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UEA Climatic Research Unit row escalates

On lookout for honest scientific appraisal | 02.12.2009 09:56 | Analysis | Climate Chaos | Education

The news that the head of the climate research unit who had its emails hacked and posted online is creating a big stink....

The internal documents belonging to the UEA’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) which ‘hackers’ have made public appear to document a concerted effort to suppress studies which cast doubt on the “doom and gloom” climate change scenarios, and the private sentiments expressed by the scientists associated with the CRU have led some investigators to the interpretation that an active effort to destroy data was underway.

Some of the e-mails seem to confirm concerns that Jones, Mann, et al, have destroyed data. That appears to be the case here, where Jones suggests to Mann that he delete certain e-mails that apparently dealt with the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), which was released in 2007. He also suggests they get other colleagues to delete related material.

In another e-mail to Mann, Jones may have set himself up for legal prosecution for attempting to thwart the UK's newly passed FOI law. Jones says, "I think I'll delete the file rather than send [it] to anyone," and "We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind."

According to the Timesonline.co.uk:

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation, revealing that the data was thrown away by the CRU in the 1980s.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

The CRU studies have been used as the main evidence for climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — and the data which was entrusted to the CRU was of vital significance to demonstrating that climate change is happening.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue. The lost material was used to build the databases that have been his life’s work, showing how the world has warmed by 0.8C over the past 157 years.

He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global warming is a threat to humanity.

In a way, it is difficult to determine which aspect of this story is the most scandalous: That the data was thrown away at all, or that it was allegedly thrown out at least twenty years ago, and we’re just learning about this now — and only now because a Freedom of of Information request required the revelation.

During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.

The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing. The Vostok data graph also shows that changes in global CO2 levels lag behind global temperature changes by about eight hundred years. What that indicates is that global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse. In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperature to rise; instead the natural cyclic increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

The Vostok ice core data graph reveals that global CO2 levels regularly rose and fell in a direct response to the natural cycle of Ice Age minimums and maximums during the past four hundred and twenty thousand years. Within that natural cycle, about every 110,000 years global temperatures, followed by global CO2 levels, have peaked at approximately the same levels which they are at today.

Today we are again at the peak, and near to the end, of a warm interglacial, and the earth is now due to enter the next Ice Age. If we are lucky, we may have a few years to prepare for it. The Ice Age will return, as it always has, in its regular and natural cycle, with or without any influence from the effects of AGW.

The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.


On lookout for honest scientific appraisal

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additional info

02.12.2009 10:08

Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.

On lookout for honest scientific appraisal


Yawn, neo-con conspiracy theory bullshit again

02.12.2009 11:39

This really is a storm in a teacup.

If those few emails are the best you can find as evidence of a secret conspiracy to control the world through predicting non-existent climate change (?!), you aren't doing very well.

This isn't about science, it's about politics, and neo-cons and free-market obsessives hate the obvious truth that unlimited growth and our current lifestyle is fundamentally unsustainable.

If people really want to control the world (hint: they already do) inventing some Byzantine scheme of climate change involving tens of thousands of conspiring scientists is hardly the way to go.

anon


What conspiracy

02.12.2009 12:22

Right Anon,

What conspiracy on climate change? After all, the whole idea of it came from groups like the Club of Rome and the Sierra Club. And we all know how radical and socialist they are, don't we?

Of course there is no conspiracy behind the fact that the leaders of right-wing political parties in the West support action on global warning. Of course, it's natural that they would back it, isn't it?

And it's it nice that the family that made its money from oil and banking back action on climate change:

 http://philanthropy.com/news/updates/index.php?id=2837
August 10, 2007

Rockefeller Commits $70-Million to Climate-Change Response

By Brennen Jensen

The Rockefeller Foundation, in New York, has pledged $70-million to help cities and towns around the world prepare for the potentially damaging effects of global climate change.

The five-year Initiative on Climate Change Resilience will have a special emphasis on helping poor areas develop strategies to confront the issue and the potential for increased flooding, severe droughts, and the spread of infectious diseases, such as malaria and cholera...



 http://ancavge.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/rockefeller-foundation-climate-change-‘will-cause-civilization-to-collapse’/
Rockefeller Foundation: Climate change ‘will cause civilization to collapse’
July 13, 2009

An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, “billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse”.

This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet – obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing “invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society”...

Being ignorant and unable to think straight does help when it comes to denying conspiracies.

insidejob


Yeah scientists can take the credit for the state of the world

02.12.2009 12:51

'' involving tens of thousands of conspiring scientists is hardly the way to go.''
Compartmentalisation, obstructing Freedom of Information, Pyrimidical power structures, cash in brown envelopes, allegience to religious myths,promotions, threats, big egos etc all go to make this possible. I think maybe anon, you forget which side your on. Scientists are by no means neutral in lifes rich tapestry of bullshit and horror. Behind every gun, bomb, famine,genocide etc you'll find a scientist. They have slipped into the role of the high priests and clergy and should be treated with mistrust and scepticism until proven, before they are credited with any respect.





K. Lune


Shock Hackers do not leak the Oil Companies North Sea Files

02.12.2009 15:12

In a shock revelation, today, no files were made public from the top secret Norwegian Data Warehouses of North Sea Oil Exploration Companies. This has led climate change sceptics to be unable to quantify exactly how much anthropogenic climate change is due to their pet conspiracy theory.

Without the critical data, the Climate Change Sceptics have no ability to quantify how little effect humans have on the environment. There was nobody available to comment as nobody really went out their way to ask the Oil Exploration Companies any sensible or serious questions.

The whole thing is a storm in a tea cup whipped up by right wingnut hysterics. They need a conspiracy theory for two reasons. First, the left and radical politics has latched onto a fundamentally true "cause". If climate change is true, they reason, it marginalises their right wingnut stance. Climate Sceptics are fighting for political and economic survival. Second, there is a lack of serious and capable scientists in the "western" world. The liberalisation of markets in the last three decades have made science a luxury item. Climate Sceptics are confusing Scientists with some kind of elite. They are not. They are people who chose to educate themselves in the ways of experiment and hypothesis and scientific rhetoric. The truth is Climate Sceptics want the old world order to be the new world order. They are not Sceptics but Replacementists (if such an ugly word should be allowed to exist).

The data, alleged to be destroyed, is available in the US. The data has always been available in the US. Destroying it in the UK reduces the cost to underfunded scientists in the UK because they can reply: "The data is publically available in the US. Please get it there. We do not have it."

The Climate Change Crisis will lead to a new global economy that will either have huge inequalities - far larger than today - or it will smooth out one of the fundamental inequalities of capitalist economy. Whichever happens, there needs to be the political engagement of scientists. At the end of the day, scientists can walk away from their work and get a job in some service sector. But the number of scientists actually doing science is falling. Leaving a gap in the understanding of science. Leaving politics open to crass and implausible conspiracy theories that play on the ignorance of how science is actually done.

Another Bloody Scientist


Left-wing Conservatives?

02.12.2009 16:45

Yes, Another Bloody Scientist and Anon

please explain why you have such radicals in support of you as the new EU President, Sarkozy, Merkle, Blair, Brown, Cameron, etc, etc.?

I repeat, if there is no conspiracy, why is it that leaders of right-wing parties support the AGW scientists view of global warming? How come they are not backing big business deniers? Why do they support you?

As for the objective, you need only look at the EU President's speech:

 http://www.europa-eu-un.org/articles/en/article_9245_en.htm
Summary: 19 November 2009, Brussels - Intervention of H.E. Mr. Herman Van Rompuy following his appointment as President of the Council of the European Union

"...We are living through exceptionally difficult times: the financial crisis and its dramatic impact on employment and budgets, the climate crisis which threatens our very survival. A period of anxiety, uncertainty and lack of confidence. Yet these problems can be overcome by common efforts in and between our countries. 2009 is also the first year of GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. THE CLIMATE CONFERENCE IN COPENHAGEN IS ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS THE GLOBAL MANAGEMENT OF OUR PLANET. Our mission is one of hope, supported by acts and action..."

It is time people on the Left woke up. Global warming is the brainchild of and being backed the super rich. You should stop being dupes.

insidejob


the real conspiracy

02.12.2009 17:25

In fact, the brave and intelligent souls who have seen through the hideous commie plot have got one detail wrong. It is in fact all being coordinated by manufacturers of white cats, so that those evil EU officials have something to stroke while they cackle with glee in their undergound base BLAH BLAH BLAH.

sappht


Not all right wingers are AGW deniers

02.12.2009 17:56

No one is saying that all right wing people are Anthropocentric Global Warming deniers.

Most of the world believes in AGW, that includes left and right. Scientific truth doesn't take political sides.

It's just that the tiny minority that don't believe in AGW are mostly from the extreme free-market right. They aren't generally old-style social conservatives in the sense of being homophobic, pro-state etc. but they are economically far to the right. They are sometimes self described as anarcho-capitalists, who want an oligarchy (rule by the rich). Mixed in with that are a few crazy people who are generally seen as left-wing, such as David Icke, who just like to jump uncritically on any wacky conspiracy theory that comes along.

anon


On lookout for honest scientific appraisal

02.12.2009 22:13

Then read a fucking science periodical you prick, instead of relying on Anthony Watt and Alex Jones' right wing conspiracy theories about one world governments.

Next up you'll be accusing the Elders Of Zion of orchestrating the whole thing.

Sim1


Sim1, is not the Milankovich cycle science?

02.12.2009 22:39

Sim1, is not the Milankovich cycle a well-established scientific theory which has dropped off the radar.

you'dd do well to actually read the whole article before chucking incendiary comments around. losing your cool and throwing around insults makes you look like you're losing your composure in arguing why I'm wrong - giving the impression you are the one not in control of the facts you vehemently claim are gospel.

Might it be that we are both undergoing human-created global warming at the end of an interglacial which is about to end, which manmade global waming is exaggerating the natural temperature rise of?

Looking out for some honest scientific appraisal


The Conspiracy will not be televised

02.12.2009 23:19

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their application to problems of heat transfer. He discussed global warming back then. So, it is not as though it is "new". It has been discussed, by scientists, off and on ever since.

There is a radical separation between the sciences and the arts. The whole "Global Warming is a Conspiracy" right wingnuts exemplify this. Simple fact: global warming has been commented on since about 1800. The big secret is that it has never been a secret. All the conspiracy theories reduce to is: why were we not told?

The truth is, unless you engage with scientists they will tell you nothing. It is not worth the harassment of being told you are wrong or being burned at the stake (things have not really changed much since the Pope burned Giordano Bruno and excommunicated Galileo). Scientists are more than happy to communicate science. But, not when the only result is abuse, death threats, degradation and accusations of being liars. Just think about the creationists in the US and their approach to the simple idea of Evolution.

The right, in particular the authoritarian right, need a conspiracy - of the super rich, jews, aliens, one world governments and whatever - because the fact of global warming makes them utterly powerless. Without the conspiracy there is no possibility of "taking back power". It is really rather degrading for all concerned.

The Sciences have discussed various models of global warming since the Enlightenment. What have the wingnuts left and right achieved in the same time? The Holocaust, The Armenian Massacres, the Soviet Purges, the Extermination of the American First Nations, a few world wars and some genocides. Now they conveniently blame a few hundred years of utter contempt for science on some hypothetical conspiracy.

Lets face facts. There are interests who would benefit from the politics of global warming being as murky and as controversial as possible. Such as the electricity companies. You might want to ask a scientist about what the future of electricity generation is. Because the wingnuts are not telling you. Nor is your local electricity supply company. Because, like the scientists, they know that the change in the electricity supply in the next five to ten years will signal one of the most profound changes in the political balance of this country and of Europe.

So, when you Electricity Company installs the new Meter which communicates back to them your consumption and use, make sure you charge them rent for it. Better still, write to them now and invite them to tender to supply you with electricity. The simple facts - to a scientist, at least - dictate that the Electricity Company now needs you more than you need them.

The real conspiracy is not the scientists. It is not even a conspiracy. It is the unrelenting fuck up that is liberal arts and politics and the repeated failure to understand what science is and what scientists do. The real conspiracy is not a conspiracy. It is the silence of your Electricity Supply Company about why they pay so little for "Green" generated electricty or why, exactly there is so much nonsense about "peak oil" and so little comment on "peak population". The real conspiracy is the drip, drip, drip of science to the masses.

Why did it take from 1809 to 2009 for global warming to become such an issue?

A Scientist


I love indymedia.

03.12.2009 00:48

Maybe off topic but I love how the animal rights lot love the scientists when it comes to Anthropenic influenced Climate Change and will believe every word they say without question, yet when it comes to vivisection they're up in arms about how all scientists want lie and how you can't trust them.

Ahh Indymedia, how I love thee.

Casual Reader


An honest scientific appraisal

03.12.2009 03:33

In Science there is a well recognised phenomena of Scale. Scale is why Relativity, Newtonian and Quantum Physics are all 'true'. They all take their evidence from the same scale and so are true at that scale. They do not easly generalise from small to large scale or from large to small scale. But they are true. Scale also affects phenomena observed over time. You might see a chicken on the scale of one year and not realise that it is, effectively, the same as observing evolution from dinosaur to chicken on the scale of a million years.

In making scientific observations Scale might not be that much of a controversial issue. The Milankovitch cycles are on a scale of hundreds of thousands of years. To attempt to shoehorn an explanation from that scale into the scale of a few thousand years is bad science. Unless there is a profoundly convincing explanatory mechanism. Which the post does not even start to give. Because the post is more concerned with saying that Anthropogenic Global Warming cannot possibly be causal because future observations will be consistent with what the Milankovitch cycles predict. As they are future observations they have not been made yet.

The Milankovitch Hypothesis of climate change is as scientifically credible as any. But it has lots of holes in it. Such as why are there discrepancies between the known orbital mechanics of the Earth and the predicted temperature on a 100,000 year scale. The same question can be asked on a 400,000 year scale. These are questions at the hundred thousand year levels of scale that do not impact the theory of Anthropogenic Globla Warming but make the Milankovich Cycles Hypothesis look distinctly untenable. There is also a sudden change in the observations a million years ago. Again, at a level of scale that leaves the idea of Anthropgenic Global Warming untouched.

Finally, there is nothing to say that the Anthropogenic Global Warming is not consistent with the Milankovitch Cycles Hypothesis. But there is a strong indicator against the Milankovitch Cycles Hypothesis being a total explanation. Milankovitch’s theory was abandoned when precise age estimates were made possible by Willard Libby’s invention of radiocarbon dating. The timing of the ice ages were in conflict with Milankovitch’s detailed calculations. So the version put forward by Climate Sceptics of Milankovitch's thesis is based on calculations with no consistency with other observations. The problem of is Global Warming Anthropic or a function of celestial mechanics is not actually addressed.

But it makes great rhetoric.


In other news, scientists explain that gravity does not exist.

A Scientist


Saying Prick is not an answer

03.12.2009 09:04

Calling people a prick isn't an answer to why right-wing political leaders support AGW or why Rockefeller supports it.

Those who are sceptical of AGW are far more knowledgeable about the issue than those who support it. They will know that the escaped emails show that scientists who don't support AGW are kept out of the peer review process and that AGW scientists know that their theories don't adequately fit the facts. They are also likely to question such obviously ridiculous propositions supported by warmists such as global warming will lead to a global freezing.

Most people who support AGW do so because they have faith in the scientists arguing it. They could not answer basic questions such as:
- the proportion of CO2 in atmospheric gases
- the percentage rise of CO2 since the Industrial Revolution
- the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere that triggers catastrophic global warming
- the average temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution.

Did conspiracy theorists who think there is a one world government agenda force the EU President to talk about 'global governance'? Did conspiracy theorists force Zbig Brzezinski to say one world government is a couple of generations away in his book 'The Choice'.

So, does anyone have an answer to the question: if AGW is not a conspiracy, why do right-wing political leaders who should be opposing it actually support it?

insidejob


The right wing aren't homogenous

03.12.2009 10:16

The right wing aren't all identical. Some are just opportunists and populists who go along with AGW because it seems to them to be true and to be a popular thing to say. Although generally they only pay it lip-service with green-washing tactics. The faction of the right who push AGW denial are the ideological ones for whom capitalism and free markets are more like a religion and a way of life than a science. The idea that the invisible hand of the free market might not solve all problems, and that cooperation might be need is anathema to them.

And the difference between vivisection and climate science is that climate scientist don't have any great motivation to lie. Vivisectors often work for the pharmaceutical industry, which is intensely rich, capitalist, corrupt and money-oriented, so there is an obvious motivation for lying there. And for the ones that work in academia or elsewhere, well, anyone who is prepared to torture animals is showing an obvious character flaw. No one in their right mind would do that, and how can you trust someone who does? They are like paedophiles who get jobs in nurseries, school, or youth clubs.

Like someone said: "He who would not hesitate to vivisect would not hesitate to lie about it".

anon


the church of science.

03.12.2009 13:21

Scientist - yeah it's the arts that are the problem with the world, not the scientists! (note, not science but scientists)

All those massacres and other things you accuse the left/right of - most perpetrated with the direct results of science and engineering.

Science is now used as a tool to destory the world and lives. Science isn't to blame for this however. Scientists like yourselves are the problem.

ex-scientist


Dear Ex-Scientist

03.12.2009 14:51

Nice Rhetoric.

Hitler was a painter (not really a science), Stalin was a monk (not really a science). We could go on with a long list of the suffering Arts that bring us suffering. Science is difficult and requires a lot more effort to articulate even simple arguments than the arts. It is not really something that more than 4% of the population ever really get involved in. The political, economic and social dominance - particularly in Western Society - has been the Arts since the Romantic Reaction to the Enlightenment. Banging the label "Science" onto things is, more often than not, simply marketing. Management Science is not science but authoritarianism dressed up in the rituals of science. Christian Science is actually a religion. "Race Science" was invented by anti-semitic religious fanatics when they discovered statistics.

The truth about science is that it scares the shit out of most people. It is really easy to use it for malign purpose and the vast majority of people using science are not scientists. Just look at the discourse around animal rights. Animal rights are based on a solid ethical basis. Yet, people repeatedly argue that "vivisection is bad science". No, it is not bad science. It is unethical science. The fact that a scientist can distinguish between the ethics and the practices is new to many people. Yet, if a Scientist says that bailing out the banks is a huge animal experiment people would look at them and - at best - be sceptical. More likely abusive.

And that is the problem: people value the arts (for good reason) but think of scientists as little more than tradesmen. Little more than snobbery. Just look around the ruling classes - how many members of parliament are actually scientists? Not cherry picked bogeyfolk (like the former chemist Margaret Thatcher) but actual scientists?

Science is great for endorsing policy. Maybe that's the problem with climate science: it does not endorse a policy. It says: here is the problem, here is the solution, there is no negotiation. And the arts love to negotiate.

A Scientist


ok, so the assumption that we are at the end of the interglacial is wrong

03.12.2009 15:41

To 'A Scientist':
You have given a detailed explanation to disrupte the voracity of the Milankovich cycle.

A more concise response to my previous question ("Might it be that we are both undergoing human-created global warming at the end of an interglacial which is about to end, which manmade global waming is exaggerating the natural temperature rise of?") can be found here taken from wikipedia:

The Earth has been in an interglacial period known as the Holocene for more than 11,000 years. It was conventional wisdom that "the typical interglacial period lasts about 12,000 years," but this has been called into question recently. For example, an article in Nature[28] argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years.
Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age


Looking out for honest scientific appraisal


Why aren't all right wingers 'deniers'?

03.12.2009 16:12

It makes no sense to argue that big business and right-wing politicians go along with climate change scientists either because they accept the science or go along with public opinion.

If they accept the science, why are they more urgently acting on it? Why is there a need to protest against them not doing enough?

If they are only pretending because it’s good PR not because they believe the science, why are they not opposing climate change altogether and campaigning against it?

Opinion polls suggest most people in the UK do not believe the climate change scientists, so there is no need for big business and right-wing politicians to pander to public opinion.

Most predictions of catastrophe are computer model predictions. In the past, from 900AD to 1300AD average temperatures were warmer than today. You don’t have to go far to find evidence to oppose CO2 warming. Yet, big business and right-wing political leaders don’t. Why?

Yes, most right-wing skeptics talk rubbish. They claim climate change is a left-wing conspiracy when right-wing political leaders and big business are backing it. They say it’s a socialist attempt to shift money to the poor nations, when only a twerp would think that any such money would get to poor nations (a part from bribes to politicians, advisers and scientists).

Nonetheless, global warming is essentially white supremacist. People in poor nations will eventually oppose global warming science when they see that it wants poor nations to stop their development and cut their populations.


 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/24/voices-of-climate-change-denial
The voices of climate change sceptics
Caroline Davies and Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian, Tuesday 24 November 2009
‘…In Congress, even the most determined opponents of climate change legislation now frame their arguments in economic terms rather than on the science – including Inhofe.

In the business world, some of the biggest players in the fossil fuel economy – such as Rio Tinto, Shell and General Motors – have joined USCAP, the business partnership that is supporting efforts to get a legislation through Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions...’



"The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself."
Alexander King Co-Founder of the Club of Rome, (premier environmental think-tank and consultants to the United Nations) from his 1991 book The First Global Revolution

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."
Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Biology and Global Change. Professor Schneider was among the earliest and most vocal proponents of man-made global warming and a lead author of many IPCC reports. He is a member of the Club of Rome.

insidejob


Inside jobs

03.12.2009 17:39

Politicians do not, generally, understand the science of Climate Change. Those who go with the idea that there is something called climate change and that it is a serious thing have been persuaded.

That is, persuaded. Politicians do not understand the science but they have been persuaded. Most usually this will be because they can see some political (not scientific) advantage in being persuaded. This is actually much more serious than it might seem. Next year they might be persuaded that aliens are about to land. All funding and attention will be focused there. Simply politicians are persuaded but do not understand.

They fail to understand. Doing nothing or postponing action to this or that budget point is politically fine and everybody can negotiate a deal. Science does not negotiate. Persuaded or not, politicians need to understand that. Can they actually afford to make policy on whatever special interest groups persuade them of.

Scientists are not actually trying to persuade anybody of the facts of global warming. The only persuasion is "how do we build an accurate model that is consistent with our observations" and "how dowe communicate that model". Unlike politics, once Scientists have reached the point of modelling they are taking observations and not speculating. This is the empirical nature of Science. This is why Science has no need to negotiate.

The Club of Rome is a nice distraction. Basically, the Club of Rome uses Systems Modelling to investigate the future. No overarching conspiracy. Just a model that suggests this or that will happen. Much like the Treasury's yearly accounts - but based on science. Membership is no more a sign of an inside job than a subscription to New Scientist or Nature.

A Scientist


Silly primitivists

03.12.2009 18:28

"Behind every gun, bomb, famine,genocide etc you'll find a scientist."

What woolly-brained pig ignorance. I suppose it was some evil scientist who made the machetes for the Rwanda genocide and who were behind the communist made famines in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and China in the 1950s - the worst famines of modern times. The Khmer rouge were also fond of science too in their killing fields.

The fact is that without modern science most of the world's population would be dead because traditional agriculuture and medicines would be insufficient to keep so many people alive.

Ed


Communist Famines

03.12.2009 19:17

"the communist made famines in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and China in the 1950s - the worst famines of modern times."

They were caused by the doctrine of Lysenkoism. The Political persuasion that wheat could be made to grow, almost by sheer force of political will, in places where wheat did not normally grow. By politicians tailoring the accepted explanations of Evolution to a specific agenda, they created a passive genocide. The truth is, they did not understand the science in Evolution and made a whole load of political and economic decisions based on that failure to understand. Lysenkoism is named after a scientist who carries the blame. The Politicians managed to stumble on until History discovered their crimes.

Politicians also fail to understand the science of climate change. My suspicion is that, secretly, all politicians are primitivists. Because science scares them.

A Scientist


Co-opted scientists with wreckless intent

03.12.2009 22:07

hi Ed, just like ex-scientist said, ''not science but scientists'' ,so easy on down with the nitpickin'! To answer your point, they probably made their own machetes. You'll find understanding in what i wrote when you understand the paragraph what i wrote. simples! - toodle pip! - by the way i ain't no primitivist, just arent impressed with smoke and mirrors, oh yeah and flu jabs, you never know, could be wrong, best ask a scien... hmmm

K. Lune