CLIMATE CHANGE CONFUSION. AGAIN
I've mentioned here and here what my confused thoughts are on the whole debate about whether or not humans are responsible for the earth's current changing of climate.
I am confused even more at this latest story that scientists at the University of East Anglia manipulated data to support the theory of man-made climate change.
A few e-mails taken out of time and context should not wipe out all the data, research and accumulative opinions of the scientific community about the cause of this phenomena. But in terms of political will and public faith, this news might be cataclysmic.
I don't know whether the leaking of these e-mails is all sound and fury signifying nothing or if it is the first blast of evidence that will show us that a small number of trusted and powerful scientists, with good or bad intentions, tried to dupe the world into believing something the evidence did not support.
However, I don't believe that asking why the earth's climate is changing is as important as the fact that it is - and that we need to make our environment capable of dealing with extreme weather. As the recent floods in Cumbria have shown us, the readiness is all.
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I found this video helpful in explaining why much of the reporting has been all sound and fury without too much substance.
It isn't just 'a few e-mails', they comprise about 5% of the released material. To get a handle on it all see Understanding Climategate's Hidden Decline by Marc Sheppard.
This too tells you a lot.
Climate change denial consists of a concerted attack by the right. The evidence for AGW is overwhelming. The deniers constantly repeat the same old canards over and over again, all have been shown to be manifestly false and constant repetition does not make them true.
The email 'scandal' shows some unprofessional behaviour, but god knows what anyone of us has said about others at our place of work. Read reputable sources (sorry "co-conspirators") like Real Climate.org.
The American Thinker article is spectacular. Take two examples of climate history drawn from it.
First it displays a graph of temperatures comparing current temperatures with the mediaeval warm period to show that the latter was warmer than today. This has been widely discredited as the cut off point on the graph is not today, or even 2000 as you might think from the 100 year markings on the bottom, but twenty years ago. Since then warming has taken off and global temperatures are now higher than the Mediaeval warm period.
After that egregious deception, he has the cheek to describe the aligning of proxy temperatures with real, measured temperatures as fraud. Hold on! What is he saying here? The real measured temperatures show a rapid warming that the proxies are failing to match. If he doesn't believe in global warming then is he saying that proxy temperatures are more accurate? Does he think we should abide by the proxies instead? I know, instead of sticking my head out of the door and thinking it is bleeding cold I should go and count a few tree rings and decide that it is warm for the time of year and wear a tee shirt.
To buy the line being spun, you have to believe that either tens of thousands of scientists, hundreds of research institutes in countries all over the planet (possibly in league with some ice caps, glaciers, South Sea Islanders, and the odd Polar Bear) are involved in a massive global conspiracy to fool the world in order to - take your pick - put up taxes, take away your freedom, impose world government, etc, etc. Either that or that these scientists are all massively incompetent, in exactly the same way, but thankfully Lord Monkton and Nigel Lawson have seen through it all and got it right. Give me a break.
For popular education the whole series posted by Andrew Brown is very good ("febrile nitwits" - I like that) as are the videos posted on You Tube by greenman3610.
PS Many congratulations on sudden parenthood. Be happy, they are lucky kids.
What would you do without "the Right"? Anything you disagree with it's "the Right", as if that automatically dismisses it from polite company. So much for democracy.
On AGW, what of the Medieval Warm Period when there was no burning of fossil fuels or industrialisation? Let's see you explain that away. Or all the cyclical warm periods and ice ages.
It isn't denial to question dodgy scientific hypotheses, it's science at work. As in Tectonic Plate Theory when the consensus was that it couldn't possibly be. The sceptics [such a more apt word than 'deniers'] were proven right as was Galileo, Newton and many others.
The 'Warmists' are quite preposterous in their absolute certainty, that alone should ring alarm bells.
Oh Gawd. Please, please read some reputable sources instead of repeating what Ben Goldacre called Zombie Arguments - however many times they are demolished they keep cropping up again.
The MWP is fully accounted for in studies of AGW. Contemporary warming is on a scale and rate that is unprecedented and does not fit into any of the cyclical mechanisms. The way that greenhouse gasses impact on global temperature has been established for many decades. The objections to the AGW thesis have all been subjected to rigorous analysis and research. All the results are published.
The scientific consensus is now that there is a 90% likelihood that human activity is the major cause of the current warming. There is massive scientific uncertainty over the possible consequences and this is subject to considerable research and scientific debate at the moment. Scientific conclusions are always open and are constantly examined.
Global warming is not a dodgy scientific hypothesis. It is real and happening. It is observable, measurable and changes have been documented, cross checked and verified. If I was to use the Galileo example, it would be the other way round. Galileo asserted a hypothesis that was based on empirical observation against something that had been shown by such observation to be false. Sceptics assert something that has been examined and shown to be false to deny the existence of empirically detailed observation.
As for the comment about the right: I am interested in right libertarianism and have studied it. I am deeply disappointed that instead of developing classical liberalism and asserting a social critique based in individual liberty within the context of a warming planet, they have all retreated in a herd-like manner into an intellectually closed circle that hides from reality by denying its existence, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Preposterous certainty is a wonderfully apt phrase, wish I had thought of it :-). The result is that libertarian thought is marginalising itself at a critical time in human history. I feel that libertarians need to wake up.
they have all retreated in a herd-like manner into an intellectually closed circle that hides from reality by denying its existence,
otherwise known as projection
the AGW thesis have all been subjected to rigorous analysis and research.
That's not what comes out of the CRU files.
Big mess in Hopenhagen, eh?
After my last rather flippant comments, a more sober assessment from Shrinkwrapped.
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