode gives the distinct impression that instead of debate having been exhausted and the theory tempered in the hottest possible furnace (irony intended), that instead an attempt is being made to simply close down debate in a Power/Knowledge high-stakes gambit.
These are all signs of relativism, that the proponents wish their claims to be accepted as a true theory or the Power of perception of it having been so proved, even if not thoroughly proved to all Rationals on the planet. They want their authority to go unquestioned, to be the only validating entity for its veracity. As such, there ought be no reason to reveal the methods, data and procedures outside their peer group. The world ought be content with only the summary results and recommended policies flowing out of their findings.
Motivation? Perhaps because they want the power, the fame, want the money forthcoming. Perhaps to seriously contribute to the demise of capitalism simply because they hate it, or hate modern developed civilization as a whole.
On the other hand, perhaps they simply feel there is danger to the Earth, feel that time is short to prevent cataclysmic upheaval, think that humble, carefully proven truth will take too much time. Or, will be ignored, feel that the greedy powers-that-be in the corporate world will simply crush the truth and thrash on forward for profit while the Earth burns,
In all these speculative cases, the upshot is that in their eyes these exaggerated, ridiculous claims and assault on the culture with propaganda is justified. In other words 'well, okay, don't tell anyone, but we are not really certain. But the Earth can not to afford to wait until we are. We simply "KNOW" AGW is true, and we have to act now.'
I am implying serious fault here. Frankly, I can think of no way the Relativism can have a moral motivation. Also, I believe that AGW has not been objectively proven.
Since these charges are serious, I cannot apply them collectively. So, I now officially dismiss putting any individual person into my category of The Establishment Authority. I will charge each with self-examination, since the stakes are high. The reason for backing down? I do not know what is in the heart and soul of individuals on either side. It could be any one of the pictures I painted just above. It could be something else.
Many anti-AGW proponents could hold equally Relativist world views and be playing the Anti-AGW position as a racket. I cannot categorically judge individuals, unless I meet them and have dialog with them. So, for the moment I let all the famous players off the hook, including Al Gore.
However, my contention is that everyone falls into one of either of my metaphysical categories. I contend it is impossible to escape these categories. As must be obvious, I have tremendous antipathy for Relativists. The only thing worse is a Relativist who puts on the Sunday best of the Objectivist and stands on a theory as having been proven on Objectivist standards.
I invite anyone reading this page to reflect on my dichotomy of Objectivist truth vs Relativist construct. Which side do you fall on?
On peer group review:
AGW proponents stand on this point with the full force of their power. Ordinarily, yes, this process deserves tremendous respect.
It basically means 'I will now show you my entire project from top to bottom. Nothing will be hidden. Take your best shot, but make any objections really brilliant and pertinent; you'd better know your stuff. I am confident I have proven my point with previously proven facts, a properly conceived experiment, fallacy-free logic and scrupulous controls.'
The researcher wants all in the group to 'vet' the work, to try in every way to make it wrong. The questioner must use reason and standard methods (fight fair.) He also should repeat the statistical method or experiment itself if pertinent. The researcher must defend every objection with reason and counter argument. This is an acid test, or perhaps better, a trial by fire.
In the case of AGW, there are strong complaints, growing steadily that the peer group process is flawed.
I think the difficulty is over the concept "peer." Unfortunately, the AGW community seems to think that means 'a small group of reputable climate scientists working on global warming.' Stronger criticism extends this to 'and who know each other and elect each other into their corresponding peer groups.' Worse, the AGW consensus apparently feels justified in ending the process at that point, that once their inward-turned review is a self-proclaimed "Truth," it is ipso facto irrefutable.
This is obviously a problem, if true. It's like getting your aunts and uncles on the jury when you are on trial. And the judge is your mother. "Peer group" ought not mean just the close-in group of like-minded contacts (a coterie); "Peer Group" ought also extend out to the broad community of Rationals (scientists and research workers) from many fields, starting with those related to climate science. Just because a knowledge worker is outside the field of climate research, it does not follow they cannot find a hole in a scientific experiment in that field.
'Peer' in this context ought not be 'an equal because you are in my field and I approve of you.' Instead, 'Peer' ought mean those who are at an equally advanced position in ANY science, who can grasp the experiment, and who have earned their equality by proving their credentials as a Rational. In other words, it's not the subject matter or the personalities; it's the integrity-test of the logic and facts.
In many ways, the farther afield and farther detached a challenger is, the better for the researcher.All scientists are trained to be hyper-critical within rational bounds. Any hypothesis that wishes to become proven theory should eagerly be given to as many such Rationals as possible. Among these should be extremely sharp thinkers who, although fair and rational, have no stake whatsoever in the outcome, do not know any of the research team, but have proved their reputation as royal pains in the behind when acting as the Advocate of the Devil. The tougher the outside vetting, the stronger the proof when it comes out of the fire.
Linked here is the Wegman report, which looks very deeply into the issue of Mann's peer group review standards and practices. I urge you to read this PDF, go looking for the retorts (if any) from Mann and judge for yourself if Mann et al are justified in standing so adamantly on their claim of peer review.
Below is my most extreme opinion of those who are working a racket with the Global Warming scare, before I put it aside for the sake of another argument. I do not apologize for this paradigm, it could be true. I think a lot of people are thinking this but just not saying it out loud. I sincerely hope it is not true.
Calling Anthropogenic Global Warming proven beyond argument is a risky play by TEA, but the potential rewards are stupendous. There can be no greater justification for collectivism than "we all breathe each other's CO2." I can not claim that my carbon is my property and my business; I cannot claim sovereignty over my carbon because I can not keep it confined to me. Much like my cigarette smoke (which is carbon, by the way), it escapes my personal space and pollutes yours. And oh, by the way, our escaped carbon from over-consumption is destroying The Planet." It follows directly that I can not claim sovereignty for my life at all, that I necessarily require regulation. All claim to the idea that my right to life is unalienable is trumped by the idea 'just by being alive, you are infringing on others.'
Were this to become the orthodox position, the entire population of the globe would indeed be a collective. We would all be responsible, we would all be victims. Over-consumption would officially be a crime against humanity. In a merciful withhold from full prosecution, The Executive Branch of the Establishment Authority would not put such criminals in jail (where they can control their carbon), but rather would take regulatory control over the individual's life choices and the collective actions of groups of citizens all over the globe.